The Boyfriend Thief (6 page)

Zac did it for me, thankfully. “So…we should get to work.”

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

Why was it so hot in Zac’s house? I lifted the edge of my dress slightly, trying to flutter it around to create a breeze.

“We have to figure out how much money we need for our loan,” Zac said, reading from the paper in our notebook. “Let’s see. We’ll need a storefront for the in person clients. And furniture and…”

The sudden squeal of my cell phone from the pocket of my sundress startled me and I let out a sharp shriek. Zac jumped, his knee bumping hard into the coffee table.

“Sorry!” I exclaimed, leaning forward to press my hands against Zac’s knee. Which was attached to a nicely muscular thigh as I couldn’t help noticing while I checked him for injuries—strictly medically speaking, of course. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Zac said, grimacing. “You going to answer that?” He nodded toward my pocket where my cell phone still shrilled.

“Oh, right.” I pulled the phone out and pressed talk without checking the caller ID first. “Hello?”

“Hello, Avery,” said a familiar voice in my ear. My mind was still reeling so much I couldn’t place the voice on the other end.

“Who is this?”

“I’m hurt. You’ve made it your mission in life to torment me and yet you don’t recognize my voice?”

“Elliott,” I said, stifling a groan. “How did you get my number?”

“Your brother was more than willing to give up your number for a certain cheerleader’s in exchange,” Elliott told me.

I was going to kill Ian as soon as I got home that night.

“Well,” I said, trying to sound pleasant and force down the rage bubbling inside me, “it’s been nice chatting with you, but I’m really busy at the moment.”

“Oh, I know,” Elliott said. “I saw your car at Greeley’s house.”

“Are you stalking me now?”

Zac looked at me, raising his eyebrows in question.

“I was on my way to get some lunch when I passed his house. I can’t help it that I live right across the street from you and know what your car looks like.”

“Whatever. What do you want?”

“Stop telling Molly all these lies about what you think is going on with me and Tara.”

“I’m not going to let you hurt my best friend.”

“I would never do anything to hurt Molly,” Elliott said. “How many times do I have to tell you that? What do I have to do to prove myself to the two of you?”

I squeezed my eyes shut and took a few deep, calming breaths. “Look, Elliott, I have to go—”

“I need your help,” Elliott said, his voice sounding a little raspy, as if he were desperate. “Molly isn’t like any of the other girls I’ve known. I really want—”

“Good-bye, Elliott,” I said before I hung up on him. The phone rang again immediately, but I turned it off and stuffed it back into my pocket.

Zac eyed me. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, fine.” I waved a hand. “My daily stalking from Elliott Reiser, who seems to be extra crazy these days.”

No need to tell him it was my fault.

“So what, he wants you to go out with him or something?” Zac asked.

A shudder went through me at the thought. “Oh,
no
. No way. Elliott and I would kill each other on the first date. He’s interested in my friend Molly. And for some unknown reason, the feeling is mutual.”

“But?”

“But,” I said, unable to look at Zac as I spoke, “I don’t exactly have warm feelings for Elliott. So Molly hasn’t agreed to go out with him, which is driving him crazy.”

Zac sat back and nodded, drumming his fingers on his knee. “Ah. So Elliott blames you and is trying to convince you to change your mind about him so you’ll let Molly date him.”

“Pretty much,” I answered. “But he’s very much out of luck. I can’t imagine anything he could do that would change my mind.”

“What do you have against Elliott?” Zac asked.

One thing I was grateful for was what had happened that summer after seventh grade didn’t get spread around school. Elliott and Hannah could have told everything, but for some reason, they never had. Everyone only knew that the three of us had had a big falling out and were no longer friends by the time school started back in the fall. I wasn’t going to fill Zac in on all the gory details, so I said, “He’s a jerk and I don’t want to see Molly get hurt.”

“What makes you so sure he’ll hurt her?”

I lifted my eyes to meet his gaze. He looked completely confused, as if he couldn’t follow the point of this entire conversation. Poor, naïve Zac, he probably still believed in fairy tales that ended happily ever after.

“Because everyone gets hurt at the end of relationships,” I told him. “It’s not a matter of if, but
when.
”

“But there are good break ups and even good times to look back on after the bad ones are over.”

“Not always,” I insisted.

Zac’s eyes bored into me, as if he were trying to read deep into my soul. “Hmm,” he said.

“What?” I snapped. His gaze made me feel as if I were a specimen under a microscope.
He
was supposed to be the science experiment here, not me.

“You know what you need? A date.”

