Going through the gates of Green Valley High, Hailey drove her truck as she had always done, parked as she had always done and turned off the engine, also as she'd always done. Everything she did was the same as she always did. Yet it didn't feel the same. Nothing felt the same.

Before she got out of the vehicle she realized why. There were a few kids hanging around outside the school or on their way in when Hailey drove in. Now it seemed every one of them had stopped to watch her ease into the parking lot. Literally everyone. It was not mocking stares with poorly concealed laughter as she had endured in that one nightmare where she had gone to school in her underwear. It wasn't even the nose-turned-up stares she'd experienced in another nightmare courtesy of the school 'royalties'. The stares were curious. Questioning. And she had no idea why they were staring.

It didn't feel the same...because it wasn't the same.

Hailey had grown used to being perpetually ignored by the greater part of the school populace so this was a new myriad of feelings she was experiencing having all eyes on her. As she stepped down from the truck and started what was to be the longest journey of her life, from the parking lot to the entrance, she found herself questioning if she was walking right.

Somehow she made it halfway to the doors but then she hesitated. She could only imagine what was waiting for her inside.

Cait would know, she acknowledged miserably. Where was Cait?

Hailey would have given an arm to find out why the entire population of Green Valley High suddenly found her interesting. It turned out that was exactly what she needed to give.

Before she could conquer her fears of the worst possible outcomes, an arm slipped into place right under hers and held tight with a peculiar fondness as another body appeared beside her.

Cait?  She turned hopefully.

Her hopes were dashed but in the best way possible because standing arm in arm with her, beaming mysteriously with a glimmer in her grey eyes was Ash.

"Nice to see you too, freckles."

"Ash. Hey! What are you...?"

"I figured you could use the support."

Hailey resumed walking, all but supported by Ash.

"You see it too? I don't get it. Why are they looking at me?"

"Really?" Her brow rose questioningly as if the answer was stark clear but the simple act had Hailey thinking unrelated thoughts and soon she was getting hot under the collar. "You can't think of any reason people are suddenly interested?"

She thought on it, stopping at the threshold.

"The only thing that I think of is..." Then it hit her. "Us."

"I knew the glasses weren't just a fashion statement."

"Actually glasses have nothing to do with intelli—"

"Missing the point, freckles," Ash reprimanded.

"Right." She got back on track. "But I haven't even told Cait yet. Did you tell people?"

Ash smiled almost pitifully.

"Honey, does last week Friday jog any memories?"

And then Hailey remembered. That was after the game when she had basically jumped Ash and sucked faces with her in front of the whole school and the girls from East High.

"Oh dear..."

"Mhm." Ash was still smiling that smile but now Hailey understood why.

"Wait...I hope you're not mad. I honestly didn't know this would happen."

Now Ash gave her a look akin to the one parents and old people gave cute innocent babies.

"This is high school, Hailey. News spreads like the proverbial wildfire around here. Everyone knows that Kira and Scott are doing it behind the bleachers before her bra is off." Hailey raised her brows at the mental image but if Ash noticed it she didn't show it. "But no, I'm not mad. What do I care? I'm used to it. You on the other hand are not, hence my presence here on this fine morning."

"Thank you." And she meant it. Her knees had basically turned to jelly before Ash came to her rescue. "So what do we do?"

"Well all eyes are on you, right?" She interlocked fingers with her and squeezed encouragingly. "Let's give them a show."

Together they strutted into the building like they were walking on air; at least Hailey felt that way just being next to the most incredible girl she had ever seen. She felt untouchable.

*****

"Explain to me how I had to learn that my best friend and Her Royal Yumminess got together through the gossip vine like a freaking commoner!"

"I think you mean 'through the grapevine', Cait—"

"That is not the point!"

They were at lunch and Cait was being an unforgiving b-word after half a day of silent treatment. Apparently part of her best friend privileges included the right to know before anyone else that Hailey was in a relationship.

"Cait..." Hailey began, yet another attempt to get Cait to listen.

"I can't even look at you right now." She stubbornly turned her head and folded her arms like an entitled daddy's girl.

"Look it didn't happen until noon yesterday, okay? Then we had dinner later that night. That's all there is to tell."

