Free Faking Perfect by Rebecca Phillips Page B

where he lives and works.”
    My still-full stomach tilted again and I slowed my pace. Nolan slowed with me, but Gus, oblivious, dashed ahead until he met resistance and almost strangled himself. He looked back at us, tail wagging impatiently.
    “Right.” I’d only looked at that paper for a second before hurling it back at Teresa, but the name of his company was burned into my brain. I could Google that and possibly find his email address and maybe even a current picture of him. If I ever wanted to—which I most definitely did not. He’d let me go once and probably wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. Why give him the chance?
    Nolan and I walked Gus until the streetlights flicked on and we were all too frozen to go any farther. We turned and retraced our steps along the snow-crusted sidewalks, passing Nolan’s last cigarette back and forth in an attempt to restore circulation to our hands.
    “I’m quitting after this one,” I said, exhaling a lungful of smoke into the bitter air.
    “Me too.”
    “I’m serious this time.”
    Nolan tossed the butt on the pavement and ground it out with his boot. “Me too. Amber said she’s sick of my ashtray mouth.”
    “We’ll quit together then. Deal?” I paused to hold out a partially numb hand.
    He transferred the leash handle to his left hand and shook with his right. His skin felt even colder than mine. “Deal.”
    When we reached my house, Nolan dug in his pocket and brought out a small piece of paper, carefully folded in half. “Mom told me to give you this.” He pushed it into my hands. Before I could react, he turned and jogged across the street to his house, Gus loping cheerfully behind him.
    I didn’t even glance at the information. I knew exactly what was written there. I just slid the paper into the back pocket of my jeans, intending to throw it away or perhaps even flush it down the toilet the first chance I got. But it stayed in my jeans for the rest of the evening, perfectly undamaged.
    Sometime near dawn and still half-asleep, I got out of bed, fumbled around for my discarded jeans, and tucked the paper in between the pages of my snake book.

Chapter Eight
    P regnancy had granted Shelby the title of permanent designated driver. It also had granted her the right to erupt into hormonal rages over every little thing that annoyed her, like the way her seatbelt dug into her stomach and that she couldn’t indulge her occasional vodka cooler craving.
    “You guys suck,” she yelled out the driver’s side window when Emily and I emerged from her house, our hair and makeup party-perfect. As we approached the car, Shelby eyed our flat middles and non-maternity-wear jeans and sighed. “I can’t wait to be skinny again.”
    I snorted as we climbed into her white Jetta, a gift she’d received from her parents about a year ago, before she got pregnant and broke their hearts. “Me too,” I said to her skinny comment. Emily had the build of a prepubescent girl, but my body type hovered in the land between slender and voluptuous. I was always one or the other, depending on how much I ate and how stressed I happened to be. At the moment, I felt thin, but only because I’d skipped dinner.
    “Remember, ladies,” Shelby said once we were parked along the road near Dustin Sweeney’s house in Rocky Lake, a rural-ish town about a ten minute drive from ours. “Pregnant girls bore easily and tire easily, especially at parties. So when I tell you we have to leave, get your asses in the car and don’t give me any ’tude. Okay?”
    “Okay, cranky,” Emily said as all three of us stepped out of the car and walked toward the house. She stumbled as her high-heeled boot hit a patch of slush in the driveway.
    I grabbed her arm to steady her, and then grabbed Shelby’s arm, too. Falling could be disastrous for her. Plus, it was dark and spooky with the mammoth trees and weird howling noises coming from the woods in back.
    Dustin Sweeney answered our knock and ushered us