Dating the It Guy
Krysten Lindsay Hager
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
About the Author
Untitled
Dating the It Guy
by Krysten Lindsay Hager
Published by Clean Reads
www.cleanreads.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events and persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or part, electronically or mechanically, constitutes a copyright violation.
DATING THE IT GUY
Copyright © 2017 KRYSTEN LINDSAY HAGER
ISBN 978-1-62135-636-3
Cover Art Designed by CORA GRAPHICS
To Justin who always believed
and in loving memory of my Aunt Joan Frances
Acknowledgments
My parents, Amy, Laura Turner (the Louise to my Thelma), Riley Turner, the Dubicki family, Stephanie Taylor (thank you, thank you, thank you!), Opal Campbell (Bluebell forever), Cindy Madison, Lisa Frederick, Leslie McKee., the Yott family, the Palczewski and Ignatowski families, Lorraine Carey, James Gordon, the Sova Family, the Plachecki family, the Nielsen family, Dale Weller, the Slaters, and the Ambrus family.
My readers whose time and support mean so much.
My A-team: Pia P., Vivian G., Anna O., Emily V., Suzanne V., Pat F., Jen H. (Mrs. Screech), Kim M., Tina C., Jennifer F., Big smoochies!!
Chapter 1
My mother always told me I was a day late and a dollar short. So true. For one, I had this amazing intuition where I could sense things before they happened…except I never realized what it was trying to tell me until after it was over. Like last Monday, when I was at my friend Kylie’s house helping her color her hair to be dark like mine, and I made this joke about her mom’s lawn gnomes getting attacked by a cougar. I don’t know why I said it, but she said that no self-respecting cougar would touch those ugly things. That night it was on the news an escaped cougar was seen in a Detroit suburban neighborhood carrying a small elf. Now I walked around saying, “Hot soccer players are wandering around upstairs,” but so far, nothing.
I’ve tried to blow stuff off in front of my friends because I didn’t want them to think I was weird, but it was hard to deny I didn’t have some sort of psychic insight when last week I sensed my grandma was sick. Later that day we got a call she had a stroke.
That’s why I never ignored my instincts and why, on the first day of summer school, I had this feeling my life was going to change. I wish I’d also had the instinct to wear a cuter outfit, but like I said, it only takes me so far. Besides, I figured nothing exciting was going to happen in summer school. After all, I was only taking a four-week class because my internship at the local newspaper had been cancelled after they said you had to be sixteen with a driver’s license to intern there. You’d have thought they would have put it in the requirements or something, but the editor told me it was a new policy they forgot to post on the website. But I had felt something was going to go wrong with the internship from the get-go. That’s why I didn’t waste my money buying new clothes for work.
So now I was stuck in a classroom while some other jerk got my internship, all because my mother thought I needed something “productive” to do this summer. Like watching While My Children Wept wasn’t productive. By the way, I didn’t know if it was my intuition or the writers’ crappy writing skills, but I always knew what was going to happen on the show—even without reading the Internet show spoilers.
The class I was taking was supposed to be a gender and media class. I heard we were going to be watching videos and talking about current events, so I figured it wouldn’t be too bad—maybe even fun. When I got to class, our teacher, Mrs. Rae, handed out the syllabus. I couldn’t help but notice we were only watching two videos. Plus, we had a ton of written assignments. Would the fun ever stop? Mrs. Rae said we’d be doing a lot of group work over the next few weeks. Group work—two words that struck fear into my heart. I glanced over at Kylie.
“Emme, don’t get mad, but I promised I’d work with Zach if we had any group projects,” she said.
I nodded. After all, he was her boyfriend, but I didn’t know anyone else in the room.
“Okay, does everybody have a partner?” Mrs. Rae asked. “Because this is who you’ll be working with for the rest of the semester.”
I felt stupid raising my hand—especially as Mrs. Rae scanned the room for another friendless loser. I thought she’d let me work with Zach and Kylie since everybody else was paired up.
“Well, there’s another student who’s not here yet,” she said. “So just get started on the assignment until they arrive.”
Everyone started working while I watched the door for the new student to arrive. I hoped it wasn’t the weird girl from gym class who always gave me funny looks like I just ran over her dog or something. As the door opened, I held my breath, and in walked Brendon Agretti, the senator’s son and possibly the hottest guy in Michigan, okay, the entire western hemisphere. Last fall, Kylie’s mom accidentally hit the curb in front of the school while watching him jog. He reminded me of this underwear model, Michael Kahlo, who was on a poster that was stuck to the door of my friend Margaux’s locker. The picture had been glued in the locker a zillion years ago, but to be honest, nobody had tried to remove it. I had spent many nights staring at Brendon’s social media pages and reading all the gushing comments girls left him.
“Brendon, you’ll be working with Emme,” Mrs. Rae said, pointing to me.
