People were still looking at me—some with expressions of surprise, some with awe, and some with confusion. I didn’t look at any of them as I turned in the opposite direction and walked quickly to my first class. If they were still looking at me, they would have seen me smiling.
Later in the day, I stopped at my locker to exchange books and found Joe leaning against the locker next to mine.
“So, is it true?” he asked.
“Is what true?” I looked down at my lock as I twisted the combination but couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth from turning up, which they had been doing on their own all morning.
“‘Is what true?’” Joe said in a mocking tone. He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. “Matthew Rohan, are you trying to be subtle or coy or whatever? Because you are a total fail.”
I tried to hide my growing smile behind the locker door.
“It is true,” Joe said with a nod. “Damn, I didn’t realize you were so impressive talking about bees.”
He laughed, and I just shrugged and continued to grin like an idiot. There were a lot of murmured voices and pointed looks toward me as Joe and I headed off to our English class. I was doing my best to ignore them.
“She’s hot,” Joe suddenly said.
“What?” I glanced sideways at him.
“Mayra Trevino—she’s hot,” Joe said again.
My cheeks felt warm as I continued to look down at my feet and tried to make some sense out of the mixed feelings Joe’s words had brought forth. At first, all I could think about was the people in the school, watching me walk in with her, someone who was considered “hot.” I wondered what they were thinking about me and about Mayra, which was rather odd for me. I didn’t tend to consider what other people might think because most of the time, I already figured they thought I was crazy or something. Now everyone was talking about me being with Mayra Trevino—a girl who’s “hot”—and I also remembered what Mayra had said about me just before we got to school. She thought I was gorgeous.
I liked that.
I wasn’t entirely sure I believed her, but everyone was entitled to an opinion. My dad had loved pineapples and mushrooms on his pizza, which was just about the nastiest thing I had ever tasted, but it was his favorite. People liked different things, so maybe Mayra really did think that about me. I definitely agreed with Joe about Mayra though I didn’t necessarily mean just about how she looked. Mayra was beautiful, but there was a lot more to her than just that. There was a lot more behind her stunning face.
My thoughts continued along this line as we moved into the classroom and took our seats.
Joe was only thinking about Mayra’s physical appearance, but I didn’t think he really knew her. He was referring to her looks alone when he said Mayra was hot. Saying someone was hot was just another way of saying they looked good to you, and Mayra looked good to Joe. That meant he thought she was attractive. That meant he was attracted to her.
And I didn’t like that.
I also had no idea how to respond to the tightening in my stomach and the almost sick feeling that came up my throat and tasted like bile in the back of my mouth. The heat that had been on my cheeks seemed to move to my hands, and even as we sat down in our chairs, I had the strangest desire to punch Joe right in the face.
I shook my head back and forth, and my hair flopped down over my forehead. It was distracting enough to pull me from such thoughts, and as I pushed my hair back off my face, Joe turned around in the seat in front of me and looked at me quizzically.
“Lords is going to be pissed, you know,” Joe reminded me.
I honestly hadn’t thought about it. Justin Lords had been in my thoughts a few times as I wondered why Mayra dated him for as long as she did, but I hadn’t thought about the conversation we had at lunch a couple of weeks ago. He said he was going to try to get Mayra back in time for prom. I had completely forgotten about that.
“He still wants to take Mayra to prom,” I said quietly. All thoughts of being pissed off at Joe’s comment in the hall disappeared as I considered Lords asking Mayra to go to prom and Mayra saying yes to him.
Not yes to me, like she had for our date, but yes to Justin Lords.
I definitely, definitely did not like that.
“I should ask her to prom,” I said aloud.
Joe tilted his head to one side.
“You haven’t already?”
“No.”
“Well, where have you taken her out?”
“Um, nowhere,” I admitted. “Not yet, anyway.”