A Little Something Different by Sandy Hall Read Free Book Online Page A

hands up and doing a little jig.
    “You are totally eighties,” I say.
    “I totally am!”
    “You are D-R-U-N-K!”
    “Just a little; we pregamed,” she says, nodding. “Maribel promised it would be fun and it is fun!”
    “Hi, Maribel, I’m Danny,” I say, shaking her hand.
    “Hi.”
    “Oh! And this is Bianca, she lives on our floor, too,” Lea says, bouncing on her toes.
    “Where are you going?” I ask.
    “Maribel went to high school with a guy who lives in the baseball house, or a house where lots of baseball players live,” Bianca answers.
    “Oh! I bet that it’s Gabe’s brother’s house!” I say, clapping my hands.
    “Oh, you mean Lea’s big dumb crush?” Bianca says. Lea gives her a look of death.
    “You have a big dumb crush on Gabe?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
    She shrugs. “Maybe a little dumb crush.”
    “He is a fox,” I say.
    “He is. But you’re right, he’s probably gay,” Lea says, shaking her head and looking sad.
    “Aw, don’t be sad, buttercup. He’s a totally nice guy. Worthy of friendship, if nothing else,” I say. My friends are all calling me back over. “I better go. But do you guys want to meet up tomorrow at the diner? I’ll text you around noon?”
    “Yeah, sure!” Lea enthuses.
    “Cool, cool.” I wave over my shoulder and head back across the street.
    Casey (Gabe’s friend)
    I love my housemates, I really do, but it’s nights like this one that kind of make me wish I had just gotten an apartment with Sam this year so that I wouldn’t have to deal with a house full of friends of friends of friends on Halloween. It’s fun, but there’s something unsettling about it. Especially because there are so many masks this year. I don’t ever remember seeing this many people in masks at a party before.
    Gabe comes in around eleven. I told him he could bring whoever he wanted with him, but it kind of seems like he lost touch with his friends.
    “What’s with the bag?” I ask as he wanders in.
    “I figure I’d crash here tonight,” he says. “Sam said it was cool.…”
    “Of course!”
    He runs upstairs and I wait for him to come back before I get myself more beer.
    “I thought you would have been here earlier,” I say as he reappears.
    “I decided to take a nap and that turned into like five hours of sleep,” he says with a shrug.
    “What on earth are you holding?”
    “This?” he asks, holding up the oldest, creepiest, most moth-ridden werewolf mask I have ever seen.
    “That’s gross.”
    “I found it at my parents’,” he says. “And you told me it was costumes required this year.”
    “So you’re a decrepit werewolf?”
    “Sure, let’s go with that,” he says, smirking. “Apparently all the chicks are really into those dudes on Teen Wolf .”
    I blink at him. “Why do you know anything about Teen Wolf ?”
    “My little sisters told me that. Maybe they were lying.”
    “You look like Jason Bateman in Teen Wolf Too .”
    “You’re just jealous of my chest hair,” he says. And to punctuate that statement he unbuttons the top button of his plaid shirt. “And at least I’m referencing current popular culture as opposed to eighties pop culture.”
    “Don’t act like you’ve never seen those movies.”
    “Only because my dad owned them on VHS and we didn’t have cable,” Gabe says. “And who are you supposed to be?”
    “I … am Batman,” I say, pulling my cape around me with a flourish.
    “You’re wearing a cape with jeans.”
    “I am … casually neat Batman.”
    “Your Christian Bale voice needs work.”
    “I’m doing Michael Keaton,” I say.
    “And another outdated cultural reference! Not to mention that you don’t sound like Michael Keaton. You think you do, but you don’t.”
    I’ll have to work on that, but I refuse to admit defeat. “So, want some beer?”
    “Obviously.”
    “Do you need a chaperone, or can I hang here and greet people and you can come find me when you’re done?”
    “I’m good,