Pants on Fire by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online Page A

except, at that particular moment, Fall Out Boy.
    “The cute redheaded guy who stopped by earlier today to ask what time you work. I told him you’d be here tonight. Who is he, anyway? He was hot. I hopeSeth doesn’t find out about him! He’d be jealous.” Jill noticed a new crop of tourists trickling in up by the hostess stand, and said, “Oops, gotta run.”
    I stood there, holding my drink order limply in my hand. A cute redheaded guy had stopped by to ask what time I work?
    In a flash, I was hiding behind the soda station, stabbing Liam’s number into my cell.
    “Yo.” That is the incredibly annoying way Liam has taken to answering the phone now that he’s been asked personally by Coach Hayes to try out for the Quahogs.
    “Did you tell Tommy Sullivan that I work at the Gull ’n Gulp?” I demanded.
    “Well, hello, sister dear,” Liam said in a fakey voice that I knew instantly meant one of the Tiffanys or Brittanys was around. “And how are you this fine evening? Doing well, from the sound of it.”
    “DID YOU?” I shrieked into the phone.
    “Yeah,” Liam said in his normal voice. “So?”
    “Argh!” I couldn’t believe this. Seriously, it was like a nightmare. “Is there anything you didn’t tell him about me, Liam? My bra size, for instance?”
    “Um,” Liam said. “Not being acquainted with that piece of information, no, I did not.”
    I was so mad, I could have killed him. Really.
    “Just tell me one thing,” I said, closing my eyes as I fought for patience. “Is Tommy…is he tall?”
    Liam paused to consider this. “About as tall as me,” he said, after a few seconds’ thought.
    Which would make him six one or two. The same height of the guy I’d seen on the beach.
    “Is his hair kind of longish?”
    “Yeah,” Liam said. “You could say that.”
    I was freaking out again.
    “Is he cut? I mean, built?”
    “It was hard to tell,” Liam said. “Considering all the cigarette packs he had rolled into his sleeve. Oh, and the leather jacket.”
    “Shut up,” I said. “I’m serious! Was he?”
    “I wouldn’t want to meet up with him in a dark alley,” Liam said dryly. “Let’s put it that way.”
    I couldn’t help letting out a bad word in response to this information. Liam made a tsk-tsking sound.
    “Now, now,” he said. “Is that any way for a potential Quahog Princess to talk?”
    Furious, I hung up on him, before I could say anything worse.
    I couldn’t believe it. Tommy Sullivan really was back in town.
    And he really was hot now—a fact that had been confirmed by multiple independent sources.
    And apparently, he not only knew where I worked, but when as well.
    This was not good. This was NOT good.
    “Katie.” Shaniqua appeared in front of me. She looked worried. “Are you all right? Your tour bus is wondering where you disappeared to.”
    “Right,” I said. I had to snap out of it. I couldn’t lethim do this to me. I had to be normal. I had to be cool. “Yeah. Sorry. I need four Bud Lights, two glasses of merlot, three cabs, and three pinots.”
    “No problem,” Shaniqua said, still looking concerned as I tore past her, back into the dining room. “Oh, and the corner booth’s occupied.”
    Oh, great. Just what I needed. Seth and his friends had come by to sit and eat quahog fritters while I spazzed about having a possible confrontation with a now-hot Tommy Sullivan. Was this some kind of punishment for two-timing my boyfriend? If so, it wasn’t fair. It’s not cheating if all you do is kiss. Right?
    I grabbed half a dozen menus—a ridiculous gesture, since every Quahog in town already knew the menu by heart and didn’t need to look at it—and beat a path toward the corner booth, fuming the whole time about my recent spate of bad luck. A tour bus, Tommy Sullivan back in town, and now my boyfriend and his friends here to watch me wallow in my misfortune. Great.
    Except that when I got to the corner booth, Seth and his friends weren’t in it. Only