The jerk.
“Yes,” our teacher said. “Well, I’d certainly hope not.” He gave a rueful smile. “I’m pretty sure that would break at least a dozen ethical codes of conduct. Not to mention a few laws, potentially.”
I shifted in my seat, not quite certain if he was joking or not. Also, I had no idea where he was going with this.
“My point, however, was that I’m not entirely certain it’s fair that you two be allowed to sit on the sidelines and examine their love lives while yours are left untouched.”
My brows drew down in a scowl. “It’s not like we’re trying to shirk our fair share of the work, Mr. Portman. If anything, Dane and I will be doing the lion’s share of the work. Including writing the final assessment.”
“Yes, you’ve mentioned that.” Mr. Portman looked like he was trying not to laugh, which annoyed me. I hated being laughed at. I was used to it, of course. One didn’t become the undisputed leader of her class without standing out, which meant being the object of amusement at times. But I certainly didn’t appreciate it coming from a teacher.
“I wasn’t worried that you weren’t doing your share of the work,” he said. “But rather, that you’re not participating on an emotional level. That’s what this experiment is all about, isn’t it? Proving that love is more than just numbers and figures?”
I stared at him. How did that relate to me and Dane and our app results?
“What are you suggesting?” Dane asked.
Mr. Portman sat back in his seat. “I think it’s only fair that you share your own app results with the group if you expect your partners to do the same.”
I blinked rapidly, heat already creeping up my neck at the thought of it. “No.”
“I don’t think so,” Dane said at the same time.
I glanced over at Dane and saw him staring back at me. It seemed as though we were once again agreeing on something, which clearly meant the end was near. This was how the apocalypse began. First with us agreeing on an idea for the group, then working together as co-leaders of said group, and now this…
We were in agreement that we should not have to share our results.
Mr. Portman didn’t seem deterred by our denial. “You’re asking your group to trust you. By revealing their results to you and in a paper that will be discussed as a class, you’re asking them to be vulnerable.”
I cringed at the word. I wasn’t big on touchy-feely talk from my guidance counselor, let alone hearing it from a teacher. I glanced over at Dane, hoping he’d cut in, maybe use some of that pretty-boy charm of his to talk some sense into the teacher.
But he didn’t. And Mr. Portman was starting to pull some papers out of his briefcase like he was ready to be done with this conversation. “I’m thinking the two of you could either use your results to do some tests of your own or just use your results as a control, of sorts. But either way…” His gaze shot up and he met both of our stares evenly. “You will participate.”
I opened my mouth to protest but he kept going uninterrupted. “The more data you have the better, right? Six sets of results are better than four, wouldn’t you agree? And what’s more, you’ll all be on the same playing field as your peers.”
“But—”
“Think about it,” he said, shutting his briefcase and turning his attention to another student who’d just walked in.
“But—” I said again, trying to regain his attention once more.
“Let it go, Edie,” Dane said, an infuriating smirk on his face. “And stop looking at me like I’m the traitor here. I don’t love this plan either, but what choice do we have?”
I stared at him in horror. Really? He was going to take the teacher’s side? Betrayal shot through me. I had no idea why I was surprised. I didn’t expect loyalty from this guy. I hadn’t for a long time.
Dane sighed as he came to stand. “I’m not arguing with you about this. I don’t like it either but is it really the hill you’re ready to die on for this project?”
I scrambled to collect my own things so I could chase after him. “I just don’t see what point it would serve.”
He didn’t even glance over at me as we navigated the halls to our next class. “Look, at least we don’t have to do the fake dating stuff, right? We’ll just monitor our own results and announce them when we announce the others.”
He looked over at me then and his smirk made my heart race in my chest.
With annoyance, obviously. This guy could drive me to a fit of rage with just a smile.
“It’s not like we have anything to hide, right?” he added.
My hands clenched around the phone that was still in my hands as a jolt of panic made me stumble.
Dane shot out an arm and grabbed my elbow to keep me upright. For a second we just stayed like that. My heart was thudding too hard and his eyes were too intense.
He was too intense. He normally hid it way better than this, though.
“What are you freaking out about, anyway?” he asked. A smirk hovered over his lips. “You afraid to show the world who you got matched with?”
Yes. “Of course not.” I snatched my elbow back and rubbed it. His grip hadn’t hurt but his touch lingered too long.
“What about you?” I asked, taunting in my tone. “Aren’t you a little embarrassed to show the world how much you’re pining over Danielle?”
I inwardly cringed even as I said her name. For some reason I was incapable of saying the new girl’s name without sounding like a twelve-year-old with an attitude problem.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Danielle, I just…didn’t really like Danielle.
Ugh, okay fine. So maybe my judgments were unfair. I didn’t really know her. She was new, and while she hung out with the same crowd as me and Dane, I’d never spent much time with her.
But Dane had.
Oh, Dane definitely had.
“What is your problem with Danielle?” he asked.
“I don’t have a problem with her,” I lied. I did have a problem with her, and I hated myself for it. She was probably perfectly nice.
