"I'm tired of this insane ritual of yours, glaring death stares at Josh," muttered my best friend, Freya. She didn't look too thrilled with her "spy" duties as we squatted, hidden, watching Josh and his friends in the locker room. Thankfully, they were all fully dressed—i would probably lose my lunch if they weren't.

 "Leah," Freya groaned, rolling her eyes.

 "Shhh, Freya!" I shot back.

 "Look at us, Leah! We look completely pathetic, squatting here in the boys' locker room. My God, what would my mum say if we got caught?"

 I tried not to imagine the look on Rachel's face. "We won't get caught."

 "Remind me again why we're doing this?"

 "Because—" I peered through the cracked door. "I know he's up to something. Just look at him. What could they possibly be talking about so seriously?"

 "Oh, I don't know…football? Girls? Parties?" She sighed. "Need me to go on?"

 "Or," I countered, "he's planning his revenge against me. You remember what he said last time."

 "You're being overly dramatic," she scoffed.

 "No, I'm not! Josh Salvatore is up to something, and I'm going to find out what it is."

 "Why, why, why did I sit beside you in kindergarten?" Freya groaned. "You're obsessed with him, Leah!"

 "I am not!"

 "Look at us, Leah!" Freya accidentally raised her voice, then slapped a hand over her mouth. "Crap," she whispered, looking horrified.

 "I'm going to kill you," I hissed, eyes wide.

 "Not if I kill you first," a voice said above us.

 We both froze. Slowly, I looked up and found my nemesis himself, Josh Salvatore, smirking down at me.

 "Hello, Leah darling," he drawled, and I felt my blood boil. Oh, how I hated him. 

 "I've been getting shivers down my spine—should have known you were the cause," he said, stepping forward. The sunlight caught his hair, giving it a golden glow. To be fair, he looked perfect, as he always did, and that only made me angrier.

 "I don't know what you're talking about." Play it safe, Leah.

 "What are you doing here? *You!*" he pointed, and I pushed his finger away.

 "I'm not surprised, but you, Anderson?" He turned to Freya, frowning. "Your friend is really dragging you into her crazy shenanigans." I shot her an apologetic look—I hated that she might get in trouble because of me.

 "I've been called worse by your best friend here, but I'll do you a favor." He paused, and I braced for it. There was always a *but.* "I'll let you off the hook and won't report this to the principal."

 I exhaled, but his gaze shifted back to me. "*But,* as for your best friend here? She's in for a lot of trouble."

 "We weren't doing anything, so you can go report us both," Freya snapped.

 "Oh, so it's fine for you girls to be in the men's locker room?" he asked, smirking.

 I rolled my eyes. "Don't flatter yourselves. I wouldn't exactly call you boys 'men.'"

 He chuckled, stepping closer. "Admit it—you were spying on me."

 "There's nothing to admit, because I wasn't," I shot back.

 He chuckled, running a hand through his hair. "Then why the hell are you here?"

 "Don't flatter yourself," I replied coolly. "I wasn't here for you. I was here for my—" I searched frantically for a cover. "My boyfriend. We were waiting for my boyfriend."

 His face shifted slightly, surprise flickering across it before he masked it. "Boyfriend?" His voice held a skeptical edge.

 "Yes, *boyfriend.* He asked us to wait here for him," I said, nudging Freya. She looked equally baffled.

 "Oh really? And who is this 'boyfriend'?" he pressed.

 I glanced around the locker room and spotted Nathan. "There he is," I said, pointing across the room. Nathan, one of my two best friends in the world, stood talking with a group of guys. The three of us were known as the Three Musketeers growing up—always together.

 "Nathan Scott is your *boyfriend*?" His disbelief was obvious.

 "Yes," I replied, trying to sound confident.

 "Since when?"

 "None of your business! You asked, I answered. Now let us go."

 He looked at me with an intense scrutiny that made me shift uncomfortably. His gray eyes always seemed to cut right through me. After a long pause, he gave a slow smile, like he'd just figured out some deep secret. "Fine. You win. You both can go."

 Without missing a beat, I grabbed Freya's hand and pulled her out, not stopping until we were far from the locker room.

 "What the hell, Leah!" she said, once we'd stopped. "Nate is going to kill you!"

 "I know! Gosh, I know."

 "You just blew his chance with Catherine, and you know he's been working up the nerve to ask her out for *months.* Salvatore isn't going to keep quiet about this."

 I groaned, "I couldn't think of anything else, Frey. It was either that or detention. And now that my head's clear, detention actually sounds better…God, he's going to kill me."