“What will you give me if I give you her number?” Emerson comes out of nowhere and drapes an arm around my shoulder.
Apollo narrows his eyes on my friend, and the scowl makes him somehow more adorable. Damn it. Emerson and I texted back and forth a little bit last night and today.
“You gave him your number?” he asks me, but he’s still glaring at Emerson.
“He helped me,” I remind him.
“I did too, so I think that means I should get your number also.” Apollo reaches out and pushes Emerson’s arm off my shoulder. Emerson chuckles, and I realize he’s enjoying this.
“Fine,” I huff, rattling it off. Half a second later, my phone vibrates in my pocket.
“I’ll be here after class. We can walk to the gym together,” Apollo says and then finally hands me my glasses.
“I got her,” Emerson says as he starts to push me into the classroom.
“Watch it,” Apollo grumbles from behind us. “Don’t be late with her.”
Emerson nods, and I glance back over my shoulder once more as we go into the classroom.
“Crew’s got his sights set on you, girl.” We both grab a seat in one of the middle rows.
“I thought his name was Apollo?”
“It is, but nobody calls him that. I honestly don’t think anyone remembers he’s got a first name. Everyone calls him by his last name, Crew, the teachers included. Plus his last name holds some weight around here. His dad owns about half the property in Craven Cove.”
“Oh.” I pull out my notebook and then grab a pencil.
“He told you to call him Apollo?” Emerson looks at me quizzically and with an air of disbelief.
“That’s what he said his name was.” I shrug, but Emerson keeps giving me a strange look.
“Is Crew in this class?” a pretty blonde with long legs asks as she takes the seat in front of Emerson. She turns in her chair to face him, not sparing me a look. “I saw him out in the hallway.”
“Nope.” Her smile drops at Emerson’s response. “Are you seriously still crushing on him?” he asks her. “Girl, you gotta let that shit go at some point.”
My stomach tightens, but isn't this the gossip I wanted? Now that I’m getting it, I’m not so sure I actually want it. I thought Apollo was flirting with me, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. He might just feel like a jerk for how he acted in the coffee shop the other day and is trying to make up for it.
“We hung out a few times over the summer.” She smirks.
Emerson starts to ask her something else, but the teacher walks in and starts the class. I do my best to pay attention, but my mind keeps going back to each of my interactions with Apollo. I bounce between thinking he’s hitting on me or just being nice. My lack of dating over the years has me questioning everything. I spend most of my time around adults generally, so all of this is a crash course in high school social circles.
“We have gym.” Emerson knocks my elbow and pulls me out of my thoughts.
“What do we even do in gym?” I ask. It’s a random elective I got tossed into. Most everything else was already taken, so I got stuck with physical education. I don’t think I’ve ever been inside a gym before.
“You’ve never had gym class?” I shake my head. “Where the hell did you come from?”
“All over.” I try not to get defensive.
I never know what to say when I get asked that. Some people have turned their noses up at the fact that we bounced around a lot. They will use any excuse to look down on my mom. While I do have a dream of settling down in one spot someday, it hasn’t bothered me. At least my childhood has been interesting, and it’s not like I know anything different.
“That’s cool. I’d like to get off this rock one day.”
“It’s nice here. You don’t like it?”
“There’s not many like me around here. I want to get out and see more.”
“You should,” I encourage him.
As we walk to the gym, Emerson peppers me with a few more questions about where I’ve lived. Once we’re there, he points to the door of the girls’ locker room.
“You go in there and change. Then everyone meets back here.” He points to the middle of the basketball court.
I take the stairs down to the locker room, where they are giving everyone a slip of paper to get a locker. I sit down on the bench after I find mine and start to change.
“I can’t believe you talked me into taking gym,” a girl groans loudly a few lockers down from mine. The same blonde girl from my last class is standing next to the girl complaining. I think I heard the teacher call her Amber.