Novels by Grownup barbie

*Ezra's POV*Mr. Hallway was taking attendance when it happened."Ezra Monroe?"The room went dead silent.I didn't even look up from my notebook. "Here.""Wait." A girl two rows over spun in her seat so fast her chair scraped the floor. "Monroe? Like, *the* Monroe? From Ashford?""That's what the roster says," Hallway said, already moving on to the next name like it was nothing, like he hadn't just detonated something in the middle of first period.It wasn't nothing. I felt it happen in real time .... the exact second the whole room recalculated me, one face at a time, phones sliding out from under desks where they thought I couldn't see them."Wait, he's THAT Monroe?""The letter guy?""No way. No way, look at him.""He looks nothing like the pictures I saw."I picked up my pen and kept writing notes I wasn't reading, letters forming words that made no sense together, my hand steady even though nothing else in the room was."Ezra." The girl next to me leaned in so close I could smel

*Jace's POV*I woke up to a ceiling I didn't recognize and a headache that felt like something had crawled inside my skull and started construction.For a second I just lay there, blinking, trying to piece together where I was. Not my room. My ceiling didn't have that water stain shaped like a lopsided heart. My sheets didn't smell like this .... something clean, unfamiliar, faintly like laundry detergent I didn't own.Then it hit me. All of it. Fast enough that I sat straight up, which was a mistake, because my head immediately punished me for it.Ezra's room.I was in Ezra's room. In Ezra's bed. Fully dressed, thankfully, shoes kicked off somewhere near the door, my memory of last night arriving in pieces that clicked together whether I wanted them to or not — the club, the booth, Daniel's mouth near Ezra's ear, the way Ezra had laughed at whatever he'd said. The drink I never finished. Walking out. Climbing a trellis I had no business climbing, drunk, because some part of my brain

*Ezra's POV*It was late by the time I got home, the apartment dark and quiet except for the hum of the fridge and the ache in my legs from a night of standing too long in a club I hadn't wanted to go to in the first place.I didn't turn my bedroom light on right away. I went straight to the window instead, the way I used to back home, some habit I hadn't managed to unlearn even three months and one transferred school later.The Ryland house across the street had lights on downstairs. I stood there longer than I meant to, watching for a shape behind the curtains, some sign of him, and told myself I wasn't actually looking for anything.I was lying. I was always lying about that particular thing.A car pulled up outside a few minutes later, headlights sweeping across the lawn. I watched a girl climb out of the driver's seat, walk around to the passenger side, and help Jace out of the car.He could barely stand.She had an arm wrapped around his waist, holding him up, her hand settled r

*Ezra's POV*I was still shoving books into my locker when someone leaned against the one next to it like they owned it."You're the transfer."I looked over. Tall, dark hair, an easy smile that didn't look like it was trying to prove anything. "Depends who's asking.""Daniel." He held out a hand. "Soccer team. Everyone's been talking about you since yesterday, you know that?""I noticed.""You noticed and you're this calm about it?" He laughed, shaking my hand anyway. "Most people would be freaking out by now. You've got half the school's attention and you're just... standing here. Unbothered.""Most people didn't spend three years being the school joke before this." It came out easy, before I could catch it, like it didn't cost anything to say to a stranger. Maybe it didn't. He hadn't been there for any of it.Daniel didn't flinch. He actually looked at me a second longer than he needed to, like he was recalculating something. "Whoever did that to you was an idiot.""You don't even

*Jace's POV*"I'm sorry, who are you?"The words didn't land right away. They just sat there, hanging in the air of the classroom, while Jace stood there with his arms still half around a boy who wasn't hugging him back."Ezra." He said the name again, like saying it twice would fix something. "It's me.""I got that part." Ezra's voice stayed level, almost bored, like he was explaining something to a kid. "I still don't know who you are."Someone in the back of the room laughed — a short, disbelieving bark, quickly smothered. Dr. Ashwood cleared her throat."Mr. Ryland, please take your seat."Jace didn't move. His hands were still hovering in the space where Ezra's shoulders had been, and he felt every single eye in that classroom on the back of his neck, and none of it mattered as much as the fact that Ezra was looking at him like he was a stranger who'd grabbed him on the street."You know exactly who I am.""I really don't." Ezra glanced past him toward the front of the room, unbo

*Jace's POV* College move-in day always looked the same at Ashford ..... parents crying in parking lots, freshmen hauling boxes up dorm stairs, upperclassmen pretending they weren't watching to see who'd changed over the break. Jace leaned against his truck in the student lot, sunglasses on, watching Mason argue with a campus parking attendant about a permit that clearly wasn't valid. "Dude, just move the truck," Tyler said, laughing. "I'm not moving it. I paid for a spot." "You paid for a spot at the wrong dorm." "That's a technicality." Jace tuned it out, half-listening, half still somewhere else entirely .... the way he'd been most of the summer if he was honest with himself. A group of girls walked past, and one of them, a sophomore named Reagan he vaguely recognized from a party last spring, gave him a slow once-over and a smile that used to mean something. "Ryland." She stopped walking. "You look good for someone who apparently broke a guy's jaw over summer." "Word tr