Page 62 of Adorkable

“My ankle’s fine,” he said tightly, “and I was too until about ten minutes ago.”

“Really?” I was eyes down, giving every spare bit of attention to my combination. With Becks breathing down my neck, I’d already screwed it up twice.

“Umm, you know why?”

Third time did the trick, and I scrambled to get my books in and out as fast as I could.

“No idea, huh?” Becks leaned closer, his voice whisper-soft. “Well, now let’s see. My girlfriend just broke up with me, and you know what? She didn’t even have the guts to do it to my face. Pretty messed up, right?”

“Pretend,” I said, slamming my locker closed. In a voice just as quiet, I faced him and said, “Pretendgirlfriend, Becks. We were going to end this in a couple of weeks anyway. What’s the big deal?”

He stared at me, and then held up his phone. “A text, Sal?”

I flinched.

“‘F.B.F. plan not working. Want 2 break early. It’s me, not U.’“ Becks recited the message like I might’ve forgotten.

As if.

I glared at my hands. They’d shaken for an entire minute after I pushed send.

“So?” His tone, his eyes demanded an explanation.

I didn’t have one—or at least not one I was ready to tell him—so instead I said, “I just don’t want to hold you back.”

“What?”

“Like you said, there are plenty of girls out there.” I shrugged and started walking. “At the game, I realized just how many. School’s going to end soon. It’s not right for me to take advantage of you like this.”

“But you knew that from the start,” he said, trying to keep pace. I adjusted my stride to his—taking into account his bad ankle—though all I really wanted to do was run. “And I let you take advantage. What changed?”

Hmm, let’s see: I realized I was a bad friend, a manipulator, and a Slytherin. We lied to our parents. You wrote that poem. We kissed. A lot of things had changed, but I couldn’t say any of that to Becks.

“Hey Bally,” Rick Smythe said, giving Becks a high five as we passed. “I’m all for UCLA my friend. Go Bruins!”

Becks nodded, but his eyes were on me.

“Bally,” someone shouted, “Ohio’s the way to go, man!”

“Yo, Bally.” Trent Zuckerman gave Becks’s cheeks a two-handed rub down, smiled at me then went on his way.

“What’s that they’re calling you?” I muttered. We were almost to Ms. Vega’s door. If I could just hold him off until then, maybe he’d let it rest.

“Us,” he said. “Not me, us. Don’t you remember Clayton’s couple name?”

“Don’t tell me,” I groaned.

“Apparently Bally is catching on.” He tugged on my arm as we reached the door. “Sal, I need you to tell me what happened. Is something wrong?”

The concern in his face undid me.

Pulling him a little ways down the hall, I took a deep breath, not knowing what I was going to say exactly, but before I could speak Becks asked the most ridiculous question.

“Was it something I did?” he asked. “Something I said?”

“What, no.” I was taken aback. “You didn’t do anything. It was just time.”

“Is it him? Did your guy finally wise up?”

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