“I didn’t peg you for a Disney princess enthusiast,” I say, as the boy breaks out a pack of girlie Band-Aids from his shopping bag.
“They’re my sister’s.”
I frown at his lack of humor, then peer past him into the car, but it’s empty. He peels the backs off two bandages, then tapes them to my skinned knees.
Afterward, he tosses his arsenal back into the shopping bag and checks his bulky metal watch, which is so crammed with dials and arrows it’s a miracle he can read the time.
I wonder if he’s on his way to meet a date. A boy this good-looking must have a girlfriend.
He grabs my phone and earbuds, which still leak Mona Stone’s heady voice, and his lips contort. “Here.” He all but shoves them at me.
Frowning at his sudden animosity—not that he was Mr. Sunshine before—I unglue my gaze from his face and transfer it to my phone. I grumble when I realize my screen is shattered. “Does your insurance cover phone repairs?”
His eyebrows pop up. “How do I know it wasn’t broken before?”
Jerk. I don’t say it out loud, but I must think it real loud, because he rises from his crouch and stalks back to his car. I presume he’s going to drive away, but instead he keeps the door open and leans over the armrest.
A couple of seconds later, he trudges back, a store receipt flapping in his hand. “Here.”
I blink as I take it from him. “You want me to pay you back for the Band-Aids and the water?”
A nerve twitches in his jaw. “My phone number’s on the back. Check your bike, and tell me how much I owe you.”
Although it looks painful for him, he offers me his hand. I don’t take it. Wouldn’t want to subject him to any more agony.
The heels of my palms smart as I push myself up, but at least they’re not bleeding. I grab my helmet and bag and right my bike. Besides a crooked spoke and scuffs on the glossy black frame, it seems fine. I turn the motor off, because my legs are shaking too much to cycle.
Hand resting on the frame of his open car door, he watches me for a moment. I watch him back, but then that turns awkward, so I lower my eyes to his T-shirt, which reads BEAST MODE ACTIVATED.
“You need a ride somewhere?” he asks.
I jerk my gaze back up to his face.
His eyes, which look golden in the rapidly setting sun, are guarded and reticent.
I shake my head. “I’m not going far.”
He climbs into his car fast, as though worried I might change my mind. I start walking my bike down the sidewalk, straining to hear his car tires screech. Either he has the quietest car, or he hasn’t driven away.
I cast a glance over my shoulder. Even though the hazard lights are off, his car isn’t moving. He’s probably just as shaken up as I am by the collision. He honks, and it makes me jump. I spin my head around just in time to avoid knocking into a streetlamp.
Is that why he honked? To warn me?
Ugh. He must think I’m a total klutz, which isn’t going to help my case about my cracked cell phone screen. The store receipt with his phone number feels as though it’s burning a hole in the back pocket of my cutoffs. Maybe I have insurance for the screen. I hope so, because I don’t want to contact him. He’d probably ask me to prove my phone wasn’t damaged before, and I really don’t feel like having to prove myself to anyone.
Except to Mona Stone.
I quicken my strides, buoyed by the desire to look up everything about the contest on Rae’s computer.
3
Rules Are Meant to Be Broken
For the past hour, I’ve been poring over Mona Stone’s website, reading every line of fine print about the music competition.
“Mom will never consent to this,” I grumble to my best friend, who’s lacquering her nails the same bright hue as her cell phone case.
Hot pink is Rae’s favorite color. Even her bedspread, on which we’re both lounging, is dotted with pink swirls. When we were kids and had to draw self-portraits for school, she’d always paint herself with pink eyes instead of brown. She even sported pink contacts when we were twelve, but they made her look like a bloodthirsty vampire.
She holds up her fingers and blows on her nails. “Maybe Mona will launch another one next year. Once you’re eighteen—”
“Rae!” I say, horrified.
She jerks her face toward me, the movement creating a ripple in her very straight, very long, and very blonde hair. “What?”
“I can’t wait that long. Besides, what if this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing?”
Rae studies me a moment, then studies the shot of Mona midperformance that graces her laptop screen. “How ’bout you write a song first? Then once it’s written, you play it for your momma, and since it’ll obviously be fan-freakin’-tastic, Jade will have to sign on the dotted line.”
I flip onto my back. “You really think she’d change her mind? She hates Mona.” I pull my bottom lip into my mouth. “We had another fight about her after dinner, which, weirdly enough, led to talking about Dad. The way she speaks about him, you’d think he was a monster.” I turn my head to look at my friend, who’s started applying polish to her toes. “Has she ever told your mom anything about him?”
“Not that I know of, but I can ask.”
I sigh. “I’d appreciate it.”
“Ready to make our senior-year bucket list?” Before I can say yes, Rae leaps off her bed and grabs a pad of paper from her desk. It’s pink and scented and has her name embossed at the top.
She tosses me a pen and a sheet of paper, then plops back on the bed and begins jotting down bullet point after bullet point of things that range from getting accepted into her dream college (Stanford, for their premed program; Rae’s wanted to be a heart surgeon since we dissected a frog in middle school) and never dating another jock (her ex was one, and it didn’t end well) to graduating valedictorian and getting elected prom queen.
Someone who doesn’t know Rae might deem her delusional, but I have no doubt she’ll be ticking each one of those boxes. She’s the most gorgeous and popular nerd who’s ever walked the hallways of Reedwood High.
As her pen loops and flows over her paper, I finally write down my ambitions for this school year. Or rather, my single ambition.
“Um, why’s there only one item on your paper?” she says, cocking a perfectly plucked eyebrow.
“Because that’s all I want.”
“Come on, hon. What about getting a boyfriend? Or—”
I grunt.
“What?”
“I need to focus. Boys are a distraction.”
“What you need is to live a little.”
“And I will, but first”—I tap one unpolished nail against my sheet of paper—“I want to win this contest.”
“It’s nationwide.”
“So?”
“So it’s a little like winning the lottery.”
“No it’s not. The lottery is all luck; Mona’s contest requires talent.”
“Which you have, but which a lot of people have too.” Rae leans toward me and wraps one hand around mine. “I admire you, hon. I’ve always admired you. But what if it doesn’t work out? You’re sensitive, and—”