The first thing I noticed about my new school was how normal it seemed. I mean, I didn’t have much to compare it to, but everything about it was so exactly like the schools I’ve seen portrayed on TV, from the faded blue lockers to the loud chaos of talking and laughter in the hallways. The way the other students are dressed in jeans and T-shirts, and the sound of squeaking shoes on the linoleum floors.
It was nothing at all like my small, quiet prep school back home with its carpeted hallways and dark wood paneling. Let’s not forget the pretentious attitudes and overpriced coffee from the cart out front.
“Hey!” a dark-haired guy called out as he walked toward me with his hand outstretched. I paused as I turned to face him. “You must be Olivia’s friend, Derek.”
I grinned at that. Not ‘Senator Taylor’s son Derek’ and not ‘Eva Taylor’s son Derek.”
Nope, here I was Olivia’s friend Derek.
I shook his hand. “That’s me.”
“I’m Ethan. We’ll be playing together. Coach Reynolds told me to find you and bring you to his office before first class.”
“Sounds good. You’re the quarterback, right?”
He smiled. “You did your homework.”
I laughed. “Yeah, well, it’s not every day I join a killer team at the tail end of their season. I wanted to be prepared.”
“Well, from the sounds of it, we’re lucky to have you.”
I tried not to get nervous about that. In fact, I’d been trying not to be nervous all morning for one reason or another.
First, there was sharing a bathroom with Olivia.
Olivia, who’d made it clear several times the other day that I was just her friend.
Then there was the whole first day at a new school. And then there was this—meeting the new teammates.
“Come with me,” Ethan said, and I followed through a crowded hallway.
I got attention, for sure. Every group we passed turned to watch me go by. I was used to attention, but this wasn’t the kind I typically got.
“Don’t let them rattle you,” Ethan said with a laugh. “We don’t get a lot of new kids at this school, especially not halfway through the year.”
I nodded. Yup, I was getting the attention of a new student. I had the craziest urge to laugh at that. For years I’d been in the spotlight, and this was nothing compared to that. This was...so freakin’ normal.
“So where’s home for you?” Ethan asked.
I swallowed a laugh as I answered. If there’d been any doubt about how discreet Olivia had been about me and my background, it was officially gone. She’d given me the absolute best present ever, and I hadn’t even had to ask or explain it to her.
Of course she’d known that I’d want a fresh start. A clean slate. A chance to make a name for myself on my own merit for once.
Of course she had. But I still couldn’t wait to see her again, so I could hug her tight and thank her for it.
“It’s just down to the right here,” Ethan said as we reached a T at the end of the hallway.
“Thanks for the personal escort,” I said.
Ethan laughed. “Are you kidding? Of course you’re getting the royal treatment.”
My head jerked back at that. Maybe I’d been too quick to assume that no one knew who I was. Maybe people here were just less obvious about their gawking or—
“Olivia would kill me if you had a bad first day,” he finished.
I let out a huff of laughter. That sounded about right. “She’s small but fierce.”
“Tell me about it.” He shook his head with a rueful smile. “I’m dating one of her best friends...well, one of her other best friends.”
“Collette,” I said. It sounded like a guess, but I knew very well who he was dating and for how long. I knew all about Olivia’s friends, which made it all the more incredible how little they seemed to know about me.
Unless…
I frowned. Unless she hadn’t told them about me because I wasn’t on her mind as much as she was on mine.
Well, that was a bummer thought.
But Ethan was still talking, telling me all about how Olivia had read him the riot act when he’d first started dating Collette and how good a friend she’d been ever since.
I nodded. Of course she was a good friend. Olivia was the best friend.
Mom, this is Derek we’re talking about. He’s only a friend. That’s all he’ll ever be.
Days had passed since that night. Those words shouldn’t have been plaguing me, but I kept hearing her voice at the most inopportune times. Like right now when I was supposed to be making a good impression on my new teammates and coach.
“Here’s our stop,” Ethan said, opening a door to the Coach’s office. “Good luck, man.”
The way he said it made me tense, but as soon as the door shut behind me, a balding guy was walking toward me. His voice boomed as he introduced himself. After that, he launched into a long-winded speech about how he expected the best of me. How I might be joining them late in the season but that didn’t give me a free pass…
Basically, he was giving me the sort of tough love speech I’d only heard in the movies, and I freakin’ loved it.
No one talked to me like this at my old school. I was certain Coach Reynolds knew all about my family and their fame, but he didn’t mention it once. If anything, the gist of his speech seemed to be ‘don’t expect any special treatment’ and he had no idea how much I appreciated that.
