by Kieran Scott
Dammit! Foiled already. Frustrated, I pulled out the chair across from his and sat down, remembering to sit up straight.
“No. I’m good,” I said.
“I know you are. That’s why I’m here,” Cameron replied with that ridiculously sexy smile.
And I giggled again. His grin widened. If my face got any hotter, he was going to get a sunburn off me.
“Okay, so, should we pick a topic?” I said, pulling out my notebook. “I was bored in French, so I made a list of possibilities.”
“Cool.”
Cameron reached for my notebook and his pinky grazed mine. There was such a burst of excitement inside every inch of my body I thought I might faint. While he scanned the list, Cameron’s brow wrinkled in this totally adorable way. If only I could take a picture with my cell without him noticing . . .
“I like this one,” he said. “Chemical tests for nutrients in food. That could be kinda cool.”
“That’s my favorite, too!” I announced.
“Shhhh!” someone behind me said.
Cameron smiled.
“I mean, yeah,” I said, looking away and uncapping my pen. “Sure. Let’s do that.”
This was cool KJ. Super-cool, unaffected, confident KJ. I pulled the notebook to me and turned calmly to a clean page.
“So, are you coming to the game tonight?” Cameron asked.
“Me?” I asked, surprised.
“No. The kid behind you,” Cameron joked.
I glanced over my shoulder. There was no one behind me. Cameron laughed. Nice one, KJ. Tama never would have fallen for that. Never would have looked. But KJ Miller? Of course! I just fell off the turnip truck yesterday.
“Um . . . I don’t really go to games,” I said.
“Why not?”
Because none of my friends go to games. Because only the cool kids go to games. Because if I went there, I’d have no one to sit with and it would be completely obvious to the world what a total dork loser I am, including you?
“I’m just not that into basketball,” I improvised.
“Well, you should be,” Cameron said. “We’re good this year. You should come.”
Did he want me to come? Was it possible that Cameron Richardson was telling me, KJ Miller, that he wanted me there to cheer him on?
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Come on.” His foot nudged mine under the table. I blushed scarlet. “Come on. You know you want to, KJ. Come on . . . come to the basketball game. . . .”
“Cameron!” I hissed as the librarian looked at us over her desk.
“Come on, KJ. All the cool kids are doing it,” he teased, nosing his foot beneath mine now. “Come to the game. Come on!”
Everyone in the library was staring at us. “Cameron! We’re supposed to be studying!” I hissed, grinning like mad.
“Oh, right. Studying. Sorry.” He suddenly sat up very straight and poised his pen over his notebook. “I’m very serious now. Teach me, oh wise one.”
I snorted a laugh and pushed myself up straight in my seat as well. My mind was still reeling, though. Was Cameron flirting with me? That had certainly felt like flirting. Maybe I could go to a basketball game. Maybe if I offered to drive Tama, she’d let me sit with her. But then I’d have to sit with all those popular people I never spoke to. Wouldn’t they be wondering what I was even doing there? What if they made me leave? Did people do stuff like that, or was it only in the movies? But still, if Cameron wanted me to go, how could I not go? That would be like dissing him. Omigod. Did I really have the power to diss Cameron Richardson?
“KJ? You in there?”
Right. Focus. Task at hand. Confident, Cool, No Giggling.
“Um . . . okay,” I said. “I guess we should start by figuring out which foods we want to test. Then we can write the hypothesis. And tomorrow we’re going to have to talk to Mrs. Driscoll about lab time.”
“Okay. Good plan. I knew you were going to be a good person to partner with.”
And there it was. The truth. The real reason we were here. I knew it was too good to be true. I was good in bio and Cameron wanted an A. He’d asked me to be his study partner. He hadn’t asked me on a real date. Maybe he was just trying to get me to come to his game because they needed more fans there or something. Or he was just trying to be nice.
I couldn’t believe I’d almost risked the total public humiliation of sitting alone at a basketball game for a pipe dream. Or worse, trying to sit with the popular kids. Okay, KJ. Work time. No more reading “date” into every little thing he said.
“But I still think you should come to the game,” Cameron said, nudging my foot one more time.
And after that, I couldn’t stop smiling.
ACT TWO, SCENE SEVEN
In which:
THERE’S A BETRAYAL
I SHOWED UP AT STEPHANIE’S HOUSE THAT NIGHT WEARING MY ONE and only Washington High T-shirt under my coat—the one we had all been issued the first day of freshman year. I knew there was no way she would have agreed to a basketball game ahead of time, so my plan was to drag her out to it. I bounced up and down on my toes as I waited.
“Surprise!” I squealed when the door swung open. “Get your coat! We’re going to—”
She held up a finger. She was on the phone.
“Okay. Yeah. No. She’s here now.” Her eyes flicked to me. “No. She looks fine.”