“Fine, then what’s your problem with revealing your results?” He narrowed his eyes. “Embarrassed about who you got? Or is it a little too accurate?”
I rolled my eyes. As if.
But still…it was embarrassing. Dane’s ego was already out of control, and he lived to torment me with his smugness. I could only imagine how insufferable he’d be if he knew I’d gotten him as my top match.
Dane’s gaze honed in on me with that ferocity no one else seemed to notice but me. It was the look of a predator before it lunged. It was literally the eye of the tiger.
And now I’d be singing that song in my head for the rest of the day.
Awesome.
“Now I’m really curious,” he said.
Uh oh. I made sure my expression stayed even.
“What could have Coleridge High’s favorite control freak freaking out?”
Control freak. The term was one he loved to use with me. I supposed it was nicer than just ‘freak’ or ‘ballbuster’ or ‘bossy’ or ‘tyrant’ or ‘dictator’ or any of the other terms I’d heard used about myself when they thought I couldn’t hear them.
Control freak was at least the most accurate. I did like to be in control. I frowned at the thought of that stupid app. My result was just more proof that the app was wrong. It wasn’t like I still had a crush on this guy. I’d gotten over my infatuation years ago when I’d realized that Dane wasn’t the guy I’d thought he was.
I’d thought that against all odds, I’d finally found a guy who liked me for me. But I was wrong. Like everyone else, all he saw when he looked at me was a stubborn, overbearing control freak.
Well, I might not be able to control Dane with his annoying smirk and his stupid dimple, but I could absolutely control the app.
That was what I planned to do with this experiment so why not start with myself?
I felt a smile curving my lips as a plan bega
n to form. I just needed some time, that was all. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll show my results and you’ll show yours. We’ll reveal everyone’s results at the Valentine’s Day dance.”
And by then I’d have a different match…or I wasn’t Coleridge High’s favorite control freak.
Chapter 2
Dane
Two days later and I was still thinking about that smile.
I thought I knew every one of Edie’s looks. Sometimes I felt like I knew her expressions better than I knew my own. I was good at reading people in general, but Edie was a special case. Most people didn’t get her, not like I did. I knew the girl. I knew how to read her…most of the time.
But that smile?
I found myself glowering into the bonfire in the woods behind Cara Drake’s house. Most of our crew was here—the group of people who’d been friends since elementary school. Cara’s boyfriend Justin was the quarterback and the two of them were on the road to being this year’s ‘it’ couple.
I saw Edie laughing with her friend Beth on the other side of the fire and couldn’t quite bring myself to look away.
That smile.
What had it meant?
She was up to something, certainly…but what?
“So?” A voice beside me brought me back to the moment. I glanced over to see Danielle smiling up at me.
My lips automatically curved up in response. Ever the charmer. That was what my mom always said. Just like your dad.
That second part took any of the warm fuzzies out of her age-old saying because she hated my dad. Not that I could blame her. The divorce hadn’t been pretty and neither of them came out a winner, in my book.
“Sorry, Danielle, what did you say?” I asked now, trying to cover the fact that I hadn’t heard a word she’d said since she’d come to stand next to me.
“I was just wondering if you’ve checked your Love Quiz results yet.”
My gaze moved over to find Edie again, but this time she and Beth had been joined by Derek Rickman.
Derek. I took a deep breath as I watched that cocky jerk chat up a smiling Edie. Just look at the way she was swooning over that dumb football player. It was nauseating. Had she no pride? Didn’t she know that Derek was the biggest player in our school?
Sure he was smart, and I was certain that Saint Edie loved the fact that he was all into the charity drive she organized every fall for the local food bank. But still… She could do better.
“Hello…” Danielle laughed beside me. “Earth to Dane.”
I pulled my gaze away quickly. Danielle. Right. This was the girl I was technically here with. Sort of. It wasn’t a date, really, just a group hang.
And yet, she wanted to know my results.
I drew in a deep breath and prayed for patience. This Love Quiz thing was going to be the death of me. It had swept through our school and caused nothing but drama. And now everyone wanted to know everyone else’s results.
Danielle wasn’t the first girl to ask me my results, but she was the first who I was kind of sort of maybe seeing. I wasn’t big on commitments, and this girl wasn’t about to be the exception to my rules. School first, then swimming, then friends, then girls. Family would have fallen in there somewhere if I had any left to speak of. As it was, I shuffled back and forth between my dad and his new family and my mom with hers.
All the more reason I needed to focus on schoolwork and swimming so I could get into a good school and say goodbye to the toxic chaos that was my home life.
Danielle was sweet and all, but I wasn’t about to make her a priority, no matter what some stupid app told me.
And let’s face it. Danielle probably was my love match because that dumb app didn’t know anything real, it only knew the lies we told the world on social media. Right now, it knew that I was here at this party with Danielle. It was probably cataloging the fact that we were tagged together in several selfies Danielle had taken when we’d first arrived, not to mention the tags we were getting on other people’s feeds. So yeah…the app probably thought we were a couple. Or that we should be a couple.
The app was wrong.
