Devon Delaney Should Totally Know Better (8 page)

“Ooh!” Lexi says. She raises her hand like we’re at school and looks proud of herself. “He wants to be Devon’s date for the dance!”

Mel looks at us like we’re crazy and/or stupid. “No,” she says. “He’s
fake.”
She sits back on the bed and crosses her arms like she’s proud of herself.

“But Jared was fake, too,” I remind her. “Hence the term ‘fake boyfriend.’”

“Nooo,” Mel says, rolling her eyes at me. “Jared was real, he just wasn’t your boyfriend. Greg is fake.”

“So how does that help her?” Lexi asks.

“No one knows who he is,” Mel says. “He could be anybody.” Her brown eyes sparkle with mischief. And then it dawns on me. Mel is right. No one knows this alleged Greg. He could be anyone.

“I don’t get it,” Lexi says.

“She means that all we have to do, is find someone
to be Greg!” I stare at Mel in awe. “Mel, you’re a genius!”

“You mean we’re going to hire an actor?” Lexi looks excited. “I’ve always wanted to be a casting director.”

“I don’t think we can hire an actor,” I say, “I mean, we don’t have any money.” Well, Lexi does. But I don’t think it would be fair to ask her to finance a fake ex-boyfriend. “So who do we know?” I run through a list of people in my head, hot guys that I know who have never met any of my school friends.

“What about Jack?” Mel asks. “He’s always had a little bit of a thing for you.”

“He has?” I didn’t know that. Jack is Mel’s cousin, and I never knew he had a thing for me. How much of a thing, I wonder? Not that I would ever want to date him. Jack is kind of . . . bizarre. He’s into role-playing games, like dressing up like a wizard and/or acting out Harry Potter scenes. I’ve only met him a couple times, but I don’t think he’s what I had in mind when I pictured Greg. Still, maybe beggars can’t be choosers.

“Is he hot?” Lexi asks.

“Ummm . . .” I look at Mel, not sure what to say. How do I diss her cousin without sounding like a total brat? Plus, I should be nice to him. I mean, he’s obviously in love with me. And what if he somehow found
out what I said about him? I don’t want to crush the poor boy’s heart. He’s probably very—

“He has a girlfriend,” Mel says.

“Girlfriend? I thought he liked
me.”
Figures.

“Well, he’s not pining over you or anything; he’s only met you a couple of times.”

“Yes, but is he hot?” Lexi asks.

Mel and I don’t say anything.

“You need someone hot,” Lexi goes on. She pulls her cell phone out of her bag and slides her finger down her list of contacts. “Let’s see, who do I know? Josh? No, he sometimes starts sweating when he gets nervous.” She bites her lip. “Yes!” she exclaims finally. “Ryan Geist! He’s perfect!”

“He is?”

“Yes, and he’s totally hot and cool.” She slides her phone back into her bag. “I’ll call him tonight and ask if he can play your boyfriend at the party.”

I stand up and clap my hands. “Yay!”

“Isn’t it going to be a little hard for him to pretend he knows Devon?” Mel asks.

“No, we’ll train him.” Lexi says. She smiles. “Easy peasy. Now we just need to figure out what we’re going to wear. You guys want to go shopping tomorrow?”

“We just went shopping today,” I point out.

“You can never go shopping too much,” Lexi says. “Besides, we need to get new outfits. I mean, there’s probably going to be spin the bottle.” She looks at Mel. “You should invite Dylan.” Mel looks a little sick at this possibility.

There’s a knock on her bedroom door, and Mel’s mom appears. She’s wearing her work clothes, a sleek black suit with pinstripes. Very smart and professional looking.

“Hi, girls,” her mom says. “Are you two going to be staying for dinner?”

“Uh, no,” Mel says quickly. I frown. What does she mean, “no”? I’d like to stay for dinner. Working out the fake boyfriend issue was a nice distraction, but now I’m back to thinking about my parents. And I don’t think I can face my dad right now. Or my mom. I mean, what would I say? Should I tell my mom what I saw? Should I confront my dad? I feel the backs of my eyes start to get all prickly, and I take a deep breath to try and keep myself from crying.

“Are you sure they can’t stay?” Mel’s mom asks. “I’m making lasagna.”

“No,” Mel says forcefully. And then she gives her mom a look. A look that is suspiciously like the one I gave Mel this morning in the hallway, when I was trying
to convey something to her without anyone else noticing. Which means that Mel is trying to tell her mom something that she doesn’t want me and Lexi to know. And it has to do with why she doesn’t want us staying for dinner.

