Mr. Halifax closed the binder. “So how about you split up in...” his voice trailed off and he looked behind me. “Yes, Mr. Stevens?”

I looked over my shoulder. What was Axel doing? He literally never raised his hand in class.

Axel ignored me as he stared at Mr. Halifax. “Uncle James always just breaks it down into pairs with how we’re sitting. Like me and Scarlett. Then the two people behind us in our row are together. And so on.”

What? This was the first project we had in my dad’s class. And I was 100% sure my dad would not split it up that way. Because my dad didn’t really like Axel. My dad probably wouldn’t have paired me with Jacob either though. He probably would have paired me up with Soph.

“Uncle James?” Mr. Halifax asked. “I didn’t realize you were related to him too.”

“Yeah, we’re practically related,” Axel said.

I shook my head. Right. Axel thought of me like his little sister. Practically related. For years all I’d done was love him. And all he’d seen was a naïve little sister. Screw him.

“Practically?” asked Mr. Halifax.

“Jacob and Axel are both friends of the family,” Sophie clarified. “They’re basically our cousins.”

Gah, stop it! She was giving plausibility to Axel’s outlandish claim about how my dad wanted to split us into groups.

“Okay, well, great,” said Mr. Halifax. “Break up in pairs like that.”

Damn it!

“You’re supposed to have a basic concept for your videogame picked out by Friday. So go ahead and start brainstorming.”

Sophie spun around to look at Jacob. “I guess that means we’re paired up. Is Mr. Halifax looking over? Does he seem jealous?”

Jacob laughed. “No, he’s not looking. And why would he be jealous of you pairing up with me? You just told him that we’re basically cousins.”

“Crap. I shouldn’t have done that.” She sighed. “But it’s fine. Pavel will make up for it in a few minutes.”

Axel tapped on my shoulder.

I couldn’t even look at him. I was annoyed at him for ignoring me for days until today. And now I was annoyed that he was giving me any attention at all. It just seemed like he enjoyed messing with my head. And my head was already messed up enough.

“What were you thinking for our concept?” he asked.

I sighed and spun around. “I wasn’t thinking anything. I’m going to get my dad to change my partner.”

Axel raised his eyebrow. “I don’t think your dad’s allowed to give you special treatment.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. “I don’t understand what you want from me.”

“We had a deal.”

God, him and this stupid deal. “Which you broke too.”