This Is So Not Happening Read Online Free PDF Page B

probably be doing for the rest of the day. I couldn’t exactly decide how I felt about her, considering she’d been a total bitch to me last year and then sucked up to me all summer. But at the moment, figuring out my friendship with Faith was pretty low on my priority list. “What were you guys up to, anyway? Having an orgy without me?” she joked.
    Chloe turned green and practically flung herself inside. Jake’s grip on my hand tightened like a vice. Faith giggled and skipped ahead of us, and Jake grabbed the door before it could slam into my shoulder.
    “Thanks,” I said, trying to sound normal and failing miserably.
    “Anytime,” he replied, matching my tone.
    Our expressions were grim as we stepped over the threshold together, hand in hand. This was it. My senior year. It was gonna be superfun.
jake
    Jump, Java, and Wail! was packed for a Wednesday night. A crowd of sophomores sat in the corner making ridiculous noise like they were the only people in the place. Probably drunk with freedom over being allowed out on a school night. I kind of remembered the feeling. Now here I was, working on a school night, whispering to my girlfriend about the girl whose oven I’d bunned.
    I wished I was a sophomore again.
    “So you didn’t talk to her? Not once?” Ally was saying.
    “Nope. We have, like, one class together and every time I even looked at her she looked away.” I wiped out a wet mug with my towel and added the mug to the stack behind the counter. “I guess she’s avoiding me.”
    “Huh.” Ally toyed with a box of sugar packets, mixing the white in with the brown. I was going to have to fix that later. Her dad, my manager, was kind of OCD about the sugar. “I wonder if she—”
    “So what’s up, you two? How was the first day?”
    Ally’s father walked up behind me and grasped my shoulder. I instantly stood up straight. Ally stopped talking and her face turned red. But her dad hadn’t overheard. Otherwise he wouldn’t have had that big-ass smile on.
    “Hey, Dad,” she said, getting up on her knees on the stool to give him a hug over the counter. “It was … good.”
    “Soccer practice was rough,” I added.
    “How’s the team this year?” he asked, glancing up as an older couple walked through the door. Chase, the sixth-year college “student” at the register, took their order, which wasn’t that complicated, so I stayed where I was. Ally sat back down again.
    “Good,” I replied. I picked up another mug to dry, but my hand was shaking, so I stopped. “We’re good.”
    “And, Ally … how’s your mom? How’s the wedding planning going?”
    His smile twitched and his voice broke when he said “wedding.” Guess he wasn’t cool with his ex-wife getting remarried. But from the grin he had on, he was trying to be. Kind of like I was trying to act normal even though I’d spent ninety percent of the day feeling like I could heave.
    “Good,” Ally replied, shrugging. She looked at me instead of him. Ally wasn’t that psyched about the wedding either and I knew talking about it with her dad was tense. As much as I liked Mr. Ryan, I hated that her parents had put her in the middle of their gross love-triangle. “I haven’t really gotten that into it.”
    “Don’t avoid it on my behalf, bud,” he said. “This is a huge deal for your mom. You should be there for her.”
    She just stared at him. “If you say so.”
    Mr. Ryan narrowed his eyes. “Are you two okay? You seem out of it.”
    That was when Chloe walked in. Ally and I both froze. Chloe glanced around, and when she saw Ally, I think she almost backed out again. But then she changed her mind and came over. Then Keisha called Mr. Ryan over for some help with something.
    “I’ll be back,” he promised, eyeing us.
    “Great,” I said under my breath.
    Luckily he didn’t hear me.
    Chloe hung on to the strap of her bag as she stopped nearby. “Hi, guys.”
    Ally stared down at her hands. Now she was the one who looked