The cafeteria is the heart of the Riley High social scene. It’s where connections are confirmed, rumors are spread, lies are started, secrets are whispered, and eagle eyes are always watching everything.

It is essentially a very big room with an upper tier and a lower tier, and in those tiers, each group has its designated place. Freshmen and other underclassmen by the doors, but not near the windows. Sorry losers, windows are for Sophomores, on the upper tier, of course.

On the lower tier, you have the Cheerleaders clique in one corner, at the windows. And in the other corner, most of the jocks. The middle filled in with other various juniors and seniors all convinced of their own importance.

When Zane came strolling through the entrance, with Joey by his side, he immediately started scanning the whole room. Joey had latched onto him somewhere in the halls and tagged alongside him like his own Freshman puppy dog, and people noticed that, including both the Freshmen who were interested in her, and the upperclassmen who were also interested in her. But for right now, the first thing he had to do was cut her loose. He walked her over to the table where her friends were all sitting and made a show of giving her and her friends a little wave as he peeled off that wagon and turned towards the center of the room. That little wave said to the room, nothing going on here.

Zane noticed that Sarah’s little brother Nick and his group had recently relocated themselves to be at the table right next to Joey and her friends. Was this a new development? Was Nick finally starting to grow a pair and making his move? With big sister giving him advice and telling him what to do, Zane had no doubt that it was indeed planned. He was sure he’d see those two tables start to merge within the week.

Moving through the room, he next breezed by another Freshman table. Here was Alyssa’s little brother Christian, along with his girlfriend Kathryn, and Kathryn’s friends Emmy and Ruby. He met all of these girls at Alyssa’s “Girl’s Night” party over the past weekend. He gave them all a pleasant smile and stopped for some momentary small talk, but his eyes were on those three girls, and their eyes were all on him.

Emmy, he thought, is going to be a stunner. Tight little body, nice tits, long blonde hair, and what an ass. He could definitely imagine having some fun with her. Ruby was the one all the Freshman guys wanted to fuck. The girl had a nice rack. They had to be at least c-cups already, and she was just a freshman. He could imagine a lot of fun with her too. He hadn’t really seen a whole lot of her at the party though, she had disappeared somewhere in the middle and didn’t show up again until everyone was getting ready to leave. Maybe she was sucking Christian off up in his room? Haha.

Kathryn was another story. Supposedly Christian’s girlfriend, but damned if a couple of games of Spin-the-Bottle didn’t lead to him stripping off her clothes and having a good time. She definitely had a sweet pair of tits, he knew because he’d been sucking on them and fondling and squeezing half the night. With Alyssa and Kassidy in the loveseat right across from them taking the lead, he’d had Kathryn down on her back with her pants coming off when the whole thing blew up. If only they’d thought to silence their phones, who knows what might have happened. Perhaps he would have to find out some time, he was pretty sure Kathryn would be happy to let him try. For now, he flashed all of them one more devious smile and moved on along his way.

Finally, he came to his destination, the Cheerleader’s table. That is, the Senior Cheerleader’s table, the JV squad had their own domain a little further away. Normally Zane would sit with his athlete buddies, not the quarterback group, but still some very popular guys, but today he had business to do.

As he approached, all the girls welcomed him with their usual cheerful greetings and suggestive comments. Nikki was a little quiet, she’d hoped he would go sit with his friends today. Nikki was sitting next to Bella, who was sitting next to the new girl, Skylar. Zane smiled and pulled up a chair as Skylar quietly slid over to make space for him between her and Bella. He still didn’t know what Skylar’s deal was, but he knew there was one wild animal lurking behind those dazzling green eyes.

Zane made small talk with everyone but kept leaning over and whispering to Bella. They kept a quiet, private conversation going between them until Nikki finally spoke up.

“Okay, you two, what’s going on? You’ve been sitting here whispering since Zane sat down. Are you two dating again?”

That made Bella cringe.

