Page 41 of Adorkable

“Anyone interesting?” Becks asked.

“Very funny,” I mumbled, wracking my brain.

Remembering Hooker, I snatched up Becks’s hand. I wasn’t close enough to tell, but it looked like she scoffed. Becks had been right. It was going to take more than handholding. The challenging tilt to Hooker’s head made that perfectly clear. If Becks and I didn’t convince her by the end of today, I was out of luck. It was time to up the ante.

“Becks,” I said, turning to face him. Madness drove my mind to the one place I’d never allowed it to go, couldn’t allow it to go. “Could you come here? I think this calls for drastic measures.”

“Sure thing, Sal.” He pushed off the lockers and came to stand in front of me. “What’d you have in mind?”

Courage or stupidity, I was going for broke. That is if my fiercely beating heart could hold on just a little longer. Were there always this many people in the hall between classes? I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this.

Meeting his gaze, I forced out the words, “Ready to make it official?”

Becks grinned, and the sight of that familiar expression, the look in those eyes I’d loved forever, was enough to strengthen my resolve.

Reaching up, I gave myself no time to reconsider.

My lips were on his the next instant, meeting, feeling, rejoicing in this moment I’d never thought but always hoped would happen. I knew Becks was surprised, could feel it in the stiffness in his shoulders, the tight set to his mouth. But it didn’t matter. I waskissingBecks, my best friend, my Han Solo, my one. This was the best moment of my life. I was certain it couldn’t get any better.

But then Becks started kissing me back.

His arms wrapped around my waist, his lips guiding mine, as he went from passive passenger along for the ride to full-on conductor. I gasped as he bent me back over his arm, and felt him grin through the kiss. My toes just skimming the floor, supported almost entirely by Becks’s strength, I was happy to let him lead. Becks wasn’t just a great kisser. He was a master. Far as first kisses go, it was a showstopper.

What I’d remember most, though, wasn’t how Vice Principal Matlock blew his whistle and broke us apart, giving Becks and I both after-school detention—to be served separately, of course. It wasn’t even when Hooker came up after Becks had left, laid a hand on my shoulder, and said, “Guess you weren’t kidding. I’ll give it to you, Spitz. That kiss curled even my toes.”

Even if he still just saw me as Sal, his friend who was a great girl but not girlfriend material, the thing I’d take with me, the feeling I’d bottle up and keep in my pocket if I could, was this: Becks kissed me like he meant it.

CHAPTER 8

Hugs.

Hands.

Kisses in what I now thought of as “Becks’s spot.”

The next few days were a whirlwind. By Friday, I was just trying to keep it together. The idea that Becks had an un-official “spot” on my body was enough to make my head spin. His five o’clock shadow was back, and there was a game tonight, so Becks was flying high. But me? Every time he touched me—Lord, every time helookedat me—I felt thrown. The way he’d been looking at me lately should’ve been criminal. It was much too easy for Becks to fake how he felt. Intimate glances, soft caresses, secret smiles, if his soccer career tanked, there’d always be acting.

The more time I spent with my new F.B.F., the harder it was for me to tell fact from fiction.

Like right now.

He was walking with me to German, my hand tucked in his as if we’d walked this way for years. Schmuck that I was, I couldn’t help thinking our hands fit just right.

Nowadays everyone, even Hooker, recognized us as a couple. I was still Spitz the dorky girl who cursed in German when she got really upset or angry. And he was still Becks the soccer phenom who pretended not to see girls throwing him inviting glances they thought I didn’t see (which I did). But even those skeezy skeezes thought Becks and I were the real thing. They just didn’t like it. It was like it was okay to flirt with him because, in their eyes, I was replaceable. Any day now Becks would realize his mistake and drop me. They thought they could break us up with a short skirt, a coy glance, a well-executed hair flip. It was frustrating.

First, could I get a little sisterly solidarity, please? And second, what the heck was wrong with everyone? The whole point of this plan had been to convince people, but I hadn’t expected it to go this well. Didn’tanyoneget it? None of it was real. Becks was only going through the motions of being a boyfriend; it was all just a game.

More importantly: Didn’tIget it?

As he faced me, lifted my hand and delivered a heart-stopping kiss to my knuckles, the answer was as embarrassing as it was telling.

God, I was such an idiot.

“I’ll see you at assembly,” he said, eyes growing concerned. “Don’t worry, okay? He says anything offensive, cop or not, I’ll give him five across the face.”

The tingles shooting up my arm momentarily stole my hearing, so what he said didn’t sink in until I walked into class (early for once), took a seat and found Hooker, the same concern written on her face.

“It’ll be over before you know it,” she said. “You two might not even have to speak. He’ll be too busy getting his ass kissed by everyone else.”

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