Lessons in Love (Flirt)

by Destiny, A.

  She was still watching me as she went back to chopping. “Bailey? Come on, you know you can trust me.”

  “I know.” I glanced around to make sure we were alone. Mom and Uncle Rick were out front, Dad was still out making that delivery. Susannah’s mom, Aunt Vera, was off today, and the extra evening staff hadn’t arrived yet. “The thing is, I’m not exactly sure what the deal is myself. There’s something different about Logan.”

  “Logan. I like his name.” Susannah nodded, scooping the chopped lettuce into a bowl with the edge of her knife. “What’s different about him?”

  “I don’t know!” I wailed. “That’s the trouble. It’s like as soon as he walked in, I felt like I already knew him. No, wait.” I stopped and thought about that. “That’s not really true. But I wanted to know him. Or something . . . Aargh!” I clutched my hair.

  “Wow.” Susannah sliced through another head of lettuce, then paused and looked at me. “That definitely doesn’t sound like you. Tell me more.”

  “So we’ve talked a few times since then, and it just keeps getting weirder. I like talking to him, and sometimes it feels almost like talking to a friend, even though we don’t know each other that well and, you know, he’s a guy. But sometimes I get all nervous and freaked out, and I can’t think of anything to say that won’t sound totally idiotic.” I grimaced. “Simone calls it sparks.”

  “Okay.” Susannah went back to work, her knife efficiently slicing the lettuce into strips. “And do the sparks go both ways? Does he feel the same about you?”

  I frowned at her. “How should I know? I’m not a mind reader.”

  She laughed. “I forgot who I’m talking to,” she said. “I just mean, does he seem to like talking to you? Does he look you in the eye when you’re together? Does he ever, like, touch you on the hand or anything like that?”

  “I guess. Maybe. Sort of. But it doesn’t matter. See, Megan and Ling both called dibs on him.”

  “Dibs?” Susannah’s knife paused in midslice, and she blinked at me. “What are you talking about?”

  I told her about the scene in the cafeteria. “So even if I’m not imagining what I’m feeling, it doesn’t matter,” I finished with a sigh. “He’s already spoken for.”

  “Not necessarily.” Susannah scraped another pile of chopped lettuce off the cutting board and dumped it into the bowl. “It takes two to tango.”

  “Huh?”

  She grabbed a rag and wiped her hands. “If the sparks are mutual, Logan isn’t going to be interested in your friends no matter how much they throw themselves at him. Or how pretty they are. Or how many customized cupcakes they give him. Which reminds me—wait here.”

  She hurried out through the swinging doors. I grabbed a rag and started wiping down the area where she’d been working, hoping the mindless task would settle me down.

  Susannah reappeared a moment later with a cupcake. She set it on the marble counter over in the bakery area, then started digging through a cabinet.

  “Did your mom move the frosting tips again?” she said. “No, wait—here they are.”

  I wandered over to watch as she fitted a tip to a fresh pastry bag. “Do you really think there’s any chance he wouldn’t be interested in Megan or Ling?” I asked. “Even though every other guy in school would kill to go out with them?”

  “Of course. If he likes you, he likes you. He won’t settle for some other girl.”

  “But how do I know if he likes me?” I couldn’t believe this was me asking that. “Or even if I actually like him? I mean, we hardly know each other!”

  Susannah leaned over the cupcake, carefully forming letters with the frosting in her bag. “Spend more time with him. Get to know each other better. Then you’ll know.”

  “How? We only have three classes together.”

  “You could ask him out.”

  “What?” I squawked at the top of my lungs.

  “Easy, girl!” She glanced up from her task. “As a friend. You could start by hanging out as friends. He’s new in town, so it’s only natural that you’d want to help show him around, right? Just invite him to do something casual.”

  That actually didn’t sound so bad. “Like what?”

  She shrugged. “The Spring Thing’s coming up. You could ask him to come cheer you on at the kickball tournament.”

  “Right. Come watch me get sweaty and covered in mud,” I muttered. “Very romantic.”

  She laughed. “Okay, you have a point. Besides, that’s still a week and a half away. But I’m sure you can come up with something.”

