My feet froze as I watched Gigi plop herself down right on Axel’s lap. She grabbed both sides of his perfect face and kissed him right on the mouth.

Sophie gasped.

I closed my eyes and turned away from them. I could feel tears pooling in the corners of my eyes. Of all the people Gigi could have kissed. Why did it have to be him? Why did she have to torture me? It felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Or like someone had stabbed my heart with a knife. Yeah, I was definitely going to be sick.

Liam walked up next to me. “Rough day?”

I sniffed. “What? No, everything’s fine.” I blinked away my tears before they could fall. I was not going to break down in the middle of the cafeteria in front of my little brother.

He lowered his eyebrows as he looked at me. “Want to sit with my friends instead of with those guys?”

Friends plural? He’d been going to this school all of five minutes. How did he already have a huge group of friends to sit with? I was supposed to be the one offering to let him sit with my friends. Not the other way around.

“She’s gone,” Sophie said with a slow exhale. “So much for phase three. You can’t sit on Jacob’s lap now. It’ll just seem like you’re mimicking Gigi and you’ll look so desperate.”

I felt desperate. But I wasn’t going to sit on Jacob’s lap. I wasn’t sure I was ever going to go through with that. But I also wasn’t going to cower either. “It’s fine, really,” I said. “We’re just friends.” The words felt like acid in my throat. “And we should sit with our friends.”

“We’ll sit with you too then,” Liam said. He gestured RJ over from their own table full of new friends.

“Savage,” RJ said as he joined us. “Right in front of you.” He shook his head.

“What?”

“You’re in love with Axel,” he said. “And Gigi just kiss-raped him.”

“Does everyone know I like him?”

RJ shrugged. “I guess everyone but him.”

Great. My little brother and cousin even knew how pathetic I was. And probably the whole school. Everyone but Axel. But was it everyone but Axel? Because I was pretty sure he knew it too. And he didn’t care. God, I felt like such an idiot. I’d never stood a chance at turning his head.