Will sneaks into line behind me, smiling at a shy freshman girl who gladly lets him cut.
“Hey,” I say, trying to appear cool and calm in the wake of Saturday’s touchy-feely fest and ensuing Kara weirdness. “Great game this weekend.”
“That was, like, off the hook crazy, right?” He loads up his tray with a double order of fries and something that looks like cheese sticks and/or human fingers. Desperate to avoid anything French, I skip the fries and go for a turkey sandwich and carrot sticks.
“You guys should sit with us,” he says after we pay. Dani and I follow him to a table by the window. A handful of the guys are there, and they shuffle around to accommodate us. Dani ends up between Will and Frankie Torres, with me and Josh side by side across from them. All the boys are still glowing from Friday’s win, and when Josh inches his chair closer to mine and smiles, my stomach fizzes again.
Brain to stomach: We talked about this! Knock it off!
“Carrots?” Josh inspects my tray. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Don’t tell me you’re on a diet,” Frankie says. “Because that’s some messed-up stuff right there.”
“I’m not on a diet,” I say. “Just boycotting France. Besides, carrots are good for your eyes.”
“So get glasses, Pink,” Rowan says. “Baumler’s a four-eyed freak and we keep him around.”
“Look who’s talking, carrot top.” Will bounces a fry off of Rowan’s forehead and the rest of the guys crack up.
“I totally need glasses,” Dani says. “I can barely read that crap Mr. Rooney writes on the board. I’m all, cosine what?”
“I have Rooney eighth period. I’m failin’ that class,” Frankie says. “I’ll probably be in summer school. Math blows.”
“At least you can see what you’re failing,” Dani says.
I point to my food. “Have some carrots. They’re good for your eyes.”
“Then you have some fries.” Josh nudges his tray toward me. “They’re good for your … I don’t know. They’re just good.”
“Do any of you guys have Keller?” Will flips through a black-and-yellow CliffsNotes booklet. “I flunked his Scarlet Letter quiz and now he’s making me do an essay on themes. Man, I hate that book. Man, I hate themes.”
“I have Keller sixth period,” I say. “I like the book. Hester’s a tough broad.”
“You would say something like that, Pink,” Amir says.
I hold up a carrot and point it at his chest. “Don’t make me bust a carrot in your ass, Jordan. Hester’s my girl.”
Will looks at me as everyone laughs. “Good. Since you’re so in love with her, you can help. You around Friday night?”
“I think so. I should totally charge you, though.”
“I’ll give you whatever you want,” Will says. The boys roar, fries flying everywhere.
“I’d read the fine print on that deal if I were you,” Josh says.
Dani taps my foot under the table. “We were gonna check out that ballerina movie Friday night.”
“We’ll see it over break.” I pop one of Josh’s fries into my mouth. Yum. Boycott of all things French officially over.
“No ladies’ night, then?”
“Hold up,” Amir says. “You guys have ladies’ night?”
Dani shoots me a look. “We used to have them. Then you guys came around and started hijacking all the Fridays.”
“How do I score an invite?”
“I don’t know,” she teases. “We may have a spot opening up soon.”
“I’ll see the movie with you,” Frankie says. “Ballerinas are hot.”
Dani smiles. “You’re on.”
Something buzzes next to my right leg, and Josh digs the phone from his pocket. The caller ID confirms my suspicions: Abby’s cell. Josh sighs and pushes out his chair.
“I’ll catch up with you guys later. Hud, eat the rest of those fries. Seriously. Oh, and let me know what you thought of the music mix.” He wriggles his thumbs in the international sign for “text me later” and ducks out into the windowed hallway that branches off from the cafeteria, taking my fizzy stomach with him.
Who is this Abby girl, and why is she always calling him during school? Doesn’t she have her own classes to go to? Or is she in college? Out of college? Or … oh no! What if she’s some kind of dyed-blond middle-aged cougar ex-stripper nympho with a smoker’s cough who wants to teach him a thing or two about—
“See, this is why I never answer my phone.” Frankie reaches for Josh’s abandoned fries. “It’s like she’s got the boy LoJacked.”
Rowan punches him in the arm. “You don’t answer your phone because no one ever calls your broke fugly ass.”
“It’s better that way, trust me.” Amir nods at Dani and me. “No offense, you two, but females are trouble. Uh, don’t tell Ellie I said that.”
“I don’t know, ninety-nine. Some of them are worth it.” Will stares at me from across the table, Mr. Razzle-Dazzle himself.
“Oh, barf.” Dani piles her lunch scraps onto a spent tray. “I’ll see you guys later. I have to check on some stuff for photo class. Text me about Friday,” she says to Frankie. “You better not stand me up. I’ll LoJack you for real.”
She waves bye and joins one of her photography friends at a nearby table, leaving me alone with the partial wolf pack. The boys trade insults and jokes and food for the rest of the period, but Josh doesn’t return. He’s still on the phone, still pacing the windowed hallway. I can’t hear their conversation, but I watch him through the glass; his face is tight, the lines of his jaw set. He runs a hand over his hair and looks up at the ceiling, as if to ask some unnamed god for intervention.
I look across the room at Dani, but she’s already got me in her sights, totally busting me for spying on Josh. I shrug and give her a half smile, but she turns away, folding herself back into the conversation at her table as if I’m not even here.
Amir is totally right. High school girls, French girls, dye-job cougars, adulteresses from the Puritan days—the lot of us are nothing but trouble.
With the promise of a free cupcake at Hurley’s every Saturday for the rest of the year, I secure permission from Principal Ramirez to hang a few of those cupcake ads around school. After my government class at the end of the day, I stop by my locker for the flyers and the masking tape Mom shoved in my bag this morning.
But before Operation Mortification commences, someone taps my shoulder, and not all that gently, either.
“Hey,” Kara says when I turn around. “We really need to talk.”
Perfect. Apparently, since she ran out of the party after catching me and Will together, she’s miraculously rediscovered her vocal cords. Judging by the crazed look in her eyes, she spent the rest of the weekend prepping for this confrontation.
I loop the roll of tape over my wrist and hug the flyers to my chest. “I’m kind of busy right now, so—”
“I’m serious,” she says. “I wanted to call you this weekend, but I don’t have your cell number anymore, and …” She trails off.
I turn away from her to close my locker, but she beats me to it, hand slamming against the door. Kara’s got me locked down, her arms framing my head, our noses almost touching when I face her again. Some dude in the hallway holds up his cell camera and asks if we’re gonna kiss.
“We need to straighten out a few things about you and Will,” she says, ignoring our audience.
The presumption shakes me out of my stupor. “First of all, there is no ‘me and Will,’” I say with more confidence than I feel. “And last I heard, there was no ‘you and Will,’ either. So remind me why you’re all up in my face?”
“Kiss her!” Someone shouts from the steadily gathering crowd.
She drops her arms and sighs, but doesn’t put any space between us. “I don’t think you realize what you’re—”