“I actually can’t stay,” I say, so Mel won’t feel uncomfortable. “My mom’s making her famous four-alarm chili, and she’d kill me if I wasn’t there.” A total lie. But honestly, what’s one more?

Besides, that’s the least of my worries. The most being, you know, my dad; the second being, Luke not asking me to the dance. And now I have to add to the list whatever Mel is hiding from me.

When I get home, no one’s in the kitchen, even though it’s dinnertime. I find Katie sitting in the living room, in front of the TV. She’s watching MSNBC.

“Where’re Mom and Dad?” I kick off my shoes and plop down onto the couch.

“Upstairs,” she says. “They are having a talk, and asked to not be disturbed, please.”

Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good. A talk? That they don’t want to be disturbed from? Nothing good ever comes from talks that people don’t want to be disturbed from.

“Did they say what it was about?” I ask nonchalantly. I pull my assignment book down and scroll down my list. Ugh. I have a chapter to read for history, plus a bunch of English homework. Could this day get any worse?

“No,” Katie says. “It’s for grown-ups
only.”
She looks at me with disdain, like I obviously do not understand things that are for grown-ups.

“Can you turn that down?” I ask. It’s time to eavesdrop, and on the TV, two newscasters are arguing about something, which is going to make listening in on my parents’ conversation almost impossible. “Why are you watching this anyway?”

“It is about current events.” She holds the remote close to her, like she’s afraid I’m going to take it away from her. Which I was considering. “‘Current’ means things that are happening now.”

“I know what ‘current’ means,” I tell her. “But why are you watching it? Isn’t there a
Blue’s Clues
episode on somewhere that you should be tuning into?”

“I don’t watch
Blue’s Clues
!” Katie’s distressed. “
Blue’s Clues
is for babies!”

“Well, excuuuse me,” I say. “I don’t keep up with what kindergarteners are watching these days.” I know this will make her happy, since she’s only in
preschool. She loves when anyone thinks she’s in kindergarten. And then I see the graphics and text on the screen under the faces of the newscasters. “International committee looks into alleged Olympic rowing scandal.” Well, that explains it. Katie’s feeding her Olympic obsession.

“Well,” I say, making a big show of standing up and stretching. “I guess I’m just going to go upstairs and start on all this homework.” I give my bag a pat and even add in a fake yawn for good measure. What I’m really going to do is spy on my parents. But as I’m standing up, it becomes unnecessary, since their voices come tumbling down the stairs. They’re not yelling exactly, but their voices are definitely raised.

“I was late, John. It happens,” my mom says. My dad must be upset with her for picking me up late. Is it possible that maybe he saw me at the coffee shop? Otherwise, why would he be so upset? “I don’t understand what the big deal is.”

“The big deal is that . . .” the rest of what my dad says is too muffled to understand.

Katie looks at me, her eyes wide. “Harsh tones,” she whispers. She pushes her bangs out of her face.

“Hey,” I say, “Don’t worry about it.” I get down on the floor and wrap my arms around her. “It’s just some
harsh tones, big deal.” I roll my eyes. “I mean, come on. Asking someone to never have harsh tones? That’s just silly.”

“But that’s what they’re supposed to be doing. No. Harsh. Tones!”

“They’re not going to be perfect,” I say. “They’re working on it, and everything’s fine.”

Katie smiles at me and then turns her attention back to the Olympic rowing scandal. Wow. Talk about bouncing back. Too bad I don’t believe what I just told her. It’s more than obvious that my dad is very upset about me being at the coffee shop, and it’s probably because he realizes just how close he came to being caught. And my poor mom has no idea why he’s so upset about everything, and she just thinks he’s taking all these harsh tones with her for no reason. And no matter what I tell Katie, there is nothing good about this situation. Not one single thing. Not—

My mom comes clomping down the stairs. “Devon,” she announces. “You’re getting a cell phone.”

Well. I guess there’s that.

“I’m getting a cell phone after school today,” I tell Luke the next morning at school. He’s waiting for me at my locker, looking extremely cute in a pair of khaki
pants and a blue T-shirt.

“That’s awesome,” Luke says. “Now we can text all during school.”

