The Boyfriend Bet (Boyfriend Chronicles #2)

by Chris Cannon

  It was all I could do not to laugh. She seemed so satisfied with herself. Her eyes were bright, her face flushed. If we were anywhere but class I would’ve given in to my instinct to kiss her. In the mean time, I’d plot revenge for that comment.

  “Class, if you’ll pair up with someone and come back to a kitchen, we’re going to go over measuring ingredients. Do be sure to write your name on the bags of ingredients. You’ll use them tomorrow to bake cupcakes.”

  “Are you going to eat that?” Zoe pointed at the cupcake Ms. Ida had forced on me.

  Now that I knew she was interested, I grabbed the cupcake and studied it. “Not right now. I’m going to keep it for later.”

  “You’re just toying with me.” She headed for one of the kitchen areas.

  When I joined her she held up a spoon with writing on it. “Do you know what this is?”

  I leaned in to read the markings. “It says tablespoon, so I think we can safely assume it’s a tablespoon.”

  “Smart ass,” she whispered so no one else could hear.

  “Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.” I picked up a smaller spoon and studied it. “They’re all labeled. I don’t know why people act like cooking is difficult.”

  Her eyes went wide, which could only mean one thing. Ms. Ida must be standing behind me, so I improvised. “If I can learn how to do this, I’m sure anyone can.”

  “I’m so glad you’ve come around.” Ms. Ida patted my shoulder and then moved on to the next kitchen.

  Zoe sidled closer. “I saved you. You should give me your cupcake.”

  “Wrong. You clued me in. I saved myself.”

  “Then you should give me half your cupcake.”

  “You already ate one cupcake.”

  “So?”

  “So this one is mine.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  We took turns measuring out ingredients. It wasn’t hard. Once we had the right amount of flour, sugar, and salt measured into Ziploc bags, I wrote our names on them with a navy blue sharpie.

  While we were working, I noticed Zoe wore a man’s watch. It looked old, and the hands weren’t moving. “Cool watch.”

  She smiled. “Thanks. It was my grandfather’s.”

  “Does it need a new battery?”

  “No. It’s supposed to be self-winding, but it stopped working a while ago.”

  “Then why do you wear it?”

  “It reminds me of him.”

  “Time to clean up your areas.” Ms. Ida walked around supervising. “We never leave a messy kitchen.”

  “Good thing she’s never been to my house.” Zoe wiped the counter down and tossed the paper towel in the trash. “Jack is legendary for making a huge mess and then claiming he has to go mow the lawn. One time, I left his dishes in the sink for three days. He still didn’t clean them up.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “I threw a new red tee shirt in the washer with his whites, on accident of course. Turned all his underwear pink.” The evil grin on her face was contagious.

  “Is it a constant war zone around your house?”

  “No. There are moments of calm. My grandma is pretty good at keeping the peace.”

  “You live with your grandma?”

  “My grandma and my mom. After my dad and grandpa passed away, she moved into the big house with us.”

  What did I say to that? I went with the obvious. “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  I tried to lighten the mood. “Big house? Isn’t that what they call prisons in old movies?”

  “My grandparents built themselves a smaller house on our property and gave the farm house to my mom and dad when my brother was born. Grandma said she didn’t need all those bedrooms, so they built a two bedroom house out back.”

  “Sounds like you have your own compound.”

  “We have our own water, a generator, and a huge garden. When the zombie apocalypse comes, we’ll be prepared.”

  “Yes, but you’ll be stuck in the middle of a corn field with nothing to do.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “There’s a ton of stuff to do. You can go fishing or swimming. What can you do at your house?”

  “Watch TV, use the Internet, read.”

  “First off, there wouldn’t be any electricity, so your TV and computer wouldn’t work. Second, you think I don’t have those things at my house? Why is that?”

  And this fun conversation had taken a weird turn. “You do realize you’re getting mad about a zombie apocalypse scenario.”

  The tone to dismiss class rang. She stomped over to her backpack and out the door.

