Sealed with a Diss Read Online Free PDF

cut her like a pair of super-sharp cuticle clippers to the heart.
    “This isn’t funny.” Cam’s voice cracked. “I thought I could trust you.”
    “You can.” She stuffed the papers in the notebook and shoved it toward the bottom of his bag, wishing all she’d found was a crinkled Ziploc filled with sours.
    “Then gimme me back my stuff.”
    He sounded impatient, if not slightly angry.
    Claire zipped up the backpack and hurried toward the exit. Feeling that surge of nervous energy, she leaned with all her weight and smashed into Cam. Normally, the collision would have cracked them up, but she wasn’t feeling particularly
normal
. Instead, they quickly separated and glared suspiciously at each other.
    Claire dropped the backpack in Cam’s open arms. “You’re acting like you have something to hide.”
    “That’s because I do.”
    Her pulse quickened.
    “What is it?”
    Without a single word, he turned and zigzagged his way around the bustling waiters and returned to his table.
    “What are you hiding?” Claire hurried after him, clutching her roiling stomach.
    “Your present,” he answered.
    “Yeah, right,” she mumbled.
    He sat and turned toward Derrington, trying to feign interest in a joke he was telling Massie about a tuba player and a burrito salesman.
    Claire stuck her tongue out at the number 2 on the back of Cam’s green soccer shirt and helped herself to a seat at the empty four-top behind them. She flipped open her red Swarovski-crystal covered cell and pretended to make a call.
    Massie immediately left Derrington’s side and joined her. The rest of the Pretty Committee followed.
    “What happened?” Massie shouted over the blasting stereo, where some angry rock guy was scream-singing about his desperate need for blood. “Are you okay?”
    Claire shook her head no.
    “I knew it!”
    “How did you know?”
    “You’re faking a phone call so you can have private time to think without looking like an LBR.” Massie pointed at the sparkling Motorola in Claire’s palm. “I taught you that trick, remember?”
    Claire nodded. She wanted to smile, but her face felt too heavy for the task.
    “Did you find anything juicy?” Alicia leaned forward in her seat. She slowly gathered her glossy black hair and tossed it to the left side of her neck, showing off her “better side” in case any HARTs were watching.
    “Not really.”
    “Then why aren’t you sitting together anymore?” asked Dylan, pulling up a fifth chair.
    Claire shrugged, and then side-glanced at Cam, who was side-glancing at her. She quickly looked away.
    “Well,
something
must have happened.” Alicia put her arm around Claire’s shoulders. “I can tell just by looking at—”
    “Who’s
that
?” Kristen tilted her head toward the busboy one table over. He was hand-sweeping pizza scraps into a gray plastic bin. His jeans were straighter than Alicia’s. At first Claire couldn’t understand the attraction—and then he turned around. His eyes were army green and as round as the Target logo. Against his zitless clear skin, they resembled the two olives in Mr. Block’s après-work martini.
    “Done, done, and done. I found my date,” Kristin told the PC.
    “Ew, the busboy?” Massie’s face contorted like she’d bitten into a lemon.
    “Yeah, he’s kinda hawt,” Kristen whispered.
    “He’s a
busboy
,” Massie practically spat.
    “He’s a total HART.” Kristen defended the stranger.
    “Minus the R.” Massie smirked. “Which makes him a HAT.”
    Dylan and Alicia giggled.
    “So?”
    “So?” Alicia held up her palm, letting Massie know she would take it from here. “So don’t you think someone in
your
position should be going after someone with a little more—”
    “Height?” Kristen asked, sincerely.
    “Nooo,” Alicia said in guess-again sort of way.
    “Body mass?”
    Dylan snickered.
    “Noooo.”
    She gazed at her potential crush while he bobbed his head to the angry death rock that roared though