“Yeah,” I say, turning away before he can see that I’m blushing. He wants to text with me all during school! I mean, come on! He wouldn’t want to text with me all day if he still liked Barelli. He wouldn’t want to be in
constant contact
with me if I wasn’t his one and only. As if on cue, Luke’s phone beeps, and he pulls it out of his pocket, checks the screen, and then starts typing on his keyboard. Hmm. Well, of course he’s going to be texting with other people. I mean, everyone does it. Everyone who has a cell phone. And now I will too! Who is he texting with, though, I wonder? Jared maybe? But then I see Jared down the hall, standing with Lexi. His phone is nowhere to be seen. So not Jared. Maybe a friend from soccer? Maybe his mom? I try to look over and check his screen, but I can’t see anything without leaning in too much, which would be totally obvious.

“Are you looking at my phone?” Luke asks.

“No,” I say. “I mean, well, yeah, but only because I wanted to see if I should get the same kind as you.”

“You should get whatever one you like,” Luke says. And then all of a sudden, his voice turns serious. “Listen,
Devon,” he says, and slides his phone into his pocket. He leans against the locker next to mine. Ohmigod. He’s going to tell me he was texting Bailey. And yeah, he’s probably going to say they’re just friends, but who really believes that? And if they’re texting all day, then why do they have to note-pass on top of it?

I put on my best “I’m totally adjusted and don’t care about any of this” face.

“I need to, uh, to ask you something.”

“Yes, Luke?”

He looks down at the floor, and mumbles something that sounds like, “Wilahslhdwishme.”

“What?” I ask.

“Will you go to the dance with me?” He looks up at me, and his blue eyes meet mine, and I’m so shocked that at first I’m sure I couldn’t have heard him right. But then Mikayla Parsons, this very loud eighth grader, who always wears a bomber jacket to school, steps on my foot as she walks by me in the hall, and I realize Mikayla Parsons stepping on my foot would never happen if this were just a dream.

“Of course!” I say. Which, you know, may be a little eager, but days of anticipation and waiting will do that to a person.

Luke smiles and leans over and brushes his lips
against mine. My stomach goes all wobbly and I lean back against my locker and try to catch my breath.

“Hey,” Lexi says, walking up to us in the hall. “You two are sooo cute, but seriously, can we keep the PDA for after school?” But she’s smiling.

“Ha-ha,” I say, rolling my eyes, even though it makes me happy that she noticed. I have a boyfriend who wants to kiss me in the halls at school! A very cute, very smart, very amazing boyfriend who wants to kiss me, me, me. And not Barelli.

I can’t believe I was ever worried about him asking me to the dance! I mean, hello. He’s like obviously totally in love with me. And Bailey and her long hair and alabaster skin can do nothing to sway him! Actually I think alabaster skin means pale or something. And Bailey is always quite tan. No matter! I’m going to the dance with Luke! Yay!

“Luke and I were just talking about the dance,” I say, giving Lexi a look.

“Ooh!” she says, “So he finally—uh, so you guys are going?”

“Yeah,” Luke says.

“You’ll have to ride over with me and Jared.” Lexi claps her hands. “And we’ll have an after party at my house, of course, and maybe even a pre-party.” She
frowns. “Of course, I’ll have to think up a theme.” She looks off into space thoughtfully. A theme? Hmm. I hope she doesn’t expect me to dress up for the theme or anything. I need a dress for the dance, not for Lexi’s pre-parties and after parties and all her in-between parties. Plus, I’m going to have a hard enough time convincing my parents that I’m allowed to go to the dance at all, much less all these other parties. I haven’t even told them about Bailey’s party yet.

“Hey, guys,” Kim says as she slides down the hall. “Luke, Lexi.” She looks at me.
“Devi.”
Kim likes to call me Devi with this little snort at the end, like it’s not quite my name. She thinks it’s super funny to mock it.

“Oh, hi, Kim,” Lexi says. “Love your top. I think it’s great that someone with such skinny legs isn’t afraid to go for vertical stripes.” She smiles, and Kim gives her a thin smile back.

“Thanks,” she says. “I actually got it the other night when I was shopping for something new to wear to Bailey’s party.” She looks me up and down. “You guys are still going, right?”

“Yes,” Luke says, a little too fast for my liking. Why’s he so anxious to get to Bailey’s party? I wonder if he bought her a present yet. Hopefully something generic, like a gift card. Or a gag gift, like the time my
dad got an ant farm from my Uncle Thomas.

“Of course you’re going to be there, Luke,” Kim says. “Bailey told me how well you used to get along with her family.” Luke gets a little half smile on his face, like he’s remembering Bailey’s family fondly. Figures. My family doesn’t even know he exists. Well, they do. Just not as my boyfriend.