Free She's So Money by Cherry Cheva Page B

herself. “Okay, we’ll call back later tonight. ’Bye.”
    “’Bye, Mom.”
    I hung up the phone and closed my eyes, breathing a sigh of relief. When I opened them, a party of four was standing in front of me, and I pasted a smile onto my face and kept it there for the rest of the evening. Right before closing—that is to say, nearly two hours after he said he would—Camden showed up to collect his homework, and I met him outside the restaurant before my brother could see what was going on. Again, not that he would have, since he and Star were now both camped out at Table Twelve, quizzing each other on the periodic table for Science Olympiad and looking like they were actually having a really fun time doing it.
    “Here,” I said, handing over the homework. “You’ll probably want to copy it over in your own writing.”
    “Thanks,” Camden said. He had a coat on over his hoodie now; it was a cold night and the drizzle from the afternoon had turned into straight out rain. He folded the papers up and shoved them into his front pocket before they got too wet.
    “Aren’t you even going to look at it?” I asked, shivering a little; I’d come outside in just my waitressing outfit. “Wasn’t that the point?”
    He shrugged. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know whether you’d done it right or not anyway.”
    “True,” I said.
    “But if we don’t get caught, we’re in business. Okay? Because I actually took a shot at doing my government essay just now, and, man . . . I would rather pay you to do it.”
    “Okay.” I nodded and ducked back into the restaurant as he got into his car and drove off.

    The next afternoon, between fifth and sixth periods, I found Camden standing by my locker with a hundred dollar bill stuck to his forehead.
    “We did it,” he said, grinning, holding out his hand.
    “ I did it,” I answered, shaking his hand.
    “Same difference,” he said, taking the money off his head and handing it to me. “Not that I was worried. I didn’t even bother copying the whole thing you gave me and it still worked out. Now I can fire that Leonard kid and never go back to tutoring again. So, nice job.” He impulsively hugged me, and I instinctively backed away.
    “What?” he asked, looking down at me with a raised eyebrow.
    “Nothing,” I said. My face began to redden, although I wasn’t sure why. It might have had something to do with the fact that I’d just noticed that his blue eyes exactly matched the color of his shirt.
    Camden looked at me with interest. “Paranoid ’cause you got a boyfriend or something?” He looked me up and down like he had when we’d first met the week before, but for some reason it felt different this time.
    “No.” My face was completely red now, and I started slowly inching away from him.
    “Have you ever had a boyfriend?” His tone was curious, not judgmental, but it still made me nervous.
    “Uh . . .” I started toying with my hair. I don’t know why I didn’t just tell him no—there’s no shame in never having had a boyfriend. Right?
    “Huh. Have you ever even kissed anybody?”
    “Uh . . .” I looked away from him, at the lockers, at the STUDENT CAR WASH! posters in the hallway, at someone’s backpack as it passed through my line of vision, at anything. Camden studied me for a moment. Then he took a step forward, bent his head, and gently kissed me.
    “Now you have,” he said.
    And after smiling and handing me two books, he walked away.
    Oh. My. God.
    I suddenly realized that several people in the hallway were staring—some quizzically, some bemusedly, this one chick rather jealously—so I ducked into an empty classroom and shut the door. Everything I was holding tumbled to the floor as I leaned against the wall and pressed my hands to my forehead. What had just happened? Ew! Ew! Except . . .not ew? Except . . . eeewww! He—I—we— what?
    My first kiss—not something I’d pondered that much, but certainly something I’d