by Cassie Mae
How to Hook a Bookworm
By Cassie Mae
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by Cassie Mae
Sale of any edition of this book is wholly unauthorized. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part, by any means, is forbidden without written permission from the author/publisher.
Cookie Publishing
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Cover photo courtesy of PepperJack Photography
First Edition: January 2015
To those with frequent brain farts.
Chapter 1
Can I get kisses instead of spankings for my birthday?
There’s this old school movie called Sixteen Candles. Apparently, it’s a classic. I’ve never seen it, nor do I have a desire to. I know the gist though. A red-headed girl’s family forgets her birthday because her older sis has a wedding or something or other, and she goes through a hilariously embarrassing day and ends up with a cute, popular guy in the end, even though it started out like crap.
I don’t know why people have this idea in their heads that sixteen is supposed to be the best birthday of your teenage life. I get eighteen. That’s an epic age. But why make a big deal out of sixteen when you can’t afford a car to drive, you can’t afford a kickbutt party, and you have to spend your birthday with your older brother and his girlfriend who can’t seem to stop groping each other?
“Do you guys know whose day it is?” I ask, sketching in the margins of my best friend, Adam’s book that he left in the booth seat next to me. My brother and his girlfriend have been totally ignoring me, but they won’t let me “be alone” because “no one should be alone on their birthday!” Heaven forbid.
“It’s yours, Brea,” Levi, my brother answers, pulling his face from Sierra’s neck. He snatches a fry from the tray sitting in the middle of the table. “Which is why we’re paying for your food.”
I roll my eyes because they think they’re doing me this huge favor, but really, this is money we could have used to pay the stupid water bill or something else that’s two months late.
Sierra leans into Levi, her brown hair brushing his shoulder as she whispers something in his ear. He flicks his eyes to hers, she gives him a stern look, and he mouths, “I won’t let you.” And she mouths back, “You can’t stop me,” then grabs her purse.
They have this bizarre silent argument, trying to make it look like they aren’t fighting every time they look at me. But duh, I’m not an airhead.
I blow out a breath, dipping my straw in and out of my drink. Was this supposed to be fun? I need Adam to get his can out of the can. He’s the only one who makes being with my brother and his girlfriend bearable.
Levi and Sierra turn their silent fight into a whispered fight, but they’re both laughing through it. I try to ignore them because I know more neck nuzzling is on its way.
“So, what’d I miss?”
A rush of warm relief floods my body, and I whip from the booth, grasping Adam’s wrist in an airtight lock.
“Save me, please!” I lower my voice and lean closer as Adam quirks a smile and fixes the glasses on his nose. “Those two do not know how to behave in public.”
Adam laughs, prying my death grip. He gives Sierra a pointed look, and her hands fly up, eyes wide like she’s the most innocent person in the world. “I swear, we’ve been pretty darn good. She’s overreacting.” Her eyes move to mine, going from innocence to bitchery in a flash. I actually like when she gets nasty. I want to pat her on the back for having some spitfire, instead of letting people walk all over her.
“Come on, guys.” Adam gives Sierra a look like he knows she’s totally full of crap, and he’s on my side. “It’s her birthday. Maybe we should sit between you.”
“Hell no.” I lean over and grab his book now filled with my doodles. “I’ll be much happier if we ditch them, and they’ll be happier too. I guarantee it.”
Sierra looks like she’s about to argue, but Levi tugs her into his side. He smiles and waves his hand at us. “Get out of here, but be home by eleven.”
“Yes, master.” I hip-bump Adam as I pass him so he knows to follow me. He’s my ride after all. But I do feel sort of bad for being a major sourpuss, so I turn around and walk backwards toward the exit. “Thank you for the attempt, though! Love you, I promise.”
Levi waves me off, and his attention abruptly turns to his girlfriend, and they turn my birthday dinner into a date.
It’s not that I don’t love my brother. I even get along with Sierra pretty well, but when they’re together they’re just… ugh. Sometimes I want to create a cheesiness level for them, and when it gets too high they’re lips wire shut. Even while silent arguing over who pays the bill, they were looking at each other all lovey-like.
Adam sticks his key in his rusty Geo, the door making the loudest craaaaank! known to man. I snort every time he opens it.
“Okay,” he says, leaning against the door frame as I get in, “now that I’ve saved you, where do you want to go?”
“Anywhere that’s free.” I kick my feet up on the dash and play with my toe ring. “But I do want to blow out a candle at some point.”
All my birthday wishes come true. Two years ago I wished for my tiny A-cups to become Bs. Not my most practical wish, but it worked. In fact, too well, since they ballooned to Cs so fast last year my wish was for them to halt their expansion.
This year, I think I’ll keep it simple. There are so many things I want, but I try to separate my wants from my needs. Even though my needs probably won’t ever come true.
Adam scratches the back of his neck before bringing his hand down on the door frame. “Free, huh? Does gas count?”
I shake my head. But I’m not sure how far his Geo can make it before we’re stranded on the side of the road.
“Okay.” He grins and nods to my hands. “Watch your fingers.”
