Top Ten Uses for an Unworn Prom Dress by Tina Ferraro Read Free Book Online Page A

the corner of his mouth. His voice went kinda sexy. “There's only one thing I can think of that's better.”
    I swallowed my bite (proud that I didn't choke), thanked the ladies, and turned to head toward the door without answering him. And I made it to the door without saying a word, Rascal following.
    But when I got to the door, I stopped and turned back. I was confused by more than one thing, but all I could manage to say was “How did you pull this off? You know—get special treatment in the caf?” I mean, when I'd worked in the middle school caf, the only person I remembered getting anything for free was Kylie, and that was chicken soup. And that was because she'd been sick.
    He gave me an innocent smile and answered easily. “Sometimes the coach calls us in for early-morning practices. Afterward, we're all starving, so me and some of the guys come down here, offer to take out trash or move boxes or whatever in exchange for food. One day, Janet mentioned the cookies at ten o'clock. Ever since, I've been dropping by.”
    I eyed him evenly. “Don't you ever go to class?”
    “Sure. When I feel like it.”
    He winked at me, and I knew there was no way Iwas seeing something that wasn't there. He was flirting. But why? What was going on?
    Confused, yet unmistakably happy, I pushed open the caf door and, as if on autopilot, floated back to my classroom. Maybe Rascal was sweeter than everyone gave him credit for?
    I knew better than to tell Alison about the cookie escapade. She'd only scold me for falling for another of Rascal's stunts, remind me I was setting myself up to get hurt. Again. And that he was still Kylie's boyfriend.
    All things I totally knew, deep down.
    Instead, when I met up with her later, I asked if she wanted to go with Jared and me to the bank. I didn't want her getting any wrong ideas about her brother giving me rides. And besides, why should I have to endure more uncomfortable alone time with him? But when I asked, she shook her head, saying she was reading a great romance novel.
    That sounded better to me, too. But it didn't keep me from begging. “It'll be fun.”
    “Fun?”
    “Okay, maybe not
fun
, but …”
    She held up her hand. “I get it. And thanks for asking me this time.”
    This time? What? Had she wanted to go up to my dad's? But I didn't get to dwell on it. A deep guy-voice, speaking my name, interrupted us and Alison and I turned to see Jared's friend Mitch. He was tall, thin,with an upturned nose that gave shorties like me a view straight into his brain.
Nice
.
    “I was thinking,” he said, aiming this goofy expression at me, “that I might need help with the Spanish test next week. I might need to call you.”
    I was confused. Was my C+ something he envied?
    “So why don't you give me your phone number?” he went on.
    To shut him up and move him along, Alison rattled it off. He scribbled it down, then ripped off a corner of a page, wrote his own phone number, and passed it to me. To be polite, I accepted it, but knew I'd never dial it.
    The next thing I knew, Jared sauntered up; then, after a few words, Alison made her excuses and it was just Jared and me, heading for the front door.
    Looking everywhere but at each other.
    I had been hoping that maybe we'd actually gotten past the awkwardness, but when I'd passed him earlier at the Senior Bench, he'd looked right through me. Now we were hardly talking.
    Old habits die hard, I guess.
    When we stepped outside, the hot sun blasted us. He slipped on a pair of dark shades and started walking in the direction of the north gate. I moved closer to him, simply because the outdoor lunch area was crowded. We passed groups of kids from several different cliques, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to see that Jared was the one getting the nods and hellos.
    “You need to be back for fifth period?” he asked as we hit the side street.
    “Yeah,” I answered, wondering if it was a coincidence that he chose until we left campus to