Wait. She was talking to someone on the phone about me? Who was it?
“Yes, I’ll ask her. I’ll talk to you later,” she said into the receiver. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Bye.”
“Who was that?” I asked, stepping inside.
“That was Fred,” she told me flatly.
Okay. Major downer. “You talk to Fred on the phone? Since when?”
“Since he called me freaking out because you promised to call him tonight and didn’t,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
Oh. I had promised that, hadn’t I?
“Why didn’t he just call me?” I asked, walking down the hall toward her room.
“He said he tried, but he kept getting your voice mail,” Stephanie said. “He thought you were, like, dead or kidnapped or something.”
I snorted a laugh. “He’s even more dramatic than the Drama Twins.” I pulled out my phone and sure enough, it was turned off. I guess I’d never turned it back on after my afternoon in the library.
“KJ, this isn’t funny,” Stephanie said, tossing her phone on her canopied bed. “Fred’s really hurt. Why didn’t you call him?”
I saw red. This was so not the way this surprise drop-in was supposed to go. It was one phone call, not the end of the world. Why did she have to make a federal case out of it?
“Oh, I don’t know, because I was out with Cameron all afternoon and I’ve been kind of distracted ever since?” I said pointedly.
The guilt was evident on Stephanie’s face. “Oh my God. I totally forgot. Your date with Cameron!”
“Yeah. Only the biggest moment of my life,” I told her. “I came over here to tell you about it, but if you’d rather jump all over me about one forgotten phone call to Fred—”
“No! No. I’m so sorry. We can talk about that later,” Stephanie said, bouncing down onto her bed. “Tell me all about Cameron. How was it?”
This was more like it. But when I tried to muster the excitement, it was gone. I picked up one of her ceramic horses from a shelf and toyed with it listlessly. “Fine. It was fine.”
“Come on, KJ! Tell me!” She hugged a throw pillow to her stomach. “What did he say? Did you guys just study or was there actual flirting?”
“There was flirting . . . I think,” I said, warming to the subject a bit. “Why? Did you think there wouldn’t be flirting?”
“I don’t know. It was a study date,” she said with a shrug. “He didn’t ask you to hang out, he asked you to study.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded. All the annoying negative thoughts that had been circulating
in the back of my brain all afternoon came zooming to the forefront. “You think he’s just using me?”
“No. Not exactly.” Stephanie pushed herself up off her bed and shoved her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt. “It’s just that, it could have gone either way. Either he wanted to hang out with you for you or he just wanted to study. So I wasn’t entirely sure if it was a date date.”
“Oh. You don’t think he likes me, do you?” I said. I couldn’t believe she was saying this. It was one thing for me to think it. I was allowed to be insecure about myself, but Stephanie was supposed to be my best friend. She was supposed to tell me my insecurities were silly and that of course Cameron was totally in love with me and we were going to live happily ever after!
“No! I think he likes you! Why wouldn’t he like you? I just think maybe he asked you to study instead of something else because then he could play it off to his friends like it was just a study thing. You know, so he could still look cool.”
“Well, if he was so afraid of being seen with me, then why did he ask me to come to his game tonight?” I demanded.
“He did?” she asked.
“Yeah! Nice to be shocked,” I told her.
“I’m not shocked. I’m just—”
“I was going to ask you to come with me, but you know what? I think I’ll go by myself,” I told her. “Wouldn’t want you sitting there the whole time telling me what a bad person I am and that Cameron doesn’t actually like me.”
Stephanie’s face fell. “KJ! That’s not fair. I—”
“Forget it. I don’t know why I came over here.” I hadn’t even gotten my coat off yet, which was a plus for making a speedy exit. “You know, sometimes this whole glass-is-half-empty thing of yours really sucks!”
“Thanks a lot!” Stephanie said, her cheeks coloring. “I didn’t . . . I was just theorizing.”
“Well, now you can theorize to yourself,” I said.
I stormed out of her house without looking back. Stephanie and I had never fought before. Had never actually yelled at each other in the ten years we’d been best friends. But now I was so angry I actually peeled out of her driveway. Until that moment, I hadn’t even known I could do that. Guess you really do learn something new every day. Including who your real friends are.
ACT TWO, SCENE EIGHT
In which:
TAMA TRUMPS STEPHANIE
THE NEXT MORNING, STEPHANIE WAS WAITING FOR ME BY MY locker. I took one look at her and everything inside of me clenched. Thanks to her, I had missed the basketball game, unable to bring myself to show up alone. Thanks to her, my giddiness over Cameron was all mired in doubt. Thanks to her, I had barely even been able to sleep all night, tossing and turning over the fact that she was gabbing with the geeks about me behind my back. And now she was waiting for me at my locker? Why? So she could pants me or something? Seal the deal?
