"You've been talking to Andre Walker this whole time?" Indy looked as shocked as I felt when LaterTofu told me his identity.

Not that I believed it was really Andre. After staying up for hours to read through every one of our messages, I couldn't find any clues to prove what he said.

He didn't mention football once. The game was Andre's entire personality. From what I've seen, at least. Honestly, I only knew gossip about him. My interactions with Andre were limited to the one time last year when I hit him with a door.

It was an accident and he wasn't injured. But Indy and Romeo teased me about it endlessly. Especially after the Valle Vista Bulldogs almost lost the playoffs that year. They tried to say I knocked the football out of him.

My limited knowledge about Andre Walker didn't matter, because I hadn't been talking to him. "No, I was talking to a scam artist that happened to know his way around Procreate."

We were in her mom's car on the way to school the next day. Indy had to pick me up because my mom had an early morning appointment with one of her clients.

"But what if it was?" she said, glancing at me with curiosity before turning back to the road. "What if you were really talking to Andre?"

I didn't even want to entertain the idea that he was really the person behind LaterTofu. "Well, I called him a big headed jock, so..."

Indy gasped, her jaw dropping. "You did not call him that!"

"I did," I admitted. "No, actually, I didn't because it wasn't Andre."

Indy was still giggling about my text exchange with LaterTofu as we walked into school together. She kept glancing at me and shaking her head like she was in on some inside joke I didn't know.

We went our separate ways once we made it to the quad. Indy usually hung out in the indoor cafeteria while I made my way to my usual spot.

Romeo and Keraun were watching some tennis players hit the ball back and forth on the other side of the fence. Their heads bobbed left and right along with the ball.

They hadn't noticed me, hypnotized by the game. I crept up behind Romeo, ready to attack, when suddenly, my back was pinned to Romeo's chest. The scent of lavender and mint practically suffocating me.

"How?" I demanded, as I struggled to get out of his grasp.

Romeo laughed, holding me tighter the more I struggled. "You're not as sneaky as you think you are."

"We heard you as soon as you turned the corner," Keraun added, looking apologetic at my failed attempt to scare them.

I let my shoulders fall, defeated. "I'll get you one day."

"Sure, you will," Romeo said, finally releasing me. The smile on his face warmed me.

He was in a way better mood than yesterday. He could hardly look at me before, even after he said he accepted my apology. Whatever was bothering him wasn't an issue now. I was glad to have my friend back.

The three of us continued to watch the tennis players. The neon green ball seemed even brighter against the gray morning sky. Then I realized we were missing someone.

"Where's Nia?' I asked, pulling out my phone to send her message.

"Doctor's appointment," Keraun informed me. He turned away from the tennis courts and sat on the curb.

I sat with him, wrapping my arms around my knees. "So, I'm stuck with you two all day?"

"I think you meant 'blessed with'." Romeo sat next to me, slinging his arm over my shoulders.

Keraun joined in. I ended up squished between them, complaining about being strangled, but smiling the whole time.

"Oh, my dad wants everyone to come over this weekend," Romeo told us. The two of them released me.

"Why?" Keraun asked, leaning his elbows on his knees.

"Pizza."

That one word made me gasp with excitement. "He finished building the pizza oven?"

Romeo nodded, his own face grinning. "Yeah, and he bought all this stuff for us to use so we can make our own pizzas."

Even though a regular oven can make a pizza just fine, it never tasted the same as pizza from restaurants. I was convinced it had something to do with restaurants having dedicated pizza ovens that added that yummy pizza flavor.

"Good," Keraun said, adjusting the glasses on his face. "Then I can have my spinach and mushroom without anyone complaining."

"Oh, no, I still fully intended on complaining," I promised. "I respect that you're vegetarian, but there have to be better options for you."

"Plain cheese is a better option than mushrooms," Romeo added, frowning like even the word left a bad taste in his mouth.

"I still don't believe mushrooms are edible," I said. "I think you're all lying about that."

Romeo leaned forward to get a better look at Keraun, who sat on the other side of me. "Seriously, all the pizza toppings on the planet and you choose mushrooms?"

While Romeo and I continued to let our friend know how horrible mushrooms were, Keraun gathered his things and walked away. He wasn't really upset. The bell was about to ring. Also, he flipped us off the more we shouted our hate for mushrooms at him.

Romeo pulled out his phone. "What are you doing?" I asked, leaning into him to read over his shoulder. He was drafting a text to Keraun, even though he was still visible from where we sat.

A few seconds after Romeo hit send on the message, Keraun turned to us. "Mushroom only had one 'U', dumbass!"

We looked down at the text. I snorted at Romeo's "Mushroum". "Please, stay in school."

"My hand slipped," he mumbled.

