Jack

The breakfast was delicious. I’d never seen so much good food in my life—the other grades’ food was nothing compared to this.

I wondered why they saved the best treatment for the seniors, though I supposed it had to do with the hierarchy here at Kingswood. If you were rich enough to make it to senior year, then you deserved the best. Kind of twisted, if you asked me.

My mom’s pancakes could still never be one-upped, but the ones here were definitely second place.

Adam was sitting across from me, watching me shovel food into my mouth. Occasionally, he looked over my shoulder at something, and curiosity got the best of me.

“What are you looking at?” I asked, spinning around to see Bruce’s blond head quickly look down at his plate of food.

I turned to look at Adam. Did Bruce bother him, too?

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,” Adam said.

I took in my roommate sitting across from me. He had on a gold tie, and his sweater fit him nicely, showing off his arm muscles. I wondered if he worked out.

He caught me staring at his shirt, and I could feel heat starting up again in my cheeks.

“Is there something on my shirt?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No, sorry,” I said, chugging a glass of orange juice.

Stop gawking, Jack! You don’t want to make him uncomfortable. He went out of his way to wake you up this morning, remember?

The thought of him pulling me closer to fix my tie ran through my head.

I coughed, orange juice threatening to spill out of my mouth.

Get yourself together!

“Are you okay?” Adam asked, offering me a napkin. I took it, forcing myself to swallow and blowing extra juice out of my nose.

Please, please don’t notice how much of a mess I am.

“I’m great!” I said, smiling at him, and he adjusted his posture in his chair.

He looked regal, with his hands folded in front of him and his black hair laying effortlessly on his head. I wondered if natural beauty was a French thing.

“So, do you speak French?” I asked, wanting to strike up a conversation. He was sitting with me for a reason, right? I hadn’t scared him off just yet.

He started biting his nails. “What?”

“Your last name is Pierre, so I just thought—”

“Oh. Right. No, um, it’s just a family name. I can’t actually speak French.”

Adam’s eyes looked over my shoulder again.

“Are you friends with him?” I blurted out.

His gaze met mine again. In the light of the dining hall, his eyes were toffee brown, like brownies. I wondered if he liked brownies.

Now I was craving brownies.

“With who?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes playfully. “With Bruce, the guy you keep looking at.”

Adam looked like I hit him in the face.

“I’m not oblivious,” I poked, smiling at him so he knew I was just teasing.

Adam started to relax, putting his elbow on the table and resting his cheek in his hand. “I don’t think you’re oblivious,” he said, and a flutter started in my chest. “He just seems like a dick. I don’t really trust him, that’s all.”

I think that was the first sentence he’d said to me that was longer than three words.

“That’s good to hear, honestly.” I shoved another egg into my mouth. “He’s not a huge fan of me. Likes to destroy my books, you know.”

“He what?”

Adam sat up straight then, making direct eye contact with Bruce. “What do you mean he destroys your books?”

“I don’t know. He slaps them out of my hands, calls me a nerd. That sort of thing. It doesn’t normally bother me, but this one time, he ripped out the pages of a book’s end. I had to spend a few hours taping them back together, but I figured it out—it was a great lesson in book binding.”

My smile started to fade as I saw the look on Adam’s face grow darker, like a shadow was cast over him. “Hey, it’s no big deal,” I pointed out. “I was able to finish the story. Pretty good book, too.”

He looked at me. A part of the shadow seemed to fall away, but he still looked upset. “He shouldn’t do that. That’s destruction of property. It’s not okay.”

I lowered my voice, not wanting any conflict on the first day. “It’s really not a big deal. He just has it out for me. He has more money than me; it’s just the way it goes.”

My words only seemed to make Adam angrier. The relaxed look he’d given me just a few minutes ago had completely changed into that of silent rage.

“It is a big deal. He’s a bully. It doesn’t matter how much money he or his parents have, he shouldn’t do that to you,” Adam said, scooting back his chair like he was about to walk over.

I panicked and reached out, grabbing his wrist to stop him.

“Don’t,” I warned, my tone serious. “It’s the first day of class. I don’t want a fight. It’s fine, really. He doesn’t bother me that much.”

Adam looked down to where I was holding his wrist, then looked back over my shoulder, where I could hear Bruce snickering with his bros.

When he looked back at me, I whispered, “Please.”

He pulled away from my touch slowly, scooting his chair back in, brows furrowed.

“Thank you,” I said quietly, going back to my food.

I tried not to think about how hot he looked when he was angry just now, especially when he was angry at someone who picked on me. Was this what it was like to have someone in your corner?

Or was that just what it was like to have a crush on your new roommate?

