Challenge Accepted

by Amanda Abram

Her jaw dropped in shock. “You’re going to what?”

  I took a step closer to her. “You want a summer romance? I’m going to give you one with Matt, since he’s the boy you think about every night while you drift off to sleep. It won’t be easy, mind you. I mean, we’re definitely going to have to make some improvements.” I lowered my gaze down the length of her body and back up again. “A lot of improvements. Starting with your appearance.”

  “What’s wrong with my appearance?” she asked defensively, tightening her arms across her chest.

  I didn’t have time to tell her all the things that were wrong with the way she looked; Matt was waiting for me. So instead, I said, “Don’t worry, I have a plan for that as well. What do you say we meet tomorrow, at noon?”

  I knew if I gave her time to respond, she would deny me. If I walked away before she had time to protest, then she would spend the rest of the day thinking about it, until it finally started to sound like a good idea. So, I began to walk backward down her driveway. “By the end of the summer, you’re going to be thanking me for lying on that test.”

  She looked like she was going to say something, but she didn’t. I’d left her speechless.

  I turned around and crossed the street toward Matt’s house. I had no idea how I was going to pull this off. Sure, I could pay Matt to ask her out and pretend to be into her, but then I ran the risk of the truth coming out. And if the truth came out and Rachel caught wind of it, my life would be officially over until I left for college. She had a lot of influence over my dad.

  No. I was going to have to find a way to do this for real. I was going to have to somehow get Matt—the good-looking, popular jock—to fall for Emma—the plain Jane bookworm—on his own, and before Dad and Rachel left for their trip in a couple weeks.

  I had my work cut out for me, but it would be worth it in the end.

  Chapter Eight

  EMMA

  As I left my house at exactly twelve o’clock the next afternoon, I seriously began to question my sanity.

  I hadn’t told anybody—not Chloe, not Sophia, not Mom or Dad—about Logan’s offer to set me up with Matt, because in all honesty, I had no idea what to think of it. Was he for real? If I knew only one thing in life, it was that Logan Reynolds could not be, under any circumstances, trusted. So why was I even contemplating taking him up on his offer?

  Because I was still hopelessly in love with Matt, that’s why.

  Logan was right. As I sat there all alone at Dream Bean the other night, I was hoping Matt would walk in with the matching number 7 card. I knew it wasn’t going to happen, but that didn’t stop me from fantasizing about it.

  There was no way a guy like Matt could ever fall for a girl like me—no matter how much Logan was able to “improve me”. He was far from a miracle worker, and that was exactly what I was going to need if I wanted to attract Matt’s attention.

  But there I was, twelve o’clock on the dot, walking down the front walkway to meet Logan, who was already there and leaning against the side of my car. I had to admit I was impressed with his punctuality. He was usually late for everything.

  “Good afternoon, sunshine,” he said with a cocky grin. He glanced at me over the top of his shades. “Are you ready to head out?”

  “Not so fast,” I said, stopping a few feet away from him. “I don’t even know what we’re doing.”

  “Well, first we’re going to go grab something to eat. Are you hungry?”

  The slight grumbling in my stomach told me that I was. But there was no way I was going to go “grab something to eat” with him. Logan and I had never, in our entire lives, gone anywhere together, just the two of us. I could only imagine how disastrous such an event would be. We needed somebody there to play referee; somebody to stop us if our arguments got too heated.

  I could tell he was sensing my hesitation, so he added, “It’s on me.”

  That changed my tune. Wherever he took me, I’d order the most expensive thing on the menu that I could find.

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  “Great.” His cocky grin morphed into a more sincere one. “We’ll go over everything while we eat.”

  Everything? That worried me. What, exactly, was I getting myself into?

  “I’ll drive,” he said, pushing himself off my car and heading over in the direction of his driveway.

  “No, we can drive separately,” I said. There was no way I was getting into a car with him. I’d seen the way he drove. I wanted to at least live long enough to see if I had any sort of chance at all with Matt.

