“Poor baby.” Val pinches the center of my palm until I release her hand. “Keep wishing, Easton. All this goodness”—she gestures to herself with a flourish—“is off-limits.”

I roll my eyes. “Why? Are you keeping yourself pure for your nonexistent boyfriend?”

“Ouch.” But she’s grinning. “And no, I’m not staying pure for anyone. I’m just not into you.”

“Ouch,” I echo, but we both know I’m not broken up about it, either.

“I honestly can’t believe you two never hooked up,” Ella says with a laugh. She’s got a plate of chicken penne on her tray, but she’s just moving her fork around the pasta without taking any bites. “You’re like the same person.”

“Which is why we never hooked up,” Val answers.

“Not true,” I object. “We made out once.”

Ella’s jaw drops. “You did?”

Val looks like she’s about to deny it, but then she bursts out laughing. “Oh my God, we totally did. Mara Paulson’s Sweet Sixteen party! I forgot about that.”

I sigh. “Okay, that one hurt. You forgot we made out?”

Ella is grinning at us. “But you didn’t go out?”

Val shakes her head. “We decided we were better off as friends.”

“Too bad,” Ella remarks, her face falling. “Think of all the double dates we could’ve gone on.”

I watch my stepsister move her fork around some more. Reed asked me to watch out for her while he was away. So I’m always watching her. Like, right now, I’m watching how she’s yet again not eating.

I’m also watching the way her skirt rides up as she leans forward to rest both elbows on the table. Unlike Hartley, Ella does have her skirt hemmed short. Reed always liked it that way. I can’t say I disagree.

“East…” It’s the softest of warnings, courtesy of Sawyer. My younger brother noticed where my gaze had wandered.

Ella notices, too, and she reaches over to smack my arm. “Easton! Stop looking up my skirt!”

I fake innocence. “I was doing no such thing.”

“Bull,” she accuses.

“Bull,” Sawyer, the traitor, echoes. Seb nods silently beside him. Those two little shits are always ganging up on me.

I drop the act and flash Ella my best little-boy smile. “Sorry, sis. Habit.”

Val laughs. “Habit?”

“Yeah, habit.” I shrug. “I see a girl in a short skirt and I wanna know what’s under the skirt. So sue me. Besides…” Waggling my eyebrows, I tug a strand of Ella’s blonde hair and twirl it around my finger. “Reed can pretend it didn’t happen all he wants, but the first Royal lips you ever tasted were mine. We all know that.”

“Easton!” Her cheeks turn beet red.

“It’s true,” I tease.

“That doesn’t mean we have to talk about it. Ever.” She glares at me. “And anyway, you know I was just using you to forget about Reed.”

I slap a hand over my heart. “Wow. And I thought Val was the evil one.”

“Hey!” Val objects, but she’s still laughing.

“Oh whatever,” Ella says, waving a hand. “You said you were into someone else, too.”

I furrow my brow. “Did I?”

“Yes.”

I shove a few French fries into my mouth, chewing slowly. “Was I drunk when I said that?”

Ella thinks it over, then nods. “Wasted.”

“Thought so. I say lots of dumb things when I’m wasted.” And I’m pretty sure that when my lips were on Ella’s, I wasn’t pretending she was anyone but herself. Ella is hot. I wanted to hook up with her, badly, before she got with my brother.

Nowadays, it’d feel incestuous, but I still have fun teasing her about it.

“Some chick is staring at you.”

The observation comes from Sawyer, who’s looking behind me in amusement.

I twist around, and just like that, my spirits rise higher. Hartley is sitting at a table near the window. Her guarded gray eyes meet mine for one brief moment before breaking contact.

“Who was that?” Lauren asks curiously, taking a sip from her Evian bottle.

“My new best friend.” I wink at the table full of shocked faces before I leap to my feet and make my way to Hartley.

Without waiting for an invitation, I plop down in the chair across from hers and steal a roll off her plate.

Hartley sighs. Loudly. “Don’t you get tired of following me around?”

“Don’t you get tired of playing hard to get?”

“I can see how that would bother you if I was actually playing hard to get, but in reality, which you apparently have a very thin grasp of, I’m just not interested.”

I thrum my fingers on the table. That’s possible. There are girls who haven’t been interested in me. Maybe. I guess, theoretically that’s true.

“You look stumped.”

“To be honest, I’ve never had anyone turn me down. I’m not saying that to be braggy, but it’s the truth. I’ve got a good sense about this sort of thing. Besides, you already admitted you think I’m hot.”

“I used the word cute and I also said that even if I was in the market, I wouldn’t pick you. You had your hand up our teacher’s skirt yesterday.”

I ignore the teacher jab and focus on the positive. “Cute. Hot. It’s the same thing. We might as well hook up. I’m free tonight.”

Hartley exhales again. Louder. “Easton,” she starts.

I fold both hands on the tabletop and lean closer. “Yes, babe?”

Exasperation fills her silvery eyes. “You know what? Forget it.” She reaches into the messenger bag on the empty chair beside her. “I’ve got some reading to do for Lit.”

I sit there, slack-jawed, as she pulls out a book and proceeds to eat one-handed while she reads. She tunes me out. Completely.

I’m fascinated with her. She’s attracted to me, but she’s not going to do anything about it?

“I’m not dating anyone.”

She doesn’t respond.

“You got a man?”

Silence.

I tap my fingers against the table. Another guy is a complication, and ordinarily I don’t do complicated. But if she had a boyfriend, that’s something she would’ve brought up within the first five minutes of talking. At least, if she had a boyfriend she was serious about. And then the light bulb turns on.

“Tough breakup, huh? Aw. Good thing I’ve a nice shoulder here for you to cry on.” I give said shoulder a pat.

This earns me another long, heavy sigh. “I’m not suffering from any tough breakup. I don’t have a boyfriend, not that it’s any of your business, and I would still like for you to leave me alone.”

This is all rattled off rapid fire. She doesn’t even bother to raise her gaze from her book. I don’t think she’s reading, though. Her eyes are fixed on one place.

I decide to call her on her bullshit. “You’d be more believable if you were actually reading.”

She flushes slightly and flips the page. The one she’d been reading for the last ten minutes. I finish the roll and grab a carrot stick from her plate. Her lips smush together, but she doesn’t say anything. I proceed to demolish the rest of her lunch. I mean, if she’s not gonna eat it, I don’t want it to go to waste.

When there’s nothing left but her water, I consider leaving.

“Why is everyone looking at us?”

Hartley’s irritable remark stops me. I glance around the room. I hadn’t noticed we’d become the center of attention. The hyenas are salivating, smelling fresh meat. Felicity Worthington is at a table with a few other senior girls, their heads all bent together as they whisper about this latest development. Easton Royal sitting with a girl in the dining hall? Huge.

Claire also watches us, and she isn’t pleased. She’s glaring daggers at Hartley, but her expression softens when it meets mine. She gets this wounded doe-eyed look that one of Reed’s obsessive exes used to give him after he dumped her. I really need to find a way to nix this Claire thing.