“I haven’t looked.” I gave her a rueful little shrug. It was the truth, and the truth I’d been telling everyone. I just hadn’t told anyone why I was so resistant to looking.
Danielle’s cute little button nose wrinkled up in confusion. “Why not?”
“Because it’s stupid,” I said with a laugh. “And meaningless. No app is going to tell me how I feel about someone.”
She sidled a little closer. “I know that, silly. It’s more for fun. To see how accurate it is.” Her eyes were so filled with hope, it made my own gut sink in response.
This was why I didn’t like to get too close or make promises. That hopeful look said she was already daydreaming about being my girlfriend. She thought she’d be the one to be on the arm of the great and powerful Dane Foster.
Not that I thought I was all that great, and I knew better than anyone how powerful I was not. There was pretty much no area of my life where I felt like I was in control. I was playing a game I didn’t even want to be a part of just so I could level up and hopefully start a new life for myself in college. Maybe once I was on my own, studying subjects I actually cared about and making friends with people who hadn’t known me since birth…maybe then I could start over on my terms.
Until then, I was just going through the motions.
But still…I had a reputation and I knew it. I was popular, the captain of the swim team, not bad to look at, and I’d learned a long time ago how to charm the pants off of anyone.
My gaze darted across the fire before I could stop myself.
Anyone except for Edie.
“Come on,” Danielle said, her tone wheedling as she linked her arm through mine. “It’ll be fun to see if we’re as good a match on paper as we are in real life.”
My chest constricted and my throat felt like it was closing up.
Panic, plain and simple.
I was a pro at dealing with panic, though, so I covered it with a grin. “You need an app to tell you who you like?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course not.”
The tension in me eased as I prepared to switch the conversation to something less…claustrophobic. I eased away from Danielle, already working to slowly slip my arm out from her grasp when she stopped me by stepping in front of me, so close I could barely breathe. “So, Mr. Foster,” she said in a flirty tone that put me on edge. “When are you going to man up and ask me to the Valentine’s Day dance?”
I froze. My mind went blank. Few girls were ever quite so forward with their hopes and expectations, and while I’d handled it before, this time was different. For the first time in a long time…I had no idea what to say. I’d like to say it was because Danielle was such a sweet girl that I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but the truth of the matter was…
Valentine’s Day Dance.
Every time I saw a sign for it or heard someone mention the dance, I had this memory. A flashback, really, of one of the worst rejections of my life.
Granted, I haven’t suffered many rejections from girls. But in the rejection department, what I lacked in quantity I made up for in quality. Edie had hurt me. Bad.
And it had been at a stupid Valentine’s Day Dance.
I’d had such a crush on her, it wasn’t even funny. We’d gotten closer in junior high thanks to the fact that classes were now split up. As the top students in our class and as natural-born leaders, we were always in the same groups, the same clubs, the same advanced programs. We were so similar that it was easy to talk to her, and that was back before I’d gotten good at talking to girls.
I’d thought we were starting something—something real.
I’d been wrong.
Was it weird that I was still hurt over a rejection in the eighth grade? Maybe. But the memory of that night wouldn’t fade. Every time I talked to Edie, the memory was there in the back of my mind. The way I’d been tryi
ng to summon up the nerve to ask her to dance all night. My buddies were teasing me about her because it was so obvious how into her I was. They didn’t get it. They thought she was too in-your-face. Too bossy and demanding and always had to have her way.
They weren’t wrong, but the thing was—I loved that about her.
Edie was like this brilliant hard-edged diamond amidst a sea of pearls. Cheesy, right? That was what I’d written in the Valentine’s Day card I’d had shoved in my pocket that night. Hallmark wasn’t exactly beating down my door to have me write cards for them, but my words were sincere.
She was brilliant. I looked across at her now as if the sight of her might save me from Danielle’s scrutiny as she waited for my answer.
Nope. Edie wasn’t coming to my rescue. She was always helping the nerds and the outcasts in our school, not to mention the homeless and the sick out in the real world. But me?
She wouldn’t even slow down if she saw me stranded on the side of the road.
The girl hated me and I had no idea why.
She was the one who’d rejected me. And yet she walked around acting like I was the bad guy. I made myself look back to Danielle and that was when I came up with the perfect excuse.
“I can’t,” I said, my expression filled with regret.
Danielle frowned. “What do you mean, you can’t?” She backed up a bit and I was able to breathe. “Did you already ask someone else or something?”
“No. No, of course not. I just…” I glanced over again, my eyes narrowing as I watched Derek shift closer to Edie. She was talking animatedly, her hands flailing as her face filled with that very-Edie energy.
It scared a lot of people, that frenetic intensity. But I loved it. It gave me energy when she turned that intensity on me. She was a walking, talking, cute-as-heck Energizer Bunny.
I glanced over at Derek.
Derek wouldn’t be able to deal. She was too much for him. She’d eat him alive, she’d—
“You just what?” Danielle’s expression had lost its sweetness. Her eyes were hard with impatience and suspicion.
The Match Makers: Love Quiz #3 Page 2