  “Nonsense.” He turned back around, came over to me, and grabbed my arm. “We’ll go together.”

  “Hey,” I protested, trying to remove my arm from his grasp. But my attempt was futile. The guy spent way too much time in the gym and I spent way too little for it to be an even match. So, I let him lead me over to his car. There was no use in fighting it.

  Logan always got what Logan wanted.

  I briefly contemplated yelling out, “Kidnap!” but the only people around to hear it would be my mom, and maybe one of the Fishers across the street, and none of them would believe I was actually being abducted.

  The one thing—and I mean only thing—I liked about Logan was his car. A bright yellow Mustang with two black stripes running up the hood. It was safe to say that Mr. Reynolds spoiled Logan every chance he got, hence the car. From what I’d heard, it was a gift for applying—not getting accepted into, just applying—to Harvard. Apparently, Mr. Reynolds was so overjoyed by the knowledge his son wanted to follow in his footsteps that he took him out to the car dealer as soon as the application was sent.

  “So, where are we going?” I asked as soon as we were in the car.

  “Rodeo Roy’s,” he replied as the Mustang roared to life.

  I groaned. I’d only been to Rodeo Roy’s once in my life, and I’d hoped it would be the first and last time I ate there. The food wasn’t bad, just standard steakhouse fare, but the atmosphere was annoying. For some reason, a lot of people who ate there felt the need to start acting like cowboys and cowgirls as soon as they stepped through the door, and they would spend their entire meals hooting and hollering—especially if their favorite country song started blasting over the speakers—and acting like a bunch of jackasses.

  So, I wasn’t surprised that Logan wanted to go there because he was the biggest jackass of them all.

  “Do you have something against Rodeo Roy’s?” Logan asked as he pulled out of the driveway. “You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”

  “No, I’m not.” His question really drove home the fact that he knew nothing about me.

  “Good, because they’ve got the best steaks there.”

  I glanced out the window and smirked. They had expensive steaks there, and he’d said the meal was on him.

  “So,” he said as we neared the end of our street. “What’s new with you?”

  I held up a hand. “Let me stop you right there, Logan. We don’t need to engage in small talk, okay? In fact, I would prefer it if we didn’t. It’s too…weird.”

  He nodded in agreement. “No small talk. Got it. How about big talk? What made you decide to go along with this?”

  “First of all,” I said, “I don’t even know what ‘this’ is, so I don’t even know if I’m going along with it yet. Second of all, why don’t we wait until we’re at the restaurant to talk?” While the music is too loud for me to hear you.

  “Okay…” He drew out the word, and I could tell he was getting irritated. A tiny part of me felt bad for being so cold with him, but then the large part of me remembered why I was in his car in the first place: because he lied on that test.

  So, we rode in complete silence the rest of the way to the restaurant, the car’s engine providing the only soundtrack to our awkward ride.

  When we arrived at Rodeo Roy’s, the parking lot was so packed that we literally got the last available parking space. Groups of people were hanging around outside, holding onto thos
e round pagers that light up when your table is ready.

  “Uh-oh,” I said with fake disappointment. “Looks like there’ll be too long of a wait. Maybe we should go somewhere else.”

  “Don’t have to,” he said with a lopsided grin. “I called ahead and reserved us a table. They’re ready for us.”

  He’d made reservations at Rodeo Roy’s? Classy.

  “Awesome,” I mumbled under my breath.

  We exited the car and made our way through the crowd of people standing near the door. When we stepped inside, we were immediately greeted by the hostess—a tanned brunette who was wearing cowboy boots, a cowboy hat, short jean shorts and a white blouse that had been buttoned halfway down to expose her ample cleavage, and tied into a knot at her waist to expose her bare midriff.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out why Logan wanted to eat there. Judging from the recognition on the young woman’s face, he was a frequent patron.

  “Logan!” she exclaimed. She flashed him a charming smile, which faltered slightly as her gaze flickered over to me. She sized me up briefly—long enough to make me feel incredibly insecure about myself—and then turned back to Logan. “Your table is all ready, if you’d like to follow me.”