  Just then Uncle Rick stuck his head into the kitchen. “Bailey, up front,” he said. “Someone’s here to see you.”

  He ducked out of sight again. I glanced at the cupcake, which was only half inscribed.

  “That’s got to be Megan,” I said. “She’s notoriously impatient. I’ll go distract her while you finish.”

  I hurried through the swinging doors—then stopped short when I saw Logan standing there. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his jeans, and he was staring at the pies in the bakery case.

  “Logan!” I blurted out in surprise.

  “Hey,” he said, stepping over to the counter. “I was hoping you’d be working here today. I was just wondering—um, remember how I was talking about getting a dog?”

  “Yeah?” I was all too aware of Uncle Rick standing by the register. Close enough to hear every word. Luckily, my mom was out near the door chatting with the old ladies as they prepared to leave.

  “So I was thinking of going to the animal shelter this weekend,” Logan said. “Maybe Saturday? I was thinking maybe you could come with and help me pick something out.” He grinned. “You know, since you’re a dog expert, at least compared to me.”

  I just stared at him for a second. Susannah’s advice was way too fresh in my head, confusing me. What was happening here? Was he asking me out? Or was this a just-friends thing? Or a just-friends thing that could turn into a date? Or—

  “S-Saturday?” I said. “Um, I’m not sure. I have kickball practice that afternoon.”

  “Kickball?” He looked surprised.

  I nodded. “There’s this big rivalry between the high school and the college, and I’m on the high school team, and—”

  I jumped as the bell jingled and Megan hurried in. She spotted Logan right away and made a beeline for us.

  “Logan!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” She shot me a slightly suspicious look. “Bailey? Is my special order ready yet?”

  “I’ll go check.” Without another glance at Logan, I turned and rushed back to the kitchen. Susannah was just packing the cupcake into a tiny cardboard box. “Megan’s here,” I said.

  “Here you go.” Susannah handed me the box.

  “Can you take it out to her?” I asked. “Logan just came in.”

  Susannah’s eyes lit up. “Really? Cool, I want to check this guy out. I didn’t pay much attention to him yesterday.”

  “Wait.” I grabbed the box out of her hand. “Never mind, I’ll do it.” The last thing I needed was for Susannah to start talking me up to Logan in front of Megan.

  She winked. “Suit yourself.”

  I took a deep breath before I headed back out there. As I pushed through the swinging doors, I pasted a pleasant smile on my face. It wavered a little when I saw that Megan had her hand on Logan’s arm, and he was smiling at her. But I fought back the urge to turn around and run away.

  “Here you go,” I told Megan, setting the cupcake box on the counter. “That’ll be, uh . . .” I stared at the cash register, suddenly unable to remember how much a single cupcake cost. Curse Methuselah and his old-fashioned ways, which required me to punch in actual numbers! Next chance I got, I was going to petition my family to put in a modern register, like the ones in the fast-food places where all you had to do was hit a key with a picture of a cupcake on it.

  As I stared helplessly at the register’s keys, Uncle Rick wandered closer. “Forge
t that, Bailey. It’s on the house.” He winked at Megan. “Friends-and-family discount.”

  “Thanks!” Megan beamed at Uncle Rick, then picked up the box and turned to Logan. “Ready to go?”

  “Um, sure, I guess.” Logan turned to me. “See you in bio tomorrow, Bailey?”

  “Right. See you,” I said, careful to keep that pleasant smile on my face until they were both out the door.

  Chapter Ten

  When I emerged from the house on Tuesday morning, Simone was already at the bus stop. She leaned against the stop sign at the end of our block, her head bent over her phone as her thumbs flew over its tiny keyboard. She glanced up when I approached.

  “You need to get together with Logan already, because Ling and Megan are driving me cray-cray,” she announced.

  “Forget it. Not happening.” I dropped my backpack at my feet and stifled a yawn. I hadn’t slept well the night before—I’d kept waking up with vague memories of bizarre dreams. It was probably the full moon. I’d read an interesting abstract recently about a study in Europe showing some preliminary links between moon cycles and sleep patterns.

