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

friend…
    “Can you either eat that thing or throw it out? The smell is making me want to hurl,” Bink whispered loudly, poking a finger at my pickle.
    Two girls in front of us turned to shush him but changed their tune when they got a look at him. Their shushes turned to giggles, and they offered a wave.
    Sometime between the opening credits and the first car chase scene, the two girls were sitting next to us, elbow deep in our double-buttered popcorn.
    The first half of the movie went by in a haze as I did my best not to stare at Mac and his date a couple rows ahead of us. It was no easy task. Not like I cared, but I was curious to see if they were together together and if he really did have that bad of taste in girls. Then Ella leaned in and rested her head on his shoulder. So together together it was. Not like I cared.
    Giving in to impulse, I dropped my pickle and gave it a sharp nudge with my toe, hoping it found its way far enough that it wound up directly underneath the two of them so they could share in the pleasure of its odor. Petty, for sure, but he’d been slowing my roll like it was his job for the past couple of days. Now even my weekend movie experience had been effectively shat on, and a twisted part of me felt like I needed to return the favor in some small way.
    The rest of the show went by without incident, but I barely paid attention. My brain was too busy cooking up a thousand different nightmarish ways my meet-up with Mac could turn out. I was in the middle of spinning a doozy where he’d successfully negotiated fifty dollars a week for life in order to forget what he saw (and knew) when Bink’s elbow jarred me.
    “You plan on staying?” He stood, eyeing me expectantly, his big body hulking over me as the last of the credits rolled.
    The two popcorn thieves were already making their way out of the theater, and I sent him a questioning glance right as the lights rose. “Where’d your girlfriends go?”
    He grinned and held up his phone. “I got the digits already.”
    Libby snorted. “What about Ally?”
    “We haven’t even gone out on one date yet. It’s cool.”
    It was cool. In fact, everything was just fine. Nothing had happened yet, and I was being a total psycho worrying about this stuff. Mac was a high school boy and this wasn’t some mob movie. Everything was going to be fine, and I had to get a grip.
    I grabbed my still full and now flat soda and the empty popcorn box and exited the row, where I promptly walked straight into Mac’s date.
    “Jesus, watch where you’re going!” she gasped, bending to rub at her injured toe. I mumbled an apology, but she didn’t seem to hear me. Mac stepped up to get the situation under control.
    “You okay?” he asked, grasping her upper arm. “Can you walk?”
    My hands clenched, and I scowled at him. Could she walk? I weighed a whopping hundred and fifteen pounds, so it wasn’t like I broke her toe or something. Jeez.
    “I’m fine, thanks, babe.” She smiled, the pain magically vanishing while he fawned all over her.
    Babe? Gag. Not like I cared. Still, the popcorn in my stomach felt heavy and greasy and suddenly I needed to get out of there, pronto.
    I turned, but a hand on my wrist stopped me.
    “By the way, I think you dropped something.” Mac handed me my wax-paper-covered pickle, his lips twitching at the corners. Cocky prick. I stared at it for a second, debating on what to do, and then shrugged.
    “How do you know that’s my pickle?”
    He grinned full out now and winked. “Well, I know it’s not mine.”
    My face flamed hotter, and I took it from him, yanked the paper aside, and jammed it in my mouth, closing my teeth over it with a crunch. “Mmmm.”
    “Ew,” Ella muttered, her smile fading. “That was on the floor, like it wasn’t already the grossest thing in history.”
    My whole body burned with mortification as I chewed, the warm, salty vinegar making my eyes water and the rubbery dimpled skin making my stomach