Be Mine (24 page)

“The game's over,” she triumphantly announced.

Jennifer licked some ketchup off her fingers. “What are you talking about?”

“Take a look at this photo,” Claudia said, handing over the phone. “It was taken last night.”

Jennifer stared at the photo. It was Will and another girl. He was wearing the suit he had bought at DeVille's. That meant the girl had to be Kristy Jenkins. Jennifer looked back up at Claudia. “So?”

“I was checking out wedding halls with my sister Pam, and while we were there, a party was going on in one of the ballrooms. Imagine how surprised I was when I peeked inside and saw Will with another girl, especially when she introduced Will as her
date
to her friends! Why would Will be with another girl if he's
so
into you? Unless he's
not
and the two of you have been pretending to be a couple this entire time!”

Jennifer laughed. “That girl is Kristy Jenkins. She goes to St. Bernadette's. She and Will used to date. He took her out last night as a favor. I knew all about it.”

Jennifer was about to hand the cell phone back to Claudia when she noticed something. How had she missed it? There was a necklace around Kristy's neck. It was the same necklace she saw Will buying at Bring the Bling yesterday afternoon. Now she knew whom he was buying it for.

Kristy.

Claudia snatched her cell phone out of Jennifer's hand and stormed back to her table.

“What's the matter?” Violet asked after Claudia left. “You look like you've seen a ghost.”

Jennifer shook her head. She couldn't talk. If she tried, she was going to lose it. All she kept seeing was that necklace. Will had bought it for Kristy and he'd given it to her last night. In her mind, she saw Will standing behind Kristy, placing the necklace around her neck. It had probably been a Valentine's Day gift. That's what a guy did when he cared about a girl: he gave her a gift to show her how he felt. To let her know how special she was to him.

She'd known the necklace wasn't for her. She'd figured that out last night.

So why did it hurt so much now that she knew for sure?

“I thought I had her this time!” Claudia exclaimed as she returned to her table and plopped back down in her seat between Natalie and Eden.

“What are you complaining about now?” Natalie asked as she sipped a Diet Pepsi.

“Jennifer!” Claudia scratched her arm. “I thought I had proof that she and Will had been scamming everybody, but they weren't.”

“Can't you let it go?” Natalie asked. She was
so
over the Claudia-Jennifer feud, especially since she thought Jennifer was nice. “Will and Jennifer are a couple whether you like it or not. A very cute couple, if you want my opinion.”

“I don't!” Claudia snapped as she began furiously scratching her other arm.

“Did someone sprinkle you with itching powder?” Eden asked.

“I've been scratching myself all morning!” Claudia complained. “Maybe it's this new sweater I'm wearing.”

Natalie decided to drop a bombshell. She didn't know any other way to do it, other than asking, and she needed some advice. “How awful is it to break up with a guy on Valentine's Day?”

Eden's mouth dropped open. “You're breaking up with Tom?”

Natalie nodded. “There's someone else and I want to be with him tonight, not Tom. I'm sure Tom'll be able to find someone to go to the dance with him. He's never had any trouble getting a date.”

“But you're running for Most Romantic Couple,” Eden reminded her. “Isn't it going to look strange to have one of the competing couples show up with other dates?”

“We were never going to win. And we were never romantic to begin with. Tom entered us in the contest because he was competing with Chase, that's all. And I don't care how it looks. I don't want to be with Tom. I want to be with this other guy.”

Natalie thought back to that morning after she'd kissed Leo. She'd told him again that she was breaking up with Tom because she wanted to be with him. Leo hadn't been able to believe it.

“Why not?” she had asked him. “I like you. I want to go out with you. Not Tom. Don't you want to go out with me?”

“Of course!”

She had gazed around the bedroom at his discarded piles of clothes. “Then you better find a suit somewhere in these piles, because you're taking me to the Valentine's Day dance tonight!”

“If Tom was more into another girl, he wouldn't hesitate to dump you,” Eden said. “Trust me, I've been there. Learn from my experience! I say if you're interested in this other guy, then go for it!”

“Absolutely,” Claudia agreed as she began scratching her back. “Are you trading up?”

“If you mean am I going out with a guy who cares about me, yes,” Natalie answered.

“Who is it?” Eden asked.

“Leo Barnes.”

Claudia stopped scratching.
“Blubber Boy?”
she gasped. “You're dumping a hottie like Tom Marland for that fat blob? Have you gone crazy?”

Natalie's temper snapped. “Don't you
ever
call Leo by that horrible nickname again! You don't know anything about Leo. Maybe if you talked to him, you would.”

“I'm in two classes with Leo,” Eden said. “He seems like a nice guy.”

“He is. And he's taking me to the dance tonight.”

Claudia rolled her eyes. “No comment.” She turned to Eden. “Have you found a date or will you be going solo?”

Eden chewed on her lower lip. “Well, there
is
someone I'd like to go to the dance with, but I think another girl is interested in him. I don't know what to do.”

“What are you waiting for?” Natalie asked. “Make your move!”

“Who is it?” Claudia asked as she began scratching again.

“Dexter King,” Eden said.

“Your nerdy tutor?” Claudia exclaimed, eyes widening with horror. “I can't believe what I'm hearing! Why do the two of you want to date those losers?”

Natalie pushed herself away from the table. She'd finally had enough of Claudia. It was time to stand up to her. “They're
not
losers. Not to us.
We
like them and that's all that matters.”

“Who are you to judge them?” Eden asked, standing up as well.

“My friends don't date losers,” Claudia stated in a steely voice. “If they do, they're
not
my friends.”

