Free Pride & Popularity by Jenni James Page A

me and grinned.
    I rolled my eyes. Could he be any more obnoxious?
    “Here.” Taylor forcibly removed his hand from Collin’s grasp. “Let me introduce you to Kylie.” With his left hand he gently pushed her forward.
    She looked a little less than thrilled to be introduced to Collin. But for Taylor’s sake, she fulfilled the requirement like a beauty queen, all teeth and shiny lip gloss. In his obvious attempt to impress, Collin showered her with a load of gratuitous compliments. I was a bit embarrassed by his conduct and would’ve gotten over it eventually had Taylor not turned at that moment and grinned at me slyly. He glanced at Collin, then back at me and raised his eyebrows. All at once it hit me. Taylor totally thinks I have a thing for Collin! Collin? As if!
    Immediately I began to pray they would leave soon, or our food would come, or the building would start on fire. Anything to escape Taylor’s stupid “knowing” grin.
    And then like manna from heaven, I was saved. Not the way I hoped, but who cares? Taylor’s gaze left me long enough to catch Kylie’s look. She seemed to practically beg to be out of our sight. All at once the gentleman in Taylor came alive. After a reassuring smile at Kylie, he turned back to me and Collin.
    “Well, I’ll let you two enjoy your night.”
    Yes! I was so happy, I could’ve hugged Kylie. Until—
    “You’ve got yourself a great catch there, Farnsworth,” Taylor said. “You hold on to her, all right?”
    Collin looked at me—really looked at me for the first time that night—and then smiled. I could almost see the imaginary wheels turning. Suddenly, visions of repeated date nights just like this one popped into my head. Briefly, I contemplated causing Taylor bodily harm. Taylor patted Collin on the back like he would one of his buddies. Clearly proud of himself, he beamed right at me. Why stop at bodily harm?
    Believe it or not, after that the date was even more boring, primarily due to Collin’s excessive compliments of a certain “local celebrity” that I had to hear. To add insult to injury, after I had finally finished my meal, that little rat Taylor had the nerve to send over our bill, paid for by him, with a little note attached to the receipt that read: “We hope you enjoyed your romantic evening as much as we enjoyed ours. Love, Kylie and Taylor.”
    How long would it take for them to find Taylor’s body? A long time, I bet. No one would really miss the guy anyway, right?
     

     
    After church I pulled out my homework again and hit the books. I already had an essay to complete for English class, plus two paragraph worksheets for World History. I turned on my radio to a soft-rock station and plopped onto my bed. About forty minutes into ancient Rome, I had almost finished my second worksheet when Mom called me down to dinner.
    My parents asked 101 questions about my date with Collin the night before. Talk about awkward. I mean, how do you tell your mom the guy she set you up with was a total pathetic loser, one who wouldn’t even look twice at you until some popular jerk basically told him to? The worst part was that by the time Collin dropped me off he had almost convinced himself we were in love. Good grief.
    Anyway, my family’s dinner conversation went something like this:
     
    MOM: So, how did your date with Collin go last night? DAD: Yeah, how did that go?
    ME: Uh, go? What do you mean?
    MOM: Do you like him? Does he like you?
    ME: What? No.
    DAD: Why doesn’t he like you?
    ME: No. I mean, he likes me and all, he just doesn’t like me. MOM: Oh. So what did you talk about?
    ME: Not much.
    DAD: How much did the meal cost?
    MOM: Honey, don’t ask her that!
    ME: I don’t know.
    DAD: A-ha! A good guy. He wouldn’t let you see the receipt when he paid for it.
    ME: Yeah, a true good guy. You have no idea.
    CLAIRE: So was the food good?
    ME: The food?
    CASSIDY: Yeah. What did you order?
    ME: Order?
    CLAIRE: I bet it was awesome.
    ME: You know, I