The Boyfriend Thief (3 page)

“For the next six weeks,” said my business economics teacher, Mr. Freeman, on Monday afternoon, “we will be conducting an experiment.”

Most of the class groaned at his words. Business econ wasn’t exactly a class where you expected to do experiments. It was one of those easy A electives, where you read a bunch of stuff from the book, participated in discussions, and then took a few tests. Everyone liked Mr. Freeman, who was only a couple years out of college and had a laid back style of teaching, but nowhere in the course description was there anything about experiments.

Mr. Freeman held up his hands. “It won’t be that bad. All year long, we’ve studied business law and how companies work. Now you’ll learn firsthand about the ins and outs of running a company. You will be splitting into pairs. Each pair will create a business from the ground up. You’ll write a business plan, prepare a loan proposal, and receive weekly reports about how your business is doing. Along the way, you’ll have a few twists thrown in, which I will decide randomly as we go along.”

Actually, that didn’t sound so bad. Some of the students had already started to pair up and so I turned toward Molly, intending to ask her to be my partner, when Mr. Freeman spoke again.

“I will assign pairs by drawing names from these two bowls.” Mr. Freeman held up two plastic bowls for us to see. “Boys’ names in one, girls’ in the other. Since we have more girls than boys, the remaining two girls will be paired together. I want this to be a true
experiment
, so you could be working with someone you might never have worked with before. Someone you can’t ever imagine going into business with.” He grinned. “Because in the real world, you don’t always get along with your coworkers.”

Molly held up her crossed fingers, hoping we’d be the odd girls out.

“The first team,” said Mr. Freeman as he took a name from each bowl, “is Nathan Thompson and Molly Pinski.”

“I demand a redraw!” Molly exclaimed. She looked over at Nathan, who was a skinny boy with huge glasses. He was my treasurer in the math club and was a pretty nice, though very quiet, guy. “No offense, Nate,” she told him, even though Molly knew for a fact that Nathan hated to be called Nate. His forehead scrunched into a scowl over his glasses.

“No redraws,” Mr. Freeman said. He pulled several more pairs from the bowls and then finally, “The next team is Zac Greeley and Avery James.”

I groaned a bit under my breath. Zac turned to look at me from his seat a few rows away and gave me the thumbs up sign. I doubted he’d take this seriously, which meant my perfect grade point average was in jeopardy. Plus, I’d probably have to keep track of everything so he wouldn’t lose it or drop it in a mud puddle. I wrinkled my nose as I took in the sight of his dirty Converse. The bottom of his left shoe was held in place with duct tape.

I might as well be prepared to do the entire project myself so it could be done well.

Just in front of Zac, Hannah Cohen turned around in her seat. She stared at me longer than was necessary with a strange look on her face. I shifted a little, trying to ignore her. What was her problem today? Thank goodness I hadn’t been paired with her. I could imagine her thinking of every possible way to torment me throughout the project.

What if she got Zac to torment me for her? Would he do that? He was dating the witch of Willowbrook so there had to be an evil streak in him somewhere.

When the bell rang signaling the end of class, Zac came over as I gathered my books.

“Hey, partner,” he said, smiling wide.

“Hi.” Zac had one of those smiles that was infectious and so I couldn’t help smiling back, even though I didn’t want to.

Over his shoulder, Hannah watched from where she waited at the front of the room.

“So I guess we should set up a time and place to meet so we can brainstorm,” Zac said. “I have a few ideas already, but you can tell me if they’re stupid. Because sometimes I come up with these crazy plans and I don’t even realize how crazy they are until I’m riding down the sidewalk on a skateboard attached to a pack of miniature poodles. Which, trust me, isn’t exactly the best method of transportation.”

“Well, we can—” My hands froze in midair, my economics book only halfway inside my backpack, and my head snapped up to look at him. “Wait.
What?
”

Zac laughed. “Just something I tried to do a couple weeks ago. My neighbor’s dogs didn’t appreciate it. Neither did my neighbor.”

I shook my head to clear away the image of Zac riding a dog-powered skateboard. “I can’t meet today because I have to work, but how about tomorrow after school? At the Rose Castle?”

Zac nodded and brushed at his long black bangs, which flopped right back down in front of his eyes as soon as he moved his hand. “I have to work today too, but I can get time off tomorrow. I’ll meet you there at three-thirty.”

“Great.”

Zac gave me another smile, then turned and walked toward Hannah, who gave me one last hard stare before leading Zac out of the room.

