“You’re the basketball player, right?”

Thomas nodded as five guys stared at him. Not in a dismissive way or even a judgmental way but more curious, sorta like they were watching a commercial on television.

Kinda noticing it and kinda not.

“I told you about him, man,” Juan said to Carlos. “He’s the guy that schooled West on the court, the one who got the bloody nose.”

“West hit you?” Carlos asked him.

“Is that Vic’s last name?”

“Yeah.”

“Then yeah, he landed one.”

Carlos said what appeared to be a curse word in Spanish and then nodded for Thomas to sit down. He felt a bit awkward sitting in the middle of all these guys, but then again he always felt awkward. It was nice to have people asking him to sit with them.

Everything changed, of course, when the group of girls walked up to their table and stopped.

It was Julia, a dark-skinned senior who looked like a model, especially on days when she wore short skirts, like today. There was another senior that Thomas thought was named Alexis but he wasn’t sure, and then Cass stood in the middle.

The guys called out to Julia and remarked on her outfit. Thomas couldn’t help blushing, glad nobody was really paying him any attention.

Then he noticed Cass looking at him longer than a millisecond.

“You’re the new guy, right?” she asked him as the others talked back and forth.

He nodded.

And I’ve been new for a whole year.

“Where are you from again?”

She was confident and friendly.

And beautiful.

“Georgia.”

Her eyes were even bluer this close up. They reminded him of that song “Blue and Bluer.” They just kept getting bluer the more he looked at her.

“And why’d you move to Greer, then?”

To find my wife and settle down, a silly voice in his head said.

“My mom. Changed work.”

And that was it. That was all. The conversation switched, the guys kept teasing—or harassing, depending on how one looked at it—Julia about her little skirt, and then the girls left.

Now, a day later, Carlos was telling Thomas what he’d heard, even though Thomas thought this was a cruel joke.

“She’s a junior who looks like a junior in college,” Thomas said, more to remind himself than to remind Carlos.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s obvious she thinks you’re cute.”

“No it isn’t.” It couldn’t be. There was no possible way.

Carlos talked with his mouth full as he shrugged his massive shoulders. “She said it. She said those words. What else can that mean?”

“She probably says that about everybody.”

“Cass ignores most of the boys around here. She’s a cheerleader, so that’s why she’s nice to us. She has to be.”

Thomas still didn’t believe it. There had to be some logical explanation.

“It’s because I’m new,” Thomas said. “It’s because she thinks there’s more to me than meets the eye.”

“Okay.” It was obvious that Carlos didn’t really care if Cass did indeed like Thomas. He’d just mentioned it because he thought it was funny. Some kind of joke. “So, then, go with it. Pretend like there’s more to you.”