This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the word marks mentioned in this work of fiction.
Copyright © 2016 by Linda Budzinski
THE BOYFRIEND WHISPERER by Linda Budzinski
All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by Swoon Romance. Swoon Romance and its related logo are registered trademarks of Georgia McBride Media Group, LLC.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
ePub ISBN: 978-1-944816-85-8 Mobi ISBN: 978-1-944816-86-5
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-944816-90-2
Published by Swoon Romance, Raleigh, NC 27609
Cover design by Danielle Doolittle
To my best friend, Joe. Thank you for making the first move.
I sharpen the focus on my binoculars. Are those green peppers or jalapeños?
As Brendon McDonough takes another bite of his pizza, a long, gooey slice of cheese oozes down his chin and drips onto the table. He picks it up, pops it into his mouth, and wipes his face with his sleeve. Charming. What does Jolene see in this dude?
I shake my head and make a note on my tablet: pepperoni, jalapeños, extra cheese. When it comes to winning a guy’s heart, the devil is in the details—especially when those details pertain to food.
A knock on my car window startles me. Crap. What’s Chris doing here? I shut down my tablet and slip the binoculars into my coat pocket.
“Lexi? Is that you?”
I roll down the window. “Hey. Whattup?”
“Nothing. What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like?” I point toward my tablet. “I’m … uh … ordering pizza.”
“From your car?” He nods toward Italiano’s, where Brendon and his friends sit by the back window scarfing down their food. “Why don’t you walk in and order it?”
Good question. I open the car door and hop out. My breath makes tiny frosty puffs that disappear into the darkness. I shiver but resist the urge to grab Chris’s arm for warmth. Ugh. A year ago I’d have done that without a second thought. He’s my best friend, after all, and has been since the third grade. I wheel around on the rubber soles of my Chucks and head toward the door. “Maybe I will. Just trying to save some time, I guess.”
Chris follows me. “That makes sense. Who wouldn’t want to sit out here in the freezing cold rather than walk into the nice, warm, pizza-scented restaurant where you can tell a real live person what you want and sit down with your soda while you wait for it?”
I turn, stopping so abruptly that Chris runs into me. I ignore the flutter in my stomach. “Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“Make fun of me.”
“Make fun? Lexi, I’m playing. You know that. What’s up with you lately?”
I want to shove him and tell him to shut up and get out of my headspace, but instead, I sigh. “Nothing’s up. Nothing at all.”
Chris leans down toward me. I’m five-nine in flats, so not many guys tower over me like Chris. His light blue eyes shine beneath the parking lot lights, and his blond hair is spiked to hide the cowlick he’s fought since we were little. He lowers his voice. “Is it that time of—”
“Omigod!” I stick my finger in his face. “Don’t ever ask me that. Got it? Never. I can’t believe you almost asked me that.” I spin back around and head into Italiano’s without waiting for him.
“One slice, please,” I tell the girl behind the counter. “Plain cheese.” I had a huge dinner and am not the least bit hungry.
“Thought you said you ordered online.” Chris tugs at my ponytail as he comes up behind me.
“Tried to. Before I was so rudely interrupted.”
He laughs. “Come on. Isn’t this better than sitting in your car?”
We fill up our sodas, and I grab a booth as far away from Brendon’s table as possible. Discretion is paramount in my line of work.
Chris loosens the paper on his straw and blows it at me. “So where were you this afternoon?”
“Busy.” I grab the fluttering paper out of the air and play with it, mainly so I don’t have to look him in the eye. “Why?”
“We were trying to get together a game of two-on-two down at the courts. I texted you twice.”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” I twist the paper around and around on my pinkie finger. “I turned off my phone. I was at the library doing my psych report.” That’s only a partial lie. The part about the library is true, but I was there to keep tabs on the math team captain for one of my clients. “Sorry I missed it. Who else played?”
Chris grins. “Massey and Briggs. We ended up playing HORSE. I smoked them, obviously.”
I laugh. Massey and Briggs suck at HORSE. If it weren’t for layups, neither of them would ever score a basket. Even I’d have crushed them, and I’m not as good as Chris. “Now I’m really sorry I missed it.”
Chris looks up and gives a low whistle. I follow his gaze to find Alicea Springer and Ty Walker ordering at the counter. Ty has his arm around her.
Chris leans toward me. “Think that’s a Boyfriend Whisperer couple?”
I shrug. “Who knows?” Part of me wishes I could fess up and tell Chris everything, but I can’t let pride get the best of me. Ty was my toughest assignment ever, and the fact that he’s still with Alicea after two months is my biggest success to date. He’s super hot, a star forward on the soccer team, drives a BMW, and on top of all that, he’s smart. Alicea, meanwhile, was basically a nobody. She’s pretty enough, but she’s quiet and shy and, until recently, had the self-confidence of an earthworm. At least, I assume earthworms lack self-confidence seeing as how they eat dirt and all.
