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Gracie interrupted them by clapping her hands. “Nicole gets shotgun.” When Jesse started to protest, she leveled him with a stare. “You want to test me?”
Jesse couldn’t help it; he shivered a little. “No, ma’am.”
“Good, because I was fifteen seconds from dragging you down the hall myself,” Gracie declared, and Jesse wisely chose not to point out that he was much stronger than her. “Now, hurry your butt to the double doors.”
“If we don’t make it back from this trip alive, remember me fondly,” Raina said as she gave Gracie a side hug.
Jesse glanced at Raina. “Do you think your parents will kill us?”
“If you die, I’m taking your collection of Star Wars legos,” Dean chimed in.
“I donothave Star Wars legos,” Jesse replied hotly, swiveling around to glare at his cousin. “They’reTheo’s. He left them at my house!”
Dean smirked, leaning closer to Raina. “They’re in his closet!” he stage-whispered.
“Fuck you,” Jesse grumbled, storming ahead.
“That’s Gracie’s job!” Dean yelled at him. “Ow!” he yelped a moment later, presumably when Gracie caught up and smacked him.
ChapterTen
There was no way to describe the car ride other thantense.
Her mom’s friend, Lauren Goldberg, was a stern, no-nonsense woman with graying hair, an ever-present frown, and an instant dislike for Nicole. Despite the fact Nicole had dressed in a long skirt—well, long for her—and a top that reached the skirt’s waistband, she had already earned three dirty looks from Lauren.
They’d been driving for five minutes.
“We can use this time to work on our English project,” Jesse said, breaking the awkward silence.
He pulled his laptop out of his backpack, resting it on his knees. He and Raina were sitting on opposite sides of the backpack, an obvious gap between them. Although Raina felt a little ridiculous leaning over to look at his screen, she wasn’t about to move to the middle seat. Not under Lauren’s observant eye.
“We’ve got to figure out what we’re doing for our interactive component,” Raina said, pointing to the list on Jesse’s computer.
Most of the items were checked off. They’d made good progress, and all they needed to do now was to come up with the fun part. That, and write the speech. But Raina could do that with her eyes closed.
“Sure,” Jesse replied. “I’m assuming we don’t want to poison anyone, so we should probably make some sort of potion.”
“Thoughts on a volcano-type potion?” Raina asked.
Jesse shook his head. “One, those ingredients are very distinctive. People would catch on right away. Two, those make a mess, and I don’t think Mrs. Dixon will want that.”
“What about a love potion? I’m sure there are recipes online.”
“I don’t want people thinking it’ll actually work, though,” Jesse said, taking out his phone and typing something into the search bar. “It says here that this love potion needs water, lemon juice, cranberry juice, and baking soda. I’m sure we can give each of those fancy names and make up some words to say.” He looked thoughtful for a second before perking up. “Ooh, we add a step that involves people saying the name of the person they want to fall in love with them so we can find out who peoples’ crushes are!”
“Sure,” Raina said with a laugh. “But isn’t that kind of mean?”
Jesse shrugged. “I doubt anyone with a crush worth keeping would fall for it. You think it would work if I tried it on Theo?”
“Theo’s too smart for that. Zara might fall for it though; she’s the most gullible.”
Jesse laughed. “Not a bad idea. But she seems to really like your friend Tehilla, which is interesting, because Zara doesn’t normally do relationships.”
“It is interesting. Tehilla’s not big on dating either. Especially in a school that’s predominantly non-Jewish.”
A harsh sniff came from the driver’s seat, but when Raina glanced forward, Lauren was focusing on the road. Nicole was directly in front of Raina, but through the rearview mirror, Raina could see that the other girl was fast asleep.
“I’m glad I met you Raina,” Jesse was saying when she tuned back in. “See, on the outside you appear super sweet, and don’t get me wrong, you are, but every once in a while you come up with these kick ass ideas and surprise everyone.”