Cait's attention returned at the mention of dinner.

"Dinner? What dinner? You told me you were home sick. You lied to me."

"No, Cait, I did not lie to you. She came over last night and we had dinner at my house."

"Oh come on! Why didn't you tell me? That was worth sneaking out for."

"Yeah sure and your sick best friend was not?"

"You asked me not to. Forgive me for respecting your wishes."

Hailey was about to say something more to prolong the pointless argument long enough for Cait's short attention span to kick in when the universe sent her a better alternative.

"Hey, Cait," said alternative said as he appeared at their table seemingly out of nowhere. He turned to look at Hailey and smiled, "Hi, Hailey."

To say Hailey was taken aback would be the understatement of the day. He knew her name even though she was pretty sure this was the first time he had ever looked at her. And the same thing had been happening all day, from the moment she and Ash walked into the building. As expected people had stared and shared looks and side comments. Some had found reasons to speak to her then slink back into the nether realms from which they sprouted. It was attention she neither appreciated nor got used to. Even as she sat there, she was painfully aware of the stares from all around the hall.

"Hi, Person-I've-never-spoken-to-in-my-entire-life. How's it going?" She did not wait for a reply, instead returning to her now room temperature—thanks to the queen of pettiness herself—smoothie.

"Cooper. Hey," Cait said.

Hailey watched with a little barf in her mouth as Cait began the ceremonial mating dance that was indigenous to only Cait: the hair flip, the failed attempt at winking, the playing with her food, the slightly off-key laughter, the incessant arm touching. The list went on and on and she was doing it all for this random stranger who's name she'd probably forget by last period.

She turned away from the sight, swallowing the bile in her throat, and looked in the direction of the soccer girls table only to find that the reason she had looked in the first place was already looking at her.

With a small smile and a wink, Ash got her blushing furiously and staring intently at her food as if cold meatloaf had somehow become interesting. Some of the other girls at her table were looking in her direction, and she knew it was not out of fascination towards Cait's mating dance.

She was burning holes into the meatloaf when a message came in on her phone.

"Come sit with me."

Of course it was from Ash.

She smiled and shook her head at the message, typing back,

"I can't. I'm with my best friend. That would be rude."

When Ash did not reply immediately, she looked up to find her still looking her way. She gave an amused look and tilted her head telling Hailey to look in front of her.

Hailey did.

And there was Cait tongue deep in Cooper's mouth, groping him with very little decency considering they were in a crowded cafeteria—even then people weren't looking at her.

"Hey, Cait. I'm gonna go sit with Ash. Is that okay with—"

Cait waved her off with a hand reluctantly taken off Cooper's chest and said no more. Clearly all it took to distract her as usual was a random hot guy.

When she looked again in Ash's direction, Ash gestured towards the empty space next to her and shrugged.

Hailey did not need any further motivation. Taking her tray, she moved over to the soccer girls table.

It was on her way there that the anxiety hit her like a speeding train. What if the other girls didn't like her? And did she really want to sit at the same table with Ash's ex?

But somehow she made it across the crowded hallway.

Discussions around the table ceased the instant she arrived.

"Hey guys," she said, her shyness suddenly kicking into overdrive. She was overcome with the sudden urge to turn tail and flee.

Ash must have sensed it. Grabbing her hand reassuringly, she made more room for her and Hailey settled in. The silence at the table lasted only a few seconds longer but it was deafening.

Then Kira leaned in closer to stare curiously at her face as if consciously trying to make her even more uncomfortable. "So you're Hailey..." She squinted at her for a second then backed away abruptly with a frustrated sigh. "Dammit Ash, no fair! Why do you get all the cuties?"

Around the table the girls broke out in laughter. They must have been used to the girl's antics.

"Ignore her. She's...untamed," Tiana said. She passed her a paper plate laden with a slice of pizza.

"Wait, you guys get pizza? That's awesome!" Hailey said.

"We have privileges, hon," Kira explained with a wink, "We're awesome like that."

"Well since this would be the equivalent of meeting my family—minus my brother—I'll do the introductions," Ash said, "Guys, this is Hailey."