* * *

“James!” Mr. Throckmorton barked as soon as I entered the back door of Diggity Dog House after school. “Watkins called in sick, so you’re Bob today.”

My mouth dropped open. “But I was Bob on Saturday!” Two days in the same week wearing that hot, smelly costume was
not
my idea of a good time.

“No arguments,” Mr. Throckmorton said before disappearing into the office.

I shoved my backpack into my locker and then stomped toward the supply closet. It was just like Tara to call in sick on the day she was supposed to be Bob.

I didn’t even have time to enjoy the cool air conditioning inside Diggity Dog House before heading back out in the sweltering sun. I had just zipped up the costume and got the mesh part covering my face in place when someone entered the room behind me.

“Hey.” Elliott gave me a crooked grin. “I have to say, you’re the cutest giant hot dog I’ve ever seen.”

Was he talking to me? I turned as best as I could, checking to see if maybe there was another giant hot dog in the room.

Elliott deposited his backpack in his locker. “Too bad we’re not on hot dog duty together again.”

He thought I was Tara! It was hard to tell who exactly was inside the costume and she was supposed to be Bob today. He must not have known she had called in sick.

“Well,” Elliott said, making sure his red Diggity Dog House shirt was tucked into his pants neatly, “I better go before Mr. Throckmorton yells at me for not being out there with the hot dogs. I’ll meet you during break, okay?”

I gave him a thumbs up. If I spoke he might figure out that who he thought was inside the costume wasn’t. I wasn’t sure why I let him go on believing I was Tara, but something told me I could use this to my advantage.

During my time outside, I kept thinking about Elliott and Molly and Tara. I knew something was going on behind Molly’s back. He was such a creep. He’d always been a creep who sneaked around and told lies and forgot about you the first chance he could get.

No one cheated on my best friend and got away with it.

So as I did the Hot Diggity Shuffle for the kids that demanded it, ideas about what to do about Elliott and this opportunity that had been given to me bounced around in my head.

“Dance!” the little girl standing in front of me demanded again.

I groaned. “Come on, kid. I’ve done the shuffle five times for you already.”

Bob wasn’t supposed to talk back to customers, but this kid had pushed me to the breaking point. My feet hurt and the foam costume stuck to my sweat-covered skin.

The little girl’s face turned red and she pressed her lips together in a tight white line as her eyes grew bigger. I knew that face. I’d been working around kids at Diggity Dog House long enough to know when they were about to throw an all-out temper tantrum.

“Okay, okay, I’ll dance,” I said quickly, launching into the shuffle. My moves were slower and not as enthusiastic as they had been the first four hundred times, but hopefully it would do.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten there was one other face a kid could make that also resembled the beginning of a temper tantrum.

The puke face.

Which was what that pig-tailed little girl in front of me did as I finished up the shuffle. Chewed up bits of hot dog propelled out of her mouth and all over the front of my costume.

The girl’s mom grabbed her hand and snatched her away, now that I was covered in hot dog barf. I stood frozen in place for a moment, my arms extended straight out to my sides in an effort to not touch the barf at all.

A group of middle school boys walked by, laughing and pointing. It worked to snap me out of my stupor and I hurried back inside Diggity Dog House, straight for the employee bathroom.

The best way to keep from getting any barf on me was to remain inside the costume while I tried to clean it. So I was still dressed as a giant hot dog when a knock sounded on the door behind me.

“Occupied!” I shouted.

But the door opened anyway and Elliott squeezed himself in. I pushed the mesh back into place before he could see my face. “I thought I saw you run in here.” He wrinkled his nose at the front of the costume. “Gross. Kid puke again?”

I tried to make my voice sound like Tara’s. “Yeah, totally gross.” I added a giggle to the end of my words for good measure.

“Here, let me do that.” Elliott took the paper towels from me and wiped the costume. Not many guys would willingly clean barf off a girl.

“There,” he said after a moment, smiling kindly. “The worst of it is gone.”

Of course, Elliott thinking I was Tara erased any bit of decency he had. I didn’t see him cleaning barf off Molly.

“Thanks,” I said through clenched teeth.

“No problem. It’s not like we haven’t all been puked on while in that costume at one time or another.” His smile faded and his expression grew serious as he looked at me, his eyes searching to find mine through the screen. “How are you doing? Have you thought anymore about what we discussed yesterday?”