Another loud craaaaank! and I stifle another round of snorts as he sits in the driver’s seat. Adam adjusts his rearview mirror, fixes his glasses, and hands me the iPod he’s plugged into this ancient machine.
Pushing myself farther in the seat, I flick through to find “Brea’s Playlist” and hit shuffle. Then I crank the window down and let the battle of controlling my waist-length blonde hair vs the wind begin. Adam doesn’t know it, but this is so much better than a big birthday party or even going out to eat with my family and friends. I just want to close my eyes and remind myself that my life doesn’t totally suck one-hundred percent of the time. My best friend is a good person to share that with me.
***
“Crap!”
I jolt from my seat, wiping the small amount of drool that escaped my lips from dozing. A clank clank clank echoes from the engine, and Adam pulls into a Target parking lot and shuts off the Geo.
“What’s going on?” My voice cracks, and I rub my eyes free of gook. What time is it?
“It’s nothing…I don’t think. Just need some oil.” He tosses his keys up in the air and catches them. “Come on. I’ll get you a birthday present while I’m at it.”
He thinks he’s getting me something, but he’s not. I’ve told him all month to not buy a single thing, and he keeps giving me that look like I’m trying to trick him or something.
The door noise makes me laugh my way out of my sleepy haze, and Adam shrugs his hands into his jean pockets as
we walk. Sometimes I wonder why he wants to hang out with someone like me. I’m two years younger than him, and I’m kind of a pain in the ass.
“I still have to blow out a candle,” I say as we weave through the auto section.
Adam nods, furrowing his brow as he looks for the right kind of oil for the Geo. He’s got to get rid of that crap car and upgrade, but like me, he doesn’t exactly have the cash. He will though. Adam’s a boy genius. He’s already got colleges throwing scholarships at his brains, all he has to do is pick one, and he’s set. But I don’t like to think about it. I already feel like I’ll be left behind enough as it is with Levi debating on getting a place with Sierra when she graduates. Knowing Adam could be moving across the country forms a large lump in my gut that makes me feel like I’ve got cramps to the max.
“Don’t worry, Brea,” he says, taking an oil tub from the middle shelf, “I’ve got you covered on the candle situation.”
“Damn straight.”
“Now… a present…”
“No.” I push a finger into his chest. “You’re not getting me a gift. I told you I don’t want anything, and I mean it.”
“Well, I need to put your candle in something. And I don’t have a lighter.”
“I don’t want a cake.”
He sighs, shaking his head. His glasses slide a tiny bit down his nose. “Always difficult.” His elbow bumps mine as we make our way to the party section. “Will you let me do this for you? I know you don’t care about turning sixteen, but come on. You want to blow a candle out, I’m not going to hold it and let wax drip on my hand while you think of something to wish for.”
I laugh, picturing him standing there with hot wax dribbling over his fingers because I think he actually would if I keep putting up a fight. “Fine, but I still don’t want cake. Get more creative than that. And cheaper.”
“She compromises!” He fist pumps the air. “It’s a miracle!”
“Shut up!” I give a good hook into his shoulder.
“Ouch, damn woman.” He drops his arm. “I know I look like I’m made of muscle, but looks are deceiving.”
I laugh again, and it feels really good. Adam thinks he’s a stick, but I’ve caught a few muscles here and there when we wrestle. After one of our matches I grabbed my sketchbook and drew a caricature of him in a unitard. He just kept shaking his head as I added more and more detail to the tendons in his forearms and the flex of his jaw. But while most everything else of that picture was exaggerated—including his lack of height and red hair—those muscles were totally accurate.
He crouches down to the bottom row of candles, and I try not to let my mind wander to how he’s leaving at the end of August, just five months away, and I’m not sure who will make me laugh when he does.
He reaches out for one of those really elaborate candles, and I almost smack his hand because there are perfectly good ninety-nine cent ones, but I’m going to let him just this once, because this will probably be the last birthday of mine we spend together.
His arms are too full by the time we check out, and I wrinkle my nose at every beep the register makes as the items slide across. Adam leans over to my ear, his voice going low so the cashier doesn’t catch it. “Will you stop worrying about it? I’m not spending my life savings on candles and a lighter.”
“You don’t have to do this for me.”
He shakes his head and slides his VISA through the credit card machine. My stomach loads up with jagged rocks. What if he needs five bucks tomorrow, and too bad, he spent it on me instead? I’ve been there. Five dollars stood between Mom overdrafting the account or bouncing a check. Five. Dollars.
Adam collects the bags, thanks the cashier, and he waggles his eyebrows at me as we walk back to his car. “What are you going to wish for?”
“You know I’m not going to tell you.”
“Okay…then tell me a whole bunch of stuff you want to wish for so I won’t know which one.”
He leans in his window, tossing the bags on the seat and pops the hood. He works the cap off the oil and raises an eyebrow to me.
I set my butt on the edge of the Geo, watching him work. “I wish for a lot of things. I wish for a car. A bigger bank account for my mom. A piece of Reese’s pie from Marie Calendars.”
