Hate to Love You novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: First Lie

Shay keeps poking at her answer, Jess adopts Kennedy at lunch, and Mason and Shay face off in the cafeteria in front of everyone. Hook: Shay: 'Ask your captain why he fell.' Mason's eyes order Kennedy to stay silent.

"Huh," Shay said. "Weird."

"What's weird?"

"You said it like you'd practiced."

I kept my eyes on the front of the room.

The teacher was reading the lunch menu.

Every part of me wanted to look at Shay, so I made myself look at the whiteboard instead.

"I said it like a person who doesn't know anyone named Hollowell."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"Okay," he said again, and I could hear him smiling.

He stretched his legs out into the aisle and tapped a pen against his knee.

By the end of homeroom he had asked me where I'd moved from, what I thought of the vending machines, and whether I believed the rumor that the gym was haunted.

I answered the first one honestly and made up the rest.

It was not fair that he was funny.

I had come here ready to hate him.

My brother had given me a speech about Shay Dunleavy so many times that I could recite it.

Dirty player.

Cheap shot.

Coward who hurt a captain and lied to a ref's face.

Instead I got a boy who offered me half of his granola bar.

"It's not poison," he said. "I know how it looks. Everybody thinks I put things in food."

"Do you?"

"Only on Tuesdays."

The bell rang, and I laughed before I could stop it.

Jess found me at lunch.

She grabbed my sleeve outside the cafeteria and towed me to a corner table by the windows.

"You were sitting next to Dunleavy," she said. "I saw. Spill."

"He talked to me. That's it."

"Kennedy. Garnet Falls has not talked to Shay Dunleavy since March. They're not going to start now." She stole a fry from my tray.

"He seems normal."

"He seems normal. That's how they get you." She waggled a fry. "Okay, I'm kidding. I don't know him. I just know Mason Hollowell would rather eat glass."

I stopped chewing.

"The point guard?"

"Captain. Golden boy. He's the reason the rest of the school hates Dunleavy, honestly. Everyone saw the game." She dropped her voice. "Dunleavy shoved him. On purpose. Right in front of the ref. Hollowell's knee went and they lost the whole thing."

"That's what people say?"

"That's what happened."

I took a long drink of water.

Across the cafeteria, the double doors opened.

Mason came in with his friends, loud and bright, and the whole room turned toward him.

He was laughing at something.

Then he saw who was sitting alone at the long table by the vending machines.

Shay had a tray in front of him and a book open against the napkin dispenser.

Mason stopped walking.

The laughing stopped with him.

One of his friends said something low, and Mason shook his head.

He crossed the cafeteria alone.

I felt Jess go still beside me.

"Oh, this is going to be a scene," she whispered.

Mason stopped at Shay's table.

He didn't sit.

He stood there with his hands on his hips.

"Nobody told me they let Hawks in the building," he said.

Shay turned a page.

"Nobody told me the Badgers had a dress code. Nice jacket."

A few people laughed, and then stopped quickly.

Mason's jaw worked.

"You've got a lot of nerve showing up here."

"My mom's job is across the street. I didn't get a vote."

"You hurt me," Mason said, loud enough for the room. "You hurt me, and you got a clean summer. You walk in here like it didn't happen."

I gripped the edge of the table.

Shay closed his book.

"Do you want to do this here?" he asked. His voice was very calm. "In front of everybody? Because I'm happy to."

"Do what?"

"Tell them how it happened."

Mason's face didn't change.

But I saw his hand tighten on the strap of his bag.

I had known my brother since before I could read.

That was the face he made when he'd broken something and was deciding whom to blame.

"You shoved me," he said.

"Ask your captain why he fell," Shay said to the room, not to Mason.

"Say that again."

"Ask him." Shay stood up.

He was a few inches taller than Mason, and he didn't look angry.

He looked tired.

The cafeteria had gone completely silent.

Then, over Shay's shoulder, Mason's eyes found me across the room.

For a second I thought he might say my name.

Instead he gave me the smallest shake of his head.

Don't.

Don't say anything.

Don't know me.

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