Free Let's Get Lost by Sarra Manning Page B

bony ankles in their red woolly socks. “Everyone has secrets, Atticus . You should know that.”
    That snapped him out of his mopey mood pretty damn quickly. “I told you not to call me that.”
    “So what’s bugging you?” I knew it was me. I was what was bugging him, when I’d made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t going to be getting a guided tour of my lady parts. “C’mon, you can tell me. It’s not like we know the same people or, like, even each other. Call it your reward for holding my hair back while I puked.”
    “You don’t really want to know,” he protested with just the barest hint of a pout—way to make it obvious that he was pining for the touch of my lily-white hands.
    “Sure I do.” I prodded his leg with my finger. “Spill.”
    God, talk about milking it for all it was worth. He nibbled on his bottom lip for a little while, brows furrowed with indecision, before he sighed. “It’s a girl. It’s always a girl, isn’t it?”
    I resisted the urge to gloat. I’d had a few boys tell me that I was a prick-tease because I never went past second base. But I’d never had a boy utterly desolate because I’d given him the brush-off.
    “She doesn’t even know I exist,” he continued morosely. “And I have to listen to her talk about all these other guys who aren’t half as devoted as I am. I mean, they don’t care about her, not really. They just want to have sex with her. They’ve never sat up all night and checked her source notes for an essay that she has to hand in the next morning, and they don’t know that she’s all bad-tempered and hissy first thing in the . . .”
    It was dawning on me at, like, the speed of light that actually I wasn’t the cause of Smith’s existential crisis. I was just the girl who’d walked in during the middle of it. All that scamming on to me when he was pining for some uptight student skank? What fucking ever!
    “Lame, you’re so lame,” I hissed, banging my elbow into his knee and not even bothering to make it look like an accident.
    Smith’s head jerked up, but I was already striding toward the door, as he swore under his breath. I distinctly heard the word “bitch.”
    “You’re totally pathetic,” was my pithy, parting shot as I shouldered the door open.
    I charged down the stairs like the hounds of hell were snapping at my ankles. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so angry. Smith’d had me convinced that he was different, but he was strictly regulation-issue. Talking of which, I started to hunt around for the others. I found Dot loitering by the cigarette machine so she could gaze adoringly at this bunch of guys who were shotgunning cans of Special Brew. Really, you couldn’t leave her alone for a minute.
    “This completely sucks,” I shouted over the strains of Franz Ferdinand. “Come on, let’s go.”
    She didn’t look particularly pleased to see me. In fact, she had the audacity to scrunch up her face like

    she was in severe pain. “Do we have to?” she whined, gesturing at one of the boys who was jerking around spastically to avoid the foaming fountain of beer that was spurting in all directions. “I think he likes me.”
    I glanced at the object of her affections, who was okay if you liked Neanderthals. “He’s revolting,” I said witheringly, folding my arms and giving her the full benefit of my disgust at her dubious taste. “We’re going to have to get your eyes tested.”
    Dot did her chin wobble, which she always pulls out on these occasions. “He’s kinda cute,” she said doubtfully. “Sort of.”
    “Yeah, if every other boy in the world suddenly dropped down dead. And it’s not like he’s going to fancy you,” I snapped. Dot added in a lip tremble that wasn’t faked, and I felt the teensiest, tiniest pang of guilt. “I’m just looking out for you,” I protested, but she was already brushing past me.
    “I’m going to find Ella and Nancy,” she called over her shoulder, and I got