He chuckles at that one while working under the hood. I smile at him before gazing to the dark asphalt. “I kind of want an impossible wish to come true,” I admit, because I know I can tell him, and he won’t give me crap about it.
“Like what?”
I shrug, even though I know exactly what. “I want to turn eighteen this year, not sixteen. So I could get out of here like you guys.”
He pulls the dipstick out, running it along a rag he keeps in the car all the time for this stuff. I pop my gum, stare back at the ground and keep rattling off my impossible wishes.
“I wish Mom would stop floating around temp jobs and find one that sticks so we can get out of that trailer. I wish my dad would come back, or that he never left…” My voice somewhat sucks away, a large boulder crash-landing on my shoulders. Dad was my go-to person before he disappeared. Levi and Mom were tight, though Levi and Dad bonded over all those instruments. But Dad was the only person I could tell anything to. So when he left, the only person I had to cry to was Mom. And we just don’t have that relationship.
Adam lightly squeezes my hip, bringing me back to where I was. “I wish I could grow a tree that solves everyone’s problems. I wish I could stop being so cynical all the time. Maybe I could get my first kiss before I’m twenty-five.”
Adam straightens up so fast he bangs the back of his head on the hood. He rubs it as he gives me this funny look, like maybe I’m blowing smoke up his rear.
“Wait…you’ve never been kissed? Or are you trying to be funny?”
“That’s what you took from my list?”
“I thought you used to have a boyfriend.”
What? “Adam, you’ve known me since I was fourteen. You know I haven’t had a boyfriend.”
“Before that. Sierra said when you guys first met that you’d leave for a couple hours to hang out with your boyfriend.”
Well, that was a flat ass lie. All I wanted was to get away from my house and everyone for as long as possible. It worked. Levi didn’t give me crap about leaving because he thought I was with Sierra and that whole school project thing, and Mom was unbearable when she got back from interviews. She probably would’ve taken up drinking if we could’ve afforded it. I wanted out, so that was my excuse.
Not that I would’ve told anyone.
“I lied.” I pop my gum again. “I don’t lie to her anymore though.”
“So… you’ve never been kissed.”
“Seriously Adam, it’s not a big surprise. I have like three friends. Four if you count my brother. People don’t talk to me, and I don’t talk to them.” I shrug and kick a loose rock across the lot. Adam’s hood creaks like his door as he shuts it, and I can’t help but snort…again.
“Is that why you think it’s an impossible wish?” He slides next to me, arm bumping mine as he cleans his hands off.
“If it hasn’t happened before I’m sixteen, doubt it will happen before I’m seventeen.” I roll my head over to look at him and smile. “Maybe eighteen when I’m forced to socialize with people my own age. And that’s if I find someone to stand me long enough to kiss me.”
“Stop that.” He tosses the oil rag over his shoulder into the open window. He folds his arms, but not before he pushes his glasses back in place. The look he gives me is similar to the one I get from Levi when I’m being a real pain in the butt. “You’re not as bad as you think, you know.”
Only Adam would say that. He finds the good in everybody, I swear. Even me, who has about an ounce of it in my whole body.
“Thanks. I guess.”
“Was that gratitude? See, you’re getting better at it.”
I knock him with my hip, and pick up his wrist to look at his watch. 10:22.
&
nbsp; “I’ll be officially sixteen in three minutes. Want to take bets on if I’ll get my wish this upcoming year?”
“Did what you wish last year come true?”
I grab my boobs, give them a nice squeeze, and then wiggle them up and down. “Sure feels like it.” I smirk back up at Adam who has gone Hawaiian Punch red. Just the reaction I wanted.
“So, are you going to wish for a kiss this year?” he mumbles out of his adorable blush.
“No. I want my wish to come true, Adam. Need something more realistic.”
“Stop being so cynical. You’re a beautiful girl, and you’re funny. You’ll find someone to kiss you.”
His hand lightly taps the skin by my elbow, letting me know he’s about to lean over me. He reaches inside the car to the Target bags and dumps the contents over the hood. I watch him rip the candle package four times before he actually gets through the cardboard to the big huge “You’re Sixteen!” decorated wax.
“I think you’re the only one who sees that in me. But thank you.”
A grin quirks at the corner of his lips, but his eyes are focused on opening the big Reese’s cup he got me. “More gratitude. You’re doing so well tonight.” He checks his watch and cranks his head over his shoulder. “And we still have one minute before you’re officially sixteen. I’ll find someone to kiss you before then so you don’t have to wish for it.” His eyes frantically search the empty parking lot, and when he gazes back at my not-so-amused expression, he snaps his fingers and goes back to my impromptu birthday treat. “Damn, guess I’ll have to make sure it happens next year.”
Because I like seeing his ears flame red, I say, “Why don’t you do it?”
“That’s what I just said.” He laughs. This is my chance to take it back, but next year…he won’t be around. Why does he keep talking like he’s going to be here forever? Whatever big time university he ends up at will be far from me, and my seventeenth birthday.
“I meant, why don’t you kiss me?”
Just like I thought they would, his ears go up in smoke. “Huh?”