CHAPTER 450: CAFETERIA CHAOS - THE FULL COURT

Sarah was still holding her tongue about Kayla, carrying a quiet, misplaced guilt I’d long ago told her she didn’t need to bear.

I remembered sitting with Sarah, listening to her torment herself, convinced it was her fault. I’d been so pathologically chill back then, so used to being the helpful genius who got used.

Connor Hayes’s phone was already recording from his strategic vantage point like a war correspondent. I could practically hear his livestream chat losing its collective goddamn mind.

Across the room, Jack Morrison sat with the pathetic remains of his once-mighty friend group, looking like someone had reached into his chest, ripped out his soul, and stomped on it. He watched Sofia clinging to my arm, saw the easy laughter she shared with Madison, and saw her choosing me. Publicly. For the second time today.

We’d barely settled into our seats at a prime table near the windows when Tommy appeared, dragging a second table with the grim determination of a man building a fortress against a coming siege.

"MOVE!" he grunted, maneuvering it across the floor with a screech of tortured linoleum. His tray—I use that term loosely, as it was more of a culinary Jenga tower, a monument to gluttony that defied gravity—threatened to collapse at any moment. Three pizza slices were stacked like pancakes. Two burgers were engaged in an abusive relationship under a slice of cheese.

A whole rotisserie chicken was there, the fucking price tag still dangling from its leg. A mountain of fries. A lonely, pathetic-looking salad for show. And—

"Is that an entire fucking pie?" Madison stared, aghast and impressed.

"Apple," Tommy said proudly, puffing out his chest. "They hid it in the back. Fifty bucks."

"Tommy. It’s cafeteria pie."

"It’s my

cafeteria pie now," he declared, biting into a burger with a savage intensity that sent grease running down his chin. "I’m bulking."

"You’re going to bulk yourself into a cardiac arrest," I informed him.

"Gains don’t make themselves, bro."

"Neither does type 2 diabetes."

Then a slim figure materialized at his side. Mia. Tommy’s girlfriend. But she’d changed—shed maybe thirty or forty pounds since I’d last really looked. Her face was sharper, more defined, her body swimming in an oversized hoodie that couldn’t hide her new, lean form.

She took one look at Tommy’s food mountain and cycled through all five stages of grief in about three seconds flat. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression.

"Tommy. What. The. Fuck."

"Hey babe!" Tommy grinned, his mouth full of burger. "Want some?"

"I want you to not die before graduation." Mia sat and immediately started reorganizing his tray like she was defusing an unstable explosive device. "We talked about this. Portion control. Remember?"

"I’m celebrating!"

"You’re committing slow suicide by saturated fat!"

"That’s metal as fuck though."

"TOMMY."

Madison was crying she was laughing so hard. Sofia had her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking. Even my stoic sister Sarah cracked a smile.

"Babe, I love you," Tommy said, his voice dropping to a shocking level of seriousness, "but if you take my pie, we’re going to have our first real fight."

"Our first real fight was when you tried to install a gaming chair with seventeen motors and a cup holder that heated beverages in my bedroom!"

"That was a GIFT!"

"THE FUTURE IS NOW!" Tommy bellowed.

Ashley Park materialized at Madison’s side, looking on with dead-eyed amusement. "I could hear you two from across the cafeteria. You sound like a married couple fighting at Costco over which brand of toilet paper to buy."

"WE’RE NOT MARRIED," Mia and Tommy said simultaneously, then whipped their heads around to look at each other in pure, unadulterated horror.

"Yet," Ashley added, pouring salt in the wound.

Emma Reeves (A/N: we will call her Reeves now) bounced over with an energy level that suggested she’d mainlined three energy drinks for breakfast. "OH MY GOD ARE WE ALL SITTING TOGETHER? THIS IS LIKE THE AVENGERS BUT FOR LUNCH AND THERE’S MORE HUGGING!"

"Please don’t," Ashley said flatly, the voice of a woman who had seen too much.

"PETER IS IRON MAN—"

"Reeves, I will literally pay you to stop talking." Ashley barked.

"HOW MUCH?"

"Twenty bucks."

Emma considered it, tapping her chin. "Make it thirty and I won’t post the video of you tripping over absolutely nothing yesterday."

"You’re the worst."

"I’m the best and you’re in denial!"

Our table went from a quiet lunch gathering to complete and utter chaos in ninety seconds flat. Conversations overlapped, laughter cut through the dull roar of the cafeteria, Tommy and Mia were still bickering, Ashley was roasting everyone with surgical precision, and Emma was documenting the whole beautiful train wreck for her Instagram story.

And through it all, I felt the eyes.

So many fucking eyes.

Girls at nearby tables weren’t even pretending not to stare anymore. The Lust Presence had done its work with ruthless efficiency—I had become impossible to ignore.

Some looked confused, like their brains couldn’t reconcile their old apathetic view of Peter Carter with the sudden, inexplicable need to know everything about him.

Some looked hungry, discovering a craving they never knew they had. Some looked angry, furious at themselves for wanting someone they hadn’t even noticed a week ago.

I ignored them. Focused on our island of glorious chaos. On Madison laughing with Ashley. On Sofia beside me, her hand finding mine under the table and squeezing like she needed to confirm I was real, that this wasn’t a dream.

On my sister Emma, grinning like a maniac as she documented the live-streamed collapse of Lincoln High’s entire social order.

On Sarah, watching everything with a proud, fierce satisfaction in her eyes, even as her own gaze kept drifting across the room, checking, worrying, carrying that guilt.

And then, like a cockroach skittering out from under a baseboard, Connor fucking Hayes materialized at our table.

Phone angled casual but obviously livestreaming, that fake influencer smile plastered on his face.

"PETER! My guy! Quick question for the people—"