“Even Midwesterners appreciate . . . pretty things,” he said, his gaze traveling from my boots to my knot of dark hair. When he reached my gaze again, he gave me a knowing smile. It was a compliment, I guessed, that he thought I looked good, but coming from him, that compliment was a little creepy.

“Cool your jets, Creed,” Veronica interrupted. “And before this conversation crosses a line, we should get back to campus. Curfew,” she added, then offered Jason a coy smile. “Nice to meet you, Jason.”

“Same here,” he said, bobbing his head at her, then glancing at me. “Lily.”

I bobbed my head at him, a flush rising on my cheeks, and wished I’d stayed in my room.

12

I’d spared myself a confrontation with Scout earlier in the day. Since she and Lesley were playing cards at the coffee table when I returned to the suite, two brat packers in line behind me, my time for avoidance was up.

I stopped short in the doorway when I saw them, Amie and Veronica nearly ramming me in the back.

“Down in front,” Veronica muttered, squeezing through the door around me, bringing a tornado of shopping bags into the common room.

Scout glanced up when I opened the door. At first, she seemed excited to see me. But when she realized who’d followed me in, her expression morphed into something significantly nastier.

I probably deserved that.

“Shopping?” she asked, an eyebrow arched as Amie and Veronica skirted the couch on their way to Amie’s room.

“Fresh air,” I said.

Scout made a disdainful sound, shook her head, and dropped her gaze to the fan of cards in her hand. “I think it’s your turn,” she told Lesley, her voice flat.

Lesley looked up at me. “You were out—with them?”

Barnaby wasn’t much for subtlety.

“Fresh air,” Scout repeated, then put a card onto the table with a snap of sound. “Lily needed fresh air.”

Amie unlocked her bedroom door and moved inside. But before Veronica went in, she stopped and gazed back at me. “Are you coming?”

“Yes,” Scout bit out, flipping one card, then a second and third, onto the table. “You should go. You have shoes to try on, Carrie, or Miranda, or whoever you’re pretending to be today.”

Veronica snorted, her features screwing into that ratlike pinch. “Better than hanging out here with geeks ’r’ us.”

“Geeks ’r’ us?” I repeated.

“She uses a bag with a pirate symbol on it,” Veronica said. “What kind of Disney fantasy is she living?”

Oh, right, I thought. That’s why I hated these girls. “And yet,” I pointed out, “you hung out with me today. And you know Scout and I are friends.”

“All evidence to the contrary,” Scout muttered.

“We were giving you the benefit of the doubt,” Veronica said.

Scout made a sarcastic sound. “No, Lively, you felt guilty.”

“Ladies,” Barnaby said, standing up to reveal the unicorn-print T-shirt she’d matched with a pleated skirt. “I don’t think Lily wants to be fought over. This is beneath all of you.”

I forced a nod in agreement—although it wasn’t that horrible to be fought over.

“Uh-huh,” Veronica said, then looked at me. “We did the nice thing, Parker. You’re new to St. Sophia’s, so we offered to help you out. We gave you a warning, and because you handled our little game in the basement, we gave you a chance.”

“So very thoughtful,” Scout bit out, “to make her a charity case.”

Veronica ignored her. “Fine. You want to be honest? Let’s be honest. Friends matter, Parker. And if you’re not friends with the right people, the fact that you went to St. Sophia’s won’t make a damn bit of difference. Even St. Sophia’s has its misfits, after all.” As if to punctuate her remark, she glanced over at Scout and Lesley, then glanced back at me, one eyebrow raised, willing me to get her point.

I’m not sure if she was better or worse for it, but the bitchiness of her comment aside, there was earnestness in her expression. Veronica believed what she was saying—really, truly believed it. Had Veronica been a misfit once?

Not that the answer was all that important right now. “If you’re saying that I have to dump one set of friends in order to keep another,” I told her, “I think you know what the answer’s going to be.”

“There are only two kinds of people in this world,” Veronica said. “Friends—and enemies.”

Was this girl for real? “I’m willing to take my chances.”

She snorted indignantly, then walked into Amie’s room. “Your loss,” she said, the door shutting with a decided click behind her.

The room was quiet for a moment.

I blew out a breath, then glanced over at Scout. Ever so calmly, without saying a word or making eye contact, she laid the rest of her cards flat on the table, stood up, marched into her room, and slammed the door.

The coffee table rattled.

I undraped the scarf from around my neck and dropped onto the couch.

Lesley crossed her legs and sat down on the floor, then began to order the deck of cards into a tidy pile. “Granted,” she said, “I’ve only known you for a couple of days, but that was not the smartest thing you’ve ever done.”

“Yeah, I know.”

She bobbed her head toward Scout’s closed door, which had begun to rattle with the bass of Veruca Salt’s “Seether.”