"Smooth," I said. I was still a little surprised I didn't have to sh.e.l.l out for this trip. "Thanks for being so nice-you know, helping me and all."

He did this exaggerated shudder. "Okay, enough with the nice-guy thing. Don't you know what people say about nice guys? Not only do they finish last, but they never get the girl."

I studied his face. Was there a girl in question? Or was that just a general statement? For lack of a better response, I let out a little "Sorry."

He flashed a grin. White, toothy. And, well, nice. Which set off something also very nice inside me. That I didn't want to think about.

I jumped out, took in the sweet breeze-peaches or nectarines from the booths, no doubt-and split the neon flyers into two piles. Handing one to him, I pointed toward a row of cars.

"You take that side, I'll take this one," I said, and to my surprise, he nodded and got to work.

We plastered the bright pink flyers on the windshields of every car in the lot, as well as dozens up and down the side street. Tossing the remaining flyers onto his pa.s.senger seat later, Jared nodded toward the midway and its colorful canopied booths.

"Five or ten minutes?" he asked. "Just to see if they've got snow cones or cotton candy?"

"More likely asparagus and blueberries, but why not?"

We pushed our way through the crowds, pausing to examine the fruits, veggies, nuts, and whole-grain breads. Venders' voices competed in promoting their specials and deals, most faces lined and bronzed from too much sun.

Jared settled on a package of pralines and was turning to head out when something seemed to catch his eye. He stepped closer to me and gave my side a nudge.

I followed his line of vision. Ma.s.sive and pulsating, a red, blue, and yellow inflatable obstacle course filled a back lot, wheezing and breathing from pumped-in air, as if it had a life of its own. Except it also seemed quite lonely with only one kid visible, straddling its climbing wall.

An attendant stood beside a $3.00 per person sign.

Jared flashed me that smile again. "What do you say?"

I shrugged.

"Come on, it'll be like we're little kids. At Gym-boree or some rich kid's birthday party."

I bit my tongue to keep from blurting out, "Like yours?" He was being too nice to deserve any more of my mouth.

Instead I arched a brow. "You paying?"

"Sure. I'll do one better than that. I'll race you over the course. You win, I'll buy you lunch. I win ..."

My interest and adrenaline skyrocketed.

"... you have to wash my car." He studied my face. "In a bikini."

Yeah, right. Even so, I was surprised he'd think of me like that.

"Okay," I said, and high-fived him. I was pretty sure my volleyball skills wouldn't fail me, and there was no way I'd let myself lose and give Jared the chance to laugh at my scrawny bikini-clad body. "You're on!"

Jared forked over the bucks and we kicked off our shoes and lined up on the platform. Two ropes stretched down from the eight-foot climbing wall, daring us to start.

"No rules," he announced. "Just stay on course, and first one to the other side wins."

We gave each other the Squinty Eye.

"Okay," I said. "Ready...set...go!"

I shimmied up the rope, my feet horizontally scaling the wall, and I reached the top. Piece of cake. I didn't bother to glance over, but my peripheral vision told me that he was somewhere behind, and my common sense added that he had a lot more weight to haul.

I used my back to slide down the steep incline, landed square on two feet, and turned to face a short tunnel.

Jared pounded the flooring beside me-throwing me up a good foot into the air-and then dropped to his knees and dove headfirst into his tunnel. Man, he was fast....

After regaining my balance, I went on hands and knees through my (hot, stuffy) tunnel, coming out to see stacks of pumped-up horizontal pillars. Jared was in midair, doing a move worthy of a long jumper. I caught my breath and followed with a belly-up dive. Twisted in the air as I scaled the pillars, I thought I would somehow land on my feet.

Wrong.

I landed face-first. Wedged in a small s.p.a.ce between the pillars and another climbing wall. On top of Jared.

Twin emotions vied for dominance. How totally embarra.s.sed I was. And how totally, weirdly good it felt to be so close to him.

He emitted a little groan, letting me know my full-body slam dunk hadn't killed him. But he didn't move. Didn't shove me aside and take advantage of my p.r.o.ne position for the easy win.

"Sorry," I said halfheartedly.

"You've got a lot of oomph for someone so little."

I nodded and sat up. Then, catching the mischievous look in his eye, I dove for the next wall, digging my hands into the climb moldings.

Movement blurred in my side vision, but I'd been an athlete long enough to know not to waste precious seconds sizing up the compet.i.tion.

I dug, I hauled, I elevated.

Loving every moment of this one-on-one physical challenge with Jared.

Finally, I crowned the wall. First. I saw the long slide to the finish and pushed off on my b.u.t.t, my hands waving triumphantly over my head, only to see him bullet, face-first, right past me.

We landed seconds apart, but there was no denying he beat me out.

Ugh. I so didn't want to wash his car! Still, I growled with good humor. "Rematch?"

