Live Through This Read Online Free PDF Page B

like . . . Reece Kinsey.”
    Ming makes a high-pitched squeal and jumps up. “You like him like him?”
    “Yes!”
    “The kind of like where you want to rev his engine or actually use his gearshift?”
    I burst out laughing. Leave it to her to be completely unromantic. “I don’t know. Maybe both someday?”
    She shrieks and throws her arms around me. We hug and hop up and down, and I’m glad that I played along because this is a lot like what it used to feel like when I had a best friend.
    “He’s good for you, you know,” Ming says, going back to her swing. “I mean, he’s a little geeky and all, but you’re so cute together.”
    I get on the swing next to hers. “Reece went out with Violet for a long time, right?”
    “I think for, like, two years.”
    “He never talks about her. Not with me, at least. Is that weird?”
    “Of course not! She’s in college now and they are completely over and done with.”
    I’ve never had a boyfriend, but it’s weird to me that people can be important to each other for two years and then just not be anymore. “Do you think it’s true what people say about them?” I ask.
    “You mean that they got it on over four hundred times?”
    “Um!” I pump my legs to get some air, wishing, wishing, wishing she hadn’t told me that. My question was going to be about whether they’d for sure for sure hooked up; I’d neverheard this crazy number before. “Is that even possible?” I ask. “That many times in two years?”
    “ Wellll ,” Ming says. “From what I’ve heard, Reece and Violet had exactly two things in common. And they both happened to begin with s and end with x .”
    I take a moment to work it out. Sex, obviously. Obviously.
    Four! Hundred! Times!
    And the second thing? Oh, right. Sax. Violet was in band too.
    “Aww, Coley.” Ming leans toward me a little as we sail through the air, completely out of sync. “You don’t have to worry. Reece is way over that nympho and totally into you. I promise.”
    “I’m not worried,” I say, forcing a smile. “It’s just that I haven’t even been kissed four hundred times.”
    “Oh, I don’t know. You probably have, actually. I hear that kisses add up fast when you’re, you know, naked with someone.”
    Like most of the rest of our team, Ming’s heard my Truth or Dare confessions: Noah was my experimental first kiss when I was fourteen, and I came very close to going all the way with a guy named Pedro whom I met at a wedding reception a couple of months later. What no one knows—not even Alejandra—is that both of those stories are complete lies.
    Has Reece heard these things about me? Does he think that I’m like Violet? Am I like her, and I don’t even know it yet?
    As if she’s reading my mind, Ming says, “Reece sure does have a type, doesn’t he?”
    “He does?” I yelp.
    “Short, tiny blondes with huge chests.”
    “What? My chest isn’t that huge!”
    She laughs. “Not like Violet’s. That’s still three out of four. You’re way, way, way prettier than her, though.”
    “Why, thank you!”
    “Why, you’re welcome.”
    A familiar blue truck pulls into the parking lot just then. Ming jumps out of her swing and turns to grin with triumph after landing without even a stumble. “Here they are!” she sings.
    And here we go.
    •    •    •
    When Ming and I get to Reece’s truck, she yanks the passenger door open and barrels into Xander, giving him the loudest, longest kiss imaginable. As they climb into the back on the jump seats and start kissing again, I glance at Reece. He’s smiling his just-for-me smile and I freeze.
    “Are you . . . getting in?” he asks.
    I’m not going to picture him with his ex-girlfriend. I’m not going to think about their two years as a couple, or their four hundred times together. I’m not going to stand here worrying and wondering if he wants that from me, too.
    No, no, no, no, no.
    No!
    “As a matter of fact, I am getting in,”