  “No, seriously. Ling called me last night freaking out because Megan bought Logan a cupcake or something—”

  “A custom welcome-to-town cupcake.” It wasn’t easy to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

  “Whatever. Anyway, Megan just texted me.” She waved her phone for emphasis. “Now she’s freaking out because Ling keeps hinting around about some big plans she supposedly has with Logan this weekend.”

  “Plans?” My mind immediately jumped to his animal-shelter invitation. “What plans?”

  “How should I know?” Simone let out a loud snort. “If you ask me, Ling’s probably just trying to make Megan jealous.”

  I wasn’t so sure. Why had I acted like such a weirdo the day before when Logan had mentioned hitting up the animal shelter? It wasn’t as if he’d asked me out on some romantic date. It could have been the perfect way to follow Susannah’s advice. Not to mention fun. And now Ling was probably going to have that fun instead of me. Not fair.

  “Did you finish the social-studies homework?” I asked, hoping to change the subject. “The last two questions were kind of tricky.”

  “Yeah, I did it.” Simone waved a hand to brush away the new topic. “But listen—you really need to jump in and save Logan from those two before it’s too late.”

  “Give it up, Simone. No means no.”

  She sighed. “I just don’t get you, Bailey. For the first time in, like, ever, you actually like a guy. And you’re too stubborn to admit it!”

  “It’s not about admitting it. It’s about living in the real world, not some fantasy romance novel or something.” I heard the clank and wheeze of the bus coming around the corner. “Now can we please stop talking about this? If I wanted to spill my guts about this particular topic, I’d post it on Facebook.”

  “Whatever.” Simone frowned at me, then turned away to watch the bus approach. “I guess there’s not much else to say about it anyway.”

  Zoe and Taylor were at our usual meeting spot when Simone and I arrived at school. Zoe was trying to keep her geometry book spinning on one finger, while Taylor was leaning against the wall picking at her cuticles.

  “Where are the others?” Simone asked.

  Zoe stopped the book and started spinning it the other direction. “Ling dragged Logan off as soon as he turned up. Claimed she was dying to show him the view from the second-floor landing.”

  “Yeah.” Taylor giggled. “When Megan got here and heard that, she stomped off to find them. She’s probably trying to push Ling out the window as we speak.”

  “Oh, man.” Simone shook her head and shot me a dark look.

  I pretended I didn’t notice. The last thing I wanted to do was set her off on another rant about me and Logan, especially in front of Taylor and Zoe.

  Luckily, Matt and Darius arrived just then. That distracted Simone just long enough for me to mutter an excuse about needing something from my locker and rush off to hide until homeroom.

  There was no art class on Tuesdays or Thursdays, so I didn’t see Logan until biology. When I walked into class, he was chatting with a couple of guys, but when he saw me sit down, he hurried over and slid into his own seat.

  “Hey,” he said. “Sorry I had to take off so fast yesterday. Megan . . .” Seeming at a loss for words, he just shrugged.

  “No problem, I don’t have much time to chat at work anyway.” I avoided meeting his gaze, instead focusing on unpacking my books.

  “Aw, come on, really?” His tone was light and teasing. “I bet the owners might let you take a break sometimes if you ask them nicely.”

  Why did he have to do that? Why did he have to talk to me in that maybe-we’re-friends, maybe-we’re-flirting kind of way? I wasn’t used to that sort of thing. It confused me, made me start to think (again) that maybe Simone was right about all this.

  But I knew she wasn’t. Seeing Logan with Megan yesterday had driven that home. I’d been right to think Logan and I were better off being friends.

  And it was just as well, really. Much less pressure that way. No need to adjust my life plans. All I had to do was focus on being friends with Logan—just friends—and ignore all that silly spark stuff until it went away.

  Starting now.

  I forced a smile. “Megan’s great, isn’t she?” I said. “She and I are really good friends.”

  “Uh, sure, she’s nice. She thinks you’re great too.”

  “Yeah. She’s not just a pretty face, either.” I put as much enthusiasm as I could into my words. “She’s got a beautiful singing voice, and a great sense of humor.”

