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“And pretty, right? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished I had her hair.”
I shrugged. Mia’s honey-red hair was pretty, but it wasn’t my thing. I preferred the spun gold of Ella’s. And in a moment of tremendous courage, I swallowed down all my fears as Thorne’s voice ran through my head.Be bold, Barry.
With a shaky hand, I reached out and ran my fingers over the loose strands of her hair, unsurprised to find it was every bit as soft as I imagined it might be. “I prefer yours,” I said.
Her smile faded for a moment, and I half expected her to recoil at my touch, but she didn’t. Further emboldened, I nodded back to Luca and asked, “So did his hit-and-kiss meet your criteria for a grand gesture?”
“It was okay,” she said slowly, her gaze never leaving mine.
“Just okay?”
“Cute, definitely. And it made me feel special, I suppose. But I’m not so sure it was a movie-worthy moment.”
A movie-worthy moment? I filed this away for future reference, because Ella was an enigma I needed to unravel.
“Hey, what are you doing Friday night?” she asked.
My eyes widened slightly as I struggled to keep my cool. Was she asking me out?
My heart thrummed inside my chest as I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant when I was ninety-nine percent sure my excitement was written all over my face. I’ve never played poker before, but if I had, I would suck. I had no game face.
I struggled for a cool answer. Saying “nothing” didn’t seem particularly intriguing, but I drew a blank. What would a cool kid say?
“Um . . . Just hanging out, I guess. Why?”
“There’s this band that’s playing at The Broken Record, and I thought I’d check it out. Wanna come with me?”
My heart skipped behind my ribs, but the paranoia in me couldn’t help but feel like she had an ulterior motive. Mia’s face came to mind, and so I asked, “Is your sister going to be there, by chance?”
“Do you want her there?” Her eyes brightened.
The notion of this made her way too happy, so I pulled back before she got the wrong idea. “No,” I rushed to say, then realized how that might sound. “I mean, I don’t care. I mean, I was just curious, not that I didn't care at all, but I was just . . ..”
Wow. I was killing it. Literally butchering the conversation.
I swallowed, wondering if she would notice if I crawled under my desk.
But Ella seemed unfazed by my idiocy and merely giggled. “Okay. Well, just for the record, she’s probably hanging out with Ethan anyway.”
I nodded a little too quickly. “Cool.”
She stared at me expectantly, like she was waiting for something, and I realized I never answered her. “Oh, yeah, I’ll go.”
“Awesome. Why don’t we exchange numbers so we can coordinate?”
“Okay,” I stuttered, removing my phone from my pocket. “What’s your—”
“Here . . .” She snatched the phone from my hands. Her fingers moved quickly over the keyboard before I heard a nearby ping, and I realized she must’ve sent herself a text from my phone. “It starts at seven, but I’ll message you after school Friday so we can ride together.” She handed my phone back, and because I couldn’t wait to see what it was she sent, I clicked open my texts when a shadow fell over me.
“Mr. Glick, you know the rules about phones in class.”
I glanced up to find Mr. Gray towering over me. Next to me, Ella pressed her lips together, stifling a laugh.
“Oh, um. Sorry?”
“You can be sorry in detention,” he snapped, then snatched the phone from my fingers.
“Hey—” I called out helplessly, mostly because he took it before I could see what Ella wrote.
