Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)(29)

“Not like I have a choice,” Em muttered.

Her dark cloud of disapproval popped the bubble of happy in the air around me. “Do you always have to be so rude to him?”

“Rude? That ‘club’ he was talking about is the country club off Lake Crest. You know, the fancy one that only lets people with personal gold mines and sticks up their butts join?”

I waited patiently for her point, and when one didn’t come, I said, “So? I think he just flirted with me. What’s wrong with that?”

“What’s wrong with that? Everything.” She started pushing me towards homeroom. “You’re way too nice for uppity jerks like him.”

I ignored her comment and pointed at the ceiling as the bell started going off. “You’re going to be late.”

“I’ll be fine. Now, you, don’t be late for lunch. I have a plan.” Em gave me one last push into my homeroom and hurried off before I could say anything else.

“Oh, joy.” I said to myself as I took my seat and lay my head down on my arms.

“She’s so freakin’ desperate,” Em muttered before taking a fierce bite out of her sandwich.

I hadn’t been paying attention. Looking up from where I was making notes on a Maeve/Aedan scene in my notebook, I asked, “Who are you talking about?”

She pointed the corner of her sandwich in the direction of the lunch line. “Lexie Rossel. She’s the stage manager for Phantom and, ever since we started rehearsals, she’s been using the whole stage manager thing as an excuse to hang all over Dev.”

I looked down the line until a familiar head of messy black hair jumped out at me. I couldn’t help but grin at the book spine sticking out of his backpack. Even from all the way over here, I recognized the cover art for the Sentinel series. Next to Dev, Lexie laughed at something he must have said. She reached out to untwist his backpack strap, her fingers lingering on his shoulder for a few seconds too long, and something unfamiliar rose up in me. It was like the scene in Golden where Maeve saw Deirdre flirting with Aedan. My fingers twitched and I promptly shoved my hands under my thighs to keep them from doing anything I’d regret.

“Does Dev like her?” I asked, softly. The senior always reminded me of Dax from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Long, shiny brown hair that, unlike mine, was naturally straight, a model’s body, and she was so confident. There wasn’t one ungainly thing about her.

“Don’t be an idiot.” Em pursed her lips when Dev let out a loud laugh, loud enough that we heard it across the lunchroom. “But it looks like he really likes the attention,” she added. She reached over the table and grabbed my arm, making me turn around to look at her. “You have to start coming to rehearsals.”

I shook free of her hand. “Like I don’t have a life outside of being stalker-y?”

“Since you refuse to be on the crew, bring a book or knit something. You can get a ride home with me afterwards. He won’t even think about Lexie if you’re there.”

“You do realize that sounds creepy, right?”

“You realize that I saw your claw hands come out, right?” My eyes widened and I curled my fingers under the bench. “Last time you did that, it was for the last copy of that book, when the mom almost got it.”

“I did not do claw hands.”

My skin felt the warmth behind me, like a force field, before a tray slid next to my lunch bag.

“What are ‘claw hands’?” Dev asked, stepping over the bench to sit next to me. Lexie followed, like the other slice of bread in a Dev sandwich.

“Notebook,” Alec said, covering the word up with a cough, and before it could even fully register in my brain, Grace quickly reached over to shove my notebook under her lunch tray.

Em’s lips turned up in the type of smile she usually reserved for her particularly evil little plots. “Oh, that’s when Feebs wants something really badly and is willing to kill for it. Her fingers get all claw-y.” She demonstrated in an exaggerated, monster-movie way.

Dev glanced curiously down to where my hands were glued to the bench and under my knees, before looking back up at the two of us. “So, what did you want?”

I threw an acidic look at Em. “Not like the whole clawhand thing actually exists, but since I wasn’t doing them, obviously nothing.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Em sing-song hummed before taking a sip of her soda.

My nails dug into the bottom of the bench—not claw hands—when I saw Lexie touch Dev’s arm to draw his attention. “So, like I was saying, I think we need to get the shop class to help us find a chain long enough for the chandelier scene.”

Maeve knew exactly what to say in a situation like this. My notebook’s blue, sparkly corner taunted me from where it peeked out from under Grace’s tray.

Dev nodded. “Em, what do you think of Lexie’s idea? She thinks we can pull off the chandelier part of the musical in the auditorium.”

Em blinked, her fingers tapping in a rolling motion up and down her soda can. “I don’t know, Lexie. Don’t you think the stage crew might be better to answer this better than me or Dev?”

Lexie looked surprised. “Whatever. It’s my job and I just want us to have a great show. Dev did come up with the zombie theme. I thought we could brainstorm about this, too.” At we, she stared pointedly at Dev.