Page 26 of Something Rad
“How so?” I question her.
“In thinking you’re the one member of the female species completely immune to the glorious specimen that is Robbie Summers.”
“Alice–”
“And,” she cuts me off, “in thinking it’ll take more than an hour alone together for him to see just how deliciousyouare.”
Delicious?
“You’re making me physically nauseous, Alice,” I say, placing a hand on my stomach.
“Oh, come on. Can’t you see it?” she asks.
“How much of a jerk he is?” I question her. “How he’s being forced to work with Ms. Rose while I desperatelyneedto be there? How my hour and a half of daily peace has now been crashed by an entitled, self-centered, slimy–”
“Okay, he is anything but slimy,” Alice interjects. “And you are just further proving my point.”
“And what point is that?”
“That this is the start to every movie ever.”
My feet slow and I turn to look at Alice. “What kind of movies are you watching?”
“The kind where the super hot popular jock guy and the super cute but very quiet and reserved bookworm girl next door begrudgingly cross paths and are forced to spend time together and eventually the guy shows he has a sensitive side and the girl lets her hair down and they bond over the hardships of life until they make out, have an epic dance scene, and then live happily ever after.”
My lips part, but no words come out. Alice stares back at me, a self satisfied smile on her face. “Tell me that I’m wrong,” she says.
“I always wear my hair down,” is the only sentence I manage to form in response to that.
“Well, start wearing it up,” Alice says, and before I can stop her, she’s circled around me and is pulling my hair up into a ponytail, sliding the red scrunchie off of her wrist and securing it around my hair. “Voilà,” she smiles, stepping back to look at me. “Problem solved.”
I can’t stop myself from chuckling as I roll my eyes. “Okay, but it definitely doesn’t solve the problem of Robbie Summers having approximately zero life hardships or sensitive sides to him. And that we most certainly will not be bonding. But I always appreciate your enthusiasm, Al.”
Alice's gaze shifts to just behind me. “Speaking of enthusiasm,” she says. “How are you feeling about that?”
I turn my head to see what she’s pointing at, and my face instantly drops. There’s a clipboard attached to the extra curricular activities bulletin board. The paper clipped into it readsClass Election Sign-Ups and Nominations. I purse my lips as I scan over the short list of names already scribbled on the paper. I stop after reading bothGinger MatthewsandJesse Lamonte.
That’s enough.
Both of them would win over me without even trying.
I let out a sigh, pulling my bottom lip into my mouth with my teeth. I have no idea why, but I reach for the pen dangling from the clipboard. I can sense Alice taking a step closer behind me, but I ignore it. I keep my gaze on the pen, twirling it in between my fingers as I chew on my lip. Like something has taken over my body, I start to raise the pen to the paper. I’m just an inch away from it when something stops me. I feel a heat against the side of my face.
I glance to my side and freeze as I find Robbie standing right in front of me, just ten feet away. Time seems to slow down for a second as we stare at one another. I feel my pulse gradually begin to rise as my teeth push further into my lip. His expression is unreadable for a few moments as he just continues to look at me. He stares so hard at me that I begin to think he’s going to stare a hole right through me. Then, suddenly, something in his eyes changes, his face breaking into a huge grin. My lip slips out from between my teeth instantly. He slides his Walkman headphones off of his head and down around his neck, running a hand through his hair once he’s done so.
God, that stupid, absurdly voluminous, hair.
He nods in my direction in greeting.
What?
He does it again, taking a step forward this time. “Hey, you,” he calls.
My mouth falls open, my brows pulling together.
“H–” I start to say but am cut off by a whip of wind and am quickly suffocated by a cloud of the unmistakable scent of Love’s Baby Soft body spray.
An arm brushes against mine and suddenly I am looking at the back of Denise Davis’s head as she walks right past me. And towards Robbie. I turn back, realizing she came up from right behind me. Right between me and Alice.