“It’s gotta be.” Chris shakes his head. “That chick had more face time with her computer than with guys before they started going out. Ty would never have given her the time of day without some sort of—”
“What do you know?” I kick him under the table. He’s right, of course. In fact, he’s echoing my exact thoughts when Alicea hired me, but still, his attitude bugs me. “Maybe some guys are better than others at seeing past a girl’s image. We’re not always what we seem, you know.”
“Since when are you an expert on girls?” Chris gives me a teasing grin. “It’s almost like you think you are one.”
That does it. I slide out of the booth without a word and walk up to the counter to wait for my pizza, leaving Chris to wonder what he’s done to tick me off. At least, I hope he wonders. I hope he feels bad for hurting my feelings. I hope he regrets being kind of a jerk tonight. Most of all, I hope he didn’t notice the tears that sprang to my eyes as I left our booth.
No. Even more than that, I hope he’ll wake up and realize that I am, in fact, a girl.
I dribble down the court and pull to a stop at the three-point line. With one smooth motion, I toss the ball, feeling its rough, rubbery surface roll off my fingers as it launches into a perfect arc. Whoosh. Nothing but net. I smile.
It’s six o’clock on Thursday morning, and the only people at school right now besides me are the swim team. I decided to come in early and take some reps since I couldn’t sleep. I grab the ball and line up on the foul line to practice some free throws. Let’s see if I can hit ten out of ten this morning.
My dad used to be a Wizard. Not a Gandalf-D
umbledore kind of wizard, though that would have been cool. He was a backup forward on the Washington Wizards, until about halfway through his second season, at the age of twenty-four, he tore a ligament in his knee. That ended his NBA career, and over the next three years, he got his real estate license, married my mom, and had me. Apparently, Mom had a tough pregnancy and an even tougher labor, so that was the end of the baby-making.
I sometimes wonder if they’d gone on to have a son whether Dad would have bothered to teach me how to play. Maybe he would have focused on my brother and left me to more girly pursuits. That usually makes me glad I’m an only child.
My phone buzzes as I make seven out of seven, and I jog over to the bleachers to pick it up. It’s Abigail, my assistant.
Abi: We need to talk.
I shake my head. Abi’s great at her job. In fact, there would be no Boyfriend Whisperer Enterprises if it weren’t for her, but she can be a pain in my butt. I hit reply.
Lexi: Third-period lunch. F Hall janitor’s closet.
Chris was right last night about one thing. I’m no expert on girls. All my friends are guys and have been since I was little. Which—at least compared to most of my classmates—makes me an expert on guys. Which is how I became the Boyfriend Whisperer.
I head back to the free throw line, but Abi’s text has shaken me out of my zone, and I miss shot number eight.
I grab the rebound off the backboard and tear down to the other end of the court, zagging and twirling past my imaginary opponents on the way to a perfect layup … except the ball jams between the rim and the backboard. Stuck in limbo. Zero points. Just like my love life.
Abi is waiting for me when I slip into the closet. She’s standing next to a collection of mops and brooms, and I swear she’s so skinny she blends right in. She starts complaining without so much as a hello. “I can’t do this anymore, Lexi. It’s too much. I have no social life to speak of, I was late for cheer practice twice last week, and I totally failed my French mid-term.”
I give her what I hope is a sympathetic smile. “Abi, Abi, Abi. I told you we’d be crazy for a while. We just need to get through Valentine’s and then—”
“And then what? And then we’re coming up on prom season and then summer of love and then back-to-school and homecoming and the holidays and before you know it we’re back to freaking Valentine’s!” She says all this in one breath, her eyes widening with every word until she looks like an anime version of a Barbie doll.
I drape my arm around her shoulders. “Breathe. It’ll be okay, I promise. Think of all the money we’re bringing in. You’ll be able to buy half of Sephora at this rate.”
Abi is about as different from me as a girl can get. While my makeup repertoire consists of a single stick of clear lip-gloss, her supply could fill the F Hall janitor’s closet to overflowing.
“I know.” Impossibly, her eyes widen even more. “Did you know O.P.I. came out with a super-sparkly iris nail polish last month? It’ll go great with my—” She shakes her head. “Wait. That’s not the point. I mean, it is the point. The money’s awesome. But … something has to give. Before I crack.”
Crack? As in, talk? Everyone knows Abi works for the Boyfriend Whisperer. They just don’t know it’s me. “Abi, you promised. You cannot tell anyone.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t mean like that. I mean I’m about to lose my mind. I should warn you, though. Certain girls are getting curious. Beyond curious. Like, invasive.”
“Invasive how?”
“Yesterday I was messaging Libby, trying to find something to do this weekend, when all of a sudden I got this eerie feeling someone was watching me. I turned to find Michelle leaning over my shoulder reading every word. As if I really needed her to know I’m dateless. I’m sure she went and blabbed to half the cheer squad about what a loser I am.”
Abi’s voice breaks, and I can’t help but feel bad. She does deal with a lot of crap. I squeeze her shoulder. “First of all, you broke up with him. Which makes you a strong girl who knows what she wants and deserves in life, not a loser. Second of all … never, ever message or text me in public, okay? And delete all traces immediately.”
She nods. “I know, I know.”