What had they talked about? My mind raced with a million ideas. About going out with him? About kissing him? About running away to Vegas with him? In every scenario, I could see Elliott and Tara in each other’s arms, laughing at how stupid Molly was for not suspecting a thing.

I realized Elliott was still looking at me, waiting for an answer. How would Tara respond to that question?

“Oh, um…” I giggled. “I haven’t decided yet.” That seemed like a vague enough answer to hopefully get me by.

Elliott sighed, looking annoyed. “You can’t keep hiding from it. Sooner or later, you’ll have to deal with the truth.”

The truth? The truth that Elliott was totally in love with Tara and was sneaking around with her? Or at least, he wanted to? Maybe Tara didn’t want to be the other woman and was holding out.

My hands clenched into fists inside the puffy gloves of the costume. “You’re such a creep, sneaking around behind Molly’s back.”

Elliott blinked. “What are you—”

He stopped, and then before I could make a movement to get out of his reach, he snatched the mesh off the costume and stared angrily at me.

“Avery,” he growled. “I should have known.”

I snatched the screen back from him. “I caught you red-handed this time. I knew you were making dates with other girls when Molly wasn’t around and now I have proof.”

Elliott shook his head. “You are insane, Avery James. And you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He spun around and stomped out of the room, leaving me with a wad of wet, puke-covered paper towels.

The Rose Castle pulsed with music and conversation when I arrived after school the next day. I pushed through the crowd, checking to see if Zac had beat me there. There was no sign of him, so I ordered a chocolate shake and then sat down at an empty table and pulled out my economics notebook.

I was so focused on jotting down ideas that I didn’t notice the person who had slid into the seat across from me until he spoke.

“Hello, Avery.”

I looked up, startled, into Elliott Reiser’s familiar blue eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I snapped.

“I saw you sitting alone and thought I’d come over to keep you company,” Elliott said. “You looked so lonely all by yourself.”

“Actually, I’m waiting for someone, so you’re free to get lost.”

“How about I stay until that someone gets here?” Elliott said, settling back into the seat and making it obvious he was in no hurry to leave.

“I’m really busy. Got this big economics project.” I tapped my notebook with my pen.

“Not too busy to ruin my life, as always,” Elliott said, leaning forward and cupping his hands over mine. He squeezed hard so I couldn’t pull away.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I know you talked to Molly about what you think is going on,” Elliott said. “And now she says I’m on some kind of probationary period.”

I shrugged. “Too bad.”

Elliott’s forehead creased into a scowl. “Despite what you think, I would
never
cheat on Molly.”

“I see how you are with Tara. All she has to do is be willing to kiss your scaly lips and you won’t say no.”

Elliott shot me a sly grin. “You know my lips are not scaly.”

I shuddered. “Ugh. Don’t flatter yourself. That was a mistake I intend to never repeat again.” I let the stony silence hang between us for a moment before continuing. “Now I’ll do anything necessary to protect Molly from you.”

“I would never hurt her.”

“Sure,” I said, feeling my legs starting to shake under the table. A lump in my throat choked me as I tried to swallow it back. “Like you would never hurt me because we were
supposed
to be best friends.”

Everything Elliott had said to me the day he and Hannah stopped being my friends echoed through my memory. We were almost thirteen years old and it was the beginning of summer, only a few days after seventh grade had ended. There, in Elliott’s parents’ basement across the street from my own house, he told me he would hate me forever and I deserved to spend the rest of my life sitting alone in my room with no friends. Hannah called me a lying sneak and threw her half of our “best friends forever” necklace back at me.

I gritted my teeth to keep my chin from quivering as I stared back across the table at Elliott.

A flicker of guilt flashed across his face. “Avery, I—”

“Sorry I’m late.”

Elliott and I looked up at Zac, who stood next to the table. He smiled at me and then shot a grimace at Elliott.

“Zac,” I said, relieved. He could have been my knight in shining armor, if I believed in that kind of thing. At least he gave me an excuse to get rid of Elliott. “Glad you could make it.”

Elliott’s scowl deepened as he studied Zac, from his messy brown hair to his dirty sneakers. Elliott was dressed, as usual, in a pressed polo shirt tucked neatly into his khakis. “Greeley,” he grunted in greeting.

“Reiser,” Zac responded. He pointed at the seat Elliott occupied and asked me, “This seat mine?”

“Yes,” I said. “Elliott is leaving now.”

Elliott glared at Zac a moment longer, but then he stood and turned back to me. “We’ll talk later, Avery. You can’t hide from me forever.”

