Free The Ordinary Life of Emily P. Bates by Anna Cackler Page B

on my face. I still wasn’t sure that this had been a date, but I wasn’t going to leave without giving him the opportunity to make it one.
    “Come to school early in the morning,” he said.
    My face fell a little. “What?”
    “Come early. I’ll bring doughnuts and we’ll finish tonight’s calculus.”
    “Oh. All right.” I grinned. More plans. They were completely innocent, but they were plans all the same. I stepped through the door, and he leaned out after me. “See you in the morning.”
    “See ya.” He flashed that winning smile once more just for me, then closed the door.

Six
    I wasn’t sure how early Ethan expected me to drag myself out of bed the next morning, but judging by the fact that we usually spent a little more than half an hour studying, I decided that 7:15 would be a good guesstimate.
    It was the earliest I had ever gotten up just to go to school, but I was wide awake as I pulled into the almost completely empty student parking lot. The only other vehicle there was Ethan’s red truck parked in the very front.
    “Hey!” he said when I walked up to the breakfast table, all smiles. “Doughnut?”
    My mouth dropped open in shock when I saw the huge box of doughnuts on the table next to him. “How many did you bring?”
    “Three dozen,” he said. “After the five of us get through with them, I’ll give the rest to the guys on the team.”
    “Oh. That makes sense, I guess.”
    “You guess?”
    I frowned and sat down and carefully removed one sticky doughnut from the box with two fingers. “You shouldn’t analyze every word I say, you know.”
    “And why not?” he was leaning forward, a sly look in his eye.
    I leaned in to match his pose. “Because you might learn something that you don’t want to know.”
    He laughed. “Yeah right, Em. Get over yourself.”
    The assignment wasn’t a hard one, but I let him think that I was still having trouble with it so that he would lean in and make corrections on my paper. I felt a little stupid flirting with him, but it all just seemed to happen by itself. And it seemed to work pretty well, too. We both lost track of time and before we knew it, people began to file in through the double doors.
    “What are you two doing here so early?”
    We both looked up to find Shannon and Finn looking at us from across the table.
    “We are doing calculus, as usual,” Ethan said. He nudged the doughnut box in their direction. “Breakfast?”
    “Yeah!” Shannon sat aside her stale-looking biscuit and gravy bowl and dove into the sweet confections.
    “Thanks, man,” Finn said, choosing one for himself as well. “And for the lady.” He produced a perfect sour green apple from his bag and placed it on the table in front of me, then pulled out a John Grisham novel to vanish behind.
    “Thank you.” I took the apple and bit into it appreciatively. Its tart flavor was a high contrast to the doughnuts, but I really preferred it to the overly glazed alternative.
    “Emily, you and Margo are coming over to my place tonight,” Shannon said as she flipped through a notebook. She found the page she was looking for and began scribbling something on it.
    “We are?” I asked.
    “Yes, you are. We have plans to discuss.”
    “What plans?”
    She took a deep breath and looked me squarely in the eye. “Dad is going out of town next weekend on some conference or another, so Finnegan and I are hosting a little get-together.”
    My right eyebrow shot up. “A get-together?”
    “We are?” Finn asked. He shifted his weight and put down his book. This was clearly the first he’d heard of any get-together.
    “Yes we are,” Shannon said. “And you and Margo are going to help–ahem–arrange a few things.” She cleared her throat daintily in just the right place to make me severely concerned.
    “What sort of get-together are you planning, Shannon?”
    “Well, you might call it a party.” 
    Finn groaned, his worst fears realized. “Aw, come on! Are you