Fire And Ash Read Online Free PDF Page B

Sean is twenty.” When I tell her their ages her eyes light up enthusiastically.
    “Are they hot?” She asks me.
    Eww . “I’ve never thought about it before, but I guess if I had to rate them, and I think I just threw up a little in my mouth by thinking about it, then I’d say if Derek is a ten then that makes them an eight. They work out all the time so they’re fit, and they have these baby faces with brown hair and hazel eyes and girls around town normally fall all over themselves when they’re around. But they have an All-American down-home sort of look that keeps them from being a ten as opposed to Derek’s dark edginess that might bump him up to an eleven.”
    “Wait!” Cassie’s eyes practically bulge out of her head. “You think Derek is a ten. Possibly an eleven out of ten?!”
    I feel my face heating up. Did I seriously just say all of that? My hands tighten around the steering wheel and I keep my eyes strictly on the road in front of us as I talk. “Well I’m not blind. Derek is hot, until he opens his mouth then he drops from above the richter to way below it.”
    From the corner of my eye I see her mouth twitch.
    “What?” I ask.
    She breaks into a full smile. “Nothing. Just thinking about how Derek said the same thing about you after you left the house the other day. Except he said it’s your attitude that drops you from a ten to a three.”
    A three?! And my attitude?! As if he is one to talk. And he’d been nasty to me first while I’d tried to stay on my best behavior. And a three?! I am so not a three. I feel offended that he rated me so low until I catch myself and remind my pride that his opinion doesn’t matter. Who the fuck is he? He can shove his three straight up his —
    “Earth to Ash. Did you hear anything I just said.” Cassie’s voice interrupts my inner raging.
    “Sorry. I didn’t. What’d you say?”
    “What were you thinking about so hard?”
    “Nothing important. Just trying to remember the books I need to pick up for my summer reading.” The lie sounds lame but I’m not about to tell her the real reason I spaced out on her. “Anyway, what’d you say?” I   redirect the conversation back to her.
    “I asked how you think I will fit in when school starts. Are the people at Laurel Springs nice?”
    I put on my blinker then change lanes to take the exit to the mall.  
    “Most of them are. They will especially be nice to you. We don’t get a lot of newcomers at Laurel High so when we do they’re like a novelty. Everyone will automatically want to get to know you. We’re not in the South but the varsity football team is pretty good. We’ve won state like six times in the last decade so football has evolved into a religion around here as if we were. Our school is mostly divided into those who play football and/ or worship it and those who do not. If you’re looking for a sure fire way to make friends,” I say because it sounds like doing so is important to her, “try out for the cheerleading team in September. The rest of the school automatically flocks to the cheerleaders and the jocks.”  
    It worked for Miranda. She went from Becca and I being her only friends to having the entire rest of the school at her beck and call. Becca says she dropped us not the other way around but that’s not exactly true. I saw the hurt look in her eyes every time we made an excuse as to why the two of us had plans together that didn’t include her.  
    I glance at Cassie and see her biting her bottom lip. “That might be fun, but I don’t think I’d make the cut. Isn’t it written down somewhere that cheerleaders have to be pretty.”
    I gape at her. “You’re kidding right?”
    “About what?” The genuinely confused look her face scrunches into says Cassie really doesn’t know she is pretty.
    “You’d definitely make the cut. Have you seen your long legs or your gorgeous blonde hair?” Add both of those things to her heart-shaped face and the dainty petit