Free Chaos (Kardia Chronicles) (Entangled Teen) by Christine O'Neil Page A

doing that, he’d taken to sticking Tic Tacs up his nose, so I guess Bink was better than some of the nicknames he could’ve gotten tagged with. Still, at the moment, I felt a little bad for him because he’d only been bagging on Mac out of loyalty to me, and he was clearly out of his league.
    “Well, it was nice seeing you. I’ve got to get myself a”—I drew a blank and turned toward the glass displays— “a d-dill pickle before they run out.”
    A dill pickle? Like they’d ever run out of those. Oh hey, look at all these delicious chocolate treats. I think I’ll skip ’em and go straight for a giant graying pickle, said no one ever. They tasted like lukewarm pee and the three flaccid samples left in the display case were probably the same ones that had been there since the place opened six years before.
    I flushed and Mac treated me to the same shit-eating grin he’d given my bestie. Apparently Bink wasn’t the only one out of his league. I couldn’t be around Mac for more than three seconds without him infuriating, confusing, or flustering me, and I was about sick of it. Still, when it was my turn at the counter, I ordered the goddamned pickle to save face, kissing three dollars good-bye and ignoring Bink’s massive eye roll. I scurried out of line before he even got his change from the ginormous carton of popcorn he’d ordered, just to get away from Mac’s penetrating stare.
    Bink caught up before we got to our theater but kept his mouth shut until we settled into our seats, just as the previews ended. “So are you going to tell me what’s going on between you and Fake Gyllenhaal or not?”
    I stared sullenly down at the soggy wax-paper-wrapped pickle in my hand and sighed. “Nothing’s going on.”
    “Wait, what are you guys talking about?” Libby hissed, leaning in to hear better.
    “We just ran into Mac Finnegan, and he was sorta flirting with Maggie.”
    “No he wasn’t!” I protested, relieved when the lights flickered and went low. Surely they would leave me alone now that—
    “I know flirting. I do it all the time,” Bink said flatly. “He was flirting. The question is, why? Yesterday you hated his guts, and now today, you’re all friendly and acting like a chick with a crush.”
    Ugh, was I? And did Mac think so, too? My leg started bouncing wildly, and I used my elbow to hold it down. “Ew, no I’m not.” I looked at the pickle with self-disgust. At a loss, I punched Bink’s knee, and he brushed me off like a mosquito. “And I wasn’t that mad yesterday.”
    “You were pretty mad,” Libby said, raising her voice to be heard over the opening credit music.
    “Fine, I was mad. We talked today, and it was a misunderstanding. I don’t care about his stupid column anyway, and we’re…friends now, I guess.” That was one word for it. Blackmailer and blackmailee were two more, but why split hairs?
    Mac walked by then with Ella Stevens, a girl who used to live next door but stopped talking to me once we hit high school. So apparently curvy, vacant redheads with nose jobs that made them look like Michael Jackson were his type. Good for him. The Coke in my hand warmed instantly, and I set it down in my cupholder, mentally cursing him for ruining both my snack and my drink.
    “If you’re friends, then why do you tense up like you’re about to get sacked every time he comes around? That’s not normal, Mags,” Bink reasoned, clucking his tongue at me.
    Damn straight it wasn’t. And I had no clue what to do about it. The plan, if one could call it that, was to get through the next couple days until I saw him and had a chance to figure out what he wanted. So had he shown up tonight just to add more pressure? I had told him I’d be at the movies. Still, half the high school was at the movies on a Friday night. It was the only entertainment in town during the colder months. But he hadn’t said, Well, I’ll see you there , when I told him I’d be going. Oh, paranoia, my old