I didn’t want special treatment, and I didn’t want fame. I didn’t want sycophants, and I didn’t want to have to doubt the motives and agendas of every person who was nice to me.
It was hard to look serious, but I had a hunch the coach wouldn’t be pleased if I stood there grinning like a dork while he lectured me, so I managed a straight face. When he was done, I walked out to find that Ethan had been joined by a handful of other guys.
“Sorry,” Ethan said. “Everyone wanted to meet you. You’re kind of famous now.”
I laughed. Kind of famous I could totally handle. We made the introductions, and I recognized most of their names from Olivia’s emails. There was Ryan, Bianca’s bad boy boyfriend, and Cooper, the one who’d taken way too long to realize he was in love with his best friend’s little sister. And then there was Austin, the one whose mom passed away the year before.
“I hope my dad wasn’t too hard on you,” Austin said as he shook my hand. “He can take some getting used to.”
“Your dad was great.” I wasn’t sure if anyone believed me, but I meant it.
“Where’s your first class?” Ethan asked. I handed over my class schedule, and it turned out that Ethan and I had first period, English Lit, together. The group of us headed down the now less crowded hallway as students peeled off into their respective classrooms.
Eve, the petite brunette I’d met at Olivia’s house my very first night in town, gave me a wave as she came over to join us. Cooper wrapped an arm around her the moment she reached his side, and they continued walking as if they were joined at the hip.
The sight of it made me think of Olivia. Of how she’d been so lonely lately because she felt left out. Of how she just wanted a guy to like her for her but how she was always overlooked.
I couldn’t understand it. All weekend, as we’d hung out and watched movies and talked nonstop to catch up on every detail of each other’s lives that we might have missed these past few years, I’d been stumped by how on earth she was still single.
How had every guy in this town not seen how amazing she was?
By the time we reached the hallway where our class was, the group had dwindled to just me, Ethan, and Ryan.
Ryan leaned in toward me as we passed a group of girls still lingering at a locker. “Don’t look now, but Heather Howland is eyeing you like she’s just come off another diet and you’re her favorite dessert.”
I laughed. “Should I know who Heather Howland is?”
“Not yet, but I guarantee you will by lunch,” Ethan said. “The girl isn’t exactly known for her subtlety.”
“Yeah, but it looks like Heather’s gonna have to compete with Mandy.” Ryan nodded toward a girl who was walking toward us. She met my gaze and flashed me a flirty smile that had me dropping my head to hide a grin.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d been hit on before. I’d gone out with girls, casually dated girls...I wasn’t exactly new to the whole flirting thing.
But this was new. These girls didn’t know who I was. They didn’t look at me and see wealth and influence and a chance to be in the spotlight. They just saw me. And that was so amazing it made my head spin.
Thank you, Olivia.
As if she could sense my thought, my phone dinged with a message from her. I opened it to find her wishing me good luck on my first day along with a super short video of her doing some ridiculous dance.
Ryan saw it over my shoulder and laughed. “That girl is so nuts.”
He said it with affection, but I still felt a surge of protective anger.
“She’s the best,” Ethan said. “She’s just unique, that’s all.”
I watched the clip one more time, my heart swelling in my chest at how freakin’ cute she was. The girl was willing to do absolutely anything to make me smile, to make everyone smile. She was loyal and thoughtful and—
--just a friend.
I forced myself to shut down that train of thought. If I was going to get through this semester with my sanity intact, I couldn’t afford to let myself think of Olivia as anything more than a friend.
Was she a great friend? Undoubtedly. But she was still just a friend, and one did not go off on a mental tirade about all the many and myriad delightful qualities of friends.
Ethan looked from my phone, to me, and back again. “Collette said you two were just friends, but…” He arched his brows. “Is that all there is to you and Olivia?”
I tucked my phone back in my pocket. As if I’d needed the reminder, there it was. Olivia had made it clear to Collette and her mom that that’s all I was. Did I need it spelled out in skywriting? “Yup,” I said. “Just friends.”
“Well, that’s good news for the girls of Oakwood High,” Ryan said. His smirk made me laugh. “Unless you have someone waiting back home.”
I opened my mouth to say no, but then I belatedly remembered Cambriea.
I’d developed a really bad habit of forgetting all about the girl my family expected me to marry in the not so distant future.
Just one more reason why it was for the best that Olivia and I were just friends.
Ethan and Ryan were waiting for an answer, and I had no idea how to respond. I didn’t want to lie, and I didn’t want to explain. So I went vague. “Sort of,” I said. “But it’s not serious.”
Yet.
It wasn’t a lie, I told myself.
Cambriea and I weren’t serious...yet.