Oh, boy, Jack, you’re in deep. Don’t get ahead of yourself. He’s just being nice, like a friend would.

He’s your friend. Don’t ruin it with your romantic thinking.

“How often does he do that to you?” Adam asked, leaning forward. He was clearly not letting up. I got a scent of pine needles; I wondered if he was wearing cologne, or if he just smelled like that.

I shrugged, my voice staying low. “When I first got here, it was every day, but he’s gotten lazy over the years. Now it’s just every week or so. I’m good at avoiding him when I need to, especially when we don’t have classes together. I’m usually in the higher levels anyway, so that works in my favor.”

A light bulb clicked on behind those brown eyes. “Is that why your bookmark was bent?”

Adam’s question took me by surprise, and then I remembered how he’d tried to fix the flower when I first showed him my book. He remembered something that small?

I knew he saw more than most people, quiet and observant.

“Yeah, I guess so. But I have plenty of bookmarks and I can always make more out of paper scraps.”

Adam sat back in his chair then, once more a bit relaxed. “You have an answer for everything,” he observed.

This time, I propped my elbow on the table and placed my cheek against my palm, mimicking the gesture he’d had before. “Looking on the positive just feels better than dwelling on the negative.”

Adam went quiet again, staring at me. It was starting to become a habit. Did he realize he was doing it?

“Besides,” I continued, breaking the silence, “it’s not like he broke my glasses like my last roommate did.”

This got under Adam’s skin immediately. “What?”

His voice rising made a couple of boys nearby look over.

I shushed him, my anxiety building—and not the good kind.

“It’s okay. I got a new pair, see?” I wiggled my specs up and down on my nose. “People called me four eyes—a boring insult, if you ask me. I wish they would come up with something more creative. I guess they thought I looked like a freak? To be fair, my last ones were a lot bigger, so I went for something more subtle this time. If I’m honest, I’m self conscious about it.”

I told him this as passively as I could, not wanting him to get more worked up on my behalf.

Was it on my behalf, or was he just like that? I mean, no one really liked bullies. If anything, him not tolerating that behavior made me like him even more.

I wasn’t as big or as strong as my roommate, though, so it was better for me to just march to the beat of my own drum and not let people get to me.

“I like your glasses. They look good on you,” Adam said, and I froze, his compliment making my spirits rise to cloud nine.

“Really?”

I could feel my cheeks turn pink. God, I was so easy to read. My mom always said I wore my heart on my sleeve and that it was my greatest attribute, but right now, I felt like it was giving me away.

“Yeah, really,” he replied, and his expression looked sincere, a hint of a smile there. I watched as his eyes traveled from mine to my lips and back up again.

For a moment, I completely forgot what we were just talking about, as all I could think about was Adam telling me that he liked my glasses. I tried not to daydream about what it would feel like to hold hands with him.

“Do I have something in my teeth?” I asked.

He shook his head, but pointed to his lower lip. I took the hint and grabbed a napkin again, wiping off my mouth. Some egg had been left there for who knew how long.

I couldn’t help but giggle at the thought. “Whoops.”

Adam made a face I couldn’t discern.

Crap, had I giggled out loud? I was just giving Bruce more fuel for later. He’d probably corner me in the hall when I was alone.

Note to self: Quiet down. I hoped that I didn’t make Adam feel weird.

I turned back to my mountain of food.

After eating half of my plate, I noticed that Adam hadn’t even touched his.

“Is the food not good enough?” I asked, wondering if he was feeling okay, or if I was already scaring him off after opening up about my insecurities.

Adam looked surprised, like I’d pulled him out of a daydream. “Uh, it’s fine,” he said, poking at the potatoes on his plate.

“Try the eggs. I’ve never had them so runny before,” I encouraged, feeling the urge to make him understand just how good this stuff was.

“Eggs Benedict?”

Adam looked at me like I had six heads, but since I got that look a lot, I ignored it, moving to pile the egg, ham, cheese, and biscuit from my plate onto his.

“Just try it,” I said, wanting the food to impress him. Or maybe I just wanted to impress him.

He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t, simply complying and eating the food I’d put there.

“Good, right?”

“Mhm,” he grunted, mouth full, putting his fork down and looking out the window.

“You’re barely eating. You need fuel for class,” I pointed out, putting a pancake on his plate.

He seemed to look down reluctantly at the food, but he eventually ate it, drumming his fingers on the table. I wondered if he played the drums, or if that was just something he did.

Just when I was finishing up, I saw Adam stand quickly, his chair making a loud scraping noise.

“I gotta go,” was all he said before dashing out of the dining hall with his head down.

Damn. What had I done wrong now?

Without thinking, I gathered our plates, disposed of them, and then followed him to the boys’ bathroom down the hall.