A Match Made in High School by Kristin Walker Read Free Book Online Page B

already started. We stopped in the lobby outside the gym doors to do a double check. Music thumped inside.
    “Okay, so everyone knows what they’re doing?” I asked. Mar and Johnny nodded.
    Johnny shifted his weight and hitched up his jeans. “You got it all ready?” he asked me.
    I patted the pouch pocket of my Connells hoodie.
    “Locked and loaded.”
    “It’s not too late to walk away, Fee,” Marcie said.
    “No chance.” I tightened my ponytail. “All right, let’s go in, split up, and make a recon sweep around the room. We’ll meet back up by the entrance. Sound good?”

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    They both said yup, so we went inside.
    The gym walls and ceiling were strewn with silver and white streamers, silver balloons, and white tissue-paper wedding bells. It looked like a giant wedding cake had exploded in there. The lights were dimmed except for these colored dance lights and some kind of strobe-effect fixture. I peeled off to the right while Johnny and Mar went left. I’d told them that we were looking for Todd. What I hadn’t told them was that I was also looking for Gabe. I hadn’t been to many dances (shocker, I know), so the anticipation of seeing Gabe at one was a major distraction. It was the main reason I hadn’t been able to focus on planning a prank. Luckily, Johnny had come up with a rather twisted and hilarious idea to get back at Todd. But first, we had to find him.
    Once my eyes adjusted to the low light inside the gym, I caught sight of Todd and Amanda over by the bleachers. She dropped her purse down on the lowest bench, and he covered it with his jacket, presumably so no one would steal her stash of lip gloss, breath mints, and birth control pills. I knew she was on the Pill because she’d made a big deal of telling everyone about it one day in gym class, sophomore year. Her periods were irregular, she’d said. Her mother’s doctor made her go on the pill. Yeah, right. I guess it was only a coincidence that she’d started dating Todd a few weeks before. As for the lip gloss and breath mints, well, those were pure speculation. Her lips always looked like she’d been frenching a tub of margarine. And I hoped for her sake that she had some breath mints. She needed them. 54 Kristin Walker
    Todd turned my way, and I jumped back around the side of the bleachers so he wouldn’t see me. Just as I peeked to see if the coast was clear, whose hotness passed right in front of me? You guessed it. Gabe. I made a mental note: black shirt, blue jeans. How did he get those brown curls to fall so perfectly? He started walking down the length of the bleachers, so I did the only logical thing—I ducked underneath the bleachers to follow him from there. I could just see slivers of him through the slats in the stands as he walked. Then he stopped. He was talking to someone, but I couldn’t see who. He sat on the bottom row. I had no choice but to get on my hands and knees and crawl closer to him.
    Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been under the bleachers in a high school gym, but let me tell you, it’s no carousel ride. In our gym, there’s only so far the mops can reach under the bleachers. So even though it was the first week of school, the floor under the lower levels was revolting. Coated with sticky, dried soda, and encrusted with dust and dead bugs, candy wrappers, every variety of crumb and hair, and probably some unmentionable body fluids. But I didn’t flinch. I was a girl on a mission. I gagged as debris stuck to my palms, but I kept on. Finally, I got within earshot.
    “But I need to see you,” he said.
    Then a girl spoke one word. “Gabe . . .”
    He wasn’t just talking to anyone; he was talking to a girl. Needing to see her. I tried to swallow, but my throat closed. I craned my neck to see through the cracks between the bleacher seats, but I only got a glimpse of Gabe’s ass. Not a bad view, really.

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    “You said we’d be together tonight,” he said. “I want to be