I suppressed my sigh as I studied my best friend's transformation into her own personal version of a Barbie doll. Her dirty blonde hair was now platinum blonde. She was wearing makeup and her cute clothes were more stylish than anything I had ever seen her wear before.

The two of us lived in loose t-shirts and comfortable jeans, so her form-fitting tee and skinny jeans altered her appearance enough for people to notice. It wasn't blatantly obvious that she was trying to improve her sex appeal, but it was clear to me. The shirt that clung to her was a dark gray, but that subdued color was somehow enticing to the eye.

I had to admit that she looked good, but I didn't like the reason for the change in her appearance. The look in her eyes alerted me to his presence before he entered my view. I resisted the urge to turn around and look until Skylar shocked me by calling out to him.

"Hi, Cade," she said in a breathy, girly tone.

I think the near breathlessness was caused by being nervous about speaking to him. She still managed to smile brightly at him. Despite my resolve to ignore him, I had to see his reaction to her. When I turned, he was standing there looking at her face. I had to give him credit for that, because his buddy was only interested in looking at her body. Cade, it appeared, made the effort to read people when he met them. It was something we had in common, but that didn't make me trust him. It just made him more of a threat than the usual narcissistic asshole.

"Hi," he responded with the beginning of a smile.

"I'm Skylar," she told him, "and, um, this is my friend, Lexie."

"Nice to meet you, Skylar," he replied before his gaze shifted to me.

I hated that she had used me to take some of the pressure off herself. It was only polite that she included me since I was standing right beside her, but I couldn't muster the pleasantness the situation required. Being formally introduced was ridiculous anyway since we had shared some classes with him last year. I'd had to listen to her talk about everything she noticed about him in the two classes she had with him. I hadn't mentioned the fact that he was also in one of my classes, because I didn't want to be questioned daily about what he might have done or said during that hour of the day.

She was completely obsessed with him and had been even before I met her last year when I was new at this school. She claimed to have been in love with him since he first arrived in the middle of freshman year after being kicked out of the prestigious prep school he had been attending. His father wanted to punish him by sending him to public school, but he had become the big man on campus with his looks and his wealth. He also apparently excelled in basketball and had led our team to victory ever since he had come onto the scene. His father was thrilled with how well his son had done in this new environment. He blamed his past mistakes on being part of the wrong crowd in his former school.

How I knew so much about his father's opinion was something I avoided thinking about. My only saving grace was that Cade either didn't know much about his father's girlfriend or didn't care. He hadn't shown anymore interest in me than I had in him, and I wanted to keep it that way. I hoped that my expression was neutral when I met his gaze.

"Hi," I said to get it over with and glanced across the hall at the girls watching Cade.

"It's nice to meet you, Lexie," he told me.

"Yeah," I replied while my gaze followed a couple walking past us, "you too." I wished that I could walk away too, but loyalty to Skylar held me there. She would be upset if I left her alone, although she constantly fantasized about being alone with Cade.

For some reason, he persisted in speaking to me. "You were in my Family and Consumer Sciences class last year."

"She was?" Skylar asked in surprise.

Damn, busted. I looked at her and saw her glancing from me to Cade. Ignoring him, I spoke to her. "It was just a stupid elective."

"What'd you get in it?" Cade questioned me.

Habit compelled me to look at the person I was talking to, so I looked at him. He was observing me, and I knew that he was trying to read me. "I passed it," I answered him and shrugged casually, conveying that it wasn't important.

"I got an A," he told me, still watching me closely.

I refrained from rolling my eyes at his bragging about his grade in such an easy class. "That's good," I replied and looked away from him again.

"So, Cade, how was your summer?" Skylar worked up the courage to ask him.

"It was alright," he said. "My mom made me go to Italy with her, but I got out of going on vacation with my dad."

That was how spoiled he was, that he would actually complain about getting to go to Italy. I also knew that the vacation he "got out" of going on had been to Hawaii. The ingrate gave no thought to how fortunate he was to have everything that he had in life. Some people could only dream of the extravagant vacations he didn't even appreciate.

My dislike of him was growing more acute with every minute I spent in his presence. I was never so glad to hear the warning bell ring, and I perked up at the sound. Now I could actually smile when I knew that I was about to be rid him. "Okay," I said in satisfaction and moved a couple of steps away as I waited for Skylar.

She hesitated to leave the spot where she had gotten Cade's attention. "So, uh, maybe see you in class."

"And lunch," he added. "You didn't get to tell me about your summer yet. We'll talk then."

I had been watching Skylar's flustered attempt to establish a tenuous connection to him, but my gaze flew to Cade at his promise of speaking with her at lunch. He was watching me again, and his challenging expression almost made it seem like he had done it to cross me. I scowled at him before I realized that my thinking was almost as self-important as his. It was ridiculous to think that this had anything to do with me. Skylar had obviously succeeded in attracting him into wanting to get to know her better.

"Oh," she breathed, "yeah."

"See you, Sky," he said in parting.

I smirked, because I knew that she hated when people shortened her name.

"See you, Lexie," he continued, drawing my attention back to him. He was smirking too, and it wiped the smile from my face.

