Kristen by Lisi Harrison Read Free Book Online Page B

an outfit, so . . .”
    Sweat started to trickle down Kristen’s back. “So why didn’t you tell her to get
these
?” She hate-tugged her shorts.
    “Because you bought the last pair.”
    Kristen’s skin prickled and her legs twitched. Pre-soccer-game-like adrenaline zipped through her body, begging her to get physical. If she didn’t kick something or run somewhere, she’d explode. But the only open field was on the other side of the fence—and she wasn’t a member. So she dug her home-manicured nails in her palms and willed herself not to pummel her crush’s baby sister.
    “I quit!” Kristen blurted, opting for the verbal beat-down.
    “Too late.” Ripple smirked, crossing her arms over her green dress. “I already fired you this morning.”
    “What?”
Kristen hissed, suddenly grateful that Dune and his friends were too distracted by the DSL Daters to realize she was getting worked by an LBR nine-year-old with wannabe issues.
    “Yeah, I told my dad math finally clicked and that I was done.”
    “Why?
”
    “I want to have fun.” Ripple shrugged as if it should have been obvious. “And no offense, Ms. Gregory, but
this
”—she pointed from Kristen to herself and back to Kristen again—“is not, not,
not
fun.”
    “Who wanted to try doubles?” Jax called from the half-pipe.
    “Meeeeee.” Ripple tossed her hair over her shoulders the way Skye always did, then hurried away.
    Kristen shock-stood off to the side of the park, watching her crush flirt with a blond alpha in a dress
she
had wanted to buy. Skye was bragging about sneaking into the country club after hours and going for illegal midnight swims. The sheer daring of it made Dune’s light brown eyes get even lighter. The he told her about his illegal phosphorescent surf and gladly returned her oh-my-gawd-we-are-like-sooo-much-the-same hug.
    Standing solo, wearing temperature-inappropriate clothes, envy and longing seeping from her sweat-clogged pores, Kristen felt like a party-LBR. The kind who always stared at the Pretty Committee as if weighing her choices—
Hmmmm, I could try and join in the fun, or slash them to death with my cuticle-clipper key chain.
    After they finished hugging, Skye changed topics and began bragging about some ultra-exclusive performing arts boarding school called Alphas that she had applied for. Kristen started to search Dune’s face for hints of sadness at the possibility of Skye leaving town, but her cell phone vibrated before she could get an accurate reading.
    Kristen dug deep into her pocket and checked her phone. One new text message:
    Your shoelace is undone. Tie it!
    She quickly scanned GAS Park, in case one of Dune’s friends was trying to sucker punch her. But they were too captivated by the bikini blondes to bother with jokes.
    Then came a follow-up text:
    Now!
    And without another thought, Kristen crouched down and reached for her very tied, very tight laces. She was about to stand when she heard someone yell, “I’ve been hit!”
    Kristen looked up just as a mass of white golf balls sailed over the fence and rained down on GAS Park like a plague of locusts.
    “Owwww!”
    “Oof!”
    “What the
. . .
?!”
    “My back!”
    “My coccyx!”
    The cries of pain did not stop until the last ball settled on the pavement.
    Finally, all was silent. But one by one, the skaters rose like zombies shaking off the night fog and hungry for revenge.
    “Spies!” shouted a boy as he picked up a golf ball and whipped it at an abandoned pink DSL Dater board.
    “Terrorists!” shouted another young boy in head-to-toe pads, nursing a bloody nose.
    “Get ’em!” someone else yelled.
    “AHHHHH!”
    Kristen took cover under the brown wood roof of the snack shack as a flurry of balls forced the intruders to shriek loudly, kick off their sandals, and climb like Spider-Men back over the fence. They didn’t stop until Ripple and her mirrored makeup caddy had joined them.
    Once they were gone, everyone applauded—even