As I sat down at the lunch table, Gaby grabbed my arm and hauled me to the far end of our table. I had to snap my feet up to avoid banging them on the supports underneath.

"Ow, what the hell, Gabs?" I asked as Toby gave my tray a shove to reunite it with me.

"Trouble."

Gaby glared at me with what looked like actual concern through her mask of Scene Kid dark eye makeup. She motioned with her eyes as Sally the clarinet player sat down across from Toby and Harv. The two boys looked at this invasion with identical looks of "deer caught in the headlights" and then returned to shoveling food into their maws.

"Hi Sally," I offered, my voice soaring up into the quizzical range on her name.

Gaby stood and dragged me off the bench, then marched me to the nearest corner.

"Do not engage!" Gaby muttered. She pulled out some black eyeliner, grabbed my chin, and started drawing what felt like cat eyeliner on me.

"What is that all about?" I whispered.

"Blame your cheer 'ho friends. And don't move, or I'll mess up."

Kaiden showed up as Gaby started on eye #2. He plopped his tray next to Sally's, and after a short round of greetings, started gobbling his food at record speed.

"Quit goofing off over there, Mator. You know I want you to quiz me before I do my mid-term!" He called out in between bites of fish stick.

"I'll do it," Toby said. He flashed another hunted look in Sally's general direction. "Give me your study guide. I'll quiz you while you eat."

Around us, the lunchtime buzz seemed louder than usual. Thanksgiving break was next week, and mid-terms had everybody on edge. Overhead, orange and brown bunting with random turkeys and Pilgrims swayed in the draft kicked up by the cafeteria door opening and closing. Finally, Gaby released my head.

"Better," she said grudgingly, then stowed her makeup bag and let me return to my peanut butter and pickle relish.

"Oh, Kaiden. You're so smart. I don't think you even need to study for mid-terms," Sally said as she slid in closer to him.

"Yeah, well, babe, the reason I'm smart is because I study a lot," he said as he draped an arm around her waist in a move that looked utterly familiar on both of them. Evidently, they'd been snuggling a lot recently.

I froze in mid-bite, peanut butter oozing between my teeth as Kaiden flashed me an unreadable look over the top of her cute little blonde head.

On the other side of me, Gaby hissed, "Whatever you're thinking, this is not worth getting suspended over. State School, remember?"

"Oh, I always remember," I muttered back after I swallowed my sandwich bite.

It went down hard and dry, sticking in my throat with the tears that I dared not cry. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Sally whispering something into Kaiden's ear. He laughed and hugged her a little tighter. I had to bail, had to get out of the cafeteria with its too much noise and too much heat and too many giggles coming from the other end of the table. Gaby's hand clamped down hard on mine, holding me in place. And then suddenly, Toby was where Gaby had been sitting, in some bit of switcheroo that I'd missed during my momentary lapse out of normal people reality.

"Kelsey, would you please do me the honor of attending the Winter Social with me?" Toby asked. His expression looked like he was volunteering for the firing squad. I looked across the table, unable to meet his eyes. Gaby was there, mouthing 'yes' at me. When I didn't say anything, she answered for me.

"Yes!"

And then Toby grabbed my head between the palms of his hands and kissed me, taking his time about it. It was the kiss that we were supposed to be doing in one of the crowd scenes in the Don Quixote musical, right down to the head grab. Only he'd always refused to actually kiss me, clowning around and making air kisses instead. This was long, soft, slow, and kinda...polite?

I looked away as soon as he let go and made accidental eye-contact with Kaiden, whose heavy brows were pulled into a fierce scowl.

"Well, well," Carly purred as she sauntered over with Sam, Trae, and Craig in tow. "Looks like somebody's got a new boyfriend."

Kaiden laughed, but it sounded forced and cynical. "Don't be a moron, Carly. They're rehearsing for the play."

"Yeah, if Kel was going to make out with anyone for real in the cafeteria, it would be with me," Gaby said.

She came round the table and hip-checked Toby out of the way, then sat down next to me, winding her arms around me like we were dating. Like Kaiden was doing with Sally the clarinet player. I felt my neck getting hot again at the thought of it. Gaby ran her nose up my neck and smirked when Carly and Sam let out a little shriek.

"Man. That is hot," Craig said, his mouth gaping.

"All right, All right," Mr. Coach Marks said, tweet-tweeting on his whistle as though he were refereeing a basketball game. "No public displays of affection on school property." He eyeballed Gaby and me nervously. This was supposedly an LGBTQ friendly campus, but so far nobody had put it to the test.

Kaiden scrambled to his feet and snagged his backpack. And mine. "I'll take care of it, Coach," he said. "Come on, Kelsey. Library. Studying. Now."

"But Kaiden, you haven't finished your lunch," Sally said in a petulant, nasal whine.

"Take care of our trays, will you Sal?" Kaiden replied.

At his brilliant smile and wink, Sally hurried to grab all the lunch trays. She smiled at Kaiden, flashing a mouthful of his mom's careful tooth-wiring, and threw a dark look my way as he stomped out of the lunchroom ahead of me. If I wanted to regain possession of my backpack, I'd have to follow. He led me not to the Library but to my favorite stairwell, deserted as always.

"What the hell, Kelsey?" he grumbled as soon as we were at the bottom and out of sight. He kicked at a pile of wrappers and leaves that had collected in the corner.

"What?" I glared at him in the gloom. "What did I do?"

"You were kissing Toby like you meant it, in front of the whole lunchroom," Kaiden replied, his wintry scowl back in place.

"So?" It came out less mature and more petulant than I'd hoped. A big gulp of mildew-scented stairwell air cleared my head, and then Kaiden un-cleared it with his next words.

"So, don't you have any care at all for your reputation? You're a nice girl, Kelsey, but you don't come from a very nice background."

"Oh, so you know about that, do you?"

He rolled his eyes and leaned one shoulder against the wall.

"And I'm to be judged by the sins of my mother, is that it?" I snapped, all my earlier hurt and petulance replaced with dark rage. "Why do you care who I date or who I kiss or how bad my reputation is? You're apparently dating Sally now."

"Jealousy doesn't become you," he muttered. "There are reasons."

"Aren't there always? Well, there were reasons why my mom was who she was, too. She kept a roof over our heads. She did what she had to." I stopped. I couldn't talk about this with him, not now. Maybe not ever.

"Look, Kel. Like I told you. My parents won't let me date. And the situation with Sally is complicated. But that doesn't give you the right to go all vixen on poor Toby."

"He. Kissed. Me!" I shouted, my voice echoing off of the stairwell walls.

"You didn't have to like it so much." His brows knitted back together and he studied me for a long moment. Then he pushed off the wall and started up the stairs as the first bell after lunch rang. "Come on. I have a hall pass for us to study in the library next period."

"Us? Since when is there an 'us'?" I put my hands on my hips and huffed. "And for your information, not that you deserve it, there was nothing to like! Toby's just a friend."

Dark smears of Gaby's eyeliner collected on my fingertips when I reached up to blot my eyes. I wiped my hands on my jeans with an impatient sigh. Kaiden came back down the stairs two at a time and grabbed my hand and hauled.

"Like I told you, Mator. There will always be an 'us'."