He was just about to on the phone last night. And besides, he’s sharing his pizza with me. I mean, hello!
“Hey,” Bailey says. “Can I have a bite of that?”
And then I realize she’s looking at Luke’s pizza! She wants Luke’s pizza!
Doesn’t she know that you don’t share pizza with people you’re not going out with?
“Sure,” Luke says. He breaks a piece of pizza off for her. Ha! I knew Luke would never let her just take a bite. That’s reserved for girlfriends only, thank you very much. But the next thing I know, Bailey leans over and eats the pizza right out of Luke’s hand! Ohmigod. It is like he is FEEDING HER. My boyfriend is feeding Bailey Barelli pizza in front of everyone!
Her long dark hair brushes against his arm as she straightens up. “Mmm,” she says, licking her lips. “Good.” And then she smirks.
“But you said you wanted to join radio,” Mel says, frowning.
“I know,” I say. “But Luke was going on and on about how fun mock trial is, and I just figured that I could do both.” The last bell just rang, and I’m at Mel’s locker.
“But you
can’t
do both,” Mel says. “They meet on the same day.” She finishes loading her books into her bag and slams her locker door shut.
“Then I guess I can’t do radio.”
Someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around to find Jared Bentley standing there with a concerned look on his face. Up until a few weeks ago, if I’d turned around to see Jared Bentley standing behindme, I would have maybe fainted or freaked out. This is because I used to have a huge major crush on him. But now I’m just annoyed.
“Can I talk to you?” Jared asks. His eyes are serious.
“Um, sure,” I say.
“Wait a minute,” Mel says, slinging her bag over her shoulder and putting her hand on her hip. “Is this about Bailey?”
“Barelli?” Jared’s interested, like he’s about to get some good gossip.
“No,” I say, shooting Mel a look that hopefully lets her know to keep her mouth shut about all of this in front of Jared.
“No, what?” Jared asks. He frowns.
“No, we weren’t talking about Barelli,” I say.
“But Mel just said ‘Is this about Bailey?’” Jared reports.
“No, she didn’t,” I say, turning back around. “Did you, Mel?”
“I didn’t,” Mel says, sighing. “I said ‘Is this about Hailey?’”
“Oh,” Jared says, nodding. “Who’s Hailey?”
“This girl I used to know,” I tell him. “Anyway, uh, Mel, I’ll catch up with you later? Meet me after radio?”
“Sure,” Mel says, and takes off down the hall. Shedoesn’t seem too happy with me. Not that I can blame her. I’d be annoyed, too, if she told me she was going to join something with me and then just changed her mind because of some guy. Although it’s not really about a guy, per se. It’s more about a girl. And not just any girl. An ex-girl
friend
. Totally admissible.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” I ask Jared, checking my watch. Two-thirty-three. Mock trial starts at two-forty, which means I have seven minutes to find out what Jared wants, reapply my lip gloss and brush my hair in the bathroom, and get to mock trial.
“Well, it’s just that I saw what you were doing at lunch today,” he says.
I start walking down the hall toward the girls’ room, and he follows me. This is crazy. Jared Bentley following me down the hall. Me, joining mock trial to keep an eye on Luke. If you’d have told me four weeks ago this would be my life, I never would have believed you.
“What do you mean what I was doing at lunch today?” Is he going to bring up about how I was eating Luke’s pizza and so was Bailey? Does Jared know something I don’t? I decide maybe I should be a little nicer to him, since he might be a wealth of information.
“You know, the looks you were giving me, and how you were trying to mouth me a secret message.” Hekicks at a wadded up piece of paper that someone left in the hall.
“What are you