Maya materialized at his elbow, chuckling at the reluctance written all over his face.
Maya Scarlett: the rambling, disaster-magnet who'd helped him to escape out of a construction-site kidnapping, the only person outside his harem he trusted with the jagged truth of his life, the one who'd spent weeks watching him disappear into empty classrooms or bathrooms with Sierra and Maddie wearing that patient, starving-wolf expression she thought was subtle.
"Come on, pretty boy," she said, hooking her arm through his with shameless confidence. "Can't hide forever."
"Watch me."
"Nope. In we go."
She tugged.
He let her.
Every step toward those doors felt like walking onto a stage lit by a thousand judgmental suns.
The doors swung open.
And oh boy.
The entire cafeteria went dead quiet.
Five hundred heads swiveled in perfect, eerie synchronization. Conversations died mid-sentence. Forks hovered halfway to mouths. Someone's phone clattered to the table.
