I nod, pulling my head out of my ass.

Did I just ask this guy if he’s real?

Dude, I smoked way too much this morning.

“Good morning, Mr. Hathingford,” the secretary greets him with what can only be described as a somewhat tolerant, somewhat amused look. Still, the look lets me know this pretty guy is totally real. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of your presence today?”

He rests his arms on the counter and gives her the same charming smile he tried to dazzle me with. “Now, what’d be the fun in just telling you? Let’s make a game out of it. I’ll give you three tries to guess, and if you guess wrong, I get to walk out of here, free and clear.”

I glance at the secretary, expecting her to get annoyed. Instead, she shakes her head and cracks a small smile. “I’m not going to guess, because I already know. And I’ll give you the pass for today. This is the last time, though. I swear, the next time you come and ask me for one, I’m going to give you a detention slip instead.” Then she pushes back from the desk, stands up, and walks off toward the back of the room.

Grinning, the guy leans over the counter, steals a sucker out of a bin on her desk, and then pops it into his mouth.

Okay, I guess it’s going to take a while to get my schedule.

I start to lift my earbud toward my ear, preparing to go back to my Zen state, when the guy smiles at me.

“So, girl who’s most definitely real, are you new here?” he asks, rolling the sucker in his mouth. “I haven’t seen you around.”

I could just answer him—it’d be the polite thing to do. I could try to be nice and see if I can make a friend, but that’d be pretty naïve of me. And while I may be a lot of things, I’m not polite nor naïve. So, I let out a quiet sigh and lower my earbud. “Do I really need to answer that?”

Amusement sparkles in his eyes as he angles his head to the side in confusion. “Yeah … Why wouldn’t you? I mean, I did answer you when you asked me if I was real.”

True, but still…

I cross my arms on top of the counter. “Yeah, but this school has a total of what? Like two hundred people? So I’m pretty confident you know you’ve never seen me around before and already know I’m new.”

His confusion fades, amusement taking over. He pulls the sucker out of his mouth. “That’s an excellent point.” He gives a glance around before leaning toward me. “Want to know a little secret? I really did know you are new. I was just trying to find an opening to start a conversation with you.”

I struggle not to smile. “As flattered as I am, I can totally assure you that, come lunchtime, you’re going to pretend like I’m invisible.”