She curled her lip and gave Nikki the stink eye so bad the whole cafeteria could see it.

“We were never dating,” she said.

Zane laughed. He loved it when they teased her like that. Skylar smiled and giggled a little, but Zane didn’t think she had any idea why it was funny.

“It’s funny you should say that Nikki, we were actually talking about you,” he said.

That perked her up a little bit.

“Did you bring your old phone like I asked?”

And that brought her right back down. Her smile disappeared. Her mood darkened. She shot him a look of pure hatred and annoyance. This was exactly what she wanted to avoid. Why would he want her old, dead phone anyway? But she reached into her bag, produced the old phone, and handed it to him without any comment or questions.

“Battery charged? Password the same?” he asked.

“Yeah, but why do you want it? It’s not connected anymore, you can’t use it. And I transferred everything to my new phone, why would you want that one?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I just like to play.”

Nikki let out an exasperated sigh.

The conversations around them continued. Everyone mostly ignored that little exchange and went right on laughing and eating and making plans. Even Nikki was laughing again before lunch was over. She kept shooting evil looks at Zane the whole time, but nothing more was said.

When the bell rang, everyone started migrating to their next classes. Zane took the phone with him when he left.

Zane’s next class was a study, not an actual class, but more of a free period to spend in the library or wherever to work on homework or, study. Usually, he would either go to the weight room and work out for that period, or get in his car and zip down the road to his favorite café for desserts, preferably with some female companionship. Seniors were allowed to leave the school and school grounds for their study periods. Most of them had those periods scheduled at the end of the day so that they could leave early and go to jobs if they had them, one of the perks of being a senior.

Today, he was preoccupied. He sat at a desk in the library tap tap tapping away at Nikki’s old phone. He was almost certain that Nikki was FunBunz, it was the only thing that made sense, but he needed proof. He checked the pictures and videos, which were all gone as he knew they would be. He checked chat conversations. WhatsApp, Messenger, all the apps he could find and access, but there was nothing incriminating. His last hope was email. If he could log into the FunBunz account from her phone, he would have her. But since it had no service, he couldn’t log in. He tried checking for stored and saved passwords but found nothing.

Was he wrong? Maybe it wasn’t Nikki after all? He never could think of a reason why Nikki would do that, after all, she was in the video too, and she’d get in as much trouble as everyone else. Still, he was sure he’d seen a message stamped FunBunz in her inbox when he looked at her new phone. He’d have to get Bella on that. Nikki would let Bella borrow her phone, they were best friends. Then Bella could do some snooping.

A backpack dropped onto his table, and the chair across from him slid out. Shocked back to reality, Zane looked up to find Skylar sitting across from him with that sweet seductive smile.

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be off-grounds somewhere?” she asked. “You’re actually sitting in the library studying during a study period?”

“No no, it’s just...” he held up Nikki’s phone for a second, then went back to tapping.

“Yeah, what’s up with that? Why do you want her old phone? And why did she just give it to you, even though she obviously didn’t want to? No girl would just hand over her phone like that, not to her boyfriend, not to her parents, and certainly not to you. And why were you and –”

“Another time,” Zane interrupted her. “It’s nothing.”

“Bullshit,” she said. “You’re sitting here, in school, digging through that thing when you could be gone already. You’re looking for something.”

Zane tapped a couple more times, sighed, and gave up. He held the phone up to show her all the nothing he had found.

“Doesn’t matter anyway, there’s nothing here.”

He dropped the phone in his bag and sat back in his chair.

“So I guess that means you’re done snooping now, right?”

“Yeah.”

She nodded her head a little and looked around the room. She leaned forward on the table, propping her cleavage up on her folded arms, making sure he got a good view.

“You wanna go for a ride?” She grinned.

Zane thought about it for less than a second. Oh yeah, he’d like to take her for a ride, but he knew he had to be careful. She seemed like she could be all sorts of trouble

“Where?” He asked.

