“The Pack,” she answered instantly, rolling her eyes. “They all live together.” I felt my eyebrows lift at that information and she shook her head and explained, “Not like together in the same house, but they all live on the same road.”
My confusion at why that was weird must have shown because she continued, “They have their own little community. They keep to themselves and as you can see, they eat lunch together. They’re nice to everybody, but they’re really only friends with each other.”
“Then why did he invite me to sit with them?” I asked, baffled by her explanation.
Leah lifted her shoulder uncertainly as she glanced over at them. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen Caleb invite an outsider to sit with them.”
“Outsider?” I echoed, my eyes drawn inexorably back to the table. They were an odd collection, almost a group of outsiders themselves, which made it so strange that he’d invited me to sit with them. “Maybe he was just being nice to the new girl,” I offered, trying to make sense out of it.
“Maybe,” Leah repeated doubtfully, clearly not buying what I was selling. I shrugged it off and took a bite of my salad. It was nice of him to try to include me, but I was here to finish out my senior year and make sure Dad didn’t do anything crazy – besides move to the middle of Idaho. Once I graduated, I was headed to Brown University and far away from any and all drama.
I glanced around the cafeteria as the other girls talked about people I didn’t know and noticed a couple of tables filled with teachers. Leah caught my gaze and told me, “Since the entire school has lunch at the same time, most of the teachers eat in here with us.” She mock frowned and added, “To make sure we don’t start a food fight or something. A few of them eat in the teachers’ lounge, but most stay in here.”
I nodded and continued scanning the room, not sure what I was searching for until I found him. He was impossible to miss as he came through the doors and made a beeline for the hot lunch station in the far corner from me. I didn’t even have to stretch to keep him in my line of sight – he was just that big. I expected him to join one of the teachers’ tables, but he bypassed them and went straight to the two tables pushed together in the middle of the room.
“There is no way he’s a student,” I muttered aloud and Leah heard. She followed my gaze and giggled before letting out a sigh.
“If only,” she purred, eyeing him lustily, and I jerked my head toward her in surprise. She sounded ready to take him under the bleachers and show him a good time. She caught my disbelieving stare and laughed. “All the girls have a thing for Coach Dom.”
I blinked and blurted out the first thing that came to mind, “Dom like in 50 Shades of Gray dom?”
Leah busted out laughing, shaking her head. “Oh, I wish.” She glanced back at him and sighed, “I’d let him tie me up anytime.”
“He’s a jerk,” I protested and she gave me a surprised look. “He caught me looking for my class this morning and gave me the third degree. I thought he was going to throw me out.”
Leah’s nose wrinkled as she listened and gave me a shrug. “He’s usually easygoing. Plenty of girls have signed up for Gym even after they’ve fulfilled their requirement just for the chance of getting into his class.”
My eyes drifted back to him, surprised by her admission, and found him staring straight at me. My gazed dropped immediately and I cursed myself for hiding. When I peeked back up through my eyelashes, he was talking to Caleb, who discreetly gestured to me. If I hadn’t been studying him so intensely, I would have missed it entirely. It appeared they were talking about me and I had no idea why.
“His name is Dominic Navarre and he lives out in the same community. I wasn’t kidding when I said they stick together. He doesn’t eat with the other teachers or coaches, only them,” Leah continued, tearing her eyes from him to look at me. “He doesn’t even date.”
I must have looked disbelieving because she nodded emphatically. “Really, you see Miss Dyson over there?” Leah pointed with her fork to a gorgeous blonde woman at one of the teacher tables and I nodded. “She went after him for a solid year and he never took the bait.”
“How do you know?” I scoffed, thinking he might just be a private guy. No way did a guy like that not date. He was just too masculine.
“It was obvious,” Leah assured me and some of the other girls nodded, eavesdropping on our conversation. One piped up, “I heard her ask him out, some theater thing in Boise, an overnight trip and he straight up told her no. No sugarcoating it at all.”