"Aw. Isn't she sweet?" Kira said.

Tiana caught her by the neck and trapped her in a headlock. They wrestled like that for a minute before Tiana suddenly let go of her with an offended expression, wrapping her arms around her breasts.

"She bit my boob!" she cried. "You little monster!"

"And I'd do it again." Kira laughed.

She weaved out of the way when Tiana tried to smack her, avoiding the first blow but receiving another in the shoulder.

When Ash was sure they had settled down for longer than five seconds, she proceeded to mention the names of the soccer girls who responded to their names with truly welcoming smiles. It was not what she expected.

It was when Ash got to the last person at the end of the table that the silence resurfaced.

"And that...is Madison."

The tension at the table was overpowering. It was like dinner with her mother all over again, only worse.

Maddie smiled and gave a small wave. "Team goalie. Ash's ex. Assistant captain. Blah blah blah. It's nice to officially meet you, Hailey."

The shocking part of it was that the smile seemed genuine. Either that or she belonged in the drama club.

The pressure at the room seemed to lessen instantaneously as if everyone at the table had exhaled at once. Everyone except Ash at least. She just had her resting 'Ash' face—humor, curiosity and mischief in her eyes all at once and a half formed smile on her lips—on as she watched Maddie.

"Now that we're done with that, you bitches can go back to what you were doing," Ash said.

The table all but exploded with noise as it turned out they had paused an argument to welcome Hailey to the table. They spoke in English but Hailey didn't catch a single sentence much less understand.

While they bickered and at some point threw pizza toppings around, Hailey observed a silent exchange between Ash and Maddie. Ash raised a questioning brow that Hailey loosely translated as "We good?" to which Maddie responded with a small solemn nod and a raise of her smoothie. Then moving on as if nothing had happened, Maddie jumped right in the fray, joining the others in their shouting match.

The soccer girls were a rowdy lot, Hailey had to admit, but she had not quite seen a group of girls like them before.

"Put me down for some of that action," Ash said, returning Hailey's attention to the discussion floating over her head, "One hundred dollars. Greendale to win. Two goal difference."

"What?" Hailey asked.

"Greendale and Silver Hill are playing on Thursday. We're betting on it."

"Yeah but...one hundred dollars?" Hailey asked.

"I'll raise you," Ginny said. "Two hundred."

"You're on," Tiana said, "Mama needs a new laptop."

"We bet draw. One goal each," Ariana said. Her twin nodded in agreement.

"Hey, Hailey. You wanna get in on this?" Debbie asked.

"No, thank you. I don't have that kind of money."

"Oh come on. Okay, no stakes. Just predict."

"Believe it or not, until last week Friday I hadn't watched a single game of soccer."

The horrified expressions she expected didn't come. Instead, with a casual shrug, Debbie said,

"That's actually easy to believe."

Around the table there were nods of agreement.

"But you're dating the best female soccer star in the district now—" Tiana said.

"Four years in a row," Maddie added.

"Oh come on, guys," Ash said.

—that means you have some learning to do. You're coming to the game on Thursday though, right?"

A glance at Ash earned Hailey an encouraging shrug as she took a sip of orange juice.

"Yeah. Sure."

A couple of soccer boys chose that moment to walk up to the table. One of them she recognized as Ash's brother.

"Hey, guys. What's up?" he said.

Without waiting for invitation, Caleb and the other boys squeezed in at the table. He got between Emily and Brandy then reached across and took away Ash's pizza despite the fact that she was staring death and destruction at him.

"Hello, Hailey." He smiled.

The other boys he arrived with got just as comfortable, one putting his arms around two girls in an endearing yet platonic way. The girls did not act any different as Hailey had seen others girls do when jocks came to sit with them. It was weird but in a good way.

"Greendale against Silver Hill, Thursday," Emily said, kissing him on the cheek.

"Oh right! That's this week. Silver High is going down so hard. Two goal difference at least." He bit into his pizza.

And once again, they dissolved into the previous debate with the even greater enthusiasm.

Hailey was out of the loop, that much was obvious, but she would have been lying if she said she felt left out. If this was what it was like to date a high school celebrity slash soccer star slash total hottie, then she was ready for it.