Chapter 7: CAFETERIA RULES

Jessie

A tray hits the laminate two tables over, and my shoulders jump up around my ears before I decide to let them back down.

I tighten my grip on my own tray without meaning to, like my hands already know something my brain hasn't caught up to yet. The cafeteria at lunch is loud enough to hurt. Grease and wet coats drying on the radiators. Somewhere behind me a fork clatters off a table and nobody even looks up.

Rule one: don't look at the Golden Wolves. Rule two: don't sit near them.

I find a spot at the end of a bench by the radiator, warm wood under my jeans, and I've got maybe four bites of pasta in when I feel it start to fall apart before it even does.

The bench dips. Wood groans under new weight, and somebody drops down right next to me like the seat was already his.

"You're eating the carb-loaded mush. Bold strategy."

I don't have to look. Pear skin and something peppery hits me first, bright, cutting straight through the grease and radiator heat. Jonah Kline. Something low rolls over in my chest before I can stop it, like a purr that isn't mine.

"I'm on scholarship, Kline. I eat what's free."

He reaches over, long fingers snagging a fry off my tray before I can swat him. Eats it slow, grinning like he won something off me.

"Needs salt," he says, leaning in. He's in a thin long-sleeve shirt in November, and I hate that I can feel him giving off heat from a foot away.

"Then go buy your own."

"Nah, I like these better. They've been near you." He props his elbow on the table, turning to face me fully, hair a mess like he's been dragging his hands through it all morning. "I'd give you anything, Jessie. Fries. Tots. My starting spot, if you wanted it."

"I'll stick with the mush."

He laughs, warm and rough, and the hair on my arms lifts on its own. "Feisty. I respect it."

Then the room shifts. Not quieter exactly, just further away, like somebody dialed the whole cafeteria down a notch.

Pine resin. Cold stone. Heavy enough that I taste it at the back of my throat, and my lungs stop working the way they're supposed to.

Martins Heller drops onto the bench on my other side and sets his coffee down hard enough to crack against the table. He doesn't look at me.

"Kline. Move."

His voice comes out low. Not a request.

Jonah doesn't budge. If anything he stretches out further, deliberately taking up more of the bench. "She's eating, Captain. Let the girl eat."

"I said move." Martins turns his head. Jaw locked so tight I can see it twitch. His eyes are usually flat pale blue, but right now gold is pressing in at the edges, crowding it out.

"Make me." Jonah's voice drops too, and the playful edge is gone out of it completely.

I'm stuck right in the middle of whatever this is, my fingers curling against the table without my permission. My blood feels wrong under my skin. Too warm. Too fast. I don't know how to make it stop, and that scares me more than either of them does.

Jonah looks at me, ignoring Martins completely, and tosses me a wink. Lazy. Easy. Like he knows something I don't. "Ignore the ice cube. He's just mad he showed up second."

Martins's palm hits the table. The cup jumps, ice skittering across the wood. "Now, Jonah."

"Fine, fine." Jonah stands, grabs his tray, unhurried on purpose. "You're killing my whole vibe, Heller."

He goes, but not before his shoulder brushes mine. Half a second. Heat shoots down my spine and I hate how much I notice it.

Martins doesn't look at me either. Just stares straight ahead at his coffee he isn't drinking, jaw working like he's chewing on something he isn't saying.

"You shouldn't encourage him," he says finally. Flat. His knuckles have gone pale gripping the cup.

"I didn't encourage anybody. He sat down. I didn't invite him."

"He knows better." His eyes flick to my mouth for half a second, then snap back up like he didn't mean to look there at all. "They all do."

He stands, leaves the coffee sitting there untouched. "Finish eating, Marlowe. And stay out of the equipment room."

The way he says it lands harder than it should, like there's a whole other sentence buried inside that one that I'm not allowed to hear yet.

Then he's gone, walking off through the crowd like the cafeteria's supposed to get out of his way.

I exhale. My hands are shaking, so I press them flat on the table and dig my nails in until they stop.

Three tables over, Lila Beaumont is watching me.

She's got her sorority girls around her, but her attention is on the empty spot where Martins just sat. She's stirring her coffee too fast, spoon clinking against the mug. Her face is composed. Her eyes aren't. Gardenia and dark amber cling to her, thick enough to notice from here.

She pulls her phone out.

I don't wait to see what she does with it. I dump my tray in the bin and leave, not stopping to find Tinsley or Brooke, because if I stop moving right now I don't think I can start again.

The cold outside is minus ten, the kind that freezes the inside of your nose in about two breaths. I let it. It's better than whatever's happening under my skin.

I keep my head down the whole walk back. Boots crunching on salted pavement. Campus buzzing around me, everybody heading to class with no idea what I'm carrying, because there isn't a single person here who'd know what to do with it if I told them.

By the time I reach Welker my chest actually aches, a hollow throb sitting right behind my ribs.

I take the stairs two at a time and let myself into 314, leaning back against the door once it shuts.

"Rough day?" Tinsley's sprawled on her bed, scrolling her phone, not looking up.

"Cafeteria was a mess." I kick my boots off.

She sits up fast. "Did the hockey guys mess with you again? I swear I will literally key their trucks. I don't care if they're Division One."

"It's fine. Just loud in there."

Brooke turns from her desk, half her face under a cracking green clay mask, and squints at me. "You're flushed. Like, fever flushed."

"It's the radiator," I say, reaching for the excuse before I've even decided if it holds up. I sit on my bed and pull my knees to my chest.

Every time I blink I see Martins's jaw ticking. Feel that half-second where Jonah's shoulder caught mine. It followed me the whole walk home and I still don't have a word for it besides worse.

"Jessie." Tinsley sets her phone down, comes over, presses the back of her hand to my forehead. Her skin feels cold against mine, and she goes quiet for a second too long, studying my face like she's checking it against something.

"You've been off since the mascot thing. Jumpy. Sweaty. You sure you're not sick?"

"I'm sure. Biology midterm stress, that's all."

She doesn't look like she buys it, not even a little, but before she can push further, my phone buzzes on the mattress.

I pick it up. Notification from North Star Secrets.

Not a post. A screenshot.

Lila, sitting at her table not ten minutes ago, caught staring right into whoever's camera got her. Her face is tight, controlled the way it always is, but her eyes give her away completely. In her other hand, her phone screen is lit up bright enough to read clean.

To: Chad Keller

I need a favor.

My stomach turns over. The radiator keeps hissing away in the corner, warm and ordinary, and somehow that makes it worse, because whatever Lila's starting has nothing to do with staying warm at all.