Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page B

stretched out, and out, and out. Jess couldn’t take it any more. ‘Anyway, like I said, I wanted to tell you thanks. But I’m not available.’
    Available? Had she really just used that word?
    Simon uttered several harsh, guttural sounds, then hung up. Jess stared at the phone, confused. ‘Did he say something?’ she asked Eve.
    ‘It kind of sounded like what he was muttering in the hall the other day,’ Eve replied, her brows pulling together in a frown.
    ‘Well, now that I’ve heard it myself, I don’t think it’s Klingon or World of Warcraft or any other kind of geekspeak,’ Jess said. Whatever it had been, it had given her the creeps. She was glad she hadn’t understood the strange words. The way he’d said them made it clear that they didn’t mean anything good.
* * *
    ‘It sounds like you have a big admirer, Jess,’ Luke said. Jess had just finished telling the guys about the candy and the phone call. ‘Or should I stay stalker?’
    Seth gave a snort. ‘Stalker sounds way too menacing for Simon. He can hardly look at a girl without his knees knocking.’
    ‘Just try to make the sounds he made,’ Luke told Eve and Jess. ‘Maybe we can figure out what he meant.’
    ‘What does it matter?’ Eve asked. The four of them were walking towards the station to head for the city. They shouldn’t be talking about Simon when they were starting on their fabulous jaunt to Manhattan.
    ‘Was it something like …’ Luke made a sound that started out sort of like a rooster and segued into a kind of elephant trumpet.
    ‘I can’t remember the sounds well enough to make them,’ Jess said, speaking loudly to be heard over Luke.
    ‘Me neither,’ Eve said. ‘So can we please have a subject change?’
    ‘Sure,’ Luke said. ‘What do you want to discuss? Global climate change? Strategies to end homelessness? How to achieve world peace?’ He winked at Eve.
    ‘You don’t think I could talk about any of those things, but I could,’ Eve told him.
    ‘I just still can’t believe that guy had the nerve to give you chocolates after it should have been clear that we’re together,’ Seth said.
    ‘It’s over now. I told him how things were, and that’s it,’ Jess assured him, slipping one arm around his waist.
    Eve caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. She spun towards it, just in time to see a basketball bouncing off Seth’s back.
    Seth grabbed it, twirled it on one finger, then threw it back at Connor, who stood about half a block behind them, laughing his head off. And getting annoyed glances from a couple of Main Street shoppers.
    ‘We’re getting a game up over at the Y. You two in?’ he shouted to Luke and Seth.
    ‘Nope,’ Jess called back. ‘These boys are ours for the entire day.’ She made a flicking motion with her hands. ‘You go play,’ she teased.
    Connor dribbled the ball a few times. ‘Your loss,’ he said.
    They started walking again. ‘Where are you all off to?’ Jess’s neighbour Megan Christie, who was also at Deepdene High, was now heading across the road towards them. On Main Street you could easily see half the people you knew in about half an hour.
    Eve heard Jess give a little sigh and knew she was relieved to have another distraction from the subject of Simon. ‘We’re doing a shop-till-you-drop,’ she answered.
    ‘With boys? You know they’ll drop hours and hours and hours before you and Eve do?’ Megan said.
    ‘Hey, we’re athletes,’ Luke protested. ‘We aren’t going to have a problem walking through some stores.’
    Megan shook her head, making a little clucking sound with her tongue. ‘“Walking through some stores”,’ she repeated. ‘Clearly you’ve never been shopping with these two.’
    ‘What do you have going today?’ Jess asked her.
    ‘Even though I’m older than you, I, sadly, don’t yet have a prom dress to buy.’ She didn’t sound too upset. There was no doubt Megan, one of the flirtiest, most popular girls in