He then turned and sauntered away with his buddy, whose existence I had forgotten about until now. I had to endure Skylar's excitement over her encounter with Cade for the duration of our walk to our first class, which we had together. Once we were inside the classroom, she was too nervous about someone overhearing her to continue talking about it.

I was only half-listening anyway, because I was trying to figure out a way to discourage her from starting anything with him. It had been only a harmless crush before, but now I was worried that she'd get her heart broken just like I had. She didn't know about that, and I was considering if telling her would make any difference. She would probably just argue that Cade and Lucas were two different guys, but I knew that they were exactly the same type of guys.

My opinion of Cade didn't change during lunch. Skylar didn't appear to have calmed down at all since this morning, and she seemed to be even more nervous as we walked toward the cafeteria. She breathlessly told me that she had one class with him so far before anxiously asking me what she should say to him about her summer.

"Tell him about it," I advised her unhelpfully.

"But all I did was laze around and go to the pool," she fretted.

I gritted my teeth in irritation. We had been waiting the entire past school year for the lazy days of summer. "And get a makeover," I remarked instead of commenting on what she had said.

"Yeah," she agreed hesitantly. "I wanted to do something different this year. I knew you wouldn't…I mean, did you want to get one too?"

"No," I stated. "You shouldn't have to change yourself for a guy to get him to like you."

She regarded me with a hurt expression. "There's nothing wrong with trying to look better. It's not just for a guy. It makes you feel good when you look good."

I could have taken her words as an insult implying that I didn't look good, but I remembered going down this same road before, and I recalled how nice it was to feel pretty. I didn't want to spoil that feeling for her, so I told her that I liked her new look. She smiled at me, and I didn't get a chance to say anything else before we entered the cafeteria.

Cade approached her almost immediately, and he had somehow already gotten his food. "Come sit with me after you get your food," he invited her.

Skylar was a good enough friend to be torn, and I pounced on that. "You're not sitting with me?" I whined. I wasn't above appearing pathetic, and I was hoping that having an annoying best friend would make her less attractive to him.

"Did you want to sit with us?" she asked him, her loyalty to me winning out over her desire to sit at his table.

"Bring her too," he told her.

"Okay," she agreed shyly, reverting to her pre-makeover self-consciousness.

When her gaze dropped to the ground, he shot me a triumphant look. "I'll be over there," he pointed out before I could respond.

Skylar was filled with adoration for him while I was fuming that he had seen right through my ploy to get in his way. Was I really so easy to read? Skylar had fallen for my fake whining, so why hadn't he? It was because he put on a false demeanor himself, I decided. He pretended to be nice and charming, but he was a selfish narcissist beneath the fake exterior. This was all just a game to him, and it was one I had seen played before.

If I had thought that my day couldn't get any worse than having to sit through lunch with Cade and finding out that I had two classes with him afterwards, him showing up where I worked proved me wrong. It wasn't the first time he'd been there, but it was the first time he'd paid more than cursory attention to me.

"Your order will be right up," I told him when he pulled up to my drive thru window.

"What was with the death glare today?" he asked me without preamble.

I again spoke to him in my polite customer service voice. "It'll be just another minute on your fries."

"Do you have a problem with me?" he demanded.

"No sir," I replied, "there is no problem."

I felt his cold scrutiny as I turned away to pour his drink and snap the lid on the cup. Neither one of us said anything as I handed him his drink and straw. When I gave him the bag containing his food, I told him to have a nice day.

"It's almost night," he told me.

"Have a nice night then," I said.

"Why don't you help me with that?" he enquired.

"Excuse me?" I questioned in confusion at his odd query.

"Help me have a good night," he stated.

I was starting to understand what he was implying, but it was said in such a neutral tone without any hint of flirting or suggestiveness that it continued to confuse me. I just stared at him without knowing how to respond.

"You're mad I picked her," he said. "You wanted it to be you, but you don't have to be jealous. You can be with me too. She doesn't have to know."

That outrageous statement was spoken with some kindness in his voice, like he was doing me a favor. "Never, ever," I began to sputter, "would I want you. You're scum! You—"

"Lexie!" my coworker exclaimed as she rushed over. "I'm so sorry," she apologized to Cade. "If there is a problem with your order—"

"No," Cade interrupted her cheerily. "There's no problem. You ladies have a nice night."

Her plastered on smile slid off her face as he drove away, but she didn't have a chance to question me since another customer pulled up to the window. After the evening rush, I explained to her that it was a guy from school and that we joked around like that all the time.

"Well you can't do that here," she admonished me. "If Jim heard you, you'd be fired on the spot."

The day from hell wasn't over yet, because my mom had an announcement when I got home from work.

"Robert asked me to marry him," she beamed at me.

I simply stared at her in shock.

"Of course I said yes," she continued happily. "He's invited us over for dinner tomorrow. You and Cade should start getting to know each other. I know you said you already know him from school, but you should spend more time together since he's going to be your brother."

Oh hell no! This could not be my life.

Notes:

Yep, another story. I don't have inspiration right now to work on my other ones. I'm going to be tinkering with these chapters, because I want to flesh them out more. I wanted to put this up in the meantime.