I paused in the middle of the hallway. The last thing I wanted to do was endure another lecture about how awful I was. But there she stood. Hovering. I was trapped. She noticed me. Our eyes locked. All I wanted to do was turn the other way. And then—
“Cage! There you are!” Tama came swooping in, all cashmere sweater and dangling earrings and perfume, and hooked her arm through mine. “I’ve been looking all over for you. How was your date with Cameron?”
I looked at Stephanie and smiled triumphantly. My date with Cameron. See? Some people thought it was an actual date. People who actually knew Cameron. People who hung out with him all the time. And finally I was going to get to tell someone all about it. Someone who actually wanted to hear the story.
“Omigod, it was so amazing,” I said to Tama. “He actually played footsie with me under the table!”
“He did?” Stephanie said.
“No he did not!” Tama protested with a grin.
“Yes he did! I mean, I think he did! I don’t know. No one’s ever played footsie with me before.” I ignored Steph and focused on Tama.
“If you think he did, then he did. There’s no mistaking a good game of footsie,” Tama said. “Cage. I am so proud of you! My little protégé! What else? Tell me everything.”
“KJ, wait,” Stephanie said. “We have to talk.”
But I didn’t want to talk to her now. Didn’t want to hear more about how I was wrong about everything. So instead, I decided to bypass my locker.
“Later, Stephanie. I have to go.”
Then I walked off down the hall with Tama, relating every little detail I could remember. And unlike a certain other supposed best friend, Tama had the perfect, psyched reactions to every last thing I said.
ACT TWO, SCENE NINE
In which:
THERE’S FORGIVENESS . . . FROM SOME
CAMERON TALKED TO ME THREE WHOLE TIMES IN BETWEEN classes, whereas not one geek talked to me all day long. Not Glenn, not Fred, and not Andy, who spent lunch in the court-yard taking notes and clutching at his hair all mad-scientist like, while I helped Tama memorize lines at our own private table. I only hoped that it wasn’t notes about me he was going over, but then, who cared? As long as he wasn’t in my face it was fine by me. Never in my life had I been blessed with such a stalker-free day. It was bliss.
But my good mood hit a road bump when I saw Robbie waiting for me at the end of the hall after the final bell. He was wearing a black We Are the Fury T-shirt and a gray skullcap and listening to his iPod, but he pulled out the ear buds when he saw me. Today’s sneakers were gray Chucks with little black stars all over them. Cool. They almost distracted me from the fact that I hadn’t spoken to him since Monday evening.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I replied nervously.
Robbie pushed himself away from the wall to walk with me. “So, this guy walks into a bar and says ‘Ow. That hurt.’ ”
I stared at him. “What’re you doing?”
“Trying to make you laugh,” he replied. “People hate you less when you make them laugh.”
“I don’t hate you,” I replied with a smirk. I was feeling very benevolent thanks to my geek-free day.
“You don’t?” He drew his hand across his head dramatically. “Good. ’Cause that was my best material.”
We were both grinning as we crossed the hallway toward the auditorium. “Somehow I doubt that.”
“So listen, I was thinking we could hit Best Buy tonight after dinner.”
“Tonight?”
It was Wednesday. A could-go-either-way night. Might be good to avoid home.
“I’ve been thinking about your CD collection pretty much nonstop,” he told me. “Seriously. It’s kept me up at night. I’m concerned for your well-being.”
I rolled my eyes and yanked open the door. “All right, fine. We’ll go tonight.”
“Yes! Thank you!” He clapped his hands. “You will not regret this.”
Then he ran down the aisle and up the steps and disappeared into the wings. Very excitable, that one. Up ahead, Glenn sat on the edge of the stage, staring me down. He’d been staring at me like that every single time I’d been in his presence since Monday morning. It gave me the willies, but at least he wasn’t grabbing me anymore. That was something. I cleared my throat and was about to go talk to him about Tama’s yellow wash, but Stephanie caught up with me from behind.
“KJ,” she said, taking my arm.
Her tone was all serious. I knew she was going to be irritated after lunch, but I’d seen her sitting with Ashley and the Drama Twins, so she hadn’t been entirely alone.
“Okay, are you going to hate me forever?” she asked.
I flung my bag on the first seat of the first row. All the tightness I’d had in my chest about her that morning was long since gone. Cameron had loosened it bit by bit each time he’d spoken to me, because each time, he was proving Stephanie wrong. It was much easier to forgive her, knowing she was wrong.
“Why does everyone think I hate them?” I asked.
“Well, you were sure giving off that vibe this mor
ning,” she said.
“I don’t hate you,” I said. I put my hands on her shoulders and looked her in the eye. “It’s fine.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” I pulled my script and notebook out of my backpack, smiling pretty uncontrollably. This had been a good day after all. A really good day.
“Why is it fine?” Stephanie asked, ever suspicious. “What’s with the doofball grin?”
