Page 159 of Fraternizing with the Enemy
“I’m Jade Dyer.” The girl stretched her hand across the counter, as if greeting a business partner. “Nice to meet you, Logan.”
I jolted at the sound of my name before I remembered the tag on my apron. “Nice to meet you,” I replied hesitantly, but didn’t pick up her hand. “Uh, so. Can I get you?—”
“I need a favor.” Jade looked over at Noah, who was not-so-discreetly eavesdropping on our conversation. He watched Jade with narrowed eyes, like he was trying to remember where he knew her from. “You got a girlfriend?”
“Me?” I was half tempted to say yes. “Um, no?”
Jade smiled. “Perfect. I have someone I need you to flirt with—for, like, a week.”
Now Ireallywished I’d said yes. Before I could object, though, Noah spoke first. “Jade Dyer.” Jade and I both turned to him, whose narrowed eyes had practically gone to slits. “You’re from Brentwood.”
“Oh my gosh, you know me?” She laid her hand over her heart. “How flattering.”
She was from Brentwood. Someonepopularfrom Brentwood, if her blonde curls were any indicator. I looked down at the purse hanging off her shoulder, at the little blue and gold pom-pom keychain that hung from it.Cheerleader. My stomach twisted at the sight.
I wasn’t die-hard committed to the Jefferson/Brentwood rivalry, but I hated the Bobcats for my own reasons. Last year, when two players on the football team couldn’t convince me to help throw the game, they targeted Noah in retaliation. Everyone said it was an accident, but I knew the truth.
And so did Noah. “You Bobcats are so soulless you can’t find a boyfriend for real?” he asked her, sneering. “You have to ask someone to flirt with you?”
“Notme. I have a boyfriend.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder. “And it’s a little test, you see. Sort of an… initiation ritual. I need to check her integrity.”
“By seeing how she responds to a guy flirting with her?”
“To see how she responds to aBulldogflirting with her.” Her smile made my skin crawl. “It’s simple, really. You’ll come to Brentwood’s open house pretending you’re a transfer student from Haven High, run into her there, flirt with her for a week, and then you’re done.” Jade picked the pitiful tip jar off the counter and shook it, the coins rattling pathetically. “Money’s no object.”
“Go to hell.” That came from Noah, whose expression was unforgiving. Jade’s words soured my stomach; I could remember the two guys from Brentwood’s team saying them last year.Money’s no object, they tried to persuade.Name your price.Just throw the game this once. “We’re not doing your dirty work.”
“I’m not askingyou.” Jade didn’t look away from me. “I’m asking Logan.”
Jade was pretty; there was no doubt about that. But her eyes were unnerving, so dark that they almost looked black. I couldn’t imagine anyone looking into her eyes and not seeing something sinister there. Her whole plan sounded cruel, honestly. She clearly didn’t care for the feeling of whoever’s life she was trying to toy with. “Pass,” I said after a beat, feeling unsettled even as I spoke. “I’m sure you can find someone else.”
Of course, she didn’t back down that easily. She folded her arms across her chest. “You’re the only one I have leverage over.”
“Leverage?” I echoed. “I don’t even know you.”
Jade quirked her lips to the side, thinking. “You’ll do it,” “Or I’ll tell everyone Jefferson tried to bribe Brentwood for last year’s game?”
“What?” The word ripped out of Noah, incredulous. “Thatwetried to bribeyou?”
My gaze jerked over at Noah, surprised.He doesn’t know, I told myself, trying to calm my sudden, racing heartbeat.He doesn’t know you turned the bribe down. He doesn’t know that his broken leg was really your fault.
“The proof part is hard,” Jade went on with a soft nod. “But that’s the cool thing about rumors, isn’t it? Youdon’t necessarily need proof—you just need it to snowball so big that its weight is crushing. And I know how to do that.” She started counting on her fingers. “I’d tell our coaches, the athletic director, the county football association, tell the parents. Brentwood parents are intense, you know. They’d do half the work for me. Jefferson’s football program would be put on hold while they investigated, and college scouts would cross it off their list.”
I wasn’t wholly sure I wanted to play football after high school, but there were so many guys on the team where that was their dream. And here this girl was, threatening their futures as if it meant nothing to her. My voice came out quiet. “All that just because I wouldn’t flirt with some cheerleader?”
“Right?” Jade propped her hip against the countertop. “It’d be quite selfish of you, ruining your school’s reputation just because you wouldn’t bat your eyelashes.”
It was almost scary, the determined expression on her face. She didn’t need proof to be dangerous—she just had a voice that people listened to, and the nerve to use it. I’d been right about the popular assumption. This was clearly a girl who stood at the top of a pedestal while looking at everyone below, ready to knock them off if they tried to climb up. That must’ve been what the girl was doing, I realized. She must’ve been trying to climb up, and Jade was preparing to knock her off.
“Just do it.”
I jerked toward Noah in surprise. His tone had been flat, almost uncaring. “But?—”
“It’s just a week.” He sighed. “And the girl’s a Bobcat.”
“The guy who broke your leg has a crush on her,too,” Jade told Noah, glancing down at his now-healed leg. “So, let’s get it straight, Logan: you get money, mess with the guy who hurt your best friend,andsave your school from being blacklisted. And I’m a woman of my word, don’t worry. After a week, we’ll part ways, and that’ll be that. Wins all around, don’t you think?”
Yeah, sure, everyone was winning—except for the girl she wanted me to flirt with. “There’s no guarantee she’ll even like me.”
