Totally a Vampire Thing || ONC 2024 ||

Chapter 2. Okay, He's Perfect. But Why Is He Glowing Blue?

My gaze darted around the jock's table in a desperate search for a conversation starter. Trays, food wrappers, cracked plastic cups, paper plates and a car magazine. Cruz leaned on it with his elbows, absorbed into the contents of the page, restored classic cars.

One of the guys, Aiden, punched him on the shoulder. "All I'm saying is that you have to act before all the good ones are taken and you have to go to the prom alone. Do you even hear me?"

Cruz rubbed his shoulder absentmindedly. "Yes, I hear you. And I'm perfectly okay going alone."

"Can't say I blame you. When the hottest girl in our school is your twin sister, might as well give up. I mean, just look at these girls... Lol!" Aiden scoffed and pointed around the cafeteria to illustrate his point. Unfortunately, I hovered by their table like a helium balloon at a birthday party, making me a perfect target. "Look at this!"

His buddies did. My heart sank, as I captured undivided attention of the uber-popular guys, including my crush. This was clearly the case of beware-of-what-you-wish-for.

"What do you want, Green?" Aiden snapped. "Dylan doesn't work here no more. He got too fancy."

If my hands clenched any harder, I'd squeeze my stupid coffee out of the cup like toothpaste out of a tube. "Ah..."

"That's what I thought. Move on."

Three Dylan-clones hooted with laughter, but Cruz didn't laugh along.

He swiveled his head from one to another till they choked on their horrible snorts. Then he turned to me, and my heart flipped in my chest. Up close, the impact of his marvelous, sad, warmest-brown-in-town eyes magnified a thousand-fold. I'd do anything to see them sparkling with joy.

"Did you want to ask something, Zoe, or did my idiot friends just startle you?" he asked softly.

The guys scoffed, but none of them talked back. This was weird, because everyone was mean to everyone else in our school, so barbs flew all day long.

Without Esha's support, I should have shook my head, hung it low and moved on, but something clicked in my brain.

The magazine! Cruz's car! His car was amazing, a pure labor of love. What I drove wasn't in the same league, but it was cute and quirky. "I just caught you guys chatting about the cars, and it sort of struck me. You probably know more about the old cars..."

He winced, and I rushed to correct myself. "...and about the antique ones, because of course your car is a true antique treasure. You know all about the restoration, and custom fitting, and stuff like that... anyway, you know more than anyone else in town about all that."

At this point I had to stop and take a breath in. It ruined my flow of consciousness, but Cruz's bronzed face remained attentive. His glance didn't wander away, like it always did when I ran into him in the hallway.

"So, I was thinking, just now, right? Because I heard you, guys, chatting..." I licked my lips. Just keep going, it's going well. "Maybe you can take a look at my car—because I have this old car—and tell me if there's a way to customize it to make it...cooler?"

Ouff, thankfully I got it all out in one shot, because my head was swimming.

Aiden harrumphed. "Zoe, baby, you and cool is an oxymoron."

Okay, great. I'd just made a fool of myself. Maybe Esha was right, and I shouldn't look at the boys for another year or a hundred.

"Better an oxymoron than a regular moron," Cruz said.

"Chill, dude. I forgot you were into fixer-uppers."

Cruz dismissed the bait with a tiny shake of his head and kept looking at me. If he didn't say another word to me, if he didn't ask me out, this was already the longest he had looked at me. He saw me, and it spread warmth through my chest.