Unless he was scared. And felt insecure. Kind of like I felt with Rascal. In which case, shouldn't I go and be as kind to the guy as possible, in some sort of cosmic trade-off?

Though I couldn't help thinking about the odds that I'd end up with a dweeb, who I'd have to let down gently.

So why, as the clock struck ten, did I move to the back of the cla.s.s and pick up the wooden hall pa.s.s?

With my heart thumping in time with my flip-flops, I made my way into the caf, only to meet a cavernous room filled with empty lunch tables, some hairnetted ladies, and a curious warm, b.u.t.tery scent.

"Can I help you?" one of the women asked, shaking her head at me. (Even the new students knew the caf didn't open until eleven-thirty) "I-"

"She's with me," spoke a deep and very familiar voice from behind me. Whoa. I turned. Rascal. Rascal!

"You?" I managed. "You left that note?"

"Had to get you down here somehow. To give you your once-in-a-lifetime experience."

He cupped his hand on my elbow and steered me toward the kitchen. (We were touching!) "Janet," he said. "Joanne. You don't mind if I bring my friend Nicolette back here, do you?"

The ladies smiled shyly, as if they, too, were charmed by him.

He led me to a counter bearing a two-foot aluminum tray, filled with evenly s.p.a.ced, freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies.

"Straight from the oven. Just wait." He picked up a nearby spatula and scooped up a cookie. Then motioned for me to open my hand, and deposited it.

Warm. Soft.

I took a bite. The chocolate goo'd and stretched.

Heaven.

"Good, huh?" he said, and crammed an entire cookie into his mouth.

I watched him chomp. Then he leaned in. So close I could see a tiny smear of chocolate on the corner of his mouth. His voice went kinda s.e.xy. "There's only one thing I can think of that's better."

I swallowed my bite (proud that I didn't choke), thanked the ladies, and turned to head toward the door without answering him. And I made it to the door without saying a word, Rascal following.

But when I got to the door, I stopped and turned back. I was confused by more than one thing, but all I could manage to say was "How did you pull this off? You know-get special treatment in the caf?" I mean, when I'd worked in the middle school caf, the only person I remembered getting anything for free was Kylie, and that was chicken soup. And that was because she'd been sick.

He gave me an innocent smile and answered easily. "Sometimes the coach calls us in for early-morning practices. Afterward, we're all starving, so me and some of the guys come down here, offer to take out trash or move boxes or whatever in exchange for food. One day, Janet mentioned the cookies at ten o'clock. Ever since, I've been dropping by."

I eyed him evenly. "Don't you ever go to cla.s.s?"

"Sure. When I feel like it."

He winked at me, and I knew there was no way I was seeing something that wasn't there. He was flirting. But why? What was going on?

Confused, yet unmistakably happy, I pushed open the caf door and, as if on autopilot, floated back to my cla.s.sroom. Maybe Rascal was sweeter than everyone gave him credit for?

I knew better than to tell Alison about the cookie escapade. She'd only scold me for falling for another of Rascal's stunts, remind me I was setting myself up to get hurt. Again. And that he was still Kylie's boyfriend.

All things I totally knew, deep down.

Instead, when I met up with her later, I asked if she wanted to go with Jared and me to the bank. I didn't want her getting any wrong ideas about her brother giving me rides. And besides, why should I have to endure more uncomfortable alone time with him? But when I asked, she shook her head, saying she was reading a great romance novel.

That sounded better to me, too. But it didn't keep me from begging. "It'll be fun."

"Fun?"

"Okay, maybe not fun, but ..."

She held up her hand. "I get it. And thanks for asking me this time."

This time? What? Had she wanted to go up to my dad's? But I didn't get to dwell on it. A deep guy-voice, speaking my name, interrupted us and Alison and I turned to see Jared's friend Mitch. He was tall, thin,with an upturned nose that gave shorties like me a view straight into his brain. Nice.

"I was thinking," he said, aiming this goofy expression at me, "that I might need help with the Spanish test next week. I might need to call you."

I was confused. Was my C+ something he envied?

"So why don't you give me your phone number?" he went on.

To shut him up and move him along, Alison rattled it off. He scribbled it down, then ripped off a corner of a page, wrote his own phone number, and pa.s.sed it to me. To be polite, I accepted it, but knew I'd never dial it.

The next thing I knew, Jared sauntered up; then, after a few words, Alison made her excuses and it was just Jared and me, heading for the front door.

Looking everywhere but at each other.

I had been hoping that maybe we'd actually gotten past the awkwardness, but when I'd pa.s.sed him earlier at the Senior Bench, he'd looked right through me. Now we were hardly talking.

Old habits die hard, I guess.

When we stepped outside, the hot sun blasted us. He slipped on a pair of dark shades and started walking in the direction of the north gate. I moved closer to him, simply because the outdoor lunch area was crowded. We pa.s.sed groups of kids from several different cliques, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to see that Jared was the one getting the nods and h.e.l.los.

"You need to be back for fifth period?" he asked as we hit the side street.

"Yeah," I answered, wondering if it was a coincidence that he chose until we left campus to finally speak to me.

"Doesn't give us much time."

I struggled to set my mind back to business. "We don't need much. I just need to fill out a form and hand over the check."

"And we've got to eat."

My stomach was in a knot from all the morning's action-I couldn't imagine eating. "Maybe you do."