I choked on the mouthful of Sprite I’d just taken from the can, nearly spraying the liquid across my lap. “I do not need a date,” I told him, sputtering and wiping at my chin.

“On the scale of who needs a date most in the entire world, you’re probably at the top of the list. When was the last time you had a date?”

My cheeks grew hot and I jumped to my feet, stuffing my supplies back into my bag. “Obviously, this study date—I mean,
session
—is over, so I’m going to work.”

“Hey, wait.” Zac stood and grabbed my arm, his touch electrifying the hairs along my forearm. “You’ve never had a date, have you?”

“I’ve had dates!” I lied.

Zac tilted his head to the side. “Who was it? Where did you go?
When
was it?”

I yanked my arm from his grasp. “We’re not having this conversation.”

“Dates with your dad don’t count.”

I stomped down the hall toward the front door and pretended I didn’t hear him. “Don’t fill out anymore of the business notebook without me.”

“It has to be dinner and a movie,” Zac went on, remaining close at my heels. “With an actual person, not over the internet.”

“And you shouldn’t stay up all night,” I said, ignoring the way my neck felt like it was burning up as he kept talking. Why was it so freaking hot in his house? “Your body needs sleep to repair itself.”

“Have you even been kissed?”

I spun around, accidentally smacking him with my backpack as I did so. “I don’t see how this is any of your business!”

Zac grinned. “But it is my business,” he said calmly. “
Our
business, remember? We match people up, so why not find a match for you while we’re at it?”

“We are not matching me up.” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared back at him as my heart rate tried to return to a pace somewhere below cardiac arrest.

“You can be our first client,” Zac insisted. “Don’t you want to be happy and in love?”

He grinned down at me and I hated that I had to tilt my face up a little to look at him. It made me feel small and insignificant, as if he were the wise one with all the answers about love and life.

“I don’t qualify being in love with being happy. My happiness is not dependent on someone else’s affections.”

Zac waved a hand, dismissing my words. “Of course not, I never said it was. I meant that you could be even happier with a boyfriend.”

“Oh,” I said, tilting my head to one side, “because everyone in a relationship is oh so happy? You must be one of the happiest people in the world, right?”

My words were meant as a challenge. I wanted to see him claim how happy and in love with Hannah he was and how they had the perfect relationship. Because I knew better. I knew that behind his back, Hannah was making deals with me to get him to dump her.

But Zac didn’t answer. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other for a moment, avoiding my gaze.

“We can find someone else to be our first client,” he finally said after a long moment of uncomfortable silence. He nodded back toward the direction of the den. “Come on, you don’t have to go to work already, do you? We can get a little more work done on our project and I promise not to match you up with anyone. Please?”

He clasped his hands together under his chin and looked at me with pleading, puppy dog eyes. I didn’t have to be at work for almost another hour, but I made a big show of looking at the time on my phone before answering him.

“Okay,” I said. “I can stay for a few more minutes, if you’re going to be such a baby about it.”

Zac pumped his fist in the air in a celebratory motion. I laughed as I followed him back toward our study area, while he bounced down the hall ahead of me.

But still, I noticed he never did answer my question about the state of happiness in his relationship.

“Any other new business?” I asked, my gaze scanning over the few remaining members of the math club. Math club wasn’t exactly one of the hot school clubs to join, and the membership had gradually decreased over the years. It had gone down again this past school year, with two people moving away and one getting kicked out after being caught cheating on his algebra mid-term. While the math club might overlook cheating in history or English, we seriously frowned on cheating in a math class. Kind of defeated the purpose of being in the math club.

Since the school year was only five weeks away from being over, no one was paying attention in our meetings anymore. The air conditioner in the classroom where math club had been assigned to meet never worked right and even with all the windows pushed as wide as they would go, heat blanketed the room. Everyone more interested in constructing paper fans than in listening to anything I had to say, except for two girls who were obviously texting each other.

No one ever respected the math club president. I sighed and started tidying up my notebook and pen.

“I have new business,” Hannah, who was seated on my right, spoke up. My vice president pushed back her chair, making a screech loud enough to wake the freshman sleeping in the back row, and stood, clearing her throat. “As you all know,” she started, “I am in the running for junior class queen.”

“Not this again,” Molly moaned. She stuffed her notebook into her bag and scowled in my direction. “I’m not taking notes on this, by the way.”

I shrugged at her, indicating that I didn’t care. Junior class queen wasn’t exactly official math club business.

