Biggest Flirts (Superlatives #1)(14)
Author: Jennifer Echols

By the time I made it back to the band room to deposit my drum, word among the cymbals was that Will had asked Angelica to lunch. Lunch! I never heard of such a thing. He’d already whisked her off in his famous car. The way the other majorettes out in the parking lot were gossiping about them, Will and Angelica were an item already.

As I headed home, passing the majorettes on my way back to the fence, Chelsea said, “Wait a minute, Tia. I thought you were dating the new guy.”

Still walking, eyes on the ground so I didn’t step on glass in my bare feet, I told her, “That was yesterday.” Not that I cared or that Will’s date with Angelica was any of my business, because I didn’t want a boyfriend. But some days this was hard to remember.

***

I snagged my flip-flops from where I’d left them on the wrong side of the fence. At home I grabbed a quick shower, which everybody would appreciate, and another pack of Pop-Tarts for lunch, then hopped on my bike to pedal to the antiques shop.

On the last day of school my sophomore year, I’d biked through the historic downtown, thinking that I needed a summer job. There’d been a HELP WANTED sign in the shop window. I’d walked in and applied. A job was a job, or so I’d thought. I never would have set foot in there if I’d known what I was getting into: Bob had cancer. When his treatments didn’t agree with him, he needed time off from the shop, and Roger took care of him. I sat through a very stressful half hour while they explained this to me and asked me to work for them. I didn’t want to take on that kind of responsibility. My aversion warred inside me against my desire to help them out and my blooming interest in the bizarre junk that cluttered their hideous store.

So I’d accepted the job. And I’d done whatever Bob and Roger asked me to do—a long list of responsibilities that had expanded over the past year and two summers to include inventory, bookkeeping, and payroll. When Bob took a turn for the worse, sometimes I got so stressed out that I cleaned and organized the shop. That just made them love me more, raise my pay, and load more responsibility on my shoulders. It was terrible. I didn’t know how to get out of this vicious circle.

Today wasn’t so bad. Bob was recovering from his last round of chemo, and he and Roger were both in the back office, so I wasn’t technically in charge. I patted the shop dog for a few minutes, then took over manning the front counter from Smokin’ Edwina. Almost as soon as I slid onto my stool behind the cash register, Kaye and Harper bopped in with a clanging of the antique Swiss cowbell on the door. I always welcomed a visit from friends, because it might make me look less responsible and more like a frivolous teen to Bob and Roger.

This time, though, I could have done without, because I knew what my friends were there for. They wanted the scoop on Will. I would rather have done payroll.

They both stopped to pat the shop dog too. Everybody did. But when they straightened in front of the cash register with their arms folded, without so much as a “How you doing?” I amended their mission. They didn’t want a scoop. They were there to scold me.

“You left with the new guy last night before we could stop you,” Harper said. Admittedly, it didn’t seem much like a scolding coming from a soft-spoken artist in retro glasses and a shift minidress straight out of the 1960s.

“You sent the new guy out to meet me,” I protested. “If you hadn’t done that, I might not have met him at the party at all.”

“Was he still at your house when Aidan and I came by?” Kaye demanded. She wore her tank top and gym shorts from cheerleading practice, and her hair stuck out all over in cute twists. No matter how adorable she looked, though, she made a lecture sound like she meant it. “At the time I thought Will couldn’t have been at your house. It was so late. But after the rumors I’ve heard this morning, I’m not so sure.”

“What’s wrong with him being there late?” I asked. “You and Aidan were still out then.”

“We were on a date,” Kaye said. “Girls are supposed to say yes to a date, then no to manhandling. You’re not supposed to say yes to manhandling, then no to a date.”

Ah, so that’s what this was about. It had already gotten around that I’d dumped Will at the end of the night. I needed to talk to him about revealing personal information to cymbals.

“First of all,” I told Kaye, “you are not saying no to manhandling.”

She uncrossed her arms and put her fists on her hips, cheerleader style. “That’s different. Aidan and I have been dating for three years. You were manhandled by someone you knew for an hour.”

More like two, by my estimate. “And second, I want the manhandling. I don’t want the dating. That stuff is fake anyway. The guy is taking you on dates just so he can manhandle you later. You’re not being honest with each other.”

Kaye gaped at me. “Aidan and I have a relationship that is built on—”

“You know what?” Harper asked, sliding a hand onto Kaye’s shoulder. “This is more confrontational than we talked about, and it’s not productive.” She flashed me a look through her glasses. We’d tried our best to support Kaye’s relationship with Aidan. On paper it looked perfect. They were involved in a lot of the same activities, and they were neck and neck with a few more people for valedictorian. And we loved Kaye. We simply didn’t like him.

“Tell us more about Will,” Harper said. “He’s so hot. Everybody stared at him as he walked through the party last night.”

“That’s because he’s new,” I lied.

“He seems kind of stuck up,” Kaye said.

“Takes one to know one,” I said.

“Hey!” Kaye stomped her athletic shoe in protest. The dog looked up at her reprovingly, like she had a lot of nerve, then settled back down.

Harper talked right over Kaye. “I heard he stands next to you in band.”

“He does.”

“I heard he took drum captain from you,” Kaye said. “Did you throw it?”

“How could you accuse me of that?” I asked, looking her straight in the eye. “You and I had that talk recently about me taking personal responsibility. You speak and I listen.”

Harper, heeding the signs that Kaye and I were about to lay into each other, switched the subject back to Will. “I heard that he took his shirt off during band, and he was very white and very built.”

“He was wearing a drum harness,” I said, “so I didn’t notice.”