Free Spiral (Spiral Series) by Maddy Edwards

to know. “Casey and them. . . ?”
    “He’s nice,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Give him a chance. Just because he plays sports doesn’t mean he’s a bad person.”
    “You’re right. I’m sure we’ll find plenty of other reasons why he’s a bad person,” Jill grumbled.
    “Nah,” said Maxie, beaming. “He’s always been really nice for an athlete.”
    “Thank you, Maxie. And Jill, you might like him,” I argued, unwilling to make Andrew leave.
    “I might be the Queen of England too,” said Jill. “I hide the crown under my dress.”
    “I can tell everyone’s happy to see me,” said Andrew. I was relieved to see that he was grinning. Jill snorted and Maxie grinned.
    “I’m happy to see you,” Maxie said, skipping forward. “We could use some new blood in our little group.”
    “New male blood apparently,” Jill said.
    “Glad you noticed,” said Andrew, grinning back.
    “Are you glad?” she asked dryly.
    “You have no idea,” said Andrew, beaming. His easy banter must have disarmed Jill, because she shut up for a few minutes. We headed into the restaurant, and since it was early we got seats right away. By the end of the night this place was usually packed.
    “She grows on you,” I said to Andrew, glaring at Jill.
    “Like fungus,” said Maxie.
    Before Jill could punch her in the arm Maxie skipped ahead of us. “Why do you have to skip everywhere?” Jill asked, eyeing our friend.
    “It elongates my legs, shows them to my best advantage. Duh,” said Maxie over her shoulder.
    Once we were at a table Maxie started in immediately. “So, I’ve waited long enough. It’s time to talk about Pierce.” She had obviously been bursting to talk about him all day, and even having Andrew there wasn’t going to stop her. “Talk about gorgeous.”
    “Who’s Pierce?” asked Andrew once he had finished ordering a whole pizza for himself. Maxie and I agreed to split a cheese pizza and Jill got a soup and salad.
    “The guy in love with Natalie,” said Maxie proudly.
    Andrew raised his eyebrows at me and I blushed. “Not me,” I muttered. “She doesn’t mean me.”
    “I can see how someone would fall in love with you,” he said. “You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met.”
    Jill guffawed. “You clearly need to spend more time with her.”
    “I was sort of hoping to spend more time with all of you,” said Andrew. For the second time that night Jill was rendered speechless.
    Returning to what was important, Maxie said, “I bet Pierce is in love with you. He couldn’t take his eyes off you all night.”
    “Yeah, he was definitely looking at you more than at anyone else,” Jill confirmed. She had ended up sitting next to Andrew, but had scooted as far from him as possible. Andrew was acting like he hadn’t noticed.
    “But who is he?” Andrew insisted, still not getting an explanation from any of the banter.
    “Maxie doesn’t care as long as he’s hot,” said Jill, smirking.
    Maxie took a deep breath, as if she was about to answer a question in class, and started to answer Andrew, ignoring Jill’s jab. “We went to that romance slam last night that Mrs. Tiger helped put on, and he was there and he told his story. It was SO sad. I’m pretty sure Nat and Jill were the only two hard-hearted ones in the house who didn’t cry,” she explained. “And the short version is that he’s in love with this girl named Natalie and he wants her back. He loved her when they were little and now he wants to find her and make sure she’s okay. Isn’t that the most romantic thing you’ve ever heard?”
    “Yeah, it’s up there with I can’t live without you,” said Andrew.
    “We should have asked him if you were his Natalie,” said Jill. “Missed opportunity there.”
    I took a long sip of water, trying to compose myself. This conversation was so embarrassing in front of Andrew. “He was probably just making the whole thing up. Like, that doesn’t happen to people. And it sounded