“Then you volunteer.”
The idea of being on that stage with one of these stooges makes me desperate, so I reach across and grab her hand, trying to lift it over mine, but she fights me, making us playtug-of-war with our arms as my eyes grow wider and her laugh gets louder.
“No,” she quietly squeaks, still trying to make me raise my hand. “You first.”
“Stop it.” I grunt-laugh in return. “Or I’ll literally tell everyone I see that you have syphilis. I’ll make flyers and put them up around campus.”
Before she can counter with something equally threatening, Professor Torture’s voice booms.
“Two volunteers! Wow. Fantastic.”
Oh. My. God.
We’re frozen, staring at each other, Cece looking at me, and me looking at her, our pulses a matched version ofNooooo.Because our effing around has doomed us to the finding out.
“You’re dead to me,” I whisper to her smiling face.
But then suddenly Professor Tate douses the threat with, “Let’s have Cece come up first.”
I inhale a deep, audible breath, my face lit with amusement. He called her name.
“Yes, let’s,” I let out, wringing my arm out of her grip with a Cheshire grin on my face. “You’re up, Cece.”
Her face goes blank and slightly gray as she swallows. And it takes everything inside me to stop the laughter that’s bubbling up from my chest.
That’s your karma,I mouth as she stares back at me with humorous shock.
“And you can pair with Peter ...” the professor adds.
This just keeps getting better and better.
Peter has bad facial hair. He’s a skinny guy with unironic tattoos and a poorly grown beard. It has patches in it like a German shepherd in the summer or a kid still waiting for puberty.
Cece bites her bottom lip as she stands, and I sit as smug as possible. Peter walks up next to her and winks. Actually freaking winks. Now the laughter I’ve held inside indelicately escapes.
When her head whips sharply in my direction, I do the decent thing and lean forward, offering, “Okay, chemistry. Looks like Cupid’s shooting that arrow ...”
She pushes my face back with the palm of her hand as she walks past, her body language screaming,Get me out of here.But there’s no running from fate.
I watch them take the scripts from the professor, wishing on a prayer that the universe really does love me the most.
“How doesRomeo and Julietsound?” he offers them.
And she does love me. So much.
My hands shoot from my hoodie, pointed in their direction, before I start to clap.Heck yeah.Cece lets out a whoosh of breath, looking at me for a life raft, but I hope she drowns in her consequence.
You know what? The universe really does deliver. BFFs forever, girlie. Because while I know I’ll have to go up there and do a scene, it won’t be the one with the kiss ... on Valentine’s Day. Hallelujah.
Cece keeps glancing back at me as Peter tries to talk to her, making me have to look away because nobody could even write this, it’s so funny.
They’re about to walk up onto the theater stage when the sound of the metal double doors clangs behind us. More than one person looks back, including me, all of us spotting a shadowed figure walking down the aisle.
A tall, broad-shouldered shadow.
The commotion catches the professor’s attention, but he seems less curious than the rest of us. Almost as if heknows who it is. My gaze volleys between the person and the professor until the shadow man finally comes into view.
Oh my god. It’sHotGuy.
