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“Hi, Mrs. Corcoran,” I said as Ally clamped her jaw shut.
“Well, don’t you look handsome tonight?” she said, ru
My eyes darted to Ally, who looked like she was about to either burst into tears or scream.
“Um, Chloe?” I said.
Mrs. Corcoran’s eyes flicked to Ally dismissively. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you two break up?”
Would it be wrong to strangle an old person?
“Chloe and I were never going out,” I said quickly.
“Oh. Oh, my. How embarrassing.” Her hand fluttered to her chest. “I’d heard that the two of you were … and then I saw you two the other day at the mall looking adorably cozy.” She put her hand on my shoulder this time and squeezed. “I didn’t stop to say hello because I didn’t want to interrupt anything intimate, but I—”
I was going to kill her. Right here and now. I was going to commit murder.
“We’re not intimate or cozy,” I said, staring at Ally. “We’re just friends.”
“My mistake,” Mrs. Corcoran said, fiddling with her earring. “Well. Congratulations to your father. I hope you and your friend here have a lovely time.”
And then, mercifully, she was gone. But Ally had already pushed her chair back from the table.
“Al, come on. The woman’s, like, senile,” I said under my breath. “Last year she thought me and Hammond were a closeted couple.”
“I need some air,” she replied. “I think I’m go
“Oh. Okay.” I started to get up.
“Alone,” she added pointedly.
I sat back down so quickly I bruised my ass. Ally walked across the room, dumped a huge slice of cake onto a china plate, and strode out the door. I sat for a second and tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. Clearly Ally was jealous I’d hooked up with Chloe, even though she’d said she wasn’t. But what was I supposed to do about it? I couldn’t take it back. And I couldn’t ignore Chloe at school either. Ally was the one who had told me to be there for her, right? So what the fuck was the problem?
There was only one thing I knew for sure. This had just become the worst date ever.
ally
I was walking through the wings in the auditorium, on my way back from my first costume fitting, when I heard a noise that made me stop in my tracks. On the stage, my cast-mates were ru
“Psssssst!”
I looked up. The stage lights momentarily blinded me, but then I saw someone waving at me from the rafters. As the spots cleared from my vision, I could make out long legs dangling down, a striped vest, and a bright white candy bag.
“Lincoln?” I whispered. “What are you doing up there?”
“This is the best view in the house,” he hissed back. “Come see.”
I glanced out toward the seats in the auditorium, where Mrs. Thompson was growing increasingly frustrated with one of the tinkers’ inability to pronounce the word “Pyramus.” He kept saying “Paramus,” which is a town near Orchard Hill that almost has more stores than people.
“How?” I asked, looking around for a ladder.
“It’s over by the wall,” he whispered, chucking his chin in that direction.
I turned around. The ladder in question was ski
“Come on. If I can do it, you can do it,” he said.
I took a deep breath. My plan for the afternoon had been to go home, sit down at my desk, and crack open the book I’d taken out of the library about wedding etiquette and speeches. This, suddenly, seemed far more appealing. I brushed my sweaty palms off on the butt of my jeans and started to climb. The ladder made some ominous creaking noises but was surprisingly sturdy. When I got to the lowest rafter, the one Lincoln was sitting on like it was nothing but a big old log, I grasped the rails for dear life and crawled, realizing with a quiet laugh that I was more worried about looking inept in front of him than I was about actually falling. Finally, I managed to sit down next to him, letting my feet dangle over the heads of the actors below. From the bird’s-eye position, I could see the parts in their hair and the top of one guy’s butt crack above the waistband of his baggy jeans.
I wrinkled my nose. “I thought you said this was a good view.”
Lincoln sighed and dug some caramel out of his tooth with his fingernail. “I know. I was hoping for real cleavage, not butt cleavage.”
I snorted a laugh and he held out the candy bag for me. I took a caramel and tried to unwrap it silently. Didn’t work. But no one seemed to notice.
“So what happens if we get caught up here?” I asked.
“Immediate expulsion,” he replied.
“Really?” I almost choked on my caramel.
He smirked and tilted his head. “No.”
I rolled my eyes, which threw me off. My stomach swooped and I grabbed on to Lincoln to keep from falling.
“Are you okay?” he asked, clinging to me.
“Fine. Fine.” Except that my heart was pounding in my eyeballs.
He let out a nervous laugh, then put his arm around me and hooked his thumb through one of the belt loops on my jeans. I froze. That was kind of intimate, no?
“Um, what’re you doing?” I asked.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said.
Now my heart was pounding for a whole other reason. Lincoln was not unattractive. He was, in fact, pretty damn cute. But that didn’t mean it was okay for him to have his arm around me.
“What? Are you afraid Jake Graydon’s go
I blinked. “So you do know I have a boyfriend.”
“Everyone knows you have a boyfriend,” he replied, glancing casually into the candy bag in his other hand. “But I’d like to think he’d thank me for keeping you from going splat.”
I gri
He turned and looked me directly in the eye. “If you were my girl, I’d thank anyone who kept you from going splat.”
I couldn’t breathe. Guys didn’t look you in the eye like that unless they were going to kiss you. But if I moved, I was definitely going to fall. And also, there was this part of me—this teeny, tiny part—that didn’t want to move. That tasted the danger of the moment and kind of liked it. Jake had had sex with Chloe. So what if I let this guy kiss me?
This was very not good. Very not me.
But then, suddenly, he looked away. “Anyway, I’m not worried.”
“Why not?” I asked, my palms prickly. That was a near miss. Too near.
“Because, Jake Graydon has never graced this auditorium with his presence unless it was for a mandatory assembly,” he said. “And I doubt he ever will.”
A hundred different replies jammed up my brain space. That Jake would be here for our play, to see me. That Jake wasn’t as big a Neanderthal as Lincoln made him out to be. That there was every possibility that Jake could walk in here right now to surprise me and take me out for pizza or coffee or something and when he saw Lincoln’s arm around me, he would pound him.
But then I thought that would actually never happen. Because Jake was probably off with Chloe somewhere, shopping or eating or pla
So I didn’t move Lincoln’s arm. And an hour later, we’d finished the entire bag of caramels. Together.
jake
When I turned onto Vista View Lane on Monday afternoon, I was singing as loud as I could. It was warm for October and I had the top down on the Jeep, but I wasn’t in the best mood. Ally and I had made up on Sunday after the Saturday night date from hell, but I’d felt weird around her today. It was like I was so afraid to do the wrong thing or say the wrong thing that we’d barely talked. Then I’d had a pop quiz in Spanish, practice had sucked, and tonight Chloe and I were finally getting our parents together to tell them. So I wasn’t singing out of joy or anything. I was singing out of terror.