You don’t have to explain.”
Callie smiles. “Yeah, we all have our secrets.”
“Yeah.” Poe nods, putting her hands up. “Sorry if I came on a little too strong there. It’s one of my weaknesses. I talk too much. And I always ask too many questions.”
Just like that the tension breaks and I can breathe easily.
Thank God.
I just met them. These are the first people to actually be friendly and talk to me in here. I don’t want them to hate me too.
And they will if I tell them why I was running away.
If I tell them my secret.
“Okay,” Callie chirps. “Let’s go to dinner. And you can definitely sit with us, if you want.”
Suddenly, Poe bursts into a series of gasps and actions. She looks at the clock hanging over the blackboard. “Oh my God, we have to go. Now. Forget dinner for a sec. I’ve got something to show you guys.”
“Show us what?” Callie asks.
“Hello? What else? Eye candy.” Poe wiggles her eyebrows again.
“Oh my God. Yes! I needed something nice the first week back to this hellhole.” Callie grins.
“I know. Apparently, there’s a press conference that we should see. This girl from junior year tipped me off. We gotta go.”
I’m confused. “What eye candy?”
At my question, Poe’s eyes go wide again as she takes me in. Not only that, she gasps too before lunging for my arm.
“Oh my God. This is perfect.” Then she turns to Callie and Wyn. “Isn’t this perfect? She knows him!”
I have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. But Callie catches on and whips her eyes to me.
“Yes, she does,” she breathes out to Poe before turning to me. “You do!”
“I do what?” I ask, now more confused than ever.
Wyn is shaking her head again in that indulgent manner of hers that I’ve seen before. “Leave her alone, guys. She doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”
So Poe explains it to me. “You know him. You know the Principal’s hot son. Our eye candy.”
All right. I still don’t know what they’re talking about.
Principal’s hot son.
Who the fuck…
Principal’s hot son.
Him.
Oh my God.
The boy with sun-struck hair and summer blue eyes.
He’s the principal’s hot son now, isn’t he?
He is.
Because I’m stupidly at St. Mary’s and Leah Carlisle, along with being my guardian, is now my principal as well.
“You lived with him,” Poe says. “You lived with a soccer superstar.”
“Yes. The Blond Arrow,” Callie tags on.
The Blond Arrow.
That’s his soccer nickname.
That’s what they call him, his fans, the critics, the sports people, whatever. They gave it to him when he debuted last season. When he free-kicked the ball from the center of the field and it went soaring through the air, past all the players and hit the net, right in the center.
Holy fuck, they’re talking about Arrow.
My Arrow.
Before I can say anything though, Poe and Callie are dragging me out of the classroom with Wyn tailing behind and discussing how I can tell them everything there is to know about Arrow Carlisle, the celebrity athlete, because I lived with him before he went pro.
I’m not listening to them though.
I mean, I am, here and there but I’m mostly in… shock.
Which is stupid because I should’ve thought of this.
I should’ve known.
That he’d come up in conversations or that I’d hear his name in passing. It used to happen a lot, back in my old high school, normal high school.
He’s pretty famous around these parts.
He’s The Blond Arrow, the pro soccer player. Of course he’s famous. And of course he’d be famous here as well, at a girl’s reform/therapeutic school. His mom is the principal, isn’t she?
So yeah, I should’ve expected this.
But somehow I didn’t.
And now I’m here. In the third-floor bathroom.
Because Poe wants to show us something. A press conference, she said.
The reason we’re in the third-floor bathroom is because it’s always out of order so no one goes here. No one who’s up to any good anyway and we fit the bill perfectly.
Because Poe has a cell phone in her hand, which everyone knows is super duper forbidden, here at St. Mary’s. If we get caught, we will probably lose all our privileges and God only knows what else.
But Poe is hitting all the keys on her phone like she’s done it a thousand times before and Callie and Wyn don’t seem to care and I’m in such shock that I don’t care either.
Especially not when the video Poe was trying to get loads and I’m staring directly at him.
His dirty blond, sun-struck hair is the first