Page 5 of My (Not So) Perfect Plan

“What?” I ask him.

“You don’t strike me as the type of girl to be hitting on the quarterback,” he says with a half-smile.

My face goes red. “Humility much? I wasn’thittingon you.”

“Okay.” He totally doesn’t believe me, or is pretending not to.

“Aren’t you good at football?”

He shrugs his shoulders. “I’m all right. It’s not like I’ll be starting my first year or anything. But I love it, so there is that.”

“I wouldn’t say I love it. But it’s okay to watch. Sometimes I really hate going to all the home games though.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “You actually go toallof them? Why do you go if you don’t want to?”

“Because as a member of student council we have to…?” I say, confused by his response. How does he not know this? He is on the student council too.

He laughs. “I forgot about that. Maybe I don’t remember because I have to go to every game anyway.”

The waitress brings our food and we dig in. He got a burger and fries. I kind of have a hard time believing that I am sitting here with him. Me. With Evan Carmichael.

“Did you ever consider not going?” Evan asks me.

I swallow my bite of mozzarella and shake my head. “No.”

“Never?” He laughs.

“No,” I say again, like he’s a little bit nuts, because he is.

“Man, have you ever broken a rule in your life?”

I pull apart a mozzarella stick and wave a piece at him. “That’s for me to know and you never to find out.”

“It’s like that, is it?” he grins at me in a way that has me wondering what Pandora’s box I just opened. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to issue a challenge to a football player?”

“Oh, no,” I trip over myself in the rush to negate that statement, “That was not – I didn’t mean to –“

“Oh, no. It’s on like donkey kong now, Miss Brown.” He sits back in the booth and strokes his chin. I notice that there’s the tiniest spot of ketchup right under his mouth. It’s driving me crazy. “What secret rule breaking moments does Miss Brown have?”

“Okay, I really think you are making too much out of this. Nothing terribly exciting.” And also nothing I can tell him about because admitting that you’ve been cow-tipping or that you stole candy in fourth grade, or that you got into a year-long streak of reading sketchy bodice rippers is just not going to happen because laaaame.

“You are aterribleliar!” he says.

My eyes dart over to him as my cheeks flush again. No, I wasn’t terrible, was I? “I think it’s more accurate to say I’m out of practice.”

The waitress brings our bill and I pull out my wallet and start for digging for bills. But then the waitress is moving away with the bill again.

“Hey, what about –“ I looked over at him and he smiles at me and shrugs again. “Did you cover me?”

“Yeah.”

“But, why?” My hand holding the bill sinks to the table.

“It was easier that way.”

“Well, here.” I shoved the ten over to him. “Take that for my part of it.”

“No way. I’m the one who offered to take you out. I’m paying.”

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