“I dunno. Fries? Lattes?” She said, innocently.

“Sure, why not?”

They were out the door in minutes. Zane naturally headed for his car until Skylar grabbed his arm.

“Let’s take mine,” she said, pushing the button on her key fob.

The lights flashed and a little chirp came from the brand-new, pretty white Tesla she was standing in front of. Zane had seen this car here but didn’t know who it belonged to. Now he did. He’d never ridden in one of these before. This should be fun.

They climbed in, sat back, and Skylar put it into drive and pulled away. He didn’t even know it was running. He never saw her start the engine. He saw the ‘Start’ button right there on the dash, but he knew she had never touched it.

“How the hell does that work? I didn’t even know the engine was on.”

She laughed at him.

“You’ve never been in one of these before? I started it when I unlocked the doors.”

“Geez, I can’t even hear it running.”

She smiled at him again, amused by his amazement. Zane immediately noticed that she seemed a lot freer now, a lot more comfortable here in her car, with only the two of them. In school, she always seemed so quiet and shy, reserved, demure. Almost as if she were too embarrassed to speak when people talked to her. Everyone thought she was extremely shy, in a new school, and had a hard time talking to new people. At least that was the excuse he’d heard. Zane already knew better. She was a cheerleader, she wasn’t shy. She knew exactly what she was doing. Now, he knew, he was seeing the real Skylar.

At the café, they ordered lattes, iced coffee, and fries, then turned to find a table.

Zane asked, “So, are we actually gonna sit? Or are you gonna finish what you started last time and just do me on one of these tables?”

Skylar laughed, looked around the room, then scrunched her nose up and looked at him. “Nah, there’s too many people here. Besides, these tables are too small.” Zane shook his head because he knew she was, in fact, probably quite serious. They found themselves a place to sit away from the busier parts of the shop.

“Okay,” he said, skipping all the small talk. “What’s your deal anyway?”

“My deal?”

“Yeah, your deal? You put on this show in school like your some shy little wallflower who can barely raise your voice above a whisper, and then when none of your friends are around you’re a total slut, sticking your hand down my pants right here in public.”

She laughed out loud. Not the shy demure wallflower laugh, but a real laugh, like you have with your lifelong best friend who just told the funniest joke you’ve ever heard.

“It sounds like you’ve got my deal figured out already. In school, I keep quiet and don’t talk a lot, because most of the things they ask, they don’t need to know. But you? I like you. You’re cute. And I wanna take you back to my house and fuck your brains out.”

He stared at her, his eyes bugging out a bit at her forwardness, processing all of that.

“Why?”

“Why what? Why am I quiet and shy? Or why do I want to fuck your brains out.”

“Both. Either. What the hell?”

She smiled at him again, completely natural and relaxed without her school friends around.

“I want to fuck you because, well look at you. You’re fucking hot, and sexy as hell. But mostly, because I’m just plain horny. I haven’t gotten laid since I moved into this sad little burg six months ago.”

“No, no, no. I know you’ve gone out with a bunch of guys here since school started. Are you telling me you didn’t do anything with any of them?”

“The guys in this school are pathetic. I was hoping for so much more. I’ve gone out with exactly three guys since school started. None of them got past a second date or second base. Can you say losers? Denny Wallace? Sure he’s cute but God what an ego on him. Everything was about him the whole time.”

“Yeah I know Denny, I’m surprised you agreed to go out with him. He probably thought he was doing you a favor.”

“Yeah, well only once. He didn’t get a second chance. And Tim Baxter? He’s cute, he’s funny, he actually had some pretty smooth moves. But you know what?”

She held up her right hand with her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. That set Zane off laughing, Skylar cracking up right along with him.

“Tiny,” she said.

“Okay,” he said. “But if you haven’t slept with any of the other guys in school, who I know would give anything to get in your pants, because I’ve heard half of them say so. In fact, a couple have said they already did. And you think they’re all lame and pathetic, what makes you think I’m any different?”