"Mhm. Sure. I totally believe that," I nodded with exaggeration.

Then I realized the opportunity that had presented itself to me. Romeo's phone was unlocked, loosely sitting in his hands. The HALLZ app was practically screaming at me to snatch his phone and find out his username once and for all.

All I needed was a distraction. My gaze landed on his hat. It was green like his sweatshirt. In one flick of my wrist, I knocked it off his head. While he turned to get his hat, I yanked the phone from his hands and ran.

At least I tried to. I underestimated Romeo's reflexes and ended up pinned between him and the chain-link fence. He caged me in with his arms.

His dark eyes seemed darker as he stared down at me and voice seemed deeper when he said, "What do you think you're doing?"

Over the years, I'd been in many close situations with Romeo. Hugging, sleeping on each other during long car rides. Last Friday, I threw myself in his lap. But this--trapping me against the fence with his intense gaze--it unearthed some feelings I thought I successfully buried back in eight grade.

My mouth went dry and I couldn't answer his question. Not when he was looking at me like that. Thankfully, I didn't have to answer him.

"Good morning, Daya, Jerome."

Romeo dropped his arms and turned to face Mrs. Ahmadi. I might've hated math, but she was my favorite teacher ever. Her timing was impeccable.

Raising his hand in a wave, Romeo greeted the woman. "Morning."

She smiled, giving me a knowing look before disappearing into her classroom. Mrs. Ahmadi was young, not even thirty yet, and she loved student drama. She admitted once to the class that she saw us like a teen drama she loved growing up called Degrassi.

The smirk on her face when she saw Romeo and me together made me wonder how obvious it was that I felt things.

Once she was in her classroom, Romeo looked at me and held out his hand. I dropped his phone in his palm. The screen was dark and he wasn't giving me his passcode anytime soon.

"Thief." He said, putting his phone in his pocket. "What were you going to do with it, anyway?"

Since my plan was ruined, there was no point in keeping it secret. "I wanted to know your HALLZ name."

His lips quirked up as he walked backwards. "So you're a thief and a cheater?"

"Why won't you tell me?"

He was full on laughing then. "You have to ask the question."

Him and his games. At that rate, I wasn't going to find out his username until our college graduation.

● ● ●

When lunch rolled around, my stomach was screaming at me to feed it. I found our usual table empty and claimed it, waiting for Romeo. Since Keruan had first lunch, it was usually just Romeo, Nia, and me. But Nia had a doctor's appointment and she'd probably talk her mom into letting her skip the whole day. That meant it'd only be me, Romeo, and those feelings that sprung up by the fence.

It was going to be fine. I just needed to bury the feeling again. Send them back to middle school where they belonged. They meant nothing. I had a million of crushes back then. Any guy who was nice to me, honestly. A guy let me borrow a pencil and I was ready to pick out baby names.

I was older now. I was less impulsive with my crushes and more in control of my feelings. Whatever I fell, or felt, for my best-non-blood-related-friend would evaporate and--

My inner ramblings were cutoff when someone sat at the table across from me. That someone was not Romeo.

"So, you're not interested in big headed jocks?"

Every single word I'd ever learned instantly deleted from my head. Like a deer in headlights, I just stared.

Andre Walker sat across from me. Talking to me. Repeating what I said in a message to a scammer. No, not a scammer. Andre freakin' Walker.

He smiled, amused by my inability to speak. "What, you don't have anything to say now?"

I swallowed down the urge to run away. "Sorry?"

"No, don't apologize," he said, a hint of laughter in his voice. "You said it, own it."

All the blood in my body rushed to my face. I hid behind my hands. Was this really happening? If I'd known I was messaging the real Andre Walker, I never would've said what I said.

"I had hell tracking you down, you know that?"

I pulled my hands from my face. He'd been looking for me?

"I didn't know Indy was your sister," he said, his eyes roaming my face. "You look nothing alike."

That was true. People said I was my mom's twin. Same light-brown skin and wide noses. Indy took after her own mom. Beautiful dark-skin and dimples. Most of our classmates didn't know we were related until we pointed it.

"Wait," I said, suddenly realizing something. "You talked to Indy?"

That explained why she was giggling on the drive to school. She knew the whole time exactly who LaterTofu was. I was going to kill her.

"It's crazy," he said then, "we have World History together and I didn't realize you were the same girl from the party."

"You were at the party, too?"

He seemed surprised I didn't know that already. Did he think I was like the other girls who watched his every movie? Even now, there were a couple of people staring and whispering.

"Yeah, I was." He rubbed his smooth chin, regarding me with curiosity. "What do you remember from the party?"

