The Avery Shaw Experiment - By Kelly Oram Page 0,15

obediently to her feet.

“Aiden, grow some balls you whipped bastard.” I let go of his ear with a little push, snapping him back into his seat. Then I glared at the girl next to him. “Mindy.” She paled when I spoke her name. “Avery is a hundred times the person you will ever be. If you say a single unkind thing to her or about her to anyone ever, you will be socially crucified. Get me? I will make it my personal mission in life to ruin you.”

She stared up at me in disbelief, but she looked scared. She should. I wasn’t kidding, and she seemed like the kind of person who cared very much about her reputation.

Next, I pointed a finger at Avery’s chubby little friend who’d dragged her to her table. “And you . . .” The girl flinched and looked like she was about to vomit. I felt bad because I hadn’t meant to scare her. “You seem pretty cool. Thanks for looking out for my girl. Keep up the good work.”

With that, I grabbed Avery’s hand and dragged her back toward my table on the other side of the cafeteria.

“Grayson!” Avery pleaded in a shocked whisper. “What are you doing?”

“You deserve better than that, Aves. You eat lunch with me from now on, okay?”

“Um . . .” She was still trying to put on the breaks. “That is really sweet of you and all, Grayson, but I don’t know. I mean I don’t exactly fit in with your friends. I’m . . . I’m . . .”

“You’re what?” Her insecurity was frustrating. She was worth more than she thought of herself. She needed to understand that.

She gulped. “Well, you know, I’m not popular.”

I stopped only because she was terrified and about to have another panic attack. “Aves, you’ll be fine. My friends will be cool. You’ll see.”

“I don’t know. I think I’ve seen this movie, and it doesn’t turn out so well for me.”

I smiled at that, even though she hadn’t meant it to be funny. “How much you want to bet? I’m sure you’ve seen nature shows on alpha males or pack leaders or whatever—the whole flock of sheep thing, right?” I turned my smile extra confident because I know it annoys her when I act cocky. “Aves, Grayson Kennedy is at the top of the Spanish Fork High food chain. I’m the king of the jungle. My friends will like you because I like you.”

She didn’t look entirely convinced, but she wasn’t going to hyperventilate anymore, either.

“You’re all about experiments and stuff,” I said. “So let’s do an experiment. Come eat lunch with me, at least for today, and let me introduce you to my friends. We will put Animal Planet to the test, and if I can’t have all of my friends completely enamored with you by the end of lunch, then I’ll back off and you can take your one cool friend and go hide out in the science lab every lunch for the rest of the year.” Geez, that sounded awful. I really hoped she didn’t do that. “Come on, what do you say?”

She gazed up at me, and in her current post-trauma daze said the last thing I ever expected. “I’m surprised you know a word like enamored.”

I burst out laughing and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “Yeah, three syllables is pretty much my limit.”

Avery didn’t protest anymore as I dragged her over to my friends, but she started to panic when we reached the table. I suppose I couldn’t blame her, considering my friends were all sitting there gaping at me as if I’d lost my mind and was introducing them to a piece of scum I got on my shoe while I was over in no-man’s land.

“Guys, this is Avery,” I said conversationally. “Everybody shove down and make some room for her.” I paused and gave Avery a grin, hoping to break some of the tension. “Unless you want to sit on my lap?”

I’m sure deep inside her somewhere she knew I was only teasing her, but she looked at me with eyes as big as baseballs and frantically shook her head. Her stupid panic was taking over.

I knew this might be an issue. Avery’s anxiety was legitimate. She was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder a few years back. She even took medication for it. The drugs allowed her to come to school—they’d talked about homeschooling her when she hit middle school and started having too many