Hannah tossed her shiny brown hair over her shoulder. “Anyway,” she said, ignoring Molly’s groans, “the voting begins on Wednesday. The jars will be placed in the front hall that morning. Look for the one with my picture, of course.” She flashed a bright smile around the room as if someone were taking her picture at that moment. One thing Hannah had always been good at was buttering up the crowd with her sweet act.

“Remember how the voting works. Each nickel, dime, and quarter counts as a vote
for
the candidate, but each penny will take away one vote. All of the money will be collected by the student council and used for projects to improve our school next year. So please, gather up all those coins hiding under your couch cushions and get ready to vote for the candidates that represent the best of our school’s integrity, intelligence, and ambition. Thank you.”

Hannah sat down primly, as if she had delivered a rousing speech to her constituents. It was hard to tell if anyone had even listened, judging from the fact that people were still texting, sleeping, or else packing up their bags in anticipation of the meeting’s end.

“Thank you, Hannah,” I said in an even tone. It was hard being nice to her, but rumors of a war between the president and vice president would cause a scandal in math club.

On the other hand, that could raise interest in the club and up our membership...

A thump on the door caused every head in the room to whip around to find Zac Greeley pressed against the narrow slit of a window above the doorknob, his cheek flat against the glass. He slid down the window slowly, in a long, drawn-out fainting gesture.

I couldn’t help giggling, but I caught Hannah’s eye roll as she turned away from him.

“Is there any other business?” I asked, swallowing down the laugh that bubbled in my throat when Zac pressed a sign he’d made of notebook paper against the window. He’d written in big letters, “MATH CLUB IS DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE NUMBERS-CHALLENGED!”

“Don’t forget about the carnation sale,” Hannah told me.

“I haven’t forgotten the carnation sale,” I said. “Everyone is well aware of when the carnation sale is. It’s the same time every year, last week of school.”

Hannah tossed her hair back, ignoring Zac’s new antics, which were parading back and forth in front of the door with his notebook paper sign held high. “Well, you hadn’t mentioned it,” she pointed out. “I’m only doing my duties as vice president.”

Hannah hated that I had stolen the presidency of the math club from her in the election last year. She was probably itching to prove she could run math club better than I could.

“Everyone, carnation sale. Last week of school. Same rules as last year. Sell a flower to the students to send to someone else. Five dollars per flower. Proceeds to be used for next year’s club activities. Got it? Good. Meeting dismissed.” I wasn’t going to give Hannah another chance to butt in and take over the meeting.

As soon as those words were out of my mouth, everyone sprang to life and hurried out of the room. Zac made his way in once the rush of math club members had passed. He grinned and waved at me before heading over to Hannah.

“You need to run against Hannah in everything she does,” Molly told me. “I like seeing her with that prissy look whenever she’s not in charge. Hey!” Her blue eyes grew wide as she looked at me. “You should run for junior queen. I’d totally clean out every drawer in my house for loose change to vote for you. I’ll bet we could get a lot of other people on your side too.”

I shook my head. Though I tried to have plenty of extracurricular activities and achievements for my college applications, running for class queen did not interest me at all. Work and everything else I was already doing kept me too busy to focus on campaigning right now anyway.

“I’ll pass, thanks,” I said.

Hannah and Zac’s discussion behind me floated toward my ears. It wasn’t that I was trying to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help overhearing.

“I don’t understand why you have to act so...” Hannah stopped, leaving the sentence unfinished.

“What?” Zac asked. “Why do I have to act so what?”

Hannah sighed. “Will it kill you to be serious about anything for once in your life?”

But Zac wasn’t letting go. “What were you going to say, Hannah? Why do I have to act so...?” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him staring hard at her, his body tense. “Say it. You’ve obviously thought it before now.”

Hannah slung her backpack over her shoulder and looked at him. “Fine. Why do you have to act so stupid?”

Now I didn’t even try to pretend I wasn’t watching the conversation. Zac looked as if he’d been slapped. “Just because someone isn’t as good as you are in school doesn’t mean they’re stupid,” he said in a low voice.

My cheeks flamed as I thought about how I’d always thought of Zac before the economics project. Unmotivated. Lazy. Class clown. And yes, maybe even stupid.

But I couldn’t believe Hannah had said that to his face.

“I know that,” Hannah snapped. “But when a person doesn’t apply himself, he comes across as stupid and does a disservice to himself.”

Zac pulled at the sides of his hair. “Is it possible for you to talk like a human teenager for once?”

“If you don’t like the way I talk, maybe you should stay away from me,” Hannah told him, one hand planted firmly on her hip as she stared back at him.

