Page 5 of My Favorite Girl

“Okay, I guess. How often should we?—”

“A few times a week.”

She stands up, closes the piano lid, and smiles. “That sounds fun. I’d like that.”

Not as much as me, Ally, trust me.

Chapter 3

Ally

Nine days later, Monday, May 23

I have a friend. Areallyhandsome friend

The school day finishes and I leave the building, keeping my head down as I walk through a crowd of girls, minding my own business while tapping the notes ofClair de luneagainst my thighs.

“Ally.”

My feet come to a dead stop, my heart thumping at the deep, smooth voice speaking my name. I look up from the ground, my eyes catching on him in disbelief.

Dan Blackwood is standing at my school gates, grinning at me.

His back is slumped against the stone gatepost and his hands are in the pockets of his uniform. He’s wearing black Ray Ban sunglasses, such a rich-boy look, and when he removes them, revealing his dark eyes upon me, my stomach does a little flip. My temperature rises. I hope he can’t see the heat in my cheeks,but I’m doubtful. Dan is very handsome and my body does a terrible job at hiding that I think so.

All the Blackwood boys are gorgeous. I looked them up when Mom first told me she was dating Josh. There’s Killian, who’s a year older than Dan. Then the two eldest who no longer live at home—Tyler at twenty, and Felix is twenty-one. They all look like the kind of guy my father wouldn’t let me anywhere near, if I had a father. The brothers are dangerously beautiful, like they could break a girl’s heart with one kiss.

Maybe that’s why after two months of Josh dating my mother and spending countless hours with the two of us, he’s only just come around to the idea of introducing me to Dan. I don’t know what it’s like to have a father, but Josh plays the role well whenever he visits, and I’m growing attached to having him around.

Dan might be the most dangerous of all his brothers. The way he’s grinning at me right now in the school grounds does something to my body I’ve never experienced before. It makes my stomach tight, but in a good way, like I never want him to stop looking at me. He has this boyish charm to him, the way his dark hair is ruffled and how he wears his uniform undone at the collar, with the tie loose and the white sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

I step up to him at the gate, smiling a little, trying to hide how pleased I am to see him. “What are you doing here?”

“Missed you. Thought we could study together this afternoon.”

It’s been just over a week since we first met, and we’ve already seen each other five times. He visits my apartment with his father, for piano lessons, dinner, movies, anything, really. I asked Dan what kind of things he’s into, and the answer was poker, courtesy of his oldest brother Felix teaching him the game a year ago, against Josh’s wishes, I’m sure.

Dan insists he’ll teach me how to play. When I told him I’m too young, he laughed at me. Not in the rude way I experience from the girls at school, but as if he thought my answer was adorable.

He has this way of talking to me, always holding eye contact, and sounding amused, like he’s flirting with me. That’s how he spoke to me when I turned down the poker offer. There’s no difference right now as he tells me he missed me. I assume he’s just a flirt and talks to every girl like this, so I try not to flatter myself.

“Hey, Ally.” Two girls in my class approach me, Nicole and Rachel, who I once thought were my friends. They haven’t spoken to me in months. All I receive from them these days is cruel laughter and whispers. “Can you introduce us to your friend?” Nicole asks.

Of course they’re playing nice now that I’m seen with a Blackwood. The Blackwood name is prestigious in this city, considering the wealth and reputation Josh has earned through his hotel business. He’s also a philanthropist. A very admirable man, though Dan has dropped hints that lead me to believe he feels differently about his father. The media follows Josh around like he’s a celebrity. They follow his sons too, though all the boys seem to do is cause scandal with their constant partying.

I quietly introduce Nicole and Rachel to Dan, knowing their behavior toward me at school will only worsen if I go against their wishes.

They offer Dan big smiles and lots of girlish laughter. “We heard you talking about studying this afternoon,” Nicole says. “Can we join?”

“I should be getting home,” I mutter to the three of them. Let them have Dan. Whatever. If it makes my life easier at school, I’ll take it. They’re probably the kind of girls he’s into anyway. Big breasts. Popular. Sexual. I’ve overheard them talk about all theguys they get with. They wear tons of makeup to school and fold their uniform waistbands to make their skirts shorter, leaving little to be imagined.

I step by them, but Dan’s finger hooks around mine, his touch hot and unexpected and spreads sparks all over my body. “Afraid not, ladies,” he says in a matter-of-fact way. No teasing. No flirting. “I want to get this one alone.”

The girls stare at me in shock. Almost as shocked as I am to hear Dan speak those words. He drapes an arm around my shoulders and leads us out to the street.

“You want to get me alone?” I ask, trying to shrug out from beneath his arm as we walk on the city sidewalk, but he chuckles and keeps me in place.

“I had to say some shit to get rid of those girls. But it’s the truth. You’re so much more fun when it’s the two of us and say the weirdest shit I could listen to for hours.”

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