“Abi.” I grab her arms and stare straight into her eyes. “I need you. You are the public face of Boyfriend Whisperer Enterprises. Those girls are just jealous because you know something they don’t.”
She manages a small smile. “True. And trust me, I’ll never tell.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. I need her silence.
Coach Reilly blows her whistle and strolls to center court. “Circle up, girls! Our tournament slot was posted this afternoon. Let’s review the schedule.”
My stomach rolls around like a ball circling the rim, waiting to drop. The boys’ team got their schedule last night. Will we play down in Virginia Beach with them? Maybe if Chris and I can get away from our normal routine, he’ll see me differently. Maybe if we could hang out in a fancy hotel lobby, sipping hot chocolate by a roaring fire while the sound of ocean waves crash outside the door, he’ll gaze deep into my eyes and see past the eight-year-old tomboy who taught him how to skip rocks and shoot a slingshot and peel hard-boiled eggs into one long twirl and—
“Malloy.” Coach throws a ball at me, and I snap to attention just in time to catch it. “Focus, Malloy! What’s up with you lately?”
I stare down at the red-white-and-blue Grand View Patriot face painted on center court. That’s the same thing Chris asked me last night. “Nothing, Coach. I’m listening.”
Coach drones on for a solid ten minutes about the importance of the tournament and how even though we’re favored to win our game, we should treat the other team as a viable opponent, and how we need to come together and support each other and play our best and blah, blah, blah. Finally, she pulls out her clipboard and flips to the schedule. “We play early Saturday morning, which means we’ll travel down Friday after school. We’ll be taking the bus down to …” She squints at her sheet while I hold my breath. “Virginia Beach.”
Yes! I drop the ball, sending it skittering across the gym floor. My cheeks flush, but I’m not sure if that’s because Coach and the entire team are staring at me or because I can already feel the hot chocolate and the fire—and Chris’s gaze—warming me.
Coach shakes her head and continues. “The boys play Saturday night, so you have two options. Our bus will return to Grand View immediately after our game. However, if you want to stay and watch the rest of the tournament and cheer on the boys, you can take their bus home Sunday morning. Assuming you have your parents’ permission and we can get enough chaperones.”
Sweet. I bite my lip as I flash back to the hotel lobby and Chris’s eyes. For the rest of practice, I light up the court, making all four of my three-pointers and eleven out of twelve of my free throws. Watch out, Virginia Beach, and watch out, Chris Broder. It’s time for the President and CEO of Boyfriend Whisperer Enterprises to open a case file on herself.
Abi Eisenberg was my first case, before I even had cases, before Boyfriend Whisperer Enterprises even existed.
One day at the beginning of the school year, she walked up to me in the lunchroom. “We need to talk.” She says that a lot.
I glanced around to make sure her demand was directed at me and not at Chris or Massey or one of the other guys at our table. “Me?”
“Yes, you. It’ll only take a minute.”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
“Not here.” She crooked her finger and turned. “Follow me.”
I rolled my eyes at Chris as I stood. This was pre-crush, when Chris and I were strictly friends. I mean, we still are, but back then I was fine with it. In fact, I probably would have been weirded out if anyone had suggested we date.
I followed Abi into an empty science lab. “What’s up?”
“Roland Briggs.”
“What about him?”
“You two are friends,
right?”
“We hang out.”
“Does he like me?”
I shrugged. How would I know? We didn’t exactly compare love lives between games of pool and pick-up basketball. The closest any of my guy friends came to discussing the opposite sex was the occasional comment about some “hot” girl who sat next to them on the bus or said hi in the hallway.
“I need him to like me.”
“What?”
“Let me clarify. I need you to get Roland Briggs to like me.”
I frowned. “Why? And how am I supposed to do that?”
Abi gave an exasperated sigh, as though I was being incredibly dense. Which perhaps I was. Romance wasn’t exactly my forte.
“Because I like him. And I don’t care how; I just need you to do it.”
I sat down on a stool at one of the lab tables and considered this. Clearly, Abi was used to getting what she wanted. “What’s in it for me?”
She squinted her eyes and tapped her chin. “I can pay you.”
“Pay me? What do I look like, some sort of pimp?”
“What? No! I’m not asking you to set us up in a hotel room. I’m asking you to …” She waved her hands in the air. “Play matchmaker. Coach me on how to get Roland to fall in love with me. You know, like that Cyrano guy we learned about in English lit. I’ll be your student, and you’ll be my … Boyfriend Whisperer.”
And so it began.
Turns out romance is my forte. Or at least, I know how to attract a guy’s attention. Four months later, I’ve set up almost two dozen couples—a ninety-five percent success rate—all while managing to keep my identity a secret. Boyfriend Whisperer Enterprises is the talk of the school, and my price per match is $125, cash only.
Some days I look around at all the couples I’ve brought together and feel like Cupid himself, but deep down, I know the truth. I’m a fake, an imposter, an emperor with no clothes. Because when it comes to whispering my own crush, I’m a total fail. Stuck in the friend zone with no clue how to escape.
The Boyfriend Whisperer Page 1