Free Play Me Backwards by Adam Selzer

title, and Anna because it was British. Five minutes of expert kissing had not yet cured me.
    Paige came back in with a smile on her face a minute later.
    â€œIt’s all set,” she said. “Leon and I will pick you up, then we’ll go get her and we’ll meet everyone at Hurricane’s.”
    Dustin practically leaped off the couch.
    â€œOh, fuck yeah!” he said. “What did she say about me?”
    â€œThat you helped her check her oil,” she said. “And that you were kind of cute. She heard you were kind of a sicko, but I said you were nice. You are, aren’t you?”
    â€œTotally.”
    Dustin beamed and collapsed back on the couch in such a happy stupor, I sort of expected a squirrel and some birds to come sit on his shoulder. Or a rat, at least.
    â€œYou don’t mind, do you?” Paige asked me. “I should have asked if you were free tonight.”
    â€œNo,” I said. “It’s fine.”
    I wasn’t used to being signed up for things in absentia, but being in a group with at least one familiar face would probably make it easier for me to dip my toe in the waters of whatever this was going to be. Paige told me to pick her up at six forty-five, then kissed me just hard enough to make me want more, and left.
    She certainly knew how to make an exit.

8. TWENTY-TWO MINUTES
    â€œI guarantee you I will find a way to screw this up,” I told Stan towards the end of my shift. The gnawing feeling in my guts was working its way to the surface yet again. It hadn’t been this noticeable since the day Stan showed me how to use a hair dryer and a toilet plunger to get dents out of my car before my dad could see them.
    â€œYou’ll be fine,” he said. “You afraid she’s going to make you start acting like a prep or something?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œOr that you’ll start liking her, but she won’t want her friends to know about you?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œYou think this is one of those teen comedies where a popular girl dates a dork?”
    I considered this for a second while I spooned some vanilla ice cream into a cup of coffee.
    â€œI could picture that,” I said. “Our first date would be a trip to themall, and there’d be a musical montage of scenes with me coming out of different dressing rooms wearing trendy outfits that Paige had picked out for me. One time I’d be in a dress.”
    â€œAnd you’d look like an idiot in all of them.”
    â€œThen we’d have a series of funny misadventures ducking behind bushes, covering our faces with newspapers, and wearing disguises so none of her friends saw us out together.”
    â€œNice touch.”
    â€œAnd at first I’d be all offended that she didn’t want to be seen with me, and I’d see right through her explanation that she just doesn’t want anyone else to know her business. But then I’d learn something that highlights her own vulnerability and makes me understand, until she surprises me by kissing me in front of everyone.”
    â€œAt the prom, probably.”
    â€œThe movie would get an average rating of two stars, but it’ll be a staple on ABC Family for at least ten years.”
    â€œYou must watch a lot of shitty movies, Harris,” Stan said. “But that sort of thing doesn’t happen in real life. Her friends have all been out with worse people than you, and this is a group date, anyway. She’s already showing you off.”
    â€œThat’s even worse. I’m not going to have anything to talk about with the kind of people she probably hangs out with.”
    Stan poured some hot water into a glass, then added a bit of lemon, a tea bag, and a dash of something from a bottle in a paper bag that he kept under the register. Leaning against the milk shake machine, he looked about as classy as a guy in an apron drinking a hot toddy from a paper cup probably