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she’ll blubber all over the food. But she pushes them back and nods. “Thanks, Russ.”
    “No prob.” I pour some oil in another pan to fry the tortillas. “Will you grate some cheese? We’re almost done here.”
    “Sure.” She snickers. “Then I can say I helped.”
    After I fry up ten shells, we assemble the tacos with about five minutes left in class. When the teacher tastes them, her eyes roll back in her head. I feel like I should give her a private moment with the food. “This is incredible. Whose recipe is this?”
    “We both helped,” I say, since the rest of the class is looking on. Cooking well would probably make me look like a girl. Nothing against girls, but I’m not one and don’t want to be called one. “We kind of made it up together.”
    “You make a great team.” Her mouth is full of taco, but she grabs another one. “You could open a restaurant.”
    Mercedes nudges me. “We do make a great team.”
    I force down the lump in my throat. No, Mercedes can’t be giving me The Look. She has to know I never date Garret’s ex-girlfriends. But then she bites her lip, and I’m positive she’s hitting on me.
     

Chapter Six
     
     
    At least I can avoid Mercedes at lunch. I sit next to Garret and the rest of our single teammates. The ones with girlfriends sit with them. Or make out in the hall. Whatever. Dallas Green, the quarterback, cracks some perverted joke about getting into Mercedes’s pants. It never takes long for the breakup news to spread.
    “Dude, don’t talk like that,” Garret says with his mouth full of fries.
    Dallas throws an apple at him—Garret catches it—and Dallas doesn’t say anything else. I’d never tell him, but I hate Dallas. He’s the kind of guy who uses his popularity to get away with a ton of shit.
    Digging into the crap cafeteria pizza, I pretend not to see Izzy’s neon yellow wig in the corner of my eye. She’s with Daphne and Colin, as usual. Daphne is as tough and indifferent as ever. Colin holds two food trays, his and Izzy’s. They stop walking and Izzy waves at someone animatedly. I can’t turn to see who it is without the guys noticing, so I laugh at whatever lame joke Dallas spews and wait for the person to come into view.
    I catch the neon green skinny jeans first—on legs too long and perfect—then the tight black tank, hot-pink belt, and blonde pigtails.
    It’s Keira.
    Izzy points me out—I know it even without looking—and now Keira stares at me and Garret with wide eyes. Without so much as a breath to consider social circles, she charges toward us. I jab Garret’s side. “Dude, we got a problem.”
    “What?” He turns. “Oh, shit.”
    But we can’t do anything. She’s already at the end of the table, her hands on the corners and her cleavage spilling out for all of us to see. The whole table goes silent as she takes in a deep breath.
    “You guys play football, huh?” she says through her teeth. “Funny, you never mentioned that.”
    “Does it matter?” Garret asks.
    “Maybe. Lie to me again and I’ll kick your asses.”
    I want to point out that we didn’t lie, but she’s already back with Izzy and crew. In our defense, she never asked what we did at school. It’s not like we intentionally kept the information from her. Well, maybe a little, but only after we saw her skating.
    “What was that about?” Dallas asks.
    “Nothing,” Garret says. “She’s new. We met her at Parker’s after the Homecoming game. I guess she’s pissed we didn’t spill our guts.”
    “She’d be a sweet piece of ass if she wasn’t such a freak,” Dallas says. This, for some reason, is funny. At least the other guys are laughing.
    Was I like this last year? I might have been. I don’t know what’s changed, but it’s all so stupid. Keira is cooler than all of them combined, and for a second I want to pick up my tray and sit with Izzy. But I don’t. It’s too much of a statement. I decide on a subtler route. I turn to Dallas.