  Logan didn’t say anything. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him staring at me with a perplexed look on his face.

  Just then Megan herself hurried in, followed a second later by Mr. Ba. The class quieted down immediately, all eyes focused on the stack of papers the teacher was holding.

  “Oh, man!” Andy Menendez called out from the seat in front of Logan. “Don’t tell me we’re getting those tests back already? I was hoping to live a little longer before my parents kill me.”

  Mr. Ba smiled. “No such respite for you, Mr. Menendez. My phylogenetics seminar was postponed, so I found myself with some extra time for grading last night.” He waved the papers. “Most of you did fine. Some of you did not. I won’t keep you in suspense.”

  He started passing out the papers. After he dropped Andy’s test on his desk, the teacher paused and glanced at Logan. “Mr. Morse,” he said. “I nearly forgot about you. Can I trust you not to take a peek at your neighbors’ papers? I don’t want to have to make up an entirely new test for you next week.”

  “Scout’s honor.” Logan raised his right hand in a loose salute. “I’m not a cheater.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Mr. Ba winked at him as he stepped past his desk to mine. Shuffling through the papers in his hand, he pulled one out and dropped it in front of me. “Nice work, Bailey.”

  “Thanks.” I beamed at the bright red A at the top of my paper, everything else momentarily forgotten.

  I was still riding high on that A as I walked to lunch with my friends, though I was trying not to celebrate too obviously. Not that they’d flunked or anything, thank goodness. Simone had scored a B, which seemed to make her happy enough, and Taylor had been relieved to squeak by with a C-minus. I wasn’t sure what grade Megan had gotten yet, but since she’d stayed behind to discuss it with Mr. Ba instead of walking to lunch with us, I figured it couldn’t have been too good.

  “Glad it’s finally lunchtime,” Logan commented as we walked. “I’m starved.”

  Oh. Did I mention that Logan was one of the friends I was walking to lunch with? Somehow he’d just fallen into step with us, even waiting while Taylor stopped to grab her lunch out of her locker.

  “Don’t you need to hit your locker, Bailey?” Logan asked as we turned toward the cafeteria.
r />   “I didn’t have time to pack anything this morning,” I replied. “Guess I’m stuck with cafeteria slop today.”

  “Really?” He smiled. “I pictured you bringing delicious gourmet sandwiches from your family’s place every day.”

  “I know, right?” Simone linked her arm through mine. “I’ve been trying to convince her parents to start catering at school so we don’t keep getting poisoned by the mystery meat.”

  Logan laughed. “Whoa, makes me wish I’d slapped together a PB and J myself this morning.”

  “The food’s not that bad,” I assured him. “The ambulance only has to come a couple of times a month.”

  That made everyone laugh. I grinned, still feeling a little giddy thanks to that A. “After you,” Logan said as we reached the cafeteria, standing back to let me go through the door first.

  “What a gentleman,” Taylor said, sweeping past him as well. She shook her lunch bag. “See you guys at the table.”

  It was too noisy to do much talking in the lunch line. When the three of us emerged holding our trays, Simone glanced at Logan. “You’re eating with us, right?” she said, her tone indicating it was a rhetorical question.

  “Guys! Wait up!”

  I turned and saw Ling hurrying toward us. She didn’t have a tray, just an apple and a carton of chocolate milk—her favorite. The girl was obsessed with chocolate to the point she claimed she’d go into a coma if she didn’t have some every day. (Not medically plausible, by the way.) Whenever she came to Eats, it was practically guaranteed that my dad would have to order more baking chocolate and cocoa powder from our supplier.

  “Hi, Ling,” I greeted her, my heart sinking as I saw the way she was looking at Logan. Like a fox stalking a squirrel. A poor, innocent, surprisingly good-looking squirrel.

  “Can you believe the dog chow they’re passing off as food today?” Ling glanced at Simone’s tray and wrinkled her nose. Then she turned to Logan and smiled. “I hope they warned you that you’re taking your life into your hands trying to eat the food here—especially the beef stew.”