I shrugged, picking at my nail polish. "Everything. Mostly," I replied, following his hand as it rested on chin. "Dancing, drinking. Playing Seven Minutes in Heaven with a guy who smelled like--"

I stopped, clamping my mouth shut. His hand. The rings.

No. No. Nooo. He couldn't be both LaterTofu and the guy from the closet, could he? Then he laughed. I recognized that laugh. I remembered liking that laugh. It was him.

Indy's clues made sense. Andre was cute. We knew he looked good in a suit thanks to that wonderful rule that required athletes to dress up on game days. And he definitely didn't smell like an abandoned onion factory at the moment. 

"Hold up, smelled like what?" He leaned forward, waiting for my answer.

I didn't want to say it, not to his face. That'd be unnecessarily rude. "Nothing. Nevermind." The blue paint on the lunch table was chipped and so very fascinating. The table also didn't have light brown eyes that practically had smiles of their own. If I told him he smelled, he'd probably be embarrassed or mad or both.

"You gotta follow through," he said, ducking to meet my gaze. "You can't say something like that, then back out. What did he smell like?"

He wasn't going to let it go. And he asked for this, begged for it. I sighed. "He smelled like...someone who spent a lot of time dancing in a small room with a bunch of other people and little ventilation." The words came out rushed and winced when I finished, waiting for his reaction.

"Wow." I got nothing from his tone. An apology was at the tip of my tongue when he continued. "So, you're saying I was musty?"

If I cringed any harder, I was going to turn myself inside out. "If that's the word you want to use..."

Now, he hid his face, folding his arms on the table and burying his face in them. Was the Andre Walker embarrassed? It was almost endearing, knowing he wasn't as immune to basic human emotions as I thought.

I didn't mean to laugh, but once I started, I couldn't stop. He found it funny too, judging from his shaking shoulders. Either that, or he was sobbing.

"If it makes you feel better," I said once I sobered up, "you smell nice now."

He lifted his head then, his light eyes still glittering with amusement. "What else you got?"

I blinked. "What?"

"I'm big headed, I'm musty," he recounted on his fingers. "Got anything else to add?"

"Did you come over here to get bullied?" Why would someone want to hear about their worst qualities?

"That wasn't the plan, but since I'm here." He watched me, challenging me to say something else.

The entire interaction was strange. One of the most popular guys in school was begging me to insult him? There had to be a glitch in the simulation. What was even weirder was that I gave him want he wanted.

"You're rude."

"Rude?" His brow raised at the word, like he'd never heard it before.

I nodded. "I saw you cut the breakfast line yesterday."

He snickered at my accusation. "I was hungry."

"So was everyone else in the line."

"I was about to be late for weight training."

"You don't think the people you hopped in front of had places to be?"

He didn't have a comeback that time. "Okay, you're right."

"She usually is." I startled at Nia plopping down next to me with a bag of Wendy's. Romeo sat on the other side of the table next to Andre, a tray of school lunch in front of him.

Nia's eyebrows danced suggestively, her eyes filling with a million questions she was going to ask the second we were alone.

Andre was raising from the table as soon as my friends got settled in. "I should get lunch before they close the lines," he said, walking backwards from the table. His gaze lingered on me a little longer than necessary before he turned away.

Nia smacked my arm. "What the hell, Hartley?" She was full on giddy, stomping her feet and squealing. "Were you talking about what happened in the closet?"

My face burned as I fished my lunch from my bag. "No. Kind of. And no, I'm not telling you anything," I said before she started with her questions.

Nia pouted, putting her head on my shoulder and clinging to my arm. "But I had to go to the doctor today and they abused me with a needle!"

"And now I will abuse you with my silence." I took a bite of my turkey wrap and smirked at her.

"Evil." She pulled away from me. "I'm putting that in my speech for when you get married to Andre."

I nearly choked on my food. "You're delusional."

"No, you are if you didn't see the way that boy was looking at you," she said, then turned to Romeo. "Tell her, Rome."

He was being quiet again, poking at his spicy chicken sandwich. I almost forgot he was sitting there. "I don't know, Daya Walker sounds like the name of one of those creepy dolls that walks, talks, and pees itself."

I slit my eyes at him, then stole one of Nia's fries and threw it at him. He dodged it and grabbed a fry of his own to throw.

Nia shielded her food from me when I tried to grab more. "Hey," she shouted. "I will fight both of you if you keep playing with my food."

Romeo and I laughed at how serious she was about her Wendy's. We called a truce and went back to our individual lunches. Romeo told Nia about pizza making that weekend. While they talked, my eyes wandered the eating area. It wasn't hard to find Andre, especially when he was staring back at me.

He was in line for food with a couple of his friends. At the end of the line. When a girl came to stand behind him, he made a show of letting her go ahead of his group.

I fought back a smile and turned to my turkey wrap.