Chapter 7

The second class was pretty boring. I doodled in my notebook all through it. I didn't even pay attention to the teacher—he would repeat everything in the next one anyway.

I found myself drawing real things after a little while, actual figures and landscapes. I should start drawing again, I thought. I hadn't drawn since my mom left. I would draw after school today I settled.

At lunch time, I looked around the cafeteria, my tray in my hands, trying to decide where to sit.

This could get tricky. I was a generally well-liked person—that meant I had many options when it came to pick my seat for lunch. When Vanessa was still here, I would always sit with her and her singing friends, but she wasn't here anymore.

Now, I usually sat with Daphnee—she was still gone though—and Alex but he was always with the sport guys and that included Blake and I sure as hell didn't want to talk to Blake today. Or even again.

"Lexi get your pretty little ass over here," Alex called out.

Damn! Well I could always ignore him.

"Lexi!" he yelled again.

"Why so pushy," I asked him when I reached his table.

Blake wasn't there. Good.

"We're planning on riding to the Dump Creek this weekend. Want to come?" Alex inquired, totally ignoring my question.

I rolled with it, and shrugged, taking the seat beside his. "Sure. What's the plan?"

The Dump Creek was a kind of lake that we had stumbled on one time when we were riding our dirt bikes—well the boys were, I was just trying to keep up—in a near forest and that was absolutely breathtaking. At first, we thought it was some kind of old dump filled with water, but we did some research later, to know if we could go swim in it, and we found that it used to be an old sand pit that had filled with water and it was in no way dangerous to our health. The whole dump thing had still stuck to it though.

Now, it looked pretty nice. We had built a deck and brought a few picnic tables. The only problem was we had to get there either on our bikes or with cars that could handle the pretty intense dirt road as in Alex's Jeep.

"Well, the weather is only going to go downhill after this weekend so we're planning on driving there Saturday afternoon and stay there—we might set up some tents—but we're totally doing a barbecue," he explained to me and all the guys were already mouth-watering over the near feast.

"Sounds good," I nodded, and started to roll around the spaghetti in my plate. "What are the driving arrangements?"

"Well that's what we're planning now. Connor's taking Justin, Fred and Peter. Dwayne's bringing Janna, Mark and Catherine. If Jimmy can get his dad's car he'll bring the twins and Davis. Clark and Shawn might tag along if they aren't too hung over. Now if Jimmy can't get everyone I'll bring them with me and of course you but it'll be tight and we were planning on putting the barbecue in my car."

"Is that everyone?" I asked. Please don't say Blake, please don't say Blake, pleaaase don't say Blake.

Alex shrugged. "You can always invite your brother and his friends but they've got to find a way to reach the Creek on their own."

"And no whiny girls!" Davis suddenly interjected. "Don't take this the wrong way Lexi but I don't want to hear complaints about the bugs every five seconds."

"Have I ever brought whiny girls?" I asked him teasingly.

"Well Vanessa used to be whiny but we didn't complain because she's hot," one of the twins, Trevor, said and every guy nodded around, even Dwayne and Mark who had their girlfriends sitting right beside them and Fred who I was sure I saw make a small move with his head on his arms.

I rolled my eyes at all of them.

"What are you guys talking about?" a voice behind me asked. Blake's. Damn.

"Planning our trip to the Dump Creek," Justin replied.

As Blake sat beside me—come on—he asked, faking an offended tone, "You aren't inviting me?"

I sighed heavily and raised my head, staring at the ceiling, shaking it in disbelief.

"Didn't you say you had that cocktail party with your mom's coworkers or something and you were planning on doing as much sexy daughters as you could?" Shawn asked.

"I was supposed to, but Claudia's going to be there and Josh told me she's planning on making my life miserable if I show up." Hmm, I think I like that girl!

"And by making your life miserable she means fucking you until your balls are on fire," Clark said and grinned. I don't like her so much anymore...

And I was definitely not staying there, while Blake talked about his sex-life right beside me. I got up from my seat, grabbing my tray.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Alex asked, frowning.

I smiled sweetly, "To eat somewhere else."

He seemed completely mystified by this. "Why?"

"I don't know? I just don't feel like talking about Blake balls today," I replied, pretty sarcastically, and turned around.

"You want to talk about other parts of my anatomy? Or maybe yours?" Blake said and I looked back, to glare at his smirking face.

All I wanted right now was to throw my tray in his face. Or hit him with it real hard. I didn't get it. Usually I took that kind of joke pretty well—I'd normally reply with a sarcastic comment. But for some reason, I just couldn't stand Blake. From him it just felt more out of place.

"You know what? I think you've annoyed me enough for an entire millennium, so why don't you just give it a rest?"

"But that would be such a shame—we are just getting started. You still owe me a whole lot HoneyBun," he said and wiggled his eyebrows. If it wasn't for the fact that I had just frozen a little bit because of what he had just said I would have punched him in the guts for calling me HoneyBun. Seriously, what was wrong with that dude?

Clearly, I wasn't the only one kind of surprised by his statement seeing pretty much every guy at the table either chocked on their food, let it drop or spit it out. And their eyes were bulging.

"She's your next target?" Connor yelled and he looked pissed.

So did Justin and Davis and Peter and Jimmy and the twins.

