The Ashley Project by Melissa de La Cruz Read Free Book Online Page B

become your own person when you shared the same name with the two most popular girls in your class?

10
JUST ONE OF THE GUYS?
    A. A. LIVED IN A penthouse apartment on top of the Fairmont Hotel in the middle of Nob Hill (also known in more resentful quarters as “Snob Hill”). She had lived there all her life. Her mother had fled New York and repaired to a two-bedroom suite when she was getting a divorce from her second ex-husband, a British rock star, and had never checked out. Instead she had upgraded, taking over the entire floor with money from the settlement. Upon arriving in San Francisco, she quickly met and married A. A.’s dad, the former mayor of the city, but divorced him a few years ago. Her mother still traveled constantly, and A. A. was never quite sure where she was or if she would be there when she got home.
    The only constant in her life was her older half brother Zed Starlight, whose father was the ex-rocker her mother had left upon finding out he had not one but four love children with assorted groupies all over the globe. Zed had changed his name to Ned Alioto after A. A.’s dad pretty much adopted him when he married their mom. Ned never saw his real dad except on VH1 nostalgia shows, and he told A. A. he was tired of being the kid with the funny name.
    Ned was hanging out in the suite’s plush living room with a couple of his friends from school when she got home. They were nice enough boys, although completely obsessed with video games. Ned and his posse were on all the important sports teams at Gregory Hall, but A. A. never heard them talk about anything except what games they owned, what games they planned to buy, what games had secret shortcut codes that allowed you to get to the final levels, and whether it was time to order pizza.
    Two of the guys were battling it out onscreen, brandishing Wii sticks like automatic weapons while the rest watched intently.
    â€œGet him! Over there! Turn the corner and—”
    â€œI’m—aaah . . .!”
    â€œTake that!” Slaps and tapped fists all around as an alien’s head exploded in a burst of green goo.
    â€œCan I have next game?” A. A. asked, squinting at the screen and sitting on the nearest empty chaise. Might as well join in the fun.
    â€œSure,” one of the boys agreed, tossing one of the four controllers her way. A. A. lined up her shots and racked up a huge score in seconds. “You suck, Fitzpatrick,” she taunted, tossing the joystick back into the pile.
    â€œSuck this, Alioto,” responded the boy who’d lost to her, flipping her off with a grin.
    A. A. pulled a face. Boys were such doofuses. Sometimes she wondered what girls ever saw in them. From what she could see from her brother and his friends, all they wanted to do was play video games until their brains turned to mush.
    Of course, laxjock wasn’t like that at all. He was a real gentleman. Yesterday he even removed a virus on her profile page that was turning all her icons upside down—without her asking. Although it was beginning to bother her that he never texted her back after her goofy I LOVE U dare.
    â€œWanna order dinner?” she asked, nudging Ned with her foot and picking up a phone so they could order from the hotel’s room service menu.
    â€œHuh?” said Ned, never taking his eyes off the eighty-inch projector screen that dominated the room. Like A. A., Ned was tall and slim, but with a mess of curly blond hair inherited from his English dad.
    â€œForget it.” A. A. shrugged. She knew better than to bother him when Call of Duty: Ghosts was on. “I’m not hungry, anyway. I’m still full from that tea.”
    â€œUh-huh.” Her brother nodded, cramming a hand into an enormous tub of popcorn on the couch and scattering kernels everywhere.
    A. A. walked into her room. It was the smallest one in the suite—probably the former maid’s closet—but she liked