The whole thing seemed weird to Zane. Why had she decided on him, especially when he knew that all the other girls warned her off? They had all done their best to keep him away from her, well, to keep him away from any of the cheerleaders really, but her especially. Bella said it was a command from the coach. So he had to ask.

Skylar’s answer?

“Cheerleader’s talk. I know all about you.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, really. I know you’re not seeing anyone, at least not steady. I know you’ve slept with all the cheerleaders. At least all the seniors.”

“That’s not true,” he said.

“I know that even though they deny it to each other, they all liked it, and any one of them would probably jump right back in bed with you any time you asked.”

“How do you know that, if they all deny it?”

“Trust me, I know cheerleaders, I’ve been one since I was six. In the group, they deny everything. Out loud, they deny everything. When you get them one-on-one, in private, they spill all their secrets. And I’ve talked to them all in private.”

An image of Alexis naked in the shower with him suddenly flashed in his mind. Wouldn’t he like to do her again?

“So I know what you’ve got, I know you fuck like a wild animal, and right now, that’s good enough for me.”

“How can you possibly know that?” he asked.

“You mean besides that good handful I got the last time we were here?” The look on her face was pure lust. “I’ve seen the pictures.”

Zane’s sweet flashback of Alexis’ face in the mirror as he fucked her from behind in his bathroom popped.

“What pictures?” He asked. A stupid question when he thought about it because every girl at that party the night the video was made, was likely to have taken pictures.”

For the briefest moment, something flashed in his head. Had she seen the video? How much did she know? And who would have shown her? Was it Nikki?

“Who showed you pictures?” He asked.

She thought about it for a moment, then started rattling off names.
“Alexis, Natalie has a few, oh my God Chloe has one of you with five of the sophomores all naked on a couch! What the fuck man?”

“Those girls aren’t all cheerleaders. And that doesn’t mean I fucked any of them.”

“Bro! Who cares? There’s five of them! And I know that you did, Chloe told me the whole story. All virgins too!”

Zane wanted to get off this topic.

“Is that all? Just pictures? No videos, or sex tapes? Nothing from Bella or Nikki?.”

“No. I don’t think they have any. Is that what you’re looking for on Nikki’s phone? Does she have a sex tape of you? Oh! She’s blackmailing you isn’t she?”

“If she had a tape of me, why would she do anything I told her to do?”

Skylar thought for a moment. “But you didn’t find anything, did you? What is it you’re looking for? She must have deleted it already.”

Zane could see the wheels turning in Skylar’s head as she tried to reason out what was going on. He relaxed back into his chair. The fries were gone, the iced coffee was getting warm, and this conversation had gone way farther than he ever should have let it. You see, she’s dangerous. It was time for a change of scenery.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Skylar jumped right up at that suggestion.

In the car, she started peppering him with more questions.

“Okay, I know you fucked Bella, she already told me so. Did you fuck Nikki too? Oooh! And you threatened to tell her boyfriend! Is that it? It is! You’re blackmailing her, aren’t you? That’s why she gave you her phone. Oh, I’m good!”

“No, I didn’t fuck Nikki ... Yet. I’m saving that for Prom,” he said jokingly. Although the truth was, that is exactly what he was planning.

Skylar loved that. “Oh my God, before her boyfriend can! Let him have sloppy seconds on Prom night! That’s hilarious. Is she a virgin too? Do you know?”

“Nikki? What do you think?”

“Yeah, no. She’s a little slut.”

Zane’s turn for questions.

“What about you? I assume you’re no virgin either?”

That beautiful laugh again. “Ummm, no.”

“Birth control?”

“Of course, I’m a cheerleader. Pffft!”

“Good to know.”

Now Zane had his own lecherous smile, checking her out much, much more closely. She was wearing a nice, proper, school-length skirt that she had hiked half-way up her thighs upon sitting in that seat. He really wasn’t interested in the Nikki conversation anymore.