He shot me a look, but with his eyes behind sungla.s.ses, I had to go to his mouth and cheeks for a true reading of his thoughts. "At some point, Nic, I need food. Growing guy and all. Plus, I go straight from school today to my uncle's print shop. And it's part of the deal."

Yeah, yeah.

Approaching the rear of his Camaro, we split to our respective sides.

"So," he called over the top of the car. "Burger King before or after?"

"After."

He slipped inside and popped open the pa.s.senger-door lock. Then sat back and turned the key in the ignition.

I opened the door and climbed in. Carefully-the seat was hot against my mostly bare legs. I don't know if it was the sizzling vinyl or maybe the same nerves that wrenched my belly, but I snapped at him. "You could do with some seat covers. And what, you're only gentlemanly enough to open the door for me at night?"

"I only opened the door for you because you were crying."

"I wasn't crying!" Not then.

"You were about to."

"How did you know that?"

Jared shrugged. "You wouldn't have asked me to drive you if it wasn't really important. And you seemed nervous in the car, and then uncomfortable around him.

"And he reminds me a little of my dad," he said, and slowed for a red light. "Has his own agenda. Fathers like that can do a number on their kids. Make the girls cry, the guys punch holes in walls."

"You've punched holes in the wall?"

"Once or twice. But mostly I just try to keep the peace." He turned, and despite his dark gla.s.ses, I could tell he was looking straight into me. "I have a feeling you do, too."

I laughed sarcastically. "Yeah, by keeping our phone calls and visits to the bare minimum."

"For me, it's woodworking. Sometimes I can't wait to get to school and get my hands on the table saw."

I wrinkled my brow. "You really like it that much?"

"Hey, don't knock it till you've tried it."

I guess I couldn't argue with that.

The line between the red ropes at the bank was blessedly short, but at the window the teller pointed us to a desk on the other side of the room. Tension knotted in my neck, and my stomach was about as serene as the evening sky on July 4. Several desks filled a carpeted platform. A lady with collagen "trout" lips sat behind a plaque calling her an account manager. Jared and I walked over, and after quietly explaining that we wanted to make a payment, sat down across from her.

"Why isn't your parent handling this?" she asked, eyeing me over half-gla.s.ses.

"My dad is handling this," I insisted, my voice cracking. "See, that's his signature on the check. And it's made out to the bank. I'm just dropping it off."

Her brow arched. "What I don't understand is why this payment isn't being made through our payment center, or by one of the mortgagees on the account."

Jared, who sat in a cushioned chair beside me, leaned forward. "Her parents are busy. You see," he said, and dropped his voice to just above a whisper, "they've gotten a little behind financially. And Nicolette here is trying to do her part to get the family back on track."

The woman's face softened. "And you, young man? What is your role in this?"

"I'm her driver."

I didn't know if it was Jared's gentle tone, or the fact that he'd taken off his sungla.s.ses and played up his root beer-colored eyes. But the lines in the lady's forehead faded like they'd been shot with Botox, and she reached for her receipt pad.

"Well, nice to see such enterprising young people."

"No slackers here," he said, exaggerating his smile.

Not that I didn't appreciate his efforts, but it was everything I could do to keep a straight face for the rest of the transaction. Which, barring the initial questioning, went faster than I'd thought it would.

Back at the car, we settled in and buckled our seat belts. Jared jutted his chin out. "That went well, huh?"

"Yeah." I turned toward him. "Though it wouldn't have if you hadn't flirted with that lady."

"That wasn't flirting."

"That so was flirting!"

"This," he said, and let the corners of his mouth tug into a smile that touched off a sparkle in his eyes, "is flirting."

I tried to laugh-I mean, come on, this coming from a guy who basically put up with me for an hourly fee- but his smile set off something smack-dab in the middle of my chest, and my laugh came out more like a strangled gasp. What was going on?

Persistent to prove his point (or maybe egged on by my confused reaction?), he trailed a finger down my cheek, then tucked some strands of hair behind my ear.

I wanted to give him a shove. This was Jared. It was just too creepy. But I didn't do a thing. I just sat there, mute and paralyzed. Until he pulled his hand away.

"The thing in the bank," he said, his face relaxing, "was called negotiating. Telling the lady what she wanted so we could get what we wanted."

His words jump-started my brain. A memory formed, a certain business teacher discussing The Art of the Deal. And I was more than happy to change the course of the conversation. "I take it you took Intro to Business in tenth grade, too?"

"Yeah. I thought it was all c.r.a.p at the time, but now that I'm writing college apps and working for my uncle, some of it is starting to come in handy."

Negotiation skills helped me, too. With my parents. The coach. Even Jared. (Nice to know that some of the junk they taught us in school had a purpose.) I watched him flip his visor, grab hold of his sungla.s.ses, and slip them back over his eyes.

"We're outta here," he said, "and with time to spare. I think you should be thanking me."

"Oh, you do, do you?"

"Totally. What would you do without me, Nic?"

"I'd get by, I think," I said, biting back a grin.

His tone went flip. "Don't mention it."

I lifted my hand to give him a playful punch. Like I had the other day. Then dropped it back in my lap. Because I realized-not that I had a crush on him or anything-that touching Jared was nice. Too nice.

Minutes later, Jared was turning into the BK driveway. But instead of continuing to the drive-thru, he parked and got out.

As we headed up the walkway, he fell into step beside me.