Dancing with Molly Read Online Free PDF Page A

stalked off in the opposite direction, leaving me staring after her, and Carson staring after Reid. Then we both sighed at the same time and looked at each other.
    It was weird. At first we were both like, What just happened? And then our eyes sort of locked, and we just stayed there and this understanding passed between us. I felt grateful that he’d stepped in to tell Reid to shut up and it made me wonder if he has to do that a lot. If he does, I wonder why he hangs out with Reid. I mean, Reid is the golden boy of the athletics department, but still . . .
    As all of these thoughts were going through my head he said, Sorry about all . . . that.
    I said something exceedingly clever and winsome like, Whatever—or something equally lame, but he didn’t turn and run away. He said, No really. I’m sorry. Reid can be a total dick sometimes.
    I closed my locker and said, Yeah, well, he and my sister will get along famously. I said it to myself, but when I turned aroundhe was still standing there. He laughed and held out his hand, like for a handshake, which was oddly chivalrous. He said, I’m Carson. I said, I know. Then I shook his hand, and he smiled at me.
    I can’t believe I’m about to write this down, but the only thing better than Carson’s eyes is his smile. I know from listening to Ashley’s endless twenty-four-hour broadcast of All Things Reid that Carson’s prom date is this girl who goes to his church. Still, I couldn’t help but think it was too bad that Ashley wasn’t going to prom with Carson instead of Reid. Two jocks—a good one and a bad one—and wouldn’t you know, Ashley gets stuck with the bad one.

Thursday, May 1
    So after the whole debacle yesterday in the hallway, I was at home doing homework, and Jess called me on video chat. When I clicked to answer and the camera popped on I saw it was her and Kelly sitting on her bed in her room. They both finally wore me down, begging me to come to prom with them. Kelly is really funny and she kept making these droll comments about me being in a polyamorous relationship with the two of them.
    I was laughing so hard that finally I was like, screw it, and said that I’d come with them just to shut them up. Jess was like,GOOD! BECAUSE I ALREADY GOT YOU A TICKET! and started waiving three prom tickets in front of the camera.
    After I hung up with them, I started thinking about Carson again. Yesterday, after we talked briefly in the hallway, the first place my brain went was that Ashley was going to prom with the wrong jock. The more I think about it, the more screwed up that seems. Forget Ashley. Why wasn’t my first thought that I wish Carson had asked ME to prom? Jeez. Do I really feel so unworthy of a date to prom that I can’t enjoy it when a hot boy who’s over six feet tall comes to my defense in the hallway and smiles his ice-blue smile of amazingness at me?
    It’s not that I feel unworthy of a hot date, right? I mean, it’s probably that I’m just a realist, right? I’m the conventional girl who likes the clarinet and marching band and doesn’t cheat on my science fair experiments. (That display for the science fair Ashley was getting out of the trunk? I’m pretty sure my mom paid this graphic designer at her office to put it all together.) Anyway, guys like Carson don’t ask girls like me to prom. Do they? I mean, obviously not, because he’s going with a girl from his church, but I’m just talking theoretically. If he didn’t already have a date, boys of Carson’s caliber go for the pretty blond girls like my sister.
    At least that’s what I think. So why do I think that? Is itone of those things like Jess announcing she’s having a flirtation with a girl? Have I just been programmed to think that it’s not “normal”? That somehow it goes against the Natural Order of the World for Carson to like me instead