Page 9 of The Playbook

“Oops,” she said breathily, a smirk on her lips.

Before I could say anything, she sauntered past me, casting me an innocent look. My eyes met Ryan’s, whose mouth hung open in surprise. Andy’s laugh echoed around me as he held his stomach.

Well, that hadn’t gone as planned. This might be harder than I thought it was going to be.

CHAPTER5

Grace

“It’s all over school,” Lana squealed, gripping my arm tightly as she pulled me into the band room. “You totally drenched Logan Walker with spaghetti and chocolate milk at lunch! Everyone is saying you did it on purpose.”

I scowled. “He came up and asked if he could sit with me. That’snotnormal. So I saved us both the trouble and got it over with. At least the tray was on him and not me since I’m sure that’s what would’ve happened in his perfect world. But to be fair, it was an accident that ended well. He tried to, like, push my hair away from my face. It startled me, and my hand came up. I just ran with it after that.”

“You’re so cynical, Grace.” Lana rolled her eyes. “Maybe he really did just want to talk to you. You did say you two ran into each other this morning.”

“Yeah, right,” I grumbled, pulling my drumsticks out. “He just wants to torment me like Nikki does.No thanks.And where were you? You were supposed to meet me for lunch.”

“I got a little sidetracked.” She wiggled her eyebrows at me, making me groan.

“Who’s the lucky guy?” I asked.

“Caleb West.” She grinned.

“You’re nuts. Caleb West is a jock.”

“Basketball and track.” She shrugged. “That’s makes it OK.”

“Whatever, you weirdo.”

She cast me a big smirk before plowing on. “This isn’t about me. It’s about you. I think you should see what Logan has to say. You can’t tell me that you aren’t a little bit curious.”

I bit my bottom lip. OK, so maybe I was alittlecurious. Something about screwing his day up appealed to me more though. It’s not like he wouldn’t do the same to me if I gave him half the chance. He was part of the court after all. They lived to torment the rest of us lowly servants.

Before I could answer, Mr. Brown came in and signaled for us to take our spots. Lana shot me a knowing look, which I returned with an eye roll. I so did not want to get to know anything about Logan Walker. I could only imagine it would end with me somehow hurt and him gloating.

We ran through a few songs for the upcoming halftime show for the football game before Mr. Brown handed out some sheets for us drummers to work on.

“I want you guys to do a performance for everyone this week. I know it’s short notice, but you’re the best. For those who want to participate, we’ll be meeting after school every night this week to work on it, starting tonight. I’ll leave the sign-up sheet here for anyone wanting in on this. We need at least five of you to join.”

I was so in. When my nose wasn’t stuck in a book, I was creating music. I’d been playing drums since I could hold the sticks and learned guitar soon after. My dad used to play drums and had gotten me interested in it. I remember sitting in the basement of our home while he hammered away on them, rocking out to classic tunes.

At the end of band class, I was the first in line to sign up.

“Ah, Miss Matthews. I was hoping I’d get you to sign up,” Mr. Brown proclaimed.

I returned his smile with one of my own and penciled my name in. He looked past me to Noah, who was waiting behind me. Noah hung out with me and Lana sometimes. He was our third. He had a wild sense of humor that left me and Lana in fits of giggles whenever he’d sit with us. Usually, he spent his time with his video gaming pals, but he’d been a fairly constant staple in our lives since fifth grade.

“Mr. Parker! Excellent!” Mr. Brown’s grin widened.

It was common knowledge amongst us band geeks that Noah and I were pretty awesome at what we did. I stepped aside so Noah could jot his name down and waited off to the side for Lana. A moment later, she joined me, followed by Noah.

“We’re going to rock this.” Noah high-fived me, a wacky grin plastered on his face.

As far as hot band geeks went, Noah could hold his own. Dark hair, warm brown eyes, and a tall frame, Noah had it going on.

“Looks like Sam, Justin, Garrett, James, Freddie, and Jake signed up too. It’s going to be awesome.”

“I figured they would.” I gave Sam and Garrett a wave as they passed by us, smiling.

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