He laughs. “You’re joking, right?”
Shit. Of course he has a date or something to do on a weekend. And now he knows that I don’t.
“Football,” he says when I spend too many seconds silently cursing my lack of social skills. “You should come. Everyone in town goes. You could make some friends.”
Oh my god, I’m so pathetic that he’s trying to set me up on the high school equivalent of a play date. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life. I’m glad he can’t see me, because I’m pretty sure my face is actually steaming with shame.
“Sure, whatever,” I say, though there’s no way in hell I’m going now.
five
Now Playing:
“Outshined”—Soundgarden
The next night, I’m standing behind the counter at Juice King when I see him.Chase London, football god, hometown hero, screamer into the abyss. The boy with a wet dream face, a rock star body, and a kiss like devastation.
I won’t think about that. I’ll think about that asshole attitude and killer smile. I’m pretty sure he’s literally made a girl drop dead when he smiled at her. It made the papers and everything.
It’s also entirely possible that was a daydream I had in class. But basically, Chase is a god, Adonis personified, and he knows it. And I’m Sky Eden, goddess of…invisibility. It is a total coincidence that he showed up at the mall the day after I told him I worked here.
I’m so busy staring, blanked out on the perfection of his cocky strut and those jeans that hang on those delectable hips, that I barely register what’s happening until he’s at the counter looking right at me.
On autopilot, my mouth recites the proscribed line. “Can I get you one of our new Max Power Ultra Octave Orange Shakes?”
I’m smooth like that. I bet every girl wishes her opening line to the only guy to ever achieve genetic perfection could be that great.
“So, this is where you work,” he says with a smirk, like he knows he caught me daydreaming about him.
“Totally.”
He grins, and says in an equally smirky way, “I think a strawberry banana smoothie and a Diet Coke would be fine.”
“Sorry, our soda machine is down. We don’t have Diet Coke.” And here comes the blood rushing to my face. It doesn’t take much.
Chase leans an elbow on the counter and leans towards me, dropping his voice to a sultry murmur. “Are you blushing right now?”
I want to die.
Instead, I give him a withering scowl. “No.”
Just then, I spot Lindsey Darling heading our way from the bathroom. He’s not flirting with me. He wouldn’t come to the mall alone. He’s here with a cheerleader who’s blonde, tiny, and perfectly poised. She may be a robot, not be an actual human, because real people poop, and there’s no way that girl has ever pooped in her life.
“You sure?” Chase whispers, raising one eyebrow. “Because it’s awfully cute.”
Before I can answer, he turns around and shouts across the food court at her, “Hey babe, they don’t have Diet Coke.”
Who comes to Juice King for a soda, anyway? I mean, it’s bad enough to work here. No big perks, unless you happen to be into drinking weird combinations of fruit juice blended with muscle-enhancing proteinous substances. Which, incidentally, I’m not. But most of our customers want to get pumped after their workout at the gym palace across the street, not cut calories.
Lindsey makes it to the counter and leans her perfectly manicured nails on the edge as she looks over my head to the menu board. “Unsweet tea?”
I have never felt more invisible. She doesn’t even notice I exist. Chase has stopped staring at my freakish lobster face and is now fiddling with a dangly thing on Lindsey’s purse. Even David doesn’t acknowledge me as he hands the shake to Chase and looks at him like a dog that’s been kicked but still loves his master despite the beating.
Actually, David always looks like that. He gets Lindsey her tea, which she opens and proceeds to dump about thirty packets of artificial sweetener into while Chase pays. I hand back his change, and he drops it into the tips cup on the counter and winks at me.
“Thanks, Juice Girl,” he says, making it sound suggestive somehow.
They walk away together, Lindsey giggling quietly over something he said.