Prince Charming

Chapter Two

Thursday, January 24th

SENIOR YEAR, I had one best friend: Josh Anderson. We sat at a lunch table with two other guys—Mark Crawford and Nathan Priest—both of whom I called good friends, too. Together, we navigated the choppy waters of the Heritage High School cafeteria, a place where students jockeyed for tables with the best view of the room and ate calorie-balanced lunches made by two chefs the alumni association paid for with private donations. Of all the dangerous places in the preppy school we called home, the lunchroom posed the most danger. Student reputations rose and fell by the events in that large, loud room located in the center of the building. What happened in the lunchroom never stayed in the lunchroom, and the social hierarchy of Heritage ebbed and flowed just from that fact, and exactly the way the popular kids liked it.

The four of us ate lunch most days at a spot in the far right corner of the room. The rectangular table was located far enough away from the lunch line to see most of the action, but close enough to check out the hot senior and junior girls. Our section of the lunchroom sat six people, but two of the chairs always stayed empty. Always.

No girls ever ate lunch with us, despite Mark's best efforts to convince them. Mark crushed on at least five girls during senior year, but he had no skills. Every time he talked to girls, they just wound up laughing in his face. He didn't lose hope, though, and at least once a day he brought up his latest crush.

Nathan, on the other hand, was more interested in his latest level achievement on the Mass Effect video game. He'd turned eighteen without having even kissed a girl. Josh, meanwhile, often kept his feelings about girls and the rest of high school to himself.

I think that's why we became such close friends.

"Dude, check out the shirt Jillian James is wearing," Mark said at lunch one typical Thursday. He clutched his burger in one hand, and stopped it a few inches from his mouth as his eyes widened. Lettuce and tomato threatened to fall out of the bun and land on his shirt, but he ignored it. "That sweater is see-through. You can see her tits."

"Tits." Nathan's eyes scrunched up behind his horn-rimmed glasses. "You said tits. Such a great word. God, I love that word."

"Even better when they're up close," I said under my breath.

"This is awesome." Mark's eyes followed Jillian as she sashayed across the lunchroom. "It's like she doesn't even realize people can see them..."

I glanced at Josh, then turned my head to see exactly what about Jillian had so distracted Mark from his food. On that day, Jillian wore a knee-length black sweater over grey leggings. The loose knit of the sweater revealed what looked like a tan camisole underneath, one that hugged her hourglass body. Her long, curly black hair tumbled down her back, and she moved across the lunchroom like it was her own personal runway. A couple of kids stopped eating as she passed. But that didn't mean I could see her boobs.

"Well. I don't see anything," I said.

"You must have missed it, you idiot," Nathan said. "They were out. It's that sweater."

"They were not out. She wouldn't do it, anyway. She's not that stupid." I paused. "Well, she is dumb. But that doesn't mean you saw them."

"You didn't see her from the front." Nathan sounded annoyed. In fact, he sounded that way a lot when he talked to me.

My eyes stayed on Jillian as she made her way to the usual table. She reached it, placed her tray down, and I sucked in my breath a little bit. She sat right next to Laine, in the middle of the table, and Monica, a brunette, ate lunch across from them. Even though I already knew they were all lifelong friends who sat at the same lunch table every day at Heritage, my heart jumped from my chest to my ears.