Chapter 4

I slowly turn my head and see him at our table. Right now.

He stands there looking at me as if this is the most ordinary thing in the world—to come over to us during lunch and start talking. He has a paper lunch bag in his hands, and he lifts it slightly, nodding toward the seat beside me.

“Do you mind, Ashley, if I join you? I’m starving.”

Zachary calmly keeps working on his taco, but lifts a hand to greet him, and Jake gives him a tense nod too while Matthew waits for my answer.

“Oh, o-of course I don’t mind! Sit down!”

Matthew takes a chair from the next table and pulls it over to ours. He sits down after setting his lunch on the table. Taking the backpack off his shoulder, he hangs it on the back of my chair, and I watch him and realize how strange it feels to have him in my circle of friends and beside me—different, somehow. And I have absolutely no idea what to do.

But he does. Turning to me, he easily puts an arm around my shoulders and kisses me lightly on the lips.

“Hi, Ash. Turns out you’re impossible to catch at school, and you don’t read your messages. You were just there, and now, they tell me, she’s gone!”

What? He texted me?

The girls are staring hard at us, and I suddenly blush under their stares.

Actually, not just theirs, because right now half the upperclassmen in the cafeteria, having forgotten about their food, are watching us. Watching Matthew Palmer openly kiss Ashley Wilson. Not at some insane party where half the people have lost their minds, but at school. In front of everyone. And that is a very different thing.

I don’t answer, not knowing how to handle Matthew’s attention, and he decides for me. Running his thumb over my cheek, he shifts his palm to the back of my head and gives a knowing little smirk.

“All right, Miss Smile. Since your friends already know, I’m not holding back anymore. I’ve waited long enough as it is.”

This time he kisses me for real. Leaning toward my face, he catches my lips with his and lets me fully feel his presence in my life, gently stroking my neck.

Kissing at school is forbidden. Definitely in the halls, though the cafeteria allows a little more freedom. Still, not this openly.

But apparently Matthew doesn’t know how to do it any other way, and once again my breath catches and goose bumps run over my skin.

Around us, it suddenly becomes unusually quiet, and Zachary seems to be the only one who understands that right now.

“Palmer, wrap it up, or Ashley won’t be the only one in trouble. Better pass me the salt. This taco is completely tasteless today!”

We reluctantly break the kiss and look at each other for a few more seconds before I turn away and grab my juice box.

“Enjoy your lunch too, Baker!” I hear Matthew answer evenly, though perfectly friendly. “Here.” He finds the saltshaker and sends it down the table to my friend, who catches it neatly. “But I’m not sure salt will fix it.”

There are six of us at the table, but only Zack and I are eating. Though I suppose Jake is still trying to pretend he can chew his hamburger. Trisha and Amber, meanwhile, are still sitting there openmouthed, staring at Matthew in confusion.

It’s a good thing this doesn’t embarrass him, because I can’t fix the situation. I have enough to do calming my own pulse and managing spaghetti with a fork.

He takes a lunch box out of his paper bag and opens it.

Spinach leaves, dark bread, neatly sliced pieces of roasted turkey, white cheese, avocado cubes, a handful of pecans and cashews. A pint of milk in a tall bottle.

We all see it, but Jake is the first one whose curiosity gets the better of him:

“Palmer, what, did your favorite grandma pack your school lunch? Living the dream, man!”

Everyone is thinking something similar, but I’m the only one who knows the truth. Too bad this is another one of Matthew’s secrets.

“Wrong, Finley,” Palmer answers calmly, starting on his lunch. “I make a special trip every morning past the Butlers’ church. They feed even people like me there. And if they don’t, I just steal food from some homeless guy and run. As you can see, it’s worth it.”

“Oh…” Finley seems to actually believe him, and interest appears in his black eyes.

The pink turkey with its sesame crust really does look much more appetizing against the background of his squashed hamburger with a skinny lettuce leaf. Any one of us would trade our lunch for it, so I understand my friend.

“He’s joking, Jake,” I tell him, trying to get my embarrassment under control and glancing at Matthew. “He just got a magic lunch box. That’s the whole secret.”

“Oh…” Finley repeats, a little disappointed this time, and finally gets serious about his hamburger, still not having decided whether he should be offended by Palmer or not.

In the lunch box lies a small chocolate muffin with almonds and powdered sugar in a paper liner. Matthew takes it out and slides it toward me, and now it smells so good beside my hand, like cocoa butter and vanilla, that I can’t help glancing sideways at someone else’s dessert.

Noticing my look, Matthew picks up a piece of turkey with his even teeth and lifts a questioning brow.

What? Oh no!

I am not going to eat his lunch. Absolutely not! It isn’t fair, for one thing, and it’s rude!

Palmer still has several classes ahead of him and a hard lacrosse practice. He needs energy, protein, carbs… and…

“Can I?”

“You can have anything, Miss Smile. It’s for you.”

I know how Matthew cooks. I haven’t even taken a bite yet, but I’m already sure it will be insanely good, and of course I smile wide at him as I accept the treat.

“Oh, thank you!”

“Jake, pinch me, and hard!” Trisha suddenly says, not hiding the amazement in her voice. “Is our Wilson really about to devour someone else’s delicious chocolate muffin? All by herself?!”

“Uh-huh. Looks that way. Ashley,” Finley says, turning to me, “you heard her. If you don’t let my girlfriend try that miracle muffin, she’ll eat my ears off! Then spit them out and say I was born that way!”

It sounds unexpectedly funny, and for the first time, all of us laugh together at the same table.

“Hi, Amber. I… uh… I wanted…”

We all turn our heads and see Bruce Brody stopped beside our group.

The skinny guy is dressed in a shirt and dark pants. His overgrown hair is a little tousled above his forehead, and he is still wearing sunglasses. He came over decisively, but now he’s clearly nervous, so he adjusts the backpack on his back and bites his lip.

Ambi, though, is far from calm herself, because at the sight of Brody, she rises from the table and says to him:

“Hi, Bruce! I already know about the fight. Everything turned out so awful—at the party and afterward… It’s my fault. I’m sorry, please.”

“For what?”

“For lying to Renton’s friends that I had a boyfriend, and then there you were. I shouldn’t have asked you to… well, you know what.”

“Amber, can we… can we talk?”

“Yes, of course. Here?”

“N-no,” Bruce stammers, glancing at all of us, and nods toward the entrance doors.

“I’d rather wait for you in the hall.”

“Okay.”

Brody leaves, and Amber slowly sits down. But she barely waits until he disappears from view, she grabs her bag and jumps up again.

“Ambi, wait!” I call after my friend. “What about your lunch?”