Free Revenge of the Geek by Piper Banks Page A

animatedly—so I steered clear of them and headed back to my bedroom. Willow was still there, fast asleep on her round bed, snoring softly.
    I texted Dex: SKYPE?
    A minute later, my phone chirped with Dex’s reply: SURE! GETTING ON NOW.
    I opened my laptop and turned on Skype, and a moment later, Dex called.
    “Hi,”I said excitedly when I saw him.
    “Hey, you,”Dex said, grinning at me. “What are you up to?”
    “I just got back from dropping off my friend Nora. She came over after school.”
    “Do I know her?”
    “No. She just moved here from Boston. She’s pretty cool,”I said. “How about you?”
    “I just got back from afternoon practice,”Dex said. He was still wearing his lacrosse shirt and his-hair was damp. “Coach had us running intervals all afternoon. I’m beat.”
    He didn’t look tired, though. His pale blue eyes were sparkling and his cheeks were flushed.
    He looks happy , I thought. Which was a good thing. I wanted him to be happy.
    “Speaking of lacrosse, I need to ask you a favor,”I said.
    “You need a lacrosse-related favor?”Dex asked, his brow wrinkling with confusion.
    “Actually, yes. Yes, I do,”I said.
    “Wait, let me guess: You’ve decided to start a girl’s lacrosse team at Geek High, and you want me to mentor you,”Dex said.
    “Like that would ever happen,”I said.
    “The starting-a-new-team part, or the me-mentoring-you part?”
    “Both.”I smiled. “I’m so uncoordinated that if I tried running around while carrying a long stick and trying to catch a ball with it, something very bad would happen. Something that would end up with me—and probably half of my teammates—in the hospital. No, I don’t want to play lacrosse. I want to interview you for The Ampersand .”
    “Me? Why?”
    “I’ve been assigned to write a piece about student athletes. I thought I could focus the piece on you,”I said. Quickly, I added, “It was Nora’s idea.”
    Dex nodded slowly. “Sure. I mean, I’m happy to help out, but I don’t know that I’d be all that interesting to your readers. Do they really want to read about our practices and drills and stuff?”
    “No, it’ll be great. I’ll focus on what it’s like for you going away to boarding school on an athletic scholarship. You know—how you’re adjusting, getting used to a new team,”I said.
    “Cool,”Dex said. “Do you want to interview me now?”
    I shook my head. “No, I need to get a list of questions ready first.”
    “Uh-oh. That sounds a little intimidating. Are you going to ask me hard-hitting questions about where I stand on foreign policy?”Dex teased me.
    Before I could respond, though, there was a sudden ruckus on his end of the line. There were some loud whoops, the sound of a door slamming, and then a whole bunch of excited male voices.
    “Come on, McConnell. We’re tired of waiting for your lazy butt,”one of the guys said.
    “Yeah, we’re starving,”another said.
    “What’s for dinner tonight?”a third asked.
    “Meatloaf,”someone responded, to a general chorus of groans.
    “Let’s order pizza instead,”someone suggested.
    I couldn’t tell how many guys were in Dex’s dorm room. It sounded like his entire lacrosse team was there, although surely they couldn’t all fit. Dex was laughing and trying to keep his friends from grabbing his laptop. One of the guys—blond, pink-cheeked, and square-jawed, with eyebrows and eyelashes so blond, they were practically nonexistent—leaned over Dex’s shoulder, and peered at me through the computer screen.
    “Who’s that?”he asked curiously, as though I were an animal exhibit at a zoo and couldn’t understand him. “Is that your girlfriend?”
    Wolf whistles ensued, and more of the guys crowded around the screen to look at me. There were shouts of, “Hi, Dex’s girlfriend!”Being the object of such frank curiosity caused me to blush bright red, from my toes on up.
    “Hi,”I said, with a little wave.
    “She’s pretty