His chest heaved. "Not on your life. I might not win again."

Standing, I offered him my hand. "So we should just call this even, huh, and forget about the bet?"

"In your dreams, Nic."

I pulled him to his feet, but then, instead of breaking away, I gave his arm a playful shove. And he gave me that smile from the car.

Beating me again, darn him.

In a perfect world-or even a semisane world-I would think my racecourse challenge with Jared made me feel less tense. Cleared the air. But since when was my world perfect?

As we smacked flyers on windshields and did handouts, I pretty much kept my distance. I figured he'd forget all about our car-wash bet, and even though we were having a lot of fun today, back at school, we'd go separate ways. So I had to protect myself somehow.

Eventually the stack of flyers dwindled, as did my motivation.

"Want to hit BK?" he asked, crossing the parking lot.

"There? Again?"

"I like Whoppers."

I grinned, suddenly remembering a saying from Mom's previous incarnation as a Martha Stewart housewife.

"What?" he said, and elbowed me playfully in the side. "What are you smiling about?"

"Oh, you know what they say. If you are what you eat, then fast-food lovers are cheap, fast, and easy."

He laughed and lunged for me, his arm coming from behind to lock around my neck in a playful half nelson.

It didn't hurt. Anything but.

"So," he said, "if I'm, what? Cheap and easy-"

"Don't forget fast," I interrupted, and giggled.

He pulled me to the hard wall of his chest. Until all of me pushed up against all of him.

Oh, G.o.d.

"And so what does that make you?" he breathed down into my ear.

I had no smart response. I was paralyzed.

"What, I've quieted the mighty Nic Antonovich?"

I came back to life and I wriggled from his hold, then attempted a casual stroll over to the pa.s.sengerside door.

Even though embarra.s.sment was sometimes my middle name, I'd surprised myself by that whole body/ brain stall-out the instant he had grabbed hold of me. Like I'd short-circuited. The last time I'd been that close to him was during the Canadian incident, and I'd certainly held my own that time. What was wrong with me now?

Because, a voice in my head suddenly responded, this is different.

Several deep breaths later, we were more or less back to normal. (Whatever normal was.) As we sat in the drive-thru line, we talked about colleges-the ones he was thinking of applying to, and the fact that I was hoping for a volleyball scholarship to be able to go at all.

He inched the car forward. "Do you have any games this week?"

"Yeah, Wednesday."

"What time?"

"Four."

"In the gym?"

"Uh-huh."

"Maybe I'll come and watch."

For some reason, I was Tense City again. Not that I was self-conscious or worried his presence would throw off my game. But it seemed ... unnatural. I mean, a week ago he wouldn't have acknowledged me if we'd body-slammed while rounding a corner.

Did he feel sorry for me now or something-the girl whose mother was struggling to keep the house? Was he stepping up to "help" me like he had by pulling me away from that guy on the beach last summer?

"Alison comes to most home games," I said, as if that smoothed everything over. Because really, I did not need a big brother. "My mom, too."

He looked at me like I'd spoken Chinese.

"So, I'm covered," I said. "I won't be the only player without a cheering section or anything."

"I don't know what's going on in that head of yours, Nic, but if I come to your game, it's because I want to." His gaze drilled into mine. "And just to be perfectly clear, I came to help today because spending time with you is better than studying for my physics test. Alison doesn't even know I'm with you."

I bit down on my lip, not knowing how to reply. It was great that he'd gone out of his way for me. But I hoped Alison didn't see this as sneaking around behind her back-or leaving her out. (Okay, now I was sounding mental. Was I ever satisfied?) "Plus," he went on, advancing the car to the window, "I want to see your mom get back on track. Get more properties and more clients. So you can go back to thinking about normal things. Like homework and volleyball and the homecoming dance."

I felt my eyebrows jack up. The homecoming dance? That was sure random.

He braked and handed some bills to the plump, motherly-looking BK employee.

"Why would I be thinking about the homecoming dance?" I asked the back of his head.

"Well," he said, his face still turned away, "you've got that dress-"

"Do you want ketchup?" the server asked.

Jared nodded.

"Salt?" she asked.

Jared threw me a questioning look.

I shrugged. The food was unimportant to me. What I wanted to know was why he'd brought up the dance. It almost sounded like he was going to ask me to be his date or something. Which would be totally weird.

He handed me the bag, and I caught his eye. "So you were saying about my dress?"

He put the car in gear. "Just that you've got it, and the homecoming dance is coming up," he said, and drove. "I thought it would be good if your mother was in a better place so you could concentrate on getting a date or whatever."

I held my breath, hoping that Jared would fill the void with some sort of explanation. But it didn't work. He just pulled into a parking s.p.a.ce and grabbed his Whopper from the bag.

"A date," I said, feeling oddly deflated. "With who?"

"I don't know." His voice was small. "That's your business."