Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(26)

I cleared my throat. “Nope.”

“You sure?” Gavin asked. “She looks hot today.”

“Dude.”

“Sorry.”

I pressed my fist into my open palm, and my eyes darted to Claudia again. It was weird, being this far away from her. Weird that she hadn’t been waiting for me in the Café that morning with her tea and my hot chocolate. Weird that she hadn’t been waiting for me after class or at my locker. Weird that I’d taken new routes between classes this morning. This whole thing was just too frickin’ weird.

“So, boosters? Why don’t you come down here and line up like you will on Friday?” Liza shouted.

The boosters slowly rose from their seats and started down the bleachers, parting around the clump of JV cheerleaders.

“Come on, people! We’re on a schedule here!” Liza called out, her voice ringing throughout the gym.

Claudia, Lauren, and True sidestepped right toward me and Gavin to walk down the aisle between our sections. Claudia’s eyes caught mine and I immediately faced forward, my cheeks on fire.

“Please!” True said loudly. “Don’t even worry about it. It is so right for you to move on. It’s not like you owe the guy anything.”

“I know. You’re right,” Claudia replied. “I mean, I’m a senior. I’m not gonna go become a nun or something.”

“No, you’re not,” Lauren added. “And if guys from other schools notice you, that’s not your fault.”

My heart slammed against my ribs. What? What did they just say?

“Did you just hear that?” I whispered to Gavin.

He avoided looking me in the eye, hanging his head in a guilty way. “Um, yeah.”

“What?” I said, my veins flooding with dread. “Did you hear something else? What do you know?”

“Nothing, man,” Gavin said, shifting an inch away from me.

I slapped him on the shoulder. “Dude! What do you know?”

Suddenly Lester leaned in between us from behind, his black hair sticking straight up on top like a chicken. “Claudia’s supposedly on the hunt for a homecoming date, man.”

“On the hunt?” I repeated, disgusted. “What does that even mean?”

Lester shrugged. “Who knows? Talk to Mitch Ross. His sister was on it like white on rice. Told him she’s got some guys from other schools after her or something.”

I felt like I was going to be sick. Down on the court, Claudia was laughing with her friends. She tossed her hair back and smiled as she checked her phone. Was some guy texting her right now? Was it Lance? Someone else? Could she possibly have gone out last night and met someone new?

“Dudes! How awesome was last night?”

Mitchell tromped over and sat down next to Lester, reaching to slap hands with me and Gavin.

“Mitch, tell Pete about the text Mia got,” Lester said.

“Something about her already having a homecoming date lined up. Or dates. Or something. But who cares, man? You dumped her ass.”

Not a second too soon, either, I thought. If Claude already had potential dates lined up, that had to mean she knew these guys before we’d broken up, right? Was it possible she’d been cheating on me? The thought made me want to curl up and die. It couldn’t be. That wasn’t the Claudia I knew. But neither was this girl who was apparently trolling for prospects.

“Besides, you had the hotties licking your palm last night,” Mitchell said, pounding my shoulder with his fist.

“Oh, yeah! What’d you end up doing?” Gavin asked. He hadn’t come out with us because he had to get to a tutoring session with Tara.

“We hit the diner with these guys, plus the girlies they hang out with,” Lester explained, gesturing at Josh.

“Yeah, Darla was pretty interested in you,” Josh told Orion. “You gonna tap that?”

A streak of red spread across Orion’s face. “I don’t know. She seemed pretty cool.”

“Yeah, but you should have seen how Caroline Policastro and Patty Flynn were practically fighting over our boy here,” Mitchell said to Gavin, chucking his chin at me. “The second they heard Claudia was out, it was like a bad episode of The Bachelor.”

“Like there are good episodes of The Bachelor?” Gavin replied.

They laughed as Mitchell turned purple. “Shut up, man,” he muttered. “My mom watches it.”

“Sounds like you had a great time,” Gavin said, giving me some kind of meaningful look.

Down on the court, Liza counted the number of boosters against some piece of paper on a clipboard. I was staring at Claudia again, imagining her with some other guy and trying not to barf. She looked up and I glanced away as quickly as possible, but the deed was done. She’d caught me. And now Lester was staring back and forth between us, putting two and two together.

“And the fun’s not over yet,” he crowed, standing up. “Hey, girls? Why you wanna sit so far away? Come up and hang with us while Liza gets her crap together.”

The freshmen and sophomores on JV giggled as Liza shot Lester a look that should have killed him on the spot. He pretended not to notice while the JV girls hesitated.

“Come on! We don’t bite.”

Finally one girl stood up from the center of the crowd and looked right at me. It was the girl from yesterday. The dancer. She was wearing a skirt that was so short I could practically see her underwear. Her thick dark hair hung down over her chest and a lollipop stick stuck out between her plump lips. She looked me up and down, smiled, and slowly pulled the lollipop out.