Reality Check Read Online Free PDF

storage room that once housed kitchen supplies and now has been transformed into our newspaper office. There's one long row of computers, a large table, and a sad-looking couch in the back. Zac Harris is waiting. I stop short. This is the best part of my day.
    “You're three minutes late. I'm going to have to report you to Ms. Neiman.” Zac is sitting in one of the reclining desk chairs chewing on a pencil while he stares at me. This is what the two of us have been doing formonths—staring at each other and making mildly flirtatious comments.
    “How do you know I wasn't on official
Cliffside Heights
business?” I ask Zac as I throw my messenger bag onto the floor and turn on the iMac next to him. The screen lights up the
room. Our office is windowless, but we did hang two posters that look like windows to spruce the place up—one shows a picture of the Caribbean, the other looks like a big green backyard with a swingset. The beige room also has several dry erase boards with upcoming story deadlines written on them, a large corkboard with newspaper policies and goofy staff photos, and a poster from
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
that got sent to us when we reviewed the movie and gave it an A-minus. It's the first time a studio has ever acknowledged one of our requests, but then again maybe they sent them to every high school and college across the country. The film did make like a gazillion dollars.
    “What kind of official business?” Zac wants to know. “Because if it's official, as features editor I should officially be in the know. I'm all about being official. Should I mark you down as being officially late?”
    He's smiling at me and I try not to crack up. Zac makes me laugh. A lot. Which is good, because it cuts some of the tension I feel about working so close to him. I've had a thing for Zac all year, but it kicked into high gear in December when he switched out of AP calc and into regular eleventh-grade math, clearing his schedule for sixth period, which is the same free period I have. Now, instead of seeing him once a week and smiling weakly at him during meetings, I get to see him every day. Usually we're alone. Ms. Neiman is supposed to be in the office, but she takes these extended two-period lunches to grade papers. Everyone else on staff just floats in for five minutes and then leaves.
    All this one-on-one time with Zac has only intensified my crush. Especially since Hallie thinks he's crushing me back.
I can't say she's entirely wrong. There's the mild flirting thing and the staring thing and the fact that neither of us spends sixth period anywhere other than in this office, even though we could be at the gym or the library for free study. I'd rather get a C in social studies than miss a day with Zac.
    Today he looks particularly cute. Okay, I think he looks cute every day, but today he has on this shirt that I love. It is a royal blue T-shirt that says “Jesus Hates the Yankees.” Zac is a huge Mets fan and if you're a Mets fan, it's your job to hate the Yankees, which Zac does. (Not that the Yankees care what Mets fans think, but still.) Zac's wearing his pro-Mets shirt over a long-sleeved thermal with dark denim jeans. But it's not just his choice of wardrobe that causes my mouth to go dry. I'm itching to run my fingers through his slightly curly dark brown hair and stare deep into his blue eyes.
    “Earth to Charlie. Come in, Charlie,” I hear Zac say.
    “Sorry.” I pray I'm not blushing. “I'm sort of spacey today.”
    “You're lucky we're not on deadline,” Zac scolds. “Otherwise I'd have to swat you with my leftover pasta salad.”
    “I wouldn't want that.” I laugh. “It looks disgusting.”
    Zac peers skeptically at the half-empty Tupperware container. “It's not
that
bad,” he says and pretends to sound hurt. “Even if is from Zorn's.”
    I groan. Zac works after school at Zorn's and even he admits it is the worst deli ever. It's hard to have a bad deli when you live in