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

one person was in it.
    A person with reddish-brown hair, worn on the longish side.
    A person who appeared to be, considering the way he was folded a bit uncomfortably behind the booth, quite tall.
    A person whose amber eyes, in the light from the stained-glass-covered undersea-themed lamp hanging above the table, had turned intensely emerald green.
    A person who was one hundred percent most definitely not a Quahog, and therefore ineligible for seating in the corner booth, which Jill should have known, except that Jill is in college and doesn’t go to Eastport High, and he’d obviously asked for me, so she’d just assumed…
    I dropped the menus. I didn’t mean to. My fingers seemed to go limp, and the menus just slid out of my hands. Feeling my cheeks turn red with mortification as I saw Tommy’s gaze go to the floor, where the menus fanned out in every direction, I ducked down to scoop them up. I couldn’t even count on my hair to hide my flaming cheeks, since Peggy makes us wear our hair up so it won’t get in the food.
    Not that it would have mattered if my hair had been down, since, when he leaned out of the booth to help me gather up the menus, Tommy would have seen my glowing face anyway.
    It was only when all the menus had been retrieved and I’d straightened up and he’d leaned back into the booth that I dared lift my gaze to meet his again.
    And saw that he was smiling . Smiling .
    “Hi, Katie,” he said, in the same deep voice he’d used when he’d walked by Sidney and me on the beach. “Long time no see.”

Five
    I said the first thing that popped into my head.
    Well, not the first thing, since the first thing was a swear word, and I’m trying really hard not to swear. Except at my brother.
    I said the second thing, instead:
    “You can’t sit there.”
    And okay, I know it sounds infantile.
    But it was the truth.
    “Excuse me?” Tommy lifted his eyebrows.
    “You can’t sit there,” I said again. I knew I sounded childish. But I couldn’t help it. My heart was pounding a mile a minute, and I felt nauseous, like when I forget to take a Dramamine and go out on Dad’s boat. “This booth is reserved for Quahogs only. And you’re not a Quahog.”
    Which could, quite possibly, qualify as the understatement of the year.
    “I’m aware of that,” Tommy said mildly, in his new—well, probably not so new to him, but new to me—deep voice. “I may have been away awhile, but I’m still passably familiar with the local customs. But I think I’ll stay here anyway. Your friend Jill already assured me all the other tables in your section are full.”
    As he said Jill’s name, he looked over at the hostess stand. I followed his gaze and saw that Jill was looking at us. She raised a hand and waved at us cheerfully, as if to say to me, “Look! I did you a solid! I got your hot friend a table! You can thank me later.”
    Tommy smiled at her.
    Incredibly, Jill, who gets flirted with by about a zillion male customers a day, blushed and looked away, giggling.
    Unbelievable.
    Well, she didn’t know. She didn’t know that she was flirting with Tommy Sullivan . How could she? She didn’t even live here four years ago.
    “Tommy,” I said, looking back at him. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I couldn’t believe I was actually talking to him. At the Gull ’n Gulp, of all places.
    “It’s just Tom now, actually,” he said with a smile.
    And I suddenly found myself feeling what Jill must have felt, when he directed that smile of his in her direction a moment earlier. Wherever he’d been since I’d last seen him, Tommy—I mean, Tom—Sullivan had taught himself how to smile in a manner that caused some kindof secret electromagnetic force or something to make cartilage in girls’ knees melt. I had to grab the edge of the table and hold on just to keep from toppling over.
    “Tom, then,” I said from between gritted teeth. Because with God as my witness, there was no way Tommy Sullivan was