  I was beginning to think Zoe had anger management issues. I’d be better off staying away from her. Too bad. When she was sane, she was fun. I reached for my cupcake, but it was gone.

  …

  Zoe

  How long would it take Grant to realize I’d stolen his cupcake? My next class was down the hall, so I leaned against the wall and waited for him to come find me. He appeared in the doorway a few seconds later, scanning the hall. There was something magnetic about him. It wasn’t just the dark hair and blue eyes. Maybe it was the way the school jacket and shirt fit like they’d been tailor-made for him, while some of the other boys looked like kids trying on their big brother’s clothes.

  He spotted me, and stalked across the hall. I did my best to appear calm even though my nerves were going off like fireworks.

  Giving a slow grin, I held out the half of the cupcake I hadn’t eaten.

  He stood there for a moment, looking at me like I was crazy.

  “What? It’s your half of the cupcake.”

  He snatched it from my hand. “Two questions. Do you steal food on a regular basis? And, were you really mad back there or was that just a cover so you could steal my cupcake?”

  “First, I only took the half of the cupcake which was rightfully mine. Second. I don’t plan ahead. I act on the spur of the moment. So yes, it ticked me off that you thought I was a farm girl who didn’t have Internet, TV, and books, but I seized the opportunity to take my half of the cupcake while you were distracted.”

  “Okay.” He took a bite of cupcake while he seemed to consider the situation. “I didn’t mean you didn’t have electricity. My dad loves his gadgets and can’t bear to be without them, so we have backup battery storage on everything in the house, plus a generator.”

  Okay…now what? Time to confess. “I might be sensitive about people looking down on me because I started off the day with this Lena girl calling me a hick.”

  He stopped mid-chew, then hurried up and swallowed what was in his mouth. “You’re the girl who called Lena a bitch?”

  “I figured everybody knew the story by now.”

  “The story yes, but not your name.”

  The way he spoke about Lena made it sound like he knew her. “Are you friends with her?”

  “God, no. She’s my ex.”

  And my stomach hit the floor. He’d dated Miss Perfect. Well, of course he had. He was Mr. Perfect.

  “Odds are she was mean to you because she’s mad I kissed you yesterday. I think she wants us to get back together.”

  “And what do you want?” I held my breath waiting for an answer.

  “I want her to sink her claws into a new guy and leave me alone. Maybe we should introduce her to your brother.”

  And I could breathe again. “Bad idea. I’d have to deal with her if she dated my brother.” The halls were clearing out. “You better go.”

  The rest of the day flew by. Classes here didn’t seem harder than the ones I had before. But there seemed to be more worksheets. While the worksheets weren’t hard, they weren’t much fun, either.

  After the final bell, Delia walked me back to Mr. Fletcher’s room. “Think Jack will remember you need a ride?”

  “I hope so. It’s a long walk.”

  “If he forgets, call me.”

  Delia and I didn’t ride to school together,
because she lived ten minutes in the opposite direction from Wilton. When she came to my house, there were back roads, which cut the drive to twenty minutes. But the main roads, which led to Wilton, took longer to travel.

  “Thanks. Hopefully, I won’t need to call.”

  She took off, and I went into Mr. Fletcher’s room. He pointed at three stacks of paper each three inches high. “One from each pile and then staple. Three papers each. Got it?”

  “Got it.” I wanted to point out there were copy machines that stapled papers for you, but I didn’t think that would get me out of detention. So, I sat and stapled until my hand was sore. Then I stapled some more. The good news is, the half an hour flew by. The bad news is, my hand resembled a claw by the time I finished.

  When time was up, Mr. Fletcher waved me out the door. “Go. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I bolted from the room and out the main entrance. Freedom. I took a deep breath of air, which still smelled like summer, but had a slight tinge of fall. Jack, who was supposed to be waiting in the parking lot, was nowhere to be seen. Neither was his car.

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “Yep.”

  I jumped.

