Page 135 of With a Little Luck

But I came here on a quest, and I will not fail.

I am a Level 12 wizard facing a room full of goblins … but I don’t need to charm them, or even defeat them. All I care about is finding Ari.

Roll for perception. Roll for persuasion. Come on, dice, help me out here.

“There is a girl who came here tonight with another guy,” I say, my voice gaining strength. “And I know it’s kind of a dickish thing to try and make a move on someone else’s date, but this girl … she really means something to me. And I have to tell her that. I just need her to know that I would do anything for her. Even humiliate myself in front of literally my entire class, just to let her know that she is extraordinary in every way, and I—”

Did I just hear my name?

“I … um …”

Yes. There it is again.

“Jude!”

I pause, squinting into the crowd, shimmering beneath the disco ball. I think that was—337

“Jude the Dude!”

I spot him then. Ezra Kent, pushing his way toward the stage, arms waving wildly.

“EZ,” I say, gulping. “Look, I know this isn’t cool on a lot of levels, but I am in love with—”

“She’s not here,” EZ shouts, stopping just off the stage.

I blink at him. “What?”

“Ari’s not here. She changed her mind. Told me yesterday she just wants to be friends. It was, like, the sweetest rejection of all time.” He laughs and gestures at the girl beside him. “I came with Claudia tonight.”

Claudia, who already looked bewildered, now turns to him aghast. “Hold on. You told me you’d been trying to work up the nerve to ask me for a month. But you asked another girl first?”

“A month, an hour. Potato, potahto,” he says. His grin brightens. “But you’re the girl who actually came tonight, which makes you my favorite.”

Claudia lets out a disgusted noise and storms away to a chorus ofoooohs from our classmates. EZ shrugs apologetically at me, yells up—“Rootin’ for ya, dude!”—then chases after her.

I stand there, slack-jawed, not sure what to do next.

Ari isn’t even here.

And I am … dressed up like a pirate.

Making an epic love confession.

On a stage.

Under a disco ball.

In front of almost the entire junior class of Fortuna Beach High.

Some people are smiling at me, like this thing I’ve done is sweet and admirable. Others are laughing. But most, I’d say, are cringing—glad it isn’t them.

And I …

I don’t really care.

I don’t care if I’m a laughingstock when I show up to school next week.338

I don’t care if Tobey and Katie and Janine and all the other jerks spend the rest of the school year tormenting me over my shoddy attempt at a big romantic gesture.

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