Part of me wanted him to be my partner, and the other half of me wanted to run in the other direction. He walked over and tossed his notebook and keys onto the desk. He had on a navy blue V-neck shirt with the sleeves pushed up and seemed like he should be in one of those preppy clothing ads. Meanwhile, I had chosen today to put my dark brown hair in a ponytail and wear my jean overalls. Zach called it my “Engineer Fred” outfit, and I appeared closer to five years old than fifteen.
Brendon sat down next to me.
“Hey, I’m Brendon,” he said. It was cute he thought I wouldn’t know who he was. So humble, so…oh crap, I was supposed to say something.
“I’m Emme.”
“Cool, so what’s the assignment?” he asked.
I handed him the worksheet about comparing the way men and women are written about in magazines. “It’s due tomorrow, so Mrs. Rae said she would let us spend class time researching in the library,” I said, wondering if my voice always sounded so squeaky.
“Should we head to the library then?” he asked. I nodded, and as soon as we got to the library, Brendon headed over to the magaz
ine section and grabbed a bunch of them. All the couches were taken, so he asked if I wanted to go somewhere else. We tried the cafeteria, but the cheerleaders were using it to make posters for a car wash.
“There’s this place outside we could sit,” I said and led him to this garden area behind the track. It was a memorial garden for a girl who had died in an accident years ago. I always wondered who the girl was because it seemed so sad all that was left of her was a plaque with her name on it.
“I never even knew this was here,” he said, sitting down.
“I come here a lot to write.” I wished I could have said I shot my swimsuit calendar here.
“Oh yeah? What do you write?” he asked.
“I mostly write short stories.”
“Cool. Have you been published in the school’s lit magazine?” he asked.
I shook my head, but I didn’t admit I hadn’t submitted anything because I was scared of the editor, Lauren Hartnet, who was also his ex-girlfriend. Lauren was also in the media class with us, and she was one of those perfect, overachieving types who managed to be involved in everything, get good grades, and still have bouncy hair. She was basically the anti-me. Not like I was a slug or anything, but my idea of a good time was shopping and watching TV, and my hair was more windblown than bouncy.
“I used to be on the board for it, so I’d be happy to read some of your work sometime if you were thinking about submitting anything,” he said.
I nodded, but like I’d let him of all people on the planet look at my writing. After all, I never let anyone read my stuff. In fact, I was panicking over the fact I had signed up for creative writing in the fall, and I would have to read my work out loud. I decided to change the subject and pulled out one of the magazines.
“This magazine listed the makeup they used on the model, but I mean, look at this male model. He’s definitely wearing makeup, and nothing is listed for him,” I said.
Brendon nodded as he flipped through the pages. “Yeah, a lot of these guys have eyeliner on. How did I never notice that before? And no guy has skin this perfect.”
I almost said, “You do,” but managed to keep my swooning to myself.
As we worked, I noticed he didn’t take any notes, and I didn’t have to use my intuition to figure out I would end up doing the whole project myself. Why did cute guys always think they were too good to do their own work? Brendon leaned forward to look at my notes, and part of his dark hair flopped in his face. He smoothed it back, leaving a trail of cologne. I was tempted to ask him what brand it was so I could buy some to spray around my room.
“Oh crap, I completely forgot I have to pick my friend up from tennis practice,” he said, looking at his watch. “Sorry about this. I’ll see you in class tomorrow.”
Great, I bored him, and he had to make an excuse to run off. I knew I’d get stuck doing the whole assignment. I made a mental note to wear something nicer tomorrow. The other girls in our class had worn cute summer clothes, but I knew the school cranked up the air conditioning in the summer, and I didn’t want to freeze. I was starting to wonder if the school rented out part of the cafeteria to a morgue in the summer or something. It was weird how cold the place was when it was eighty-five degrees outside.
The next day I wore the jeans that made my butt look good and strappy red sandals instead of my usual sneakers. I walked in feeling pretty confident.
“Hey, Emme, you’re pretty dressed up for class,” Zach said as Kylie punched his arm.
“It’s just jeans and sandals,” I said, as my face got red. Brendon came in and waved me over, so I got up to move.
“Too good for us now, huh?” Zach said, and I rolled my eyes at him.
I sat down next to Brendon as Mrs. Rae passed out our next assignment.
“Each group will pick a sitcom and examine the gender roles of the main characters,” she said.
“What show do you want to use?” Brendon asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe a comedy like The Templetons,” I said. “It’s pretty funny, and the mom and dad characters would give us a lot to work with.”
“I love that show, and I’ve got some DVDs of it. Do you want to watch it together?”
“You could come over to my house if you want,” I said. I could not believe those words had just come out of my mouth.
“Is that cool? I could bring over a pizza or something,” he said. I tried to steady my shaking hand as I wrote down my address on the inside cover of his notebook. We decided to meet at six, which gave me approximately three hours to clean the house. He asked what I liked on my pizza, and I told him I didn’t eat meat, but I could pick off pepperoni if he wanted it. I tried to give him money for the pizza, but he wouldn’t take it. Well, the least he could do was buy me dinner since I did all of our assignment last night.