  Jack laughed. “I owed you after yesterday. Come on, I moved the car to a side lot.”

  “Jerk.”

  …

  Jack drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as we drove to school the next day. A sure sign he had something to say which he knew wouldn’t go over well.

  “Spit it out.” I turned in my seat to face him.

  “Here’s the thing. I know you think I’m telling you to stay away from Grant because he’s a dick, which he is, but that’s not the only reason. Guys like him might flirt with local girls. They might even go on a few dates with them, but they never take them to the big events. There’s a fall dance coming up at school. I’m telling you straight up, Grant won’t ask you.”

  And now I wanted to punch him. “Where do you get off—?”

  He spoke over me. “I’m trying to warn you. Snobs don’t date hicks.”

  In his own, obnoxious way, Jack was trying to protect me. “I get the message, but you need to work on your delivery. Because it sucks.”

  “It’s not like you’re ugly. Other guys might be interested, if you stopped hanging around Delia.”

  “Oh. My. God. Could you be more of a jerk if you tried?”

  The last ten minutes of the ride was spent in stony silence. He’d barely put the car in park when I jumped out. Delia waved at me from a bench. I stalked across the parking lot, so mad I was surprised flames weren’t shooting out of my nose. I joined her and opened my mouth to rant.

  “This is for you.” She held out a cup of coffee.

  “You are the best friend ever.” I sipped from the insulated cup and sighed.

  “What did Jack say to tick you off this time?” she asked.

  I gave her a brief overview of my conversation with my tact-impaired brother.

  “Your brother is such a jerk.”

  I tracked Jack’s progress from the car. He stopped and talked to several people who seemed happy to see him which was weird, since I avoided him as much as possible. Not that things had always been this way. Ever since the accident, he’d turned sort of angry at the world. I understood, because I was just as devastated by our dad’s and grandfather’s deaths as he was, but I didn’t take it out on him.

  “Do you think what Jack said is true?” Delia asked. “About guys like Aiden and Grant not dating girls like us?”

  “I hope not, because that would suck.” Not far from us, Grant and Aiden stood talking with two girls carrying designer backpacks. “Let’s perform a little experiment. I’m almost done with my coffee, and there’s a trashcan over there by Grant and Aiden. Let’s see if they say, hello.”

  Delia held out her half full cup of coffee. “I’m not done.”

  “Then you don’t have to throw yours away, but you’re coming with me.”

  Delia knew arguing with me was a no-win situation. She’d learned this in kindergarten when she’d shoved me out of the chair I sat in because she wanted it. Of course, I shoved her right back and true friendship was born.

  “Fine,” Delia said. “I’ll play along. Pretend I said something funny.”

  I laughed. As we approached the objects of our social experiment, Delia became more animated. When we came even with Aiden, he glanced over and stared at her. Then in an unexpected move, he stepped in front of her blocking her path.

  “You never answered my question yesterday. Why did you put pink stripes in your hair?”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “I’m not sure what to think of it.” He reached out and touched a hot pink strand next to her face. “It’s really your hair, isn’t it?”

  The girl who’d had Aiden’s attention a moment ago shot death glares at Delia. And I was about to lose it and laugh out loud. Hoping to avoid an ugly scene, I continued on to the trashcan to toss my empty coffee cup.

  On my return trip, I realized Grant hadn’t made eye contact with me once. He kept touching the girl he was talking to. Nothing too obvious, but he brushed his fingertips across her shoulder and down her forearm in a familiar way, which I’m pretty sure is non-verbal-guy-language for, “I want to kiss you.”

  So, to recap, Aiden was touching Delia’s hair. Grant was touching Miss Designer Backpack. No one was touching me. The up side of this experiment? It proved my brother wrong. Sort of. Just not in my favor.

  A warning tone for first hour rang through the quad. I forced myself not to glance in Grant’s direction as I joined Delia and we headed to class. As my brother had so tactlessly pointed out, while I wasn’t likely to be courted by an agency hunting for the next top supermodel, I wasn’t unattractive. I had modest curves, no different than most of the girls around me. I was average height. There had to be someone on campus, besides Grant, who might want to ask me on a date.

