outer office is empty except for a familiar face. Cara ignores me, probably because she’s still mad about the match, or it could be that she’s just being Cara. She’s the principal’s niece, so she basically thinks that everyone at Dover is there to be at her beck and call. According to Jenna, the school is divided into Cara peons and Cara crap-ons. I’m definitely in the latter. Cara and I used to be friends—best friends even—but things had ended after a boy she’d liked asked me out, and I’d said yes. Apparently I’d broken a cardinal rule of girlhood, but technically, I didn’t steal anything that didn’t want to be stolen. And then when I took her place as starting striker on the JV team sophomore year, that’d been the clincher.
I shrug and look around. Normally the waiting room has a couple students standing around but it’s empty so I sit after checking in with Cano’s receptionist. Pushing aside the stack of college brochures on the table next to me, I thumb through the only magazine I can find and nearly snort at some of the articles. Flipping through one about “Ten Ways to Talk to Your Teen About Sex,” I can’t stop myself from bursting into laughter despite the immediate quelling look from the receptionist. I can’t imagine any parent who would use a cucumber as a prop in any kind of meaningful conversation.
“What’s so funny?” a voice behind me asks. The smell of salt and sand fills my nostrils, and I swing around. It’s the boy from the beach.
Lo.
He’s wearing a wool hat and black T-shirt with cargos instead of a neoprene hood and wet suit, but those eyes are unforgettable.
I slam the magazine shut, feeling a slow flush crawl up my neck and around the back of my ears. “Stalk much? What are you doing here, anyway?” I snap, noticing the golden sand grains covering his flip-flop-clad feet.
“Not stalking. I’m new here.”
“Sure you are.” Considering he isn’t wearing the Dover Prep required uniform, I’m pretty sure he’s taking me for a ride. I turn my attention back to the magazine, opening its pages and pretending to be absorbed in reading. A low chuckle alerts me to the particularly large headline entitled “Embarrassing Medical Problems.” I feel my skin getting hotter and toss the offending magazine to the table, turning to confront Mr. Nosypants.
“Why don’t you go back to surfing or tanning or whatever it is that you beach boys do?”
Lo smiles. I force myself not to notice that his teeth are whiter than I remember or to acknowledge the tiny response that makes my ears feel like they’re melting into unrecognizable nubs.
“I thought you were watching me surf the other day,” he says with a grin.
“Hardly,” I shoot back with feigned nonchalance. “Couldn’t have picked you out from the lineup of identical surfing doppelgängers if I tried.”
“So that wasn’t you out beyond the breakers staring at me like I was a frosted cherry smoothie?” Lo’s smile turns impish.
“What?” I splutter. “I was so not. I hate cherry.” I can’t exactly control the flush that seeps through my skin. I snap my lips shut, aware that I’ll only make it worse if I say anything more, especially in response to that annoying, knowing look on his face.
“Hi, Lo,” Cara says in a breathy voice, walking past us on her way out of the office. “Nice to see you again.” Once more, it’s as if I’m invisible, but no surprise there. Lo has obviously qualified for the peon list. I snort and turn back to studying the other brochures on the table before selecting one on making informed college choices.
“Hey, Cara,” Lo says to her with a smile that could melt butter, and then stands to move past her and sit in the empty seat next to me. With a death glare in my direction as if his actions are somehow my fault, Cara tosses her hair and stalks off. “So what’s your name?” he asks me.
Despite giving him immediate brownie points for blowing off Cara, I’m still trying to think of a snarky comeback in return for his earlier comment. Just then Principal Cano himself walks out of his office. He heads over to his assistant, holding a file in his hand. Cano is a tall swarthy, stern-looking man whose presence will make any classroom fall into immediate silence. It’s no different in the office. Well, except for Lo.
He stifles a laugh and whispers against my ear, “That guy is a dead ringer for Borat. If he has an accent, I think I’ll die.”
“Shut up,” I hiss back, leaning away from Lo’s warm breath. “So not funny. He’s Albanian and he’s a huge fan of detention, so keep talking if that’s your thing. Your funeral.”
In the same breath, I have to bite the smile trying to break across my face because Principal Cano is the butt of much Borat-related humor at Dover, all, of course, expressed in secret. A couple years back, one student actually posted a photo of the offending infamous green mankini on her blog with Principal Cano’s face, and she’d mysteriously disappeared within the same week. Rumors varied from she’d been expelled, to her family had moved to the other side of the country, to she was being held in Cano’s garage to be tortured for eternity.
I, of course, know better. Speio—who seems to somehow know everything that goes on in school—told me that there had been a very private lawsuit and an even more private settlement. So I know that it was definitely the second one, but who am I to curb the fun of speculation? Still, Cano is not one to be messed with—he takes his job as school principal seriously. Supposedly he used to be some kind of big-time molecular scientist in Eastern Europe and published several books on DNA research before he had a breakdown. I can’t imagine anything worse than managing a school full of hormonal teenagers, but different strokes for different folks.
“Ah, Ms. Marin,” Principal Cano says in a thickly accented voice. Beside me, I feel Lo’s indrawn snort and I bite the inside of my cheek even harder. I paste my best impression of a cheerleader smile on my face and lean so far away from Lo that I’m nearly out of my chair. “Congratulations on the game last week. Coach Fenton said that you were instrumental in the win.”
“Thank you, sir,” I say. “But it was a team effort.”
“That’s the spirit,” he agrees. I notice that he hasn’t acknowledged Lo but, new student or not, beach-bum surfer-boy is hardly my problem. “Come on in.”
As I stand to follow Principal Cano to his office, Lo winks at me and sprawls in the chair as if he’s in his living room. He picks up my discarded magazine and flips through it, raising his eyebrow and pointing overtly at the embarrassing-moments article. Unable to help myself, I roll my eyes at him. He’s a piece of work, that one.
Despite the pretense with the magazine, I feel his eyes on me all the way into the principal’s office. I say hello to the guidance counselor, who’s sitting in the second chair on the outside of the wide mahogany desk. Mrs. Leland is a tiny bird of a woman with dark hair always combed back in a bun, and a quiet demeanor. I smile at her and she congratulates me on the game as I take the seat to her left.
Luckily, Principal Cano only wants to talk about college choices, something I haven’t even started to think about. I still have a year of high school to go, but for some reason, it’s on his list of priorities. Jenna had told me he’d had a similar conversation with her about sports schools and sports scholarships. She’d mentioned something about it looking good on Dover’s—and by default Cano’s—record so he always took a vested interest in any potentially promising students, which apparently included me. But Cano has always seemed to be interested in my progress at Dover, so his attention is nothing new.
Lo catches my eye through the blinds of Principal Cano’s office. He’s staring at his phone, completely uncaring of any the rules governing visible cell phone use in school areas. I nod at the appropriate intervals, pretending to listen to Cano but surreptitiously studying the boy sitting outside. Something about him tugs at me. I don’t know if it’s the whole lonely-boy slash bad-boy vibe, but there’s something there that just gets me.
It isn’t about his physical looks. I mean he’s okay, but nothing spectacular. His tanned face is all