I scrunch up my face. “Hell no. That’s scary.”
“Then I guess your thirty days doesn’t start until someone asks you out.”
The bell rings and we toss our stuff in the trash. “That’s what I’m worried about. I’m so ready to win this guitar but with my luck, no guys are going to like me until I’m in my twenties.”
“Well the offer is still open, Mae.” Jacie grins at me. “I will save my Gibson for you until you finally date a guy for thirty days. And it has to be a real relationship, too. Not some mysterious guy who goes to another school that I never get to meet.”
I laugh. “Do you think I’d actually do that? You’re my best friend. I can’t lie to you.”
She grins. “I’ll need proof. Social media posts, hand holding, the works. You have to actually date this guy, okay?”
I nod. “It’s going to happen. I just need to find the right guy.”
The second half of the school day goes by entirely too fast. Before I know it, I’ve been to my last four classes and I’ve mentally scoped out every guy in them, and I’ve got nothing. The guys in my classes are either too young, or I’ve already dated them, or they’re gross—too gross to pretend to date even for a Guitar—or they have girlfriends. I’m not a bitch so I won’t be breaking up any couples to win this bet. I just need a nice single guy who will date me for thirty days.
I get an idea to maybe find someone and ask them to be my pretend boyfriend, but then I drop the idea a few seconds later. Jacie is my best friend and has been there for me for most of my life. I can’t lie to her. This has to be real.
At least as real as you can get for thirty days. And then I’ll have an amazing guitar.
I feel like some crazy boy-crazy weirdo as the day goes on. I’m looking at every guy, sizing them up, considering them for boyfriend material. But no one seems to look my way. No one cares.
I mean, I guess I didn’t expect some magical new boyfriend to appear out of thin air, but it would have been nice.
Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.
Chapter 3
I’m nearly out the door when I remember I left my physics textbook in my locker. There’s no way I’ll get my homework done without it, so I turn around and rush back down the long hallway toward my locker, which is on the opposite side of school. By the time I’m back out in the parking lot, nearly everyone is gone. Normally I wouldn’t care, but I had been hoping to scope out some potential new boyfriend material.
I chuckle to myself because I’m being totally creepy, constantly on the lookout for a new guy. But I need that guitar.
I get to my car and toss my backpack into the passenger seat, then I walk around to the driver’s side. My tire looks weird. At first I think it’s a strange shadow, but then I bend down and realize the horrible truth. My tire is flat. Like, flat, flat. Not just low like it gets in the winter where it just needs a little more air.
This sucks.
I stand up, palming my forehead while I think of what to do. My parents are both at work, and Dad knows how to change a tire but he won’t be off work for a couple more hours. I pop my trunk and lift up the carpeted floor, revealing the spare tire. It has a tiny little jack with it, and a crowbar looking thing, but I know without a doubt that I have no idea how to do this.
I really should have paid attention that time Dad gave me a lecture about how to change a tire.
I figure I have three options. I can call a professional, who will no doubt charge me money I don’t have to fix my tire. I can sit here and wait two hours and then ask my dad to come help me.
Or I can try to change it myself.
I pull out the spare tire and the jack and set them on the concrete next to my flat tire. Then I sit down next to it and pull out my phone, looking up how to do this on YouTube.
“Need some help?”
A shadow falls over me. I look up to find Jaxon Rhode peering down at me, eyebrows raised.
“What are you doing?” he asks, leaning forward a bit. “Are you watching tire changing videos?”
I turn off my phone screen. “Yeah. Don’t judge me.”
He smiles and holds up his hands. “No judgement. But I can help, if you’d like?”
Jaxon Rhodes used to live on my street when we were in junior high. He was a little dorky back then, always wearing baggy jeans with polo shirts. It was no secret that he had a crush on me back in those days, because his friend Brian told me about it once. We were sitting on the bus and he told me that Jaxon had told him that he wanted to ask me to be his girlfriend. But I guess he got too embarrassed after that because then we never talked again.