  Once we were in first hour, I ignored Lena and concentrated on not receiving another detention. She seemed content to ignore me until I passed her a set of the worksheets I’d stapled the night before.

  “Grant didn’t want a thing to do with you this morning,” she chirped as she took the papers.

  I took a deep breath and blew it out. It was best not to respond. Responding could lead to yelling, which could lead to another detention. At the end of class when we passed the papers back up to Mr. Fletcher, she smiled like she’d won a prize.

  A spark went off in my brain. I smiled right back at her. “He told me he’s done with you.”

  I heard her suck in a breath. I almost felt bad. But not quite.

  At lunch, Delia and I snagged a table by the windows before lining up for food. When we returned from the buffet with our hamburgers and fries there were two other backpacks at our table.

  “We’ve been invaded.” I sat and reached for one of the backpacks.

  “What are you doing?” Delia asked.

  “I’m getting a piece of paper from my backpack to spit out my gum.” I stated this like it was true rather than a complete fabrication. A quick check inside the backpack showed an assignment with Grant’s name on it.

  “Oh, this isn’t my backpack.” I feigned surprised. “This is Grant’s backpack.”

  Delia laughed.

  I opened my backpack and pretended to spit gum into a piece of paper.

  “Why are you doing that?”

  “Plausible deniability.”

  Grant and Aiden joined us at the table.

  “Why were you looking in my backpack?” Grant asked.

  “Sorry, I thought it was mine.” I dragged a French fry through ketchup and popped it in my mouth waiting to see how he’d respond.

  “Your backpack is blue.” Grant pointed at the backpack in question hanging on the back of my chair.

  “Today it’s blue. I have a black backpack at home. So you can understand how I was confused.”

  Grant eyed me with suspicion.
“I know you were up to something, but I’ll forgive you if you have extra ketchup.”

  “Not that I’m confirming your suspicion, but here you go.” I tossed him a packet of Heinz.

  “Thanks.” He ripped it open and squirted ketchup all over his fries like a red spider web. “Have any problems with Lena today?”

  I didn’t want him to think my life revolved around him, so I bent the truth. “Nope. She was quiet today.”

  “That’s not like her. Once you piss her off, she normally fixates on the issue for weeks.”

  Great. “Maybe you’re not that important to her anymore.”

  Aiden’s eyes went wide, and then he laughed. Delia joined in.

  Grant’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t seem to think it was funny.

  “Don’t mind him,” Aiden said. “He’s used to being the center of the universe.”

  Grant’s expression changed from irritation to mock indignation. He sat up straight in his seat. “That’s because the world rotates around me.”

  I heard someone walk up behind us, but figured they were planning on sitting at a table nearby. When the designer backpack girls Grant and Aiden had talked to this morning plopped down in chairs at our table, I had no idea what to say.

  “This isn’t where you sat yesterday.” One of the girls complained. She moved her chair closer to Grant’s, putting her back to me.

  The other girl sat between Grant and Aiden. I could tell she wasn’t the one who came up with this plan, because her face matched her strawberry blond hair. I decided to take pity on her. “Hello. My name’s Zoe and this is Delia.”

  The strawberry blond nodded. “I’m Katrina, and that’s Amber.”

  Amber stopped speaking to Grant and flicked her gaze toward us. “Hello. It’s nice to meet you.” Her words and her tone didn’t match.

  I hated fake people, so I jumped in with both feet. “Translated, that means, “Why are Grant and Aiden sitting here with you rather than fawning over us?”

  Both boys laughed. Neither of the girls seemed to think it was funny.

  The rest of lunch was spent in halted conversations between Aiden and Delia, and Grant and Amber. I sat back and watched the show. “It’s kind of like watching a soap opera, isn’t it?” I said to Katrina.

  She chuckled. “This wasn’t my idea.”