In my head, I silently egged Zac on, willing him to tell Hannah exactly where to go and free himself of her forever. Zac and Hannah’s relationship was crashing to a fiery explosion right in front of me. In a few minutes, Zac and Hannah would be no more.

Molly’s elbow dug into my ribs. “You’re about to lose your chance to get to Costa Rica,” she whispered.

A sense of panic set in. Molly was right. If Zac dumped Hannah right now, it wouldn’t be because of me. Hannah would never pay me the rest of the money she owed me unless I’d fulfilled the terms of our agreement.

“Hey, Zac,” I said, not really believing that I had opened my mouth. “Do you want to meet at the Rose Castle tonight to work on our project?”

Zac and Hannah turned toward me. Even Molly stared at me, her gaze flickering back and forth between all of us. Zac looked dazed, as if he had forgotten exactly where he was.

“What?” Zac asked, shaking his head slightly to clear away the confusion of the moment.

“Our project?” I smiled at him as if nothing were wrong. “I thought we could meet tonight at the Rose Castle and work on it.”

Hannah gathered up the rest of her things and walked toward the door. “I have to go.”

He watched her leave, staring at the empty hall for a few seconds until he turned back toward me. “Um, I can’t tonight. I have to work at my dad’s shop. How about tomorrow?”

I shook my head. “I’m working tomorrow. Tonight is my only night off until the weekend.”

Zac snapped his fingers. “Hey, I know. You can come over to the shop tonight and we can work on the project there. It’s usually pretty quiet during the week. Most of our business is on weekends. You can sit at the front counter with me. If you’re lucky, I’ll even teach you how to make keys.” He grinned.

Molly jabbed a finger into my side, but I ignored her. “Won’t your dad get upset about me being there?” I asked.

Zac shook his head. “He’s not inside the office much. He’s usually out on calls or else in the workshop out back. It’ll be fine, as long as I’m there to run the register.”

“Okay,” I agreed. He gave me the address of his dad’s shop and then checked his cell for the time.

“I gotta run,” he said. “I’m supposed to be there in five minutes, actually.”

I nodded to him. “I’ll meet you there.”

He said good-bye before dashing out the door, seeming to be in a much better mood than he had been when talking to Hannah. Molly’s nails dug into my arm as she bounced up and down.

“That was close,” she said. I had filled her in on all the details about the breakup plot—except, of course, for the part where Hannah had threatened to tell Molly about Elliott and me. “I thought for sure Zac was going to dump Hannah right then, without your help. But now you can go romance him in the locksmith shop. I wonder if he’ll taste like keys when you kiss him?”

I peeled her fingers off my arm and shot her a glare. “I am not kissing him. I can win him over in other ways.”

“With what? Your stunning personality?” Molly asked, rolling her eyes. “Face it, Avery, the only thing you have going for you is your cute smile. If Zac spends too much time with you, he’ll realize you’re kind of miserable sometimes.”

My forehead crinkled into a scowl. “I thought you were supposed to be my best friend.”

“I am,” Molly assured me. “I can scare people off too. That’s why we get along so well. But this is different. You want Zac to like you, not to run away screaming in the other direction.”

I knew I didn’t welcome people with open arms into a circle of lovey-dovey hugs, but the fact that Molly thought I was a miserable person made a twisted knot form in my stomach. I fiddled with the strap of my backpack as I walked, biting my lip and staring at the floor. Was this payback for trying to keep her from going out with Elliott? Maybe I had let my guard down too much with her. Maybe I had trusted too much that she wouldn’t hurt me. I hated the sting of tears in the corners of my eyes.

After the falling out with Hannah and Elliott, I’d spent all of eighth grade distancing myself from the rest of the kids in school. I talked to them only when necessary, but I never hung out with anyone on weekends. I became so good at protecting myself that by the time ninth grade started, everyone had given up on speaking to me.

But then Molly came along and somehow she found a way through the walls I’d built around myself. I’d become soft, I realized. I had trusted too much and opened myself up to being hurt again.

I hugged my arms tight across my chest and held my shoulders back, lifting my chin.

“Well,” I said in a cold tone, “I’ll be sure to be bubbly and chirpy around Zac, since my real personality won’t win him over.”

Molly let out an exasperated huff. “Don’t get touchy, Avery. You know you’re not exactly welcoming and warm.”

I shrugged, trying to act as though her words didn’t affect me. “I have to go.”

“Remember what I said,” Molly told me. “Win him over. Charm him. Seduce him!”

Thank goodness it was so late in the afternoon that the halls were empty and no one was around to hear Molly tell me to seduce Zac Greeley.