One of the perks of spending time and being friends with so many guys was that they all had that alpha male WE MUST DEFEND OUR FEMALES thing working for them at some point in our friendship. Sure, Fred was still being a vegetable, and Dwayne was too caught up with eating his girlfriend's face to notice, but the rest all seemed to want to protect poor little me.

Of course, not all males were decent. That was why Clark and Shawn were high-fiving Blake. The idiot was clearly enjoying himself.

"Seriously dude, that's not cool. Lexi's a decent girl and she really shouldn't be caught into another of your stupid little games. You're an ass," Cameron, the other twin said.

"I thought it was an unspoken rule—don't mess with Lexi or she'll neuter you," his brother Trevor added.

"The rule goes more like, don't mess with Lexi or we'll neuter you," Cameron spoke through tense jaws.

"Aw, stop making such a big deal out of this. I won't do anything that involves her taking her clothes off," Blake said, exasperated.

Well, that was a nice thing to know, though, with that boy, it still didn't rule out everything sexually related.

"You better otherwise we'll give your phone number to Clara, you know the girl who owed you and that you ditch in the middle of a dirt road with only her underwear on," Trevor warned.

Aw, the twins. My knights without the shining armour. Those two boys were in a big family and had many younger sisters. They couldn't really help being protective. That was probably one of the many reasons why I liked hanging out with them. That and their straight forward honesty.

Speaking of honesty. "Huh, guys, do I screw up your names a lot?" I asked all the boys at the table.

"What do you mean?" Peter asked.

"She thought my name was Drake," Blake said, frowning.

I rolled my eyes and turned, staring at Blake. "Oh would you please stop making everything about you."

"Well, you did use to call me Austin," Justin pitched in.

"And you called me Timmy," Jimmy added.

Trevor on the other hand said, "You never confused us," motioning between him and his brother.

"That's because you have a freckle beside your left eyebrow and Cameron doesn't," I explained and every guy looked at the twins intently.

"What did you know? I never noticed that," Connor exclaimed, like this was a huge revelation.

"Yeah the only way we use to separate them is when we take our shower after practice," Shawn trailed.

I covered my ears, closed my eyes and shook my head. "Alright! I don't need to know!"

When I opened my eyes, all the boys were laughing. Boys.

Still, this revelation was kind of shocking. "Why didn't you guys tell me," I pressed again.

"That Trevor has a smaller wiener than Cameron?" Clark asked innocently. Really. Really? Stupid boys.

Clark was rewarded with a punch in the stomach by Trevor.

"I really didn't need to know that," I told Clark even though he wasn't listening to me, he was just groaning in pain. Serves him right. "But really, why didn't you tell me about the name thing? Just today I called Luke, Duke, and he just smiled at me!"

"That's because he as a crush on you," Mark informed me.

"What's that have to do with anything?" I asked a little taken aback by this weird turn of event.

"He's not going to point it out because he doesn't want to say you did something wrong. And it's kind of nice for him, makes him feel like you've got a special little name for him. Guys usually don't point it out," Mark explained.

No, that didn't make sense. "He pointed out," I said and slapped Blake at the back of his head.

Blake glared at me.

"Well, he clearly doesn't have a crush on you," Clark retorted, snorting and Blake slapped the back of my head.

"Bitch!" I squealed and stared at him.

Glaring contest!

After a little while, Blake just rolled his eyes and grabbed his Gatorade. Yay me! I won!

And then I turned to the guys. "But, I mean, I know your name Justin! And yours too Jimmy. When did I stop screwing up your names?"

"After talking a lot with you and having people use the right name. I guess it just clicked unconsciously in your brain. Like with Luke. How does every one call him?" Jimmy asked me.

"Spiderman," I said and rolled my eyes.

There was a story behind that name. He got it after a real awful party. Some guy caught him in the bathroom, with a girl and he was wearing a Spider-Man mask. There were few other details but it was probably better to just skip them.

"Exactly! No one uses his name and you never got to know it wasn't Duke and he never points it out," Jimmy continued.

"Okay, seriously, you've got to tell me next time I do that!"

"No worries," Justin answered and smiled.

Blake sighed dramatically, "Well enough with this little chitchat! Am I invited?"

Oh no, not that...

"Sure. Got a car?" Connor asked.

Blake thought about it for a second. "My Escalade won't work, but I can always come out with something."

"We got plenty of room in my car if Jimmy gets his dad's car," Alex offered.

He did not just offer that. Seriously I was changing best friend, Alex sucked!

"Great," Blake answered and took a mouthful of his spaghetti just before giving me a big smirk, like he could just read my mind and knew how much this bothered me.

That was it. I had enough.

Without even thinking about the consequences, I grabbed Blake by the back of his head and pushed his face in his plate. I did it so fast that he didn't get the time to react.

"Oh no you didn't," Dwayne yelled and laughed at the same time snapping his fingers and doing the little hip move.

All the guys burst into laughter, I even saw Fred move his shoulder a bit in what seemed like a snicker.

But that wasn't what I should be focusing on, what I should have been focusing on was Blake getting up in one fast move, his face full of spaghetti sauce, glaring at me while wiping it off with his forearm.

"You're in big, big trouble Grayson," he said his voice low and menacing, but I could hear a little playfulness in it.

"Surprise me, Eaton." I answered.

Hey, what was I supposed to say? I was already in deep shit after all.