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“Tonight’s the big reveal,” Faith said, looking up from the spiderweb she was drawing on her little customer’s face. “Jake and Chloe … you know.”
She rolled her eyes up at the kid’s mom, having enough sense, at least, not to mention what the big reveal was about.
“Ugh. I’m so sick of those two making you look suicidal,” A
The little kid’s mother gasped and tugged him off the chair before Faith could finish her masterpiece. They disappeared into the crowd, the mom shooting dirty looks back over her shoulder. A
“Great! You just lost us two dollars,” Faith groused, throwing her hands up.
A
“A
“Yes, you do. You just don’t know it yet,” A
I gave Will the once-over and mentally agreed. Will had one of those compact, muscular, ru
“Not my type,” I said, hoping she would drop it.
As the football team headed toward the popcorn booth, Lincoln himself sidled up behind A
“S’up?” he said, holding out his ever-present wax-paper bag. “Nonpareil?”
A
“How much sugar would you say you consume in one day?” I asked him, trying to be normal and pretend like I didn’t know my BFF was sizing him up for potential sexual relations.
“It’s less if you take one.” He smirked and shook the bag in front of me. I rolled my eyes as I plucked a chocolate. A
“Stop it!” I said through clenched teeth.
“Stop what?” Lincoln looked confused.
“Nothing. Forget it.”
I grabbed a handful of candy and stuffed it in my mouth. A
“I’m go
As she walked off, taking slow, sideways steps, she lifted a hand next to her cheek to block her lips from his sight, and mouthed to me, “He’s cute! Do him!”
I almost choked. Luckily, A
“So. Mrs. Thompson tells me I’m supposed to paint faces. Which is good because I rock at art,” Lincoln said, using his tongue to dislodge some chocolate wedged between his teeth and his cheek.
“Really?” Faith said.
“No.” He looked me up and down. “You don’t look busy. Wa
I swallowed the massive mound of melting chocolate and licked my lips. I felt hot from head to toe, and was glad to have something to distract me from thoughts of Lincoln’s butt. Was A
“Sure,” I replied, gesturing to the chair at the end of the table. “Have a seat.”
Lincoln complied, dropping the wax-paper bag on the table and dusting some white sprinkles from his fingers. I picked up a black crayon and hesitated, looking him in the eye.
Okay. No more butt-thoughts, but now I was looking right into his eyes. His intensely green, smiling eyes. And suddenly I realized there was no way to do this without touching his face. I’d been doing it all day. Holding the person’s chin, tilting the cheek, tilting it back again. Was I going to touch Lincoln Carter’s face right now? My pulse began to thrum in my ears. I could feel that I was blushing and I felt the sudden need to track down A
“Just be gentle,” he said seriously.
I laughed nervously and rolled my eyes. “I promise.”
As I leaned in to start his goatee, Faith eyed me curiously. I hoped she wasn’t putting two and two together—that she wasn’t thinking I was considering A
Besides. I hadn’t thought about Jake and Chloe in two whole minutes. That had to be some kind of record.
jake
I was sitting at the huge table in the Applebys’ dining room, staring at this champagne pear salad thing that Mrs. Appleby could not shut up about, when Chloe’s fork suddenly clattered against her china plate.
“Mom, Dad, there’s something I have to tell you.”
My legs stopped bouncing under the table. “What, now?”
We had decided to wait until after di
“What is it, sweetie?” Chloe’s mother asked.
She looked pale under her helmet of blond hair, and her hand fluttered up to fiddle with her pearls. For a split second I wondered if she already knew somehow. Woman’s intuition or whatever.
“What’s going on?” my mother asked, smiling at me. Like she was expecting good news. What that could be, I had no idea. Maybe she thought Chloe and I were going to tell them we were a couple, which was what my mom had wanted all summer. Suddenly I felt sorry for her.
Chloe laid her cloth napkin down flat on the table and pushed back too. I wondered if she was thinking the same thing I was—that we should have pla
“I’m pregnant,” she said flatly. “Jake and I are …” She paused and shot me this pained look. Almost like she was apolo-gizing. “We’re going to have a baby.”
Yep. That was blunt.
“What?”
That would be the four of them. At the same time. At roughly the same glass-cracking pitch. For a second there was silence, except for my heart beating in my ears, my eyes, my stomach, my toes. I glanced over my shoulder at the door.
“Young lady,” Mr. Appleby said in a warning tone, gripping the edge of the table with both hands.
But he stopped there. His words just hung in the air over the table while the candles flickered. A pear slice slowly slipped from the top of my mound of spinach to the edge of the plate. It knocked a walnut onto the white tablecloth, and a brown stain of dressing spread all around. It looked like blood seeping from a gunshot wound.
“No,” my mother said, standing suddenly. “No no no no no no no. You two aren’t even … I mean, you haven’t even … You’re dating Ally!” she shouted at me accusingly.