The Trouble With Flirting Read Online Free PDF Page A

asks the girl.
    Everyone at our table nods frantically, not just to be friendly but also because the two newcomers are like comically good-looking. As they sit down and introduce themselves—Isabella Zevallos, Harry Cartwright—the rest of us stare at them unabashedly.
    Harry’s got gray-green eyes and thick dark blond hair that he runs his fingers through impatiently whenever it falls forward into his eyes, which it keeps doing, because,as far as I can tell, it’s been cut to do just that. His features aren’t perfect—his nose is a little crooked, like maybe it’s been broken, and his eyes are almost too far apart and his lips are so full they’re verging on feminine—but somehow it all kind of works together. When our eyes accidentally meet at one point, I quickly glance away, embarrassed to be caught studying him so openly, but then I realize that every other girl at the table is doing the same thing, except for Isabella, who’s watching the rest of us with amusement and leaning her head in toward Harry’s to exchange a whisper.
    So they’re definitely a couple.
    No wonder: they belong together. Isabella is so beautiful that if she’s even a halfway decent actress, she’ll be a star one day. The girl is gorgeous, but not in the way that the prettiest girl at my high school is gorgeous (long blond hair, long blond legs, long blond personality)—no, Isabella looks more like an adult than a teenager. She has elegantly angular cheekbones and slightly tilted dark eyes that swiftly examine all of us from under a thick fringe of eyelash. Even her hairstyle is grown-up: it’s pinned in a narrow coil at the back of her head. It makes her look like an old-fashioned movie star. She’s wearing a silky white tank top over tight blue jeans, and her bare shoulders are elegantly square above her slender arms.
    After all the introductions, she and Harry quickly and confidently take charge of the conversation.
    “You wouldn’t believe all the ways we’ve traveled today!”Isabella says, leaning back in her chair and arching her flawless neck in a luxurious stretch. “First by plane—”
    “No,” Harry corrects her. “Car to the airport first.”
    “Oh, right, then the plane, then the tram to the shuttle bus, the bus to the camp van, then on foot from the dorm—”
    “The only thing we didn’t take today was a horse-drawn carriage.”
    “Or a ride on a camel.”
    “You know, I should get a camel—it’d be faster than a car in L.A. traffic. Plus I could name it Lumpy.”
    “Lumpy would be a good name for a camel,” she agrees.
    “You’re from L.A.?” Julia leans forward. “Both of you?”
    Harry grins at her. It’s a charming grin but veers toward overkill, what with the too-cute dimples under his green eyes. “Yep. From the same part of L.A.—Brentwood.”
    “So you two already know each other?” Julia’s eyes dart back and forth, assessing the situation. I remember her crush on Steven Segelman, and I can kind of see how Harry is a similar type to S-squared. Pretty boys, both of them. Steven didn’t have a brain in his head. I wonder about Harry.
    “Best friends since ninth grade.”
    Best friends? Really? That would imply they’re not a couple.. . . Oh, wait: Absurdly gorgeous guy with a close friend who’s a girl? Who loves theater?
    So he’s gay. Sorry, Julia. And then I notice that Lawrence is gaping at Harry too.
    Clearly, I’d be wise to assume every guy here is gay untilproven otherwise.
    “Not the beginning of ninth grade,” Isabella says. “It was during The Music Man , and you were dating what’s her name, the girl with the enormous . . .” She curves her fingers into round shapes.
    “Nose?” he suggests mischievously.
    She laughs. “That too. Anyway, she hated me ever since Jackson Trent kissed me in seventh grade, and every time I tried to talk to you she’d get between us, blocking me with her enormous—”
    “Nose.”
    “That too.. . . She made it clear I