Rocking Kin (Lucy & Harris, #3) - Terri Anne Browning Page 0,7

a few inches, but that wasn’t anything I wasn’t used to. I felt freakishly tall at five foot eleven inches.

As we left the room together, my new friend offered me her hand. “I’m Lucy.”

“McKinley. But you can call me Kin.” I tossed my messenger bag over my shoulder. I only let those closest to me call me Kin, but I already knew that Lucy and I were going to be close.

“I heard about your mom,” Lucy said as we passed a bay of lockers. “Sorry for your loss.”

My jaw tightened. I’d tried not to think about my mom all day and for the most part I’d succeeded. But now she was forefront in my mind. “Thanks.”

“Shit, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Lucy sighed. “Way to go, Lu. Try to make friends with the chick and you end up alienating her.”

My jaw loosened and I nearly grinned at my new friend, all thoughts of crying evaporating. “Are you seriously talking to yourself?”

She grimaced. “Yeah. Coping mechanism. My shrink says it’s healthy. I think it just makes me look like I need to be in a psych ward with a straightjacket strapped on.”

“O-kay.” The grin broke free and I couldn’t help but shake my head at her. “So, is the lunch any good here? It isn’t that vegan crap, is it? I need red meat and grease.”

My subject change instantly put Lucy back at ease. “The lunch here is high end. As in, world class chefs from Italy, France, and Japan. There is a vegan selection, but there is a lot more to choose from than that. But you aren’t going to find any grease on the menu, and red meat? Only on Fridays.”

As we walked I noticed several people stopping to stare while I walked next to Lucy. Some eyes lingered on me, but it seemed the braver of the onlookers kept their gazes on Lucy. My new friend, however, seemed oblivious to everyone. Keeping her eyes on me as we walked into the cafeteria and picked up our trays, she explained the best foods to go after and which ones to avoid at all costs.

Once we had our meals—mine was grilled chicken strips and sweet potato tots while Lucy had Greek yogurt, half a club sandwich on wheat bread and some carrot sticks—I stopped to look around for somewhere to sit. Without a word Lucy led me to a table in the back that was completely empty. Glancing around, I saw that almost every table was overflowing with students, but this one table? It was empty?

And the stares just kept coming.

“Do I have something on my face?” I asked Lucy as I took my seat beside her with my back to the wall so that I could people-watch.

Lucy frowned, then followed my gaze to the people around us. Sighing, she opened her bottle of Voss water and took a small sip. “Maybe I should warn you. I’m kind of the oddball here.”

Her confession didn’t even faze me. If this chick was odd then I was mental, because honestly, she was the only one who had spoken to me today besides my stepsisters when we had first arrived at this freaking over-the-top, expensive private high school. But still, my curiosity was piqued. “What’s that supposed to mean?” To look at her she seemed above normal to me. Exceptionally beautiful, nice, obviously smart from the intelligence shining in her eyes.

“Well, it’s not me, per se, but my family.” She sighed again and picked up her cup of yogurt. “Everyone here is a kid of a celebrity in some shape or form. Like Piper over there?” She nodded her head to a girl who was sitting at a table crowded with a mixture of guys and girls, but honestly, to me, she looked like she was all alone in the world the way she was eating her apple and reading something on her Kindle. “Her mom is some kind of princess, both literally and figuratively. Her mom does some reality show about being royal. Thinks she’s the next Kardashian or some crap… And Brody? His dad is a famous soccer player in England, but his mom lives here.” Lucy’s head inclined toward a table several yards to our left and I saw a boy who was maybe my age with the darkest hair I’d ever seen in my life and a face full of freckles. It should have looked odd, but surprisingly it didn’t. Maybe it was the smile on his face