Because stepping out of the house and down the front path as soon as I near it, comes Brin and another girl, both giggling over something the girl has in her hands.
Brin’s laughter stops abruptly the moment she sees me standing a few yards away, panting and drawing in breath that literally escaped the moment I saw her.
I notice the other girl say something to Brin in the form of, “Are you okay?” but all I can see is Brin. She’s wearing shorts and a T-shirt, her hair up in a ponytail and she’s carrying a large paper bag in her arms.
I wave uncomfortably, coming to a stop at the end of the sidewalk as they near.
Coughing to clear my parched throat, I lamely say, “Hey. I was just out for a run.”
The other girl nudges Brin, who looks like she’s seen a ghost. Or a creeper.
“Hi.” She finally says, as her friend walks up to me with a smirk on her face, sticking her hand out.
“Hey, I’m Lola. And aren’t you…” she looks at me, then at Brin and then her gaze lands on me again with a hard look. “Aren’t you Preston Dahl? Number seventeen on the Bears hockey team?”
I shrug noncommittally. “Guess so.”
Lola gives Brin an accusatory smirk. “You didn’t mention he was a hockey player.”
14
Brinly
CanI be any more humiliated? What is with me that every time I see Preston I’m embarrassed beyond reason?
I smack Lola in the bicep. “I didn’t think it was relevant. Sorry about my friend; she’s a little weird when it comes to hockey players.”
Preston chuckles at my explanation and Lola sneers at me with a half-hearted snort.
“Whatevs. You and I are going to have a talk later,” she demands, giving me the pointed look, complete with eyebrow quirk. “But right now, we have to go start setting things up.”
Shifting the bags in my arms, I nod in agreement. Lola and I have been assigned one of the haunted house rooms and we stopped by at the party supply store today to gather up some decorations. You know, the usual gory décor – bloody heads, body parts, creepy clown faces. But we took it a step further. Our room will be a scene from a bloodyAlice in Wonderland.
Lola loves the classics and is going to dress up as Alice in the Looking Glass. She’s in theater studies and is always overly dramatic and entertaining. Except right now, she’s a pain in my ass with her over-the-top reaction to meeting Preston. Who I may have just mentioned on our way out of the house as my new tutoring student, although I didn’t tell her his name.
Only that I kind of thought of was cute.
And then BOOM. Speak of the devil.
My cheeks must be a five-alarm fire red right now with the mortification I feel at running into him like this. What if he overheard what we were laughing about?
I would die!
Thankfully, Preston seems to breeze over this and jumps in.
“Where ya headed? Can I help with anything?”
Lola stops in her tracks and gets a huge, cat-that-ate-the-canary smile across her face.
“Why yes, Preston,” she purrs sweetly, the brat. “We have several bags up in our room that sure could use a strong pair of arms to bring down. Brin, why don’t you show Preston the way? I’ll head over now, and you can drive over with Preston if he’s not busy.”
She turns to Preston. “You’re not busy right now, are you, Preston?”
I hide my eyes with my hand, shaking my head in horror.
“Uh – sure. I’ve got time.”
Lola slaps him on the top of his shoulder briskly. “Great. Thanks, dude. I’ll see ya over there.”