Zac watched him leave with an amused expression on his face. “You and Elliott look like such
good
friends.”

I snorted. “Sure, we are. He’s my favorite person in the entire world and I’m sure he feels exactly the same way about me.”

Zac raised his eyebrows. “Want to talk about it?”

I shook my head. “Definitely not. Let’s start on this project.”

Zac pulled a notebook from his backpack and opened it on the table in front of him. “So I tried to come up with a few ideas for our business, but it’s a lot harder than I thought. All of my ideas are pretty lame.”

“Let’s trade lists.” I turned his notebook around so I could read the list he’d made and handed over mine. “These aren’t so bad. Photography studio is good. Wait, does that say ‘dude ranch’?”

“Yes, it does,” Zac said, grinning at me. “When I was a kid, I always wanted my own ranch. I figured this project would probably be the closest I’ll get to having one.”

I laughed, glad that Zac took my mind off my encounter with Elliott. “I don’t know anything at all about running a ranch, even an imaginary one.”

Zac shrugged as he looked through my list. “That’s okay. It’s supposed to be an adventure, right?” He paused a moment, then said, “Do you mind if we mark pet shop off your list? I, um, have a problem with birds. And I guess you can’t have a pet shop without birds.”

I scrunched up my nose as I studied him. “What do you mean you have a
problem
with birds?”

Zac sucked in a deep breath and then said, really fast, “Birds terrify me.”

He squirmed in his seat under my gaze, drumming his fingers on the tabletop as I absorbed this. Around us, the noise level in the room remained a steady din as people talked and ate.

“Birds,” I said, “
terrify
you?”

“Yeah. Like completely, absolutely scare the snot out of me.”

“Like, regular birds? That fly around outside?” I flapped my hands around in the imitation of wings.

“Don’t do that! Ugh.” The tips of his ears had turned a bit red. “I know it’s stupid, but I don’t like birds. With those wings flapping everywhere and those beaks waiting to peck my eyes out. And the
claws
.” He shuddered. “Don’t even get me started on the claws.”

This bird phobia hadn’t quite sunk in yet. I was having trouble coming to terms with this five foot ten, one hundred and eighty pound boy being terrified of tiny one pound birds.

“What do you do when you go outside?” I asked. “There are birds everywhere.”

“As long as they stay in their trees or flying way up in the sky I’m fine. But I don’t want them flying at me or anywhere within ten feet of my head. I don’t go to the beach. Have you
seen
seagulls? They swarm and I swear all that noise they make is them deciding how best to organize and attack my head.”

“Has a bird ever attacked you?”

Zac ducked his head and shrugged. “Well, no. But one did poop on me when I was six. Look, I don’t know
why
I hate birds, I just do. I always have. You can think I’m weird or crazy or whatever. I hate birds and that’s that. I can’t deal with them.”

“You do realize this is a hypothetical project,” I pointed out. “There won’t actually be birds involved, even if we do the pet shop as our business.”

“I can’t even deal with hypothetical birds!” Zac exclaimed, waving his arms around as if to shoo the imaginary birds away.

“Okay,” I told him, holding up my hands. “No hypothetical birds. No pet shop. I have an idea. Why don’t I go through your list and mark the ones I like best, and you go through mine and do the same? Then we’ll choose from the narrowed down options.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Zac said. He seemed much calmer now that I’d agreed to no imaginary birds.

We read through each other’s lists, marking off the ones we liked. Zac had a few silly ideas, but also a few good ones. Nothing really stuck out at me, but I was willing to compromise.

“Okay,” Zac said a few minutes later. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

We had nine ideas left from the lists.

“Oh,” I said when I saw the list Zac had marked, “you can get rid of that one.” I pointed to the line where I had written, “Matchmaking business.”

“It was a silly idea I had. I was jotting down anything that came into my mind, even the stupid ones. I don’t think it’s the best business idea.”

“Why not?” Zac asked, looking genuinely confused. “I think it’s great, the best idea on the list. It’s something the other teams aren’t likely to think of, so we won’t run the risk of having the same business as someone else in class. And there are people who are willing to pay a lot of money to find their true love.”

“I’m not sure Mr. Freeman will like it,” I said. “He’ll probably insist we choose a real business.”

