Death and the Girl Next Door Read Online Free PDF Page B

her nuclear smile—the one that melted boys’ hearts and had every girl at Riley High wishing she could afford cosmetic dentistry—and I groaned inwardly. There’d be no getting him back now. I may as well cut my losses and make a hasty exit while I still had enough self-esteem to walk upright. Crawling was so demoralizing.
    I’d stepped around Tabitha and started down the hall when I heard, “Can I walk you to class?”
    I looked back and Jared was looking at me. Not at Tabitha and her big fat head, but at me and my tiny pixie head with squiggly hair. He’d managed to free his hand and was leaning around her, eyeing me with the slightest tilt of his mouth.
    “Me?”
    “Her?” Tabitha seemed just as surprised as I. She cleared her throat when his brows shot up. “I have to get to the office anyway. I’ll see you around, then?”
    “Sure,” he said, stepping around her. Unfortunately, my class was only three doors down. I thought about pretending it was farther to get more alone time with Jared, but the teacher in whatever classroom I chose at random would only look at me funny when I walked in.
    Jared followed beside me, taking one step to my two, the act emphasizing the length of his legs. One arm hung at his side while the other kept hold of the strap of his backpack, and I couldn’t imagine why I would notice that, other than the fact that to notice anything higher would have me looking up at an awkward angle. And I so very much remembered the power in those arms. The strength in those hands. And the blood dripping off them.
    I shook the memory from my mind. It wasn’t real. I had to remember that.
    “This is me,” I said, stopping beside my first hour.
    He read the sign on the door. “Science.”
    “Yep, science. Where I’m being forced to memorize completely useless particles of information that will never actually apply to any real-life situation I might encounter.”
    A lopsided grin spread across his face at last. “Sounds like fun,” he said, and for a moment I forgot how to breathe.
    “Oh, yeah,” I managed. “Molecular structure, does a body good.”
    He rewarded me with the most charming smile I’d ever seen. Dimples. He actually had dimples.
    “Well, thanks for helping me with my notes.”
    “Anytime, Lorelei McAlister.” He offered a genteel dip of his head.
    I stepped to the door and inched it open. “I guess I’ll see ya round,” I whispered.
    “I’m counting on it,” he whispered back, his voice echoing softly in the hall.
    I almost tripped.
    *   *   *
    The moment I sat down in Science, I took out a sheet of paper and scribbled a note to Brooke, who sat behind me. I could hardly wait to tell her about Jared. About how the guy from my vision had just started high school here. I had to word my masterpiece using science jargon, in case our teacher caught on. I passed back the note and had a reply about five minutes later.
    What about its molecular structure?
    I almost snorted out loud. Brooklyn would ask about Jared’s body. I folded the note in half and replied on the back.
    Structure is solid. Molecular height unbroken. Clearly over six elements involved. Massive covalent bonding. High melting point … supernova.
    I refolded the note, which basically stated Jared was built like Adonis, well over six feet tall, and could melt a girl with a mere glance. Course, the word supernova said it all. A supernova, in Lorelei and Brooke lingo, was a guy so gorgeous, so sumptuous, he defied the delicate laws of nature, created an imbalance in the universe, existed as an explosive force that could shatter the very foundations of our world.
    I’d never christened a boy I just met with such a high ranking, but Jared clearly met all the criteria, and then some.
    I slipped the note back to Brooklyn and continued working on the papers I’d dropped in the hall. The plan was to put them back in order, but when I thumbed through them, I found that they were already in order. Not one