THIRTY-TWO A

The chair scraped the ground when Tom stood up. He left the group without a word, just the same smile plastered on his face. When he backed them, the smile faded. He left the lunch bar and headed for his locker. The bell for the next class to begin would go off any minute. While he rummaged through his locker, Tate walked up to him. "Hey."

"Hey." He kept his focus on his search.

"So, I talked to her."

Awesome, the her thing again. "Who?" It's not like he didn't know who he was talking about.

Tate shifted his weight. "Lacey. I swear mate, ask me who one more ti-"

"Shut up. Say her to me one more time, and I would ignore you." It would be a good thing maybe. He definitely wasn't interested in hearing him talk about Lacey. "How do you expect me to know who her is when you also just talked about Lisa Stenton.

"Good point. So I talked to Lacey..." He explained what he walked in on with Dennis and what she had said. "I didn't even know what to think of it. And I sti