“Matchmaking is a real business,” Zac insisted. “Haven’t you seen those commercials on TV? There are thousands of websites that exist solely to match people up. Hmm...Our business could be two components, online and in person for local customers. So we’d need a web programmer to handle the website and a couple of employees to help out with interviewing clients face-to-face. They could also help with managing the internet applications to save us some staffing expenses.”

And before I knew what was happening, Zac had flipped to a clean page in his notebook and started writing down all of the ideas pouring out of him. His hand flew across the page, but even at that speed, I doubted his pen could keep up with the flow of words coming out of his mouth.

“We’ll have to think of a name,” Zac said. “Something catchy, but not too cutesy. No offense, but I don’t do cutesy.”

“Zac,” I said, trying to break into his steady stream.

“Maybe A to Z Love Matches? For Avery and Zac? Oh! We could offer deals to in-person customers who also list their applications online. A promotion to help draw in-person customers. And we’ll
definitely
need advertising.”

I tried again. “Zac.”

Still, he didn’t seem to hear me. “Do you think we should limit to a certain age group? Like, should we focus on matching up teens? Or should we focus on the adults? Underage customers could pose more problems with safety and internet predators—”

“Zac!”

A few people from tables nearby turned to look at us after my outburst. Zac blinked at me.

“What?” he asked. “You don’t like it? It was
your
idea.”

I twisted the paper from my straw between my fingers. “I’m aware of that. But it was a joke. We can’t do a matchmaking business for our class project.”

“But it’s a good idea. It’ll be something different among all the clothing stores and restaurants the other teams are probably working on. And it’s a service that exists to make people happy. What could be wrong with it?”

“How about everything?” I asked. “Matchmaking is nothing but a scam. Any idiot can pair two people together based on similar interests or goals. Why would anyone pay for that?”

Zac shrugged. “People
do
pay for it, all the time. Not everyone has the alluring personality you do and can attract people from miles around to throw themselves at their feet.”

I tossed my straw paper across the table at him. “I’m serious. The whole matchmaking industry is a scam preying on lonely fools who think they need someone else to make their lives meaningful.”

“You can’t be that cynical about love already.” Zac tapped my knuckles with his pen. “You’re not even out of high school yet.”

“Relationships are a waste of time and energy. I didn’t get to be number one in our class by chasing after every cute guy who looks my way.”

“Are you calling me cute?” he asked with a wink.

I hated the flush that crept up my neck when he smiled. I needed to regain control of this conversation before Zac could see how flustered he had made me. I sat up, holding my shoulders back, and aligned my pencil on the tabletop evenly parallel with the edge of my notebook, restoring some small amount of order to the mess Zac had made of our booth. “You wish,” I told him.

 Zac thumped my knuckles with his pen again, smiling as he tapped out the internal beat in his head on my skin. “No one is that disconnected from the rest of society. Everyone needs love and so...” He waved one hand in a big flourish toward our business notebook. “Tada! Everyone needs matchmakers.”

Tingles reverberated through my hand where he’d tapped. I clasped my other hand on top of it, rubbing hard to make the tingling go away. “Not everyone. I’m not naive enough to confuse scientific fact with these made up ideas of spiritual bonds.”

“Oh, really?” Zac laughed a bit as he leaned across the table, his face only inches from mine. “And what exactly does science tell you about love?”

He was so close I could see the golden flecks in his dark brown eyes. A barely visible mole rested under his left eye and light peach fuzz dotted his upper lip. I swallowed and recited the words that years of reading medical books had ingrained into my mind. “Love is a form of pleasure. Pleasure is caused by the release of endorphins. The things we believe make a person attractive are based on pheromones. You respond positively to someone whose pheromones are compatible with your own, making you think you’re falling in love. But it’s all in your head. Literally.”

Now Zac grinned wide and flicked his pen lightly across my nose. “You’re like a walking medical book. You have it all figured out, don’t you?” His dark eyes stared levelly at me and a small smile curled one corner of his lips, as if he knew what I’d say already and yet still didn’t believe me.

Not everything. I hadn’t even begun to figure him out.

“I know enough to keep myself from becoming easily fooled by simple biology.” I stared at him for a long time, silently daring him to argue or try to convince me otherwise. But he didn’t. He stared back, also silent, until the flush creeping up my face made me finally break our gaze.

I took a sip of my drink to wet my suddenly parched throat, then said, “I still say matchmaking is a scam, but if you think it’s a good idea, then whatever. It’s fine, as long as I get an A.”

My last hope was that Mr. Freeman would object to it and make us come up with something else.