by Shana Norris
Zac’s car pulled to a stop in the space next to mine and he grinned wide through his side window. He climbed out of his car and gestured to me. “Come on!” he called, his voice muffled a bit through my closed door.
I reluctantly got out of the car and walked quickly across the parking lot, following Zac toward the dirty front door of Perfect Pepper. Music pulsed through the room, vibrating up from my feet as I stepped into the dimly lit diner. The heat inside the diner wasn’t much better than the heat outside, even though I could faintly feel a breeze from the air conditioning brushing across my arms. My shoes slid a little on the grime-encrusted floor.
Zac laughed as he noticed the way I cringed. “It’s better than it looks, trust me.” He picked a cracked red booth in the back, and I sat down across from him, pulling out my history notebook.
“Let’s order a pizza first,” Zac said, waving toward a waitress in a stained white shirt. “They have the best pizza here.”
I couldn’t help crinkling my nose as I looked around the room. The black-and-white pictures of Italian landmarks on the walls were covered with thick layers of dust and grease. “How often do you eat here?” I asked.
“All the time,” Zac said.
“And you never get sick?”
Zac’s brown eyes narrowed in confusion. “Why would I get sick?”
I still wasn’t feeling confident about eating there, but I let Zac order a pizza with everything on it. Once the waitress was gone, I tapped my fingers on the cracked Formica tabletop, trying to think of something to say. What topics might win over the heart of Zac Greeley?
“Before we get started, let’s clear one thing up: what’s the real reason you picked me for your partner?” Zac asked, interrupting my train of thought. I thought about the folded up check nestled in my pocket, and my stomach plunged—could Zac somehow know about the deal with Hannah?
“I…didn’t want to work with Molly,” I stuttered, “You know, what they say, ‘don’t do business with friends,’” I said, smiling weakly and hoping he would buy my explanation.
Zac nodded his head, “Okay, so you decided to pick a stranger. That was brave of you. Very cool.”
I shrugged and asked, “So should we get started?” hoping to put an end to Zac’s minor inquisition.
Zac cleared his throat as he pulled a notebook from his backpack and opened it on the table in front of him. “Sure. So I tried to come up with a few ideas for our business, but it’s a lot harder than I thought. All of my ideas are pretty lame.”
“Let’s trade lists,” I said, handing him the one I had made after I had given up trying to find details about Zac during lunch. I turned his notebook around so I could read the list he’d made. “These aren’t so bad. Photography studio is good. Wait, does that say ‘dude ranch?’”
“Yes, it does,” Zac said, grinning at me. “When I was a kid, I always wanted my own ranch. I figured this project would probably be the closest I’ll get to having one.”
I laughed, “I don’t know anything at all about running a ranch, even an imaginary one.”
Zac shrugged as he looked over my list. “That’s okay. It’s supposed to be an adventure, right?”
“Right,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure that I liked the idea of an “adventure.” My final grade in this class depended on this assignment, and a low score could bring down my entire GPA. I glanced back at Zac’s list. “Okay, I have an idea. Why don’t I go through your list and mark the ones I like best, and you go through mine and do the same? Then we’ll choose from the narrowed down options.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Zac said, tapping a straw on the tabletop like a drumstick.
We read through each other’s lists, marking off the ones we liked. Zac had a few silly ideas, but also a few good ones. Nothing really stuck out at me, but I was willing to compromise.
The waitress delivered our pizza and drinks, and we pushed our notebooks out of the way to make room.
“Okay,” Zac said, brushing his brown hair out of his eyes. “I’m not really excited about any of these.” He raised his eyebrows at me. “What about you?”
I thought we had some really good ideas, but I wanted Zac to be happy with our choice. If he was excited about our project, it would make this whole boyfriend thief thing easier.
Suddenly, Zac’s eyes lit up. “I have another idea. A great idea.”
Intrigued, I asked, “What is it?”
Zac held his hands up, fingers spread wide. “A matchmaking business.”
My shoulders drooped. “A matchmaking business? Isn’t that kind of silly?”
“Why would it be silly?” Zac asked, shooting me a confused look as he plopped two slices of greasy pizza dripping with long strings of cheese onto a plate. “It’s better than any of the other ideas we’ve had. It’s something the other teams aren’t likely to think of, so we won’t run the risk of having the same business as someone else in class. And there are people willing to pay a lot of money to find their true love.”
“I’m not sure Mr. Freeman will like it,” I protested. My stomach growled as I eyed the pizza. I was hungry and it looked good, but I wasn’t sure if I could trust Perfect Pepper’s sanitary practices. “He’ll probably insist we choose a real business.”
“Matchmaking is a real business,” Zac insisted. “Haven’t you seen those commercials on TV? There are thousands of websites that exist solely to match people up. Hmm . . . Our business could have two components, online for nationwide customers and in-person for local customers. So we’d need a web programmer to handle the website and a couple of employees to help out with interviewing clients face-to-face. They could also help with managing the internet applications to save us some staffing expenses.”
Before I knew what was happening, Zac had flipped to a clean page in his notebook and started writing down all of the ideas pouring out of him. His hand flew across the page, but even at that speed, I doubted his pen could keep up with the flow of words coming out of his mouth.
“We’ll have to think of a name,” Zac said. He took a big bite of pizza, chewing for a moment before he continued. He had a smudge of pizza sauce on his lip, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Something catchy, but not too cutesy. No offense, but I don’t do cutesy.”
“Zac,” I said, trying to break into his steady stream.
“Maybe A to Z Love Matches? For Avery and Zac? Oh! We could offer deals to in-person customers who also list their applications online. A promotion to help draw in-person customers. And we’ll definitely need advertising.” He bent over the notebook, writing in a quick, sloppy script.