Mrs. Rae told us to hand in our homework before we left, and I pulled my sheet out.
“Oh, I did it, too,” Brendon said. “I guess we can hand in both of them.”
I had assumed the assignment had been dumped in my lap since he had run off yesterday. He took our papers up, and Kylie asked if I wanted to go with her and Zach to meet our friend, Margaux, after class and get smoothies. Zach drove us over to The Big Chilly. Margaux was sitting in a booth, playing on her phone. She had cute red shorts and matching high-heeled sandals on with a white tank top. As usual, she appeared like a cover model with her light-brown hair blown out to perfection. Kylie, Zach, and I ordered our smoothies and went to sit with her.
“So Brendon is coming over to work on a project,” I said.
“That should be interesting,” Kylie said.
Margaux moved to the edge of her seat. “Wait, Brendon Agretti? Mr. Hotness is coming over to your house? Whose idea was that?”
I said I invited him over.
Zach rolled his eyes. “Why do girls go nuts over that guy? Seriously? What does he have that I don’t?”
“Well, I don’t actually know him, but I’m guessing class and hotness,” Margaux said.
Zach’s mouth dropped open, and Kylie nudged her.
“Just kidding,” Margaux said unconvincingly. “But he probably has a croquet set with his name engraved on each ball and mallet.”
“So he has a few bucks and looks like an actor?” Zach said, poking at the floor with the toe of his sneaker. “He’s probably all stuck on himself.”
“He’s smart, and he seems like he’d read, do you know what I mean?” I asked.
“Oh yeah, he’s a reader,” Kylie said, nodding. “Is he nice?”
I nodded, but didn’t mention I thought he blew me off yesterday. He probably went to pick up some supermodel/honor student potential girlfriend who was also a gourmet cook and protested against toxic waste in her spare time.
“Has he taken you for a ride in the royal car?” Zach asked.
“I don’t know what he drives,” I said.
“I’m sure it breaks down less than the thing you drive,” Margaux said, rolling her eyes.
“Big Blue-y is a classic,” Zach said. “You don’t appreciate its timeless quality. Besides, unlike the three of you, at least I’m old enough to drive.”
“I’m just happy to see you getting interested in someone again, Emme,” Kylie said. “I know you haven’t wanted to date anyone since you and John broke up.”
“Well, who could blame her? Dude had been talking to his ex-girlfriend behind her back the whole time they were dating,” Margaux said, her brown eyes widening. “You’re so much better off without him.”
I bit my lip. Kylie was right—I hadn’t even wanted to date another guy since John because I was afraid of getting hurt again.
After we finished our smoothies, Zach dropped me off at home, and I began picking up the magazines littering the family room. I was in the middle of vacuuming when my dad called to say he and my mom were taking my grandfather out for dinner.
“What’s that noise?” he asked. “The disposal on the fritz again?”
“N
o, I’m vacuuming. A guy from school is coming over to work on a project,” I said. “Is it okay? I mean, I thought you guys would be here.”
“It’s fine. I’m just surprised you knew where the vacuum was,” he said. “Is it some famous celebrity? Just curious who would cause you to tidy up.”
“Ha ha. I just wanted the house to look nice. He seems…clean.”
“Well, I like him already if he’s got you cleaning. See ya later, kid.”
I tried to make the bathroom look decent, but spilled cleaner on my jeans when I tried to refill the spray bottle. With ten minutes until he arrived, I ran upstairs to change. I put on another pair of jeans, but they were too tight to sit in. The doorbell rang just as I had taken my jeans off. Great, he was here, and I wasn’t wearing pants. Fabulous. I grabbed the closest pants to me, which unfortunately happened to be my baggy time-of-the-month jeans. There was no time to change, so I raced downstairs to let Brendon in.
“Hey, I got half pepperoni and half mushrooms and olives,” he said when I opened the door.
We walked into the kitchen. “Do you want juice or bottled water?” I asked as he stared at the bottle of guava juice I was holding. He seemed a little grossed out at the fruit floating on the bottom.
“Um, it’s all natural juice, which is why it looks a little…”
“Chunky?” he said. “Water would be great.”
I poured two glasses of bottled water and grabbed some plates and silverware from the cupboard. We went into the family room, and Brendon showed me the DVDs he had brought over.
“I figured we could watch a couple episodes and then decide which one we want to use,” he said.
We started to eat, and suddenly it was like I had never worked a knife and fork before. Why was I so awkward? He picked up his slice and took a bite without having mozzarella strings hanging from his mouth or getting grease on his chin. He even ate cutely and was considerate about the pizza toppings. Oh wow, he even put a coaster under his glass. Where did he find a coaster in my house? I leaned forward and realized that the green box that had sat on the coffee table for years was a coaster holder.
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