Free Two-Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt Page B

She takes another sip of her soda, then reaches over and grabs a cucumber off my salad. She pops it into her mouth. “But it is a little weird that he called you like that.” She frowns. “Although it’s even weirder that he didn’t try anything.”
    “What do you mean?” I ask.
    “Well, it’s just that if a guy calls you late at night like that, usually it means he wants something physical. So for him not to try anything is kind of weird, you know?”
    “Unless he thought he wanted to hook up with me, and then when he sobered up, he found me repulsive and decided not to.”
    “Was he drinking?”
    “Not really.”
    Jocelyn rolls her eyes. “Then that makes no sense. Anyway, why are we still talking about this?”
    “I have no idea.” Because I can’t stop thinking about him, and was a little disappointed when he didn’t call me yesterday. Okay, even I can see that’s pretty ridiculous. I mean, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s not even a guy I’m dating. So to be disappointed that he didn’t call me on Sunday is just stupid. I think I should chalk it up to a random thing, one of those freak occurrences that no one can really explain. Like crop circles. Or that lady who got hit by a foul ball at a Yankees game, and then when she went to get it checked out, it turned out they found a tumor, and if she hadn’t gotten it checked out, she would have died.
    “Good,” Jocelyn says, sounding satisfied.
    “But…” I say slowly, twirling a piece of lettuce around on my fork.
    “But what?” Jocelyn screeches. “There are no buts!” She grabs my hand and stops me from twirling. “Honey, no,” she instructs. “He’s bad news. He’s not right for you.”
    “I know,” I say. “You’re right. Definitely.” I frown. The thing is, when we were hanging out, he did seem right for me. Nothing like I really thought he was. But maybe that’s just a ploy, something he does to make girls want him. It makes sense when you think about it—he must be doing something to get all these girls to fall in love with him. It must have to do with sweet-talking them and making them think he’s a good guy. But I will not fall for that. I will be strong and not give into his psychotic, mind game–playing ways.
    “Don’t talk to him anymore,” Jocelyn says. “Don’t look at him, don’t call him, don’t online stalk him.”
    “I won’t,” I say, not mentioning the fact that I checked his MySpace profile about three hundred times yesterday, and was secretly very pleased to see that Madison Allesio left him a comment, which he never replied to.
    “I mean it, Courtney,” she says. “Don’t go getting all psychotic over something that’s not even a thing.”
    “You’re totally right,” I say. And she is. Getting all worked up over some guy who is definitely not a thing is really stupid. Especially since I’m already all worked up over Lloyd, who is also not a thing, and is even hooking up with the girl he met at Connor’s party. Unlike Jordan, Lloyd did call me yesterday, to tell me about how he felt up Olivia in the backseat of his car. Things in my love life are not going well.
    “Besides, what about Lloyd?” Jocelyn asks, like she’s reading my mind. She picks a cherry tomato off my plate and puts it in her mouth. I wordlessly hand her my fork, and she spears a forkful of my salad. Jocelyn is one of those people who is always trying to lose weight by not eating and then makes up for it by eating off everyone else’s plate.
    “He’s hooking up with Olivia.”
    “Lame,” Jocelyn says, rolling her eyes. “I give it a couple weeks.”
    “Yeah, maybe,” I say. Madison Allesio goes walking by, flanked on both sides by girls from her cheerleading squad. I swallow hard.
    “I have a scandal going on,” Jocelyn announces.
    “Oh, God,” I say. “Do I even want to know?”
    “Yes,” Jocelyn says. “You want to know.” She bites her lip. “But you can’t get mad at me for not telling you sooner.”