Savage Royals (Boys of Oak Park Prep #1) - Callie Rose Page 0,12

constant, relentless blue skies and sunshine, the whole place seemed to glow like it existed on some kind of ethereal plane.

I could understand why so many people from the fly-over states ended up making a break for the West Coast. It was fucking beautiful.

Wide steps led up to the dining hall entrance, and a sign out front declared it Astor Hall.

My stomach growled as I climbed the stairs. I’d been too nervous and distracted to eat breakfast before leaving my grandparents’ house, and now I was starving.

Like every other place at Oak Park, the dining hall was unnecessarily elaborate and luxurious. At its most basic, it was set up just like my old cafeteria—but in actual appearance, it didn’t look anything like that place. Food was served along one wall, and it looked like they either had it catered in or had some legit chefs on staff. There were dozens of options, including a full salad bar, and staff moved around the room, clearing trays from empty tables.

Shit, the diner wasn’t even this fancy or smoothly run, and people paid to eat there.

Then again, someone was paying for me to eat here too. Just because I didn’t get rung up after every meal didn’t mean the money wasn’t being spent.

I wondered for the first time what tuition to this place cost. Jacqueline hadn’t mentioned it, and I’d been too shell-shocked from everything else to ask. It had to be a small fortune.

There’d been no mention of me ever paying them back—and to be honest, there was no way I ever could—but the thought of someone spending that much money on me made me squirm. I hadn’t liked being the breadwinner in my family at sixteen, but at least when I was the one earning the money, I knew it was mine.

I earned it, and that was that.

No strings attached.

This money? Every bit of hospitality my grandparents had shown me? Yeah, I got the sense there were massive strings attached to all of it.

But those strings disappeared into dark corners, and I couldn’t see what was attached to the other end of them. It made me nervous and paranoid.

I blew out a breath. Just take it, Tal. Take the gift, like that social worker said.

The trays stacked on a rack near the door were polished metal rather than dingy orange plastic, and I grabbed one before getting into the food line. There was a lot to pick from, but I settled on something I knew well—a burger. It had some expensive-sounding ingredients I didn’t recognize, but I figured it would be safe enough. A burger is a burger, right?

Once I had my food and a drink, my gaze scanned the large room, searching for Leah. I’d hoped we’d be able to sit together so I could avoid the worst part about starting at any school. Lunch. It was always a nightmare, especially coming in late like this. Everyone was already paired off. The groups were picked, the cliques were established, and I was on the outside looking in. I sighed when I didn’t find her upbeat, friendly face in the crowd.

“Great,” I muttered.

I was going to have to sit by myself. Normally, I wouldn’t mind much. I’d mostly eaten alone at Sand Valley High or ended up at a table with a bunch of theatre nerds who talked loudly over each other, each trying to be the wittiest. But either way, it was easy to fade into the background there. It was such a huge school, getting lost in the crowd was a simple trick.

But there couldn’t have been more than a hundred and fifty people in this dining hall, and there were no tables hidden in dark corners here. Tossing my hair over my shoulder, I straightened my spine and made a beeline for an empty table near the door. I was too fucking hungry to stand around debating forever, and it wasn’t like standing up at the front of the room drew any less attention.

I slid my tray down and sat, my mouth watering at the smells of whatever fancy mystery ingredients the chefs had added to the burger.

But before I could pick it up, the skin at the back of my neck prickled like it had in US History. Four shadows loomed over me, and when I glanced back, my heart leapt into my throat.

The boys from the car.

All four of them were gathered in a straight line, almost shoulder to shoulder, like a wall of unreasonably sexy