Free Pants on Fire by Meg Cabot

said, staring down at my shoes…my Pumas, because it’s tough being on your feet all night in flip-flops. “I mean…youhave to hate it here.”
    “Eastport?” Tommy sounded amused. “I don’t hate Eastport. I love Eastport.”
    “How can you say that?” I asked, looking up in surprise. “After what those guys did to you?”
    “You can love a place while still hating certain things about it,” Tommy said. “You should know all about that.”
    I blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”
    “Well, look at you. You’re running for Quahog Princess, but you can’t stand quahogs.”
    I gasped—though secretly I was relieved all he’d turned out to be referring to was my hatred of quahogs, the bivalve.
    “I don’t hate quahogs anymore,” I lied, quickly climbing to my feet.
    “Oh, right,” Tommy said with a sarcastic laugh. “You wouldn’t touch a quahog with a ten-foot pole! You always said they tasted like rubber.”
    “They’re an acquired taste,” I lied some more, annoyed because he was right…quahogs do taste like rubber to me. I don’t understand how anybody can stand them, let alone host a town fair in appreciation for them. “And I finally acquired it,” I lied further. Really, it is amazing what a string of lies I can work up, when properly motivated.
    “Sure, you did,” Tommy said sarcastically, uncrossing his arms—causing me to notice, as he did so, how large his hands had gotten since I’d last seen him. Our hands used to be exactly the same size.
    Now his looked as if they’d be capable of swallowing mine whole.
    I dragged my gaze from his hands—wondering, as I did so, why I couldn’t stop thinking about how those big hands would feel on my waist, if Tommy Sullivan happened to reach out and grab me and drag me toward him and start kissing me….
    Not that he’d given me any indication that kissing was on the agenda. It was just that with the moonlight and the sound of the water and the fact that he’d gotten so hot and the fact that I’m basically addicted to kissing, it was sort of hard not to think about it.
    Tommy apparently wasn’t having any problem resisting these kinds of thoughts. At least if his next question was any indication.
    “So. Seth Turner. I guess that finally worked out for you, too.”
    I knew what he meant. I knew exactly what he meant. Because Tommy had been one of the few people I’d let in on the secret of my crush on Seth, way back in sixth grade. I’d figured telling Tommy had been safe enough, considering he had no friends but me. So who would he tell?
    “Yes,” I said primly. Where was he going with this, anyway?
    “He must be an acquired taste, too,” Tommy observed.
    “You don’t know him,” I said, reaching up to tuck a stray curl behind my ear. Because Sidney and I had readin Glamour that guys like girls who play with their hair.
    Although what I was doing, trying to make Tommy Sullivan like me—you know, that way—I don’t think I could have explained in a million years.
    “Well, well, well,” Tommy said. He didn’t seem to notice my hair-tucking thing.
    Which—I know! I was totally flirting with Tommy Sullivan! Tommy Sullivan , the most hated person in all of Eastport.
    But I couldn’t help it.
    “Things have changed since I’ve been gone,” Tommy went on. “Especially you.”
    “Oh,” I said, uncomfortably aware of just how wrong he was. “I’m not so different than I used to be.”
    “Maybe not on the inside,” Tommy said. “But on the outside? You’ve done the whole clichéd caterpillar-to-butterfly thing.”
    Which, you know, was kind of funny, seeing as how he was one to talk.
    “I just got my braces off,” I said. “And got highlights, and learned how to scrunch my hair.”
    “Don’t be modest,” Tommy said, almost like he was impatient with me. “It’s not just how you look, either. You seem to have miraculously avoided all stigma from having associated with me all those years ago. In fact,