Understanding dawned. "This is why I've kept quiet about my situation."

"Yeah, well, that's not going to happen to me. He'll never leave her."

I heard the bitterness and asked, "You want him to?"

"I want her to."

I fell quiet. I didn't know what to say.

Then Adam surprised me when he tapped my arm gently. "My mom works for James Kade, you know. She's the assistant to his junior assistant."

I shot him a dark look. "So?"

He shrugged. "So nothing. She talks about how nice he is to her."

Relief flooded me and my shoulders sagged forward. Then I gave him a wicked grin. "Oh, so are you saying you could be stepbrothers with Mason and Logan Kade."

He grinned. "Yeah, right. Wouldn't that be a joke?"

I didn't know what else to say and Adam fell into a quiet slump. We were both like that, dazing off into our thoughts when Becky rushed outside. She had changed into khaki shorts and a loose top. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail and she had a small amount of make-up on. Her eyelashes were black and long. I'd never seen her dressed how she was, even when we went to the party.

She looked nice and I cast a look at Adam underneath my eyelids. Did he think so? But he stood up and shot forward to his car. Her shoulders dropped an inch and the corners of her mouth turned down, but then she flashed me a bright smile.

"Do I look okay?" She touched the ends of her hair and patted them into place. They already were, but she kept pressing them down.

"You look good." And I meant it.

She cast me a furtive glance. "Not like you. You look great, like always."

I frowned.

"How was your date?" She put the chirpy note back in her voice and fell in line beside me as we followed where Adam had gone to his car. He waited for us, not within hearing distance.

I hesitated. Now I wasn't being the nice friend.

"Come on." She nudged me with her shoulder. "I really want to know."

"Becky." I grabbed her arm and held her back. "You like him."

Her mouth twisted, but she gave me a smile after. "It doesn't matter. He doesn't like me, not like that."

"He could."

"No, he couldn't. He practically drools any time you enter a room. He's always had a thing for you."

"What are you talking about?"

"Even before last year, he was interested. You were dating Jeff, though, so he asked Ashley out."

"Are you serious?"

"Yeah, duh." She rolled her eyes, but frowned when she saw that I was biting my lip. "You didn't know? Really?"

I shook my head. "I didn't know that Jess had been sleeping with Jeff for two years. How was I supposed to know this?"

"Oh. Well." Her shoulders lifted and dropped in a dramatic way. "You got your chance now."

Except I didn't and I didn't want it. Then I remembered last night when Mason touched me, how his fingers lingered on my thigh. I shivered as the same desire swept through me again.

Not good. None of this was good.

"Are you two coming or what?" Adam called us over.

"Yeah!" Becky shouted back and dragged me after with a forced excited look in her eyes. She tried to sit in the back, but I made her sit in the front.

As we went to the theatre I slumped in the back of the car and was quiet on the drive over. Both tried to pull me into the conversation, but admitted defeat when we got closer to the mall. I listened to them talking when we got our tickets and took our seats.

Their conversation wasn't forced. There was no taunting, strained silences, or fakeness. They sounded like two friends who'd known each other all their lives and then I realized that they had known each other all their lives. They were neighbors. Their parents were friends.

I made the decision then that I'd try to be the friend for Becky that she seemed to be for everyone else.

I sighed. If only I knew how.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"We get out of practice early tonight. Your da—David's got something, I guess." Adam dropped a shoulder against the locker beside mine when I arrived the next morning to school. He folded his arms and his backpack's straps cut into the muscles on his arms and chest.

That annoyed me for some reason and I opened my locker to stuff the bag lunch Mousteff had shoved at me that morning. He had muttered, like he always did, but this time I was certain I'd heard a few curse words. And I was certain they were directed at me, well, me or my mother. Then I relaxed as I considered that. He was probably pissed about my mom again. That made more sense.

Adam had been watching me with an odd look. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I bit out. I forced myself to relax. Sometimes being mean right off the bat wasn't good. And Adam had started to be one of the two people still there for me after my debacle with Jeff/Lydia/Jessica.

And speaking of, as I turned to Adam, I saw my two ex best friends at Jill Flatten's locker across the hall. All three of them were watching me with frowns on their faces. When they saw me, Jill giggled and leaned closer to the two. She whispered something and both of them started laughing.

Jeff stopped beside them, saw me, saw the exchange, and kept going.

Adam chuckled. "I think he's finally learning."

I rolled my eyes and started towards my first class. When Adam walked with me, I asked, "So what about you getting out of practice early?"

"I was thinking we could try that dinner again."

I saw Becky at her locker ahead. She dropped her bag. Books and papers fell out of it and she knelt beside and lurched to grab everything before people kicked her things away. A few laughed and did what she tried to prevent, but one other girl helped her gather her stuff.

I sighed. "I can't."

"Why not?" Then he saw where I'd been watching. He stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. "Becky and I are never going to date. We had a heart to heart last night after the movies."

"You did?"

"Yeah." He nodded. His eyes skirted over my face, scanning me constantly as if he were looking for something. "She's really okay with you and me…" He hesitated. "Getting to know one another?"

I smirked. "And do I get a say in this?"

"Well, yeah, of course." But his cheeks got red, just a bit, and he scratched the back of his head. "So do you want to have dinner tonight? I was thinking you could even eat the food this time."