Page 3 of The Prom King & The Ice Queen

I can even admit that I took a sick sort of satisfaction when I’d heard the rumors about Rudolph Baron’s illegitimate son Vincent moving to town.

I glance over at the surly brute now. He’s hovering over his girlfriend—that new girl Addie—like he’s been hired to be her bodyguard.

“What were you ladies talking about?” Leo asks as he steals a fry from Cora’s plate.

She grins like Leo taking her food is some sort of treat for her.

This guy could seriously get away with murder in this town.

“I was just telling them how my parents are going out of town again this weekend,” April says.

She’s such a bad liar. Her voice is way too innocent, her expression so saccharine sweet it makes me ill.

“Oh yeah?” Shane brightens. He’s always looking for the next party. “I’ll be there.”

Leo doesn’t even glance over at his so-called friend. “You’re going to Addie’s birthday party, remember?”

I roll my eyes but no one notices. Sure, I can be a bit bossy. But Leo treats his so-called friends like they’re his underlings.

“Oh right,” Shane says, all chastised for daring to make his own plans.

“It’s fine,” April says with a smile. “My party’s the next night anyway. Saturday.”

Shane grins. Leo nods but he doesn’t seem to be paying attention.

“Besides, Friday night Brittany and I are having a private party with some of my brother’s friends who are home from college,” April says.

I inwardly wince.

April’s trying to play coy and make Shane, Leo, and the others jealous, but the girl is so freakin’ bad at this. Sometimes I’m honestly insulted that she’s my biggest competition in the popularity contest that rules this school.

Well, maybe not this school.

I glance over at my work friends again with another pang of yearning. They’re not in this crowd and they don’t even pay attention to the games or the rules.

Callie’s sort of a friend-by-association with my crowd thanks to her new relationship with Maverick, but the two of them are so caught up in their own little world that she’s not affected by the cattiness or the backstabbing.

I don’t even think she’s aware of how many girls wanted to claw her eyes out for having the gall to snag the ungettable Maverick.

Big sighs.

Sometimes I envy Callie more than I can say.

I’ve gone back to staring into my yogurt like it holds the secrets of all mankind. My eyes are gritty from exhaustion at this point, and I just need to make it through the day so I can go home and take a nap.

“Is your psycho criminal brother going to be there?” Shane’s question to Leo has my head snapping up.

I catch Leo’s jaw tensing before he can cover it up with his typical smirk. “He’s not my brother.”

“Oh right,” Shane says. There’s mocking laughter in his voice which is honestly a shocker. Shane’s normally too intimidated by Leo to speak out of turn, let alone openly mock the beloved quarterback’s family. “I meant, your uncle.”

He snort-laughs at this and Leo sighs in exasperation. His gaze catches mine for half a second before we both look away.

Callie wasn’t all wrong when she referred to us as the king and queen. We don’t like each other. We’ve never really gotten along, mainly because we see through each other’s BS—I’ve never been intimidated by his rich family, and he’s always grinned in the face of my attitude.

But we are sort of…teammates, of sorts, because we both keep the others in line. We’ve never actually talked about it. It’s just sort of…what we do.

We might dislike each other, but over the years we’ve both stepped up as natural born leaders. Neither of us enjoys in-fighting with our friends, and we both despise bullying.

---