The warning was clear. But Natalie didn't care any more. “Then I guess you're going to need to find some new friends,” she said, tossing her backpack over one shoulder.

“Two of them,” Eden added.

“You're both idiots!” Claudia hissed. “You're losers, just like Leo and Dexter!”

“I'd be careful of using the word
loser,
Claudia,” Natalie said. “You and Chase haven't been voted Most Romantic Couple yet. You might be finding out firsthand later tonight what that word means.” She peered closely at Claudia's face. “And in case you didn't know it, you're starting to break out. You've got a bunch of zits on your forehead.”

Natalie then left the table with Eden behind her as a red-faced Claudia, still scratching, scrambled through her shoulder bag to find a compact so she could check out her face.

“I figured I'd save you the trouble of tracking me down,” Tom said.

Classes had ended for the day and Tom was leaning against Natalie's locker. The hallways had cleared out and the school was pretty much deserted. With the exception of a few stragglers, most students had left to start getting ready for the Valentine's Day dance.

Finding Tom waiting for her was an unpleasant surprise. He'd caught her off guard even though she'd been planning to track him down before going home. She hadn't seen him the entire day and she hadn't wanted to break up with him over the phone. She wanted to do it in person. Hopefully Tom would understand why she was doing it. She didn't want to hurt his feelings. All she wanted to do was tell him the truth.

“How'd you know I was looking for you?”

“Aren't you?”

“Yes,” Natalie admitted, trying to remember the speech she had prepared earlier. But her mind was blank.

“Let me guess.” Tom pretended to think. Then he snapped his fingers. “You're not going to be my valentine.”

“If you'd let me explain —”

Tom cut her off. “You can save your speech. Claudia already filled me in. She told me all about Leo.”

“She shouldn't have done that,” Natalie said, although she wasn't surprised. Getting even was what Claudia did best.

“You couldn't have waited until tomorrow to dump me? It's Valentine's Day! We're competing for Most Romantic Couple.”

“We were never a couple!” Natalie exclaimed. “Least of all a
romantic
couple. We were hardly even boyfriend and girlfriend. Our being in that contest was a joke! You only entered us because you were competing with Chase.”

Tom ignored Natalie's words. “What about the dance?”

“What about it?”

“We were supposed to go together.”

“You never asked me to the dance,” Natalie told him.

“Yes, I did.”

“No, you didn't. You just assumed because we were dating that we were going together. Just like everything else. You always called the shots. You never consulted with me on anything. You expected me to go along with everything you decided.”

“So you're dumping me because I never let you pick a movie?”

“No!” she exclaimed in frustration. “You don't get it, do you? You liked the way I looked and that was about it. You never liked
me
, the person I was on the inside, because you never bothered to get to know me. Why do you think we did so lousy on that romance test yesterday?”

“Does Leo
know
you?” Tom sneered.

“Yes, he does,” Natalie said. “He knows everything about me.”

Tom pushed himself away from Natalie's locker. He stared at her from head to toe and then shook his head in disgust. “You better make sure to take a picture of yourself and then save it.”

Natalie didn't understand what Tom was saying. “Why?”

“Because you're not going to look like that much longer. Once you start dating Leo, you'll probably become as fat as he is. Then North Ridge High will have Blubber Boy and Blubber Girl.”

Before Natalie could react to Tom's words, something went whizzing by her head.

And straight into Tom's face.

Natalie's mouth dropped open in shock as an aluminum pie pan slid off Tom's face, leaving behind a mask of whipped cream, chocolate pudding, and chunks of graham cracker crust. She whirled around and saw a sheepish Leo.

“I made it in Home Ec for Bonnie,” he explained. “I was talking to Lisa last night and she told me Bonnie isn't feeling too well. She's coming down with something. I was going to bring it by her house and I came to see if you wanted to tag along. But then I heard what Tom said to you.” Leo shrugged. “Even though I'm opposed to violence, I couldn't let him talk that way to you.”

Natalie sternly waved a finger in Leo's face. “Don't you ever do something like that again!” she scolded him.

“I won't,” a contrite Leo promised as a sputtering Tom wiped off his face.

“Because you've wasted a perfectly good dessert!” Natalie laughed, hooking her arm through Leo's and walking away from Tom. “Now we need to find ourselves another chocolate cream pie. Only we're going to eat this one!”

Eden stood in front of Dexter's house, her feet frozen in place.

She couldn't move.

All she had to do was walk to the front door and ring the doorbell. Then when Dexter answered the door, she'd ask him if he wanted to go to the Valentine's Day dance with her. Easy enough.

So why couldn't she do it?

What was she so afraid of?

The answer came immediately.

Rejection.

Even though Angie had told her that Dexter liked her, she was afraid of showing him her feelings. Whenever she'd shown a guy her feelings, he'd hurt her, and she didn't want to be hurt again. But somebody needed to make the first move. If she didn't, who knew when Dexter would? Or if he still wanted to. There was still his secret admirer to deal with. She might make Dexter forget all about her.

“Eden? Is that you? What are you doing here?”

Eden turned around and found herself facing a surprised Dexter. He was holding a bunch of pink heart-shaped balloons that said BE MINE. Eden had a feeling the balloons weren't for her.

“Another gift from your secret admirer?” she asked, trying not to sound jealous and wishing for a pin to pop every balloon.

“Yep.”

Eden forced the words out while keeping a smile on her face. “She must really like you.”

Dexter blushed. “I guess.”

Have you forgotten me already? I'm supposed to be the girl you like. Me! Not her! Is sending you a few gifts all it takes to get you to fall for someone? If that's the case, I'll max out my father's credit card!