Page 26 of Adorkable

And he’d passed test number one. Hooker hated guys named Zane, Blaine or Buddy on principle. She shot him a mega-watt smile. “Do you have a girlfriend, Julian?”

He shook his head. Test two, I thought. If he didn’t have a girl, to Hooker, that meant he was fair game.

“Excellent, I’m Lillian, and this is my friend Sally,” she said, patting the seat between us, which he fell into with a dopey grin. “Sally was just telling me how hot she thinks you are.”

“Hooker,” I hissed, but she shrugged.

“Sally’s always been into foreign men.”

Julian didn’t glance my way. “And what do you like, Lillian?”

She waved him off. “Me? Who cares what I like? As I was saying, my girl Sally, here, is fluent in a second language. I bet you speak Spanish, don’t you, Julian?”

“If you asked—” He raised her hand to his lips, placed a kiss on her knuckles. “—I would speak Spanish to you every night,mi amor.”

Hooker glanced over his shoulder wide-eyed, and I shook my head. What did she expect? It always went down this way: 1) Hooker hooks boy. 2) She tries to push boy my way. 3) Boy, already completely smitten with Hooker, doesn’t even notice I exist.

“You don’t go to Chariot, do you?” Hooker laughed, pulling her hand away.

“I graduated from Southside last year with honors.”

Hooker hummed in approval. “I prefer my men dumb. The dumber the better I always say. But Sally’s the Salutatorian of our senior class.”

“Really?” For the first time, Julian’s gaze shifted to me.

“She has a thing for smart guys.”

I shot her a scowl. The girl really was impossible.

“I have a thing for smart girls as well,” Julian said, assessing me with his deep brown eyes. Yeah, okay, so the guy was hot. His accent made him even hotter, but Hooker was the one who loved foreign men not me. “Muy caliente.”

“Okay,” I squeaked, jumping to my feet as Julian pressed his thigh to mine. Sheesh. “I’m going to talk to Becks…my boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” Julian repeated, but by that point I was already half-way down the bleachers. I had to give it to her. Hooker was talented. I hadn’t said a word, and yet she’d convinced Julian he was interested. My bestie was a little scary at times.

What was the use, I wondered now, in having an F.B.F. if Hooker didn’t believe me? I looked back over my shoulder. Her mulish expression, the determined look in her eyes was unmistakable. Julian was still there, trying to chat her up, but she wasn’t paying attention. I could almost see her flipping through a catalogue of her rejects in her mind, comparing my likes and dislikes with theirs, almost like some jacked-up version of eHarmony. It was unacceptable. I’d have to find some way to convince her, but so far things weren’t looking good.

At half-time, I made my way to the sidelines, hoping Becks would have some ideas.

He was busy talking with Rick Smythe and Coach Crenshaw by the time I got there, so I stood off to the side to wait.

“Sally Spitz is that you? Damn, girl, you’ve grown up. I’m telling you if I was a few years younger...”

“You’d what?” I said, turning to find Clayton Kent, assistant soccer coach and Becks’s older brother, eyes twinkling.

“I’d tell you how torn up I was to hear my brother got to you first.” He feigned hurt, but the twinkle remained. “How could you, Sally? In a couple years when I’m an old man of twenty-eight, you’d still be a pretty young thing, and we’d be perfect for each other. I was counting on you to keep me spry.”

I tried not to smile but failed. “You look plenty spry to me, old-timer.”

“Why thank you, Miss Spitz.” Walking toward me, Clayton had all the self-assurance of his younger brother plus a healthy dose of Southern charm that hadn’t deserted him, even after he’d come back with a Sport Management degree from U Mass. He was my favorite of Becks’s siblings, mainly because when I was a kid he always used to buy me scratch-offs and let me drive his jeep around the cul-de-sac when no one was looking. “So, what’s the story?”

I looked up as he stopped at my side. “What do you mean?”

“You and Becks,” he laughed, meeting my eyes. “After all this time, you two just up and got it together? You didn’t actually think I’d believe that.”

“Why not?” I said defensively. That was one too many non-believers for me to stomach. “Why is that so hard to believe? Am I not good enough or something?”

“Now hang on there a minute,” he said, pulling me into a one-armed hug. “That’s not it, and you know it. If anyone’s too good, it’s you, Sally. Becks and you, you and Becks? It’s just a little sudden that’s all.”

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