A Living Dead Love Story Series by Rusty Fischer Read Free Book Online Page A

(especially when Hazel gets a B), a free video at Mega Movies, an extra $20 in my birthday card from Aunt Maggie in Texas, the hottest boy asking me out to a party Hazel doesn’t even
know
about—I tend to keep all to myself. Hazel has enough good things in her own life; she doesn’t need to horn in on mine.
    And this party tonight? If Hazel heard about it? Please. She’d be there with bells on, making a scene, taking things over, bending Stamp’s ear, and then it would no longer be
my
little thing but Hazel’s Big Show—and we’d all be the audience. No, thanks; not this time; not tonight.
Not this one night
.
    I mean, you don’t understand; things like this don’t happen. Not. To. Me. I’m the girl hot new guys jump over to bump into
other
girls on their first day of school. I’m the girl guys ask to a party just so I’ll bring Hazel along. I’m the girl who misses bumping into the hot new guy a second time by a millisecond and then watches, helplessly, as the girl he
did
bump into becomes his hot new girlfriend for the rest of junior year.
    But for some reason, today of all days,
I
was the one who got to bump into him; not once, but twice.
I
was the one who got to walk up the hill with him, flirt a little, and get asked to a party.
    Soon enough he’ll realize I’m not the kind of girl he should date, that I’m not hot enough or popular enough or easy enough or sexy enough. But for now, for this one night, for this moment, Stamp just doesn’t know that yet.
    For whatever reason—the peach scarf belt, the sparkling conversation, the bending of time to make this my lucky day—he thinks good old Maddy Swift is good enough to invite to a party, and if that’s all I’ve got before he finds out differently, well, I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste the time turning it into the Hazel Hour.
    Several thousand questions later, she shakes her head, disbelieving, as I follow her down the stairs. Dad is puttering around the kitchen, eating from an open pint of ice cream with a clean spoon, as we enter the foyer. He smiles, caught.
    â€œWhat’d I tell you about that after-dinner snacking, Mr. Swift?” Hazel says, patting his tiny potbelly.
    He says, in his own defense, “But it’s reduced fat, dear.”
    She frowns teasingly, hijacks the scoop, and eats the bite of ice cream. (Hey, as a strict vegetarian, she’s definitely got ice cream on her list.)
    He pats her on the shoulder, steals his spoon back, and resumes snacking, fat and Hazel be damned.
    We leave Dad to his dessert and I shoo Hazel out the front door. She waves over her shoulder, her thick red pigtails bouncing as she walks down the hill toward her house. It’s a nearly nightly event, but who’s complaining?
    I slip back inside and see Dad’s made us two bowls of ice cream. I have a few bites but am already wondering how I’m going to fit into that pleather skirt I’m planning to wear to Aaron’s party, so I shove my serving over his way. He scoops it up greedily in three big bites and says, “So, Maddy, should I be as worried as Hazel is about your new beau?”
    I blush. “Dad, seriously, he’s
not
my boyfriend. We were just …talking …that’s all.”
    â€œYou know,” he says, peering over his bifocals at me with those insightful green eyes, “having a boyfriend is one thing, but I’ve never seen you so giddy before. You know I love Hazel; she’s one of the family. But if she were in my family, I might not be as forgiving.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, Dad?”
    â€œIt’s just, Maddy, you’re a good girl. You’ve always been a good girl. Hazel is a different animal altogether. I know her parents run a little looser ship over there, and I don’t often remind you of it, dear, but when you turned sixteen, I only gave you three house rules, remember?”
    Oh God,