  Oh, I had no doubt he wanted to follow her. I could tell by the way he stared at her butt the whole way to our table. I rolled my eyes and shook my head as she motioned to our booth.

  She set our menus down in front of us as we sat down. “Your server will be right with you,” she said, winking at Logan.

  “Thanks, Brandy,” he said with a bit of a drawl. Why wasn’t I surprised that he knew her name?

  I groaned inwardly as I watched him watch her walk away.

  “Come here often?” I opened my menu and started looking for the highest price tag I could find.

  “I’ve been here a few times,” he replied, looking at his own menu.

  “I’m sure you have,” I said as a carbon copy of the hostess made an appearance at our table.

  “Hey, y’all! Welcome to Rodeo Roy’s!” the waitress said, placing a couple sets of napkin-wrapped silverware in front of us. She was wearing the same outfit as our hostess, but didn’t fill it out quite as well. She also looked older, like in her late-twenties instead of early-twenties. “My name is Brittany and I’ll be your server today. Can I start you off with something to drink?”

  “Yeah, I’ll take a Coke,” Logan replied.

  I glanced over the beverages section. I couldn’t do much damage there without ordering alcohol, but there was a pricey strawberry lemonade that came with actual chunks of strawberries in it. “This strawberry lemonade, does that come with free refills?”

  “I’m afraid not,” she said with a sympathetic pout.

  I pretended to mull it over for a moment before shrugging and saying, “That’s okay. I’ll just order another one if needed.”

  “Okie dokie!” Brittany said cheerfully. “I’ll go grab those for you and give you two a couple minutes to look over the menu!”

  Logan and I didn’t talk while we looked over our menus. By the time Brittany came back with our drinks, we were ready to order.

  “What can I get for y’all?” she asked, holding up her tiny notepad.

  Logan nodded over to me. “Ladies first.”

  I turned my head to glance up at Brittany. “I’ll have the Royal Rodeo Cheeseburger.” It was hardly the most expensive thing on the menu—in fact, it was one of the cheaper entrée options—but after contemplating the thirty-dollar steak and lobster combo, I realized I was craving a burger. I’d have to financially screw over Logan another time.

  “That sounds good,” Logan said. “I’ll have the same thing.” He grabbed my menu, combined it with his, and handed them both to Brittany.

  “Sure, I’ll put that right in for you!” she said before strutting away.

  Once she was gone, Logan leaned back and took a sip of his Coke. “Okay, down to business.”

  This was going to be good. Leaning back myself, I said, “Yeah, about this ‘business’. What exactly are you proposing here?”

  “Exactly what I said to you yesterday: I’m going to get Matt to fall in love with you.”

  “And how do you plan to do that?”

  His finger traced the rim of his glass as he contemplated his answer. “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought since yesterday and I’ve come up with a few ideas.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, for starters, we have got to do something about your wardrobe.”

  I glanced down at myself. I was wearing a pair of flare jeans and a gray t-shirt that said, “BOOK NERD”, where every straight vertical line of each letter was the spine of a book. I thought it was clever. “What’s wrong with my wardrobe?”

  “Honestly, nothing…if you weren’t trying to attract the attention of Matt Fisher. Which, by the way, is confusing to me. What about him makes you so hot and bothered? It can’t just be his good looks because I’m good-looking too and you hate me.”

  I couldn’t stop myself from blushing. I didn’t want to talk about why I liked Matt so much, especially with Logan. Partly because I had no idea why I liked him. Yeah, he was extremely good-looking, but I didn’t know the guy. We’d lived across the street from each other for years and we’d never had a conversation with each other about anything. I didn’t even know if he was nice, or funny, or smart. I didn’t know what his hobbies were, or if he even had any. He could have been a serial killer for all I knew, but it never mattered. I always had a crush on him and I’d never thought to ask myself why.

