“That one.” She pointed, rather than identifying the picture by its number. “See, the site is for this mother-daughter book club, and that’s me and my—”
“Whatever.” I cut her off, but as I captured the URL for the picture in question, I realized that Kiki’s mother looked very, very familiar in a president of the PTA kind of way.
“There,” I said. “Done.”
“Wow,” Kiki said. “You’re really good at that.” She paused, and I flinched, preparing myself for some gratuitous hugging. Instead, Kiki looked down at her hands. “You … ummm … you won’t tell Hayley you helped me, will you?”
Some thanks. I practically built her entire web page for her, and she was afraid that her new BFF would find out that she’d talked to me. Then again, I vastly preferred her course of action to her mother’s reaction to everything, which was to go all touchy-feely and start talking about what a precious time this was in my life. I was, to say the least, grateful that such actions weren’t hereditary.
“Ummm … Toby?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Hayley and I aren’t really on speaking terms. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Cool.” She paused another beat. “So you know what you were saying at lunch about the tumbling requirements for varsity?”
I was officially never helping anyone ever again. I kept my brother from being beaten up, and he dedicated his life to torturing me. I helped a JV cheerleader build a mother-daughter book club website, and she took that as an invitation to grillme about her chances of making varsity. I kissed Jack, and he had the gall to come up with a password I couldn’t figure out on my own.
Okay, maybe that last one was stretching it just a bit.
“Toby?” Kiki prodded. “About the—”
“Hey Keeks,” Jack cut her off, leaning back in his chair to get a better view of the girl in question.
Kiki got really obviously flustered at the attention. Unlike most cheerleaders I’d met, concealing her emotions really wasn’t her strong suit.
“Yes?” she squeaked. Despite her squeaking, she made a masterful attempt at batting her eyelashes atmyhomecoming date.
“I like your sweater.”
Jack’s compliment left Kiki speechless. Five seconds later, a new message popped up on my IM.
JACKOFDIAMONDS:
You’re welcome.
Apparently, I was supposed to thank him for flirting with another girl. Then again, I thought as I logged into my brother’s email account and began messing around with his settings, aforementioned flirtation had distracted Kiki from talking to me, which just confirmed my suspicion that Jack Peyton was the kind of guy who always knew exactly what to give a girl. Some girls liked diamonds. Some girls liked pearls. I liked having someone running interference between the rest of the student body and me.
And, as much as I really, truly, deeply hated to admit it, I liked Jack.