I tried again. “Zac.”
Still, he didn’t seem to hear me. “Do you think we should limit to a certain age group? Like, should we focus on matching up teens? Or should we focus on the adults? Underage customers could pose more problems with safety and internet predators—”
“Zac!” My voice echoed over the music pumping through the room.
A few people from tables nearby turned to look at us. Zac blinked at me.
“What?” he asked. “You don’t like it?”
I twisted the paper from my straw between my fingers. “I’m just not sure that it’s the best business idea.”
“It’ll be something different among all the clothing stores and restaurants the other teams are probably working on. And it’s a service that exists to make people happy. What could be wrong with it?” he said, gazing at me with his chocolate brown eyes.
I took a deep breath and then said, “Any idiot can pair two people together based on similar interests or goals. Why would anyone pay for that?”
Zac shrugged as he reached for his soda. “People do pay for it, all the time. Not everyone has the alluring personality you do that can attract people from miles around to throw themselves at their feet.”
I tossed my straw paper across the table at him. “I’m serious. The whole matchmaking industry is a scam preying on lonely fools who think they need someone else
to make their lives meaningful.”
“You can’t be that cynical about love already.” Zac tapped my knuckles with his pen. “You’re not even out of high school yet.”
“Relationships are a waste of time and energy,” I stated. “I didn’t get to be number one in our class by chasing after every cute guy who looks my way.”
“Are you calling me cute?” he asked with a wink.
I hated the flush that crept up my neck when he smiled. I needed to regain control of the conversation before Zac could see how flustered he had made me. I sat up, holding my shoulders back, and aligned my pencil on the tabletop evenly parallel with the edge of my notebook, restoring some small amount of order to the mess Zac had made of our booth.
I grabbed a slice of pizza and took a big bite to keep myself from having to respond to his “cute” comment. But as soon as the hot cheese and tomato sauce met my taste buds, I forgot about everything. I closed my eyes, savoring the taste of the pizza as I chewed. The sauce was just the right mix of sweetness with a little kick. The toppings and cheese all combined perfectly, and the crust was so soft and buttery.
“Good, huh?”
I opened my eyes to find Zac giving me a satisfied smile. I set the pizza down on my plate and wiped my mouth with a napkin. “It’s pretty good,” I admitted.
“Pretty good?” Zac asked. He still had that bit of pizza sauce on his mouth, drawing my attention to his full lips. “How about awesome? How about the best pizza you’ve ever had?”
“Let’s get back to the project,” I said, rolling my eyes. I didn’t want to admit that he was right about the pizza. It was the best I’d ever had. Why had I never heard of this place?
“Who would really use a matchmaking service?” I asked. “Who would be our client base?”
Zac thumped my knuckles with his pen again, smiling as he tapped out the internal beat in his head on my skin. “Everyone needs love and so . . .” He waved one hand in a big flourish toward our business notebook. “Tada! Everyone needs matchmakers.”
Tingles reverberated through my hand where he’d tapped. I clasped my other hand on top of it, rubbing hard to make the tingling go away. “Not everyone. I’m not naive enough to confuse scientific fact with these made up ideas of spiritual bonds.”
“Oh, really?” Zac laughed a bit as he leaned across the table, his face only inches from mine. “And what exactly does science tell you about love?”
He was so close I could see the golden flecks in his dark brown eyes. A barely visible mole rested under his left eye and light peach fuzz dotted his upper lip. I swallowed and recited the words that years of reading Biology and Human Emotions had ingrained into my mind. “Love is a form of pleasure. Pleasure is caused by the release of endorphins. The things we believe make a person attractive are based on pheromones. You respond positively to someone whose pheromones are compatible with your own, making you think you’re falling in love. But it’s all in your head. Literally.”
Now Zac grinned wide and flicked his pen lightly across my nose. “You’re like a walking text book. You have it all figured out, don’t you?” He stared levelly at me and a small smile curled one corner of his lips, as if he knew what I’d say already and yet still didn’t believe me.
Not everything. I hadn’t even begun to figure him out.
“I know enough to keep myself from becoming easily fooled by simple biology.” I stared at him for a long time, silently daring him to argue or try to convince me otherwise. But he didn’t. He stared back, also silent, until the flush creeping up my face made me finally break our gaze.
I grabbed my cold soda and took a long sip. I needed to get back on track, both with this project and my deal with Hannah. If Zac wanted to start a matchmaking service, then I’d go along with it. For Costa Rica.
“Okay,” I said as I set my glass back on the table. “We’re doing a matchmaking service. Just as long as I get an A, I’m happy.”
Zac raised his fists in the air and let out a whoop. “It’ll be the best matchmaking service anyone has ever seen. It’ll blow even your socks off.”
Somehow, I didn’t doubt that. Zac was already proving to be a bigger surprise than I had expected, and I still had no idea how I was going to win his heart.
Learn more about The Boyfriend Thief: follow author Shana Norris on Twitter and visit her online!
Praise for
THE BOYFRIEND THIEF
“Adorable and hilarious!” —Lauren Morrill, author of MEANT TO BE
“The Boyfriend Thief was a very quick read…I recommend it to friends who are looking for a fun contemporary on the lighter side of YA…it explores some deeper issues while remaining cute and fluffy!” —Jennifer, The Starry-Eyed Revue
“The Boyfriend Thief, on top of being enjoyable, teaches good lessons that I think everyone should know.” —Julie, Books and Insomnia
More than 2,800 five-star reviews on Goodreads.com
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