  As if sensing he wasn’t going to get an answer out of me, Logan moved on. “Anyway, that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I know exactly what kind of girl Matt Fisher likes, and no offense, that girl isn’t you. At least, not the way you are right now.”

  I took full offense to that. “What do you mean, the way I am right now?”

  Logan gave a slight shrug. “You know how you are, Emma. Do I need to spell it out for you? You don’t dress up, you don’t wear makeup, you don’t ever do anything with your hair. And that’s just the outside. Let’s talk about your personality.”

  I glared over at him. “What’s wrong with my personality?”

  He chuckled softly. “Where do I begin? You’re too shy and quiet. Too reserved. You give off the impression that you hate everybody.”

  “I do, mostly,” I grumbled.

  “See? That kind of attitude is a turn-off to guys. Especially guys like Matt. Matt likes carefree, bubbly girls who want to have fun. Girls who aren’t afraid of their own shadow.”

  “I’m not afraid of my own—”

  “You need to loosen up a little,” he continued, interrupting my interjection. “But have no fear, that’s where I come in. I’m going to teach you how to get a life.”

  “Hey,” I said defensively. “I have a life!”

  “Oh really? You let your two best friends go to Florida for the summer without you, while you stayed home to organize your book collection.”

  I sighed. Yet another person who didn’t understand the importance of organizing a book collection. Still, maybe the jerk had a point.

  “So, what you’re basically telling me is that to get a guy like Matt to fall for a girl like me, I’m going to have to change everything about myself?”

  Logan nodded. “Exactly.”

  “Then I’m out,” I said simply, throwing my hands up in defeat. “I like Matt, but not enough to change who I am. I’m not bubbly or carefree, and I can’t pretend to be. I don’t like to wear makeup or revealing clothing, and yeah, sometimes, maybe I am afraid of my own shadow, but only in certain light when I’m home alone, and only for like one split second because I scare myself into thinking that somebody’s broken into the house and it’s their shadow. Perfectly normal.”

  Logan stared at me in awe for a moment before breaking out into a smile. “Wow, Emma, that’s messed up. The whole shadow thing was just a figure of speech.”


  I could feel my face burning bright red.

  “Look,” he said, leaning forward, “You want to know what I think?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well too bad, I’m going to tell you anyway. I think, deep down inside you, there’s a wild and crazy girl waiting to spread her wings and fly. I think you’ve spent your whole life so wrapped up in the lives of all the characters in the books on your shelf that you forgot to have a life of your own. And I think, if you tried having some fun once in a while, you might find you enjoy it.”

  It was my turn to stare at him in awe. He thought he knew me so well, did he? He didn’t know me at all. And I was about to tell him that when Brittany returned to our table with our food.

  “Two Royal Rodeo Cheeseburgers,” she said, setting down the plates in front of us. “Can I get you guys anything else?”

  Yes. A doggy bag so I could take my food and get as far away as possible from the guy sitting across from me.

  “No, thanks, I think we’re all set,” Logan replied with a flirtatious smile. Brittany returned in kind before walking away.

  “You should be more like Brittany,” Logan said, before taking a gigantic bite of his burger.

  I briefly fantasized about him choking on it.

  Ignoring his comment, I took a bite of my own burger. For a few short moments, we ate in blissful silence (save for the obnoxiously loud country music playing over the speakers) before Logan spoke again.

  “So, what do you say? Are you in?”

  I shook my head as I stuffed a fry into my mouth. “Nope. No deal.”

  “Oh, come on. Give me a week. If you’re not starting to see some results, then you can give up.”

  I eyed him suspiciously. “Why are you so interested in helping me with this?”

  “Because,” he said. “Even though it wasn’t intentional, I feel bad about ruining your summer, and I want to make it up to you. That’s all.”

  There was more to the story, I could tell. But this was the lie Logan had decided to go with, so he was going to stick to it, no matter how hard I tried to pry the truth out of him.

  But he did ruin my summer—intentionally or not—and he deserved to have to put in a little hard work to make things right. And trying to get Matt Fisher to fall for me? That was going to be a lot of hard work.