Free The Twelve Dates of Christmas by Catherine Hapka Page A

what you’d call close, except maybe in the way that theGreen Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears could be considered close. To put it another way, we’d been fierce academic rivals since before either of us could spell
fierce academic rivals
.
    â€œHey, I was sorry to hear about you and Cam splitting up,” Andrew said. “Uh, but I heard you’re already dating again.”
    Oh, great. So Bruce was already bragging about that. I wondered what exactly he’d been telling people. Then again, knowing Bruce, I probably didn’t want to know.
    â€œYeah, sort of, I guess,” I said, drifting into a private little fantasy of shoving Bruce’s wandering hands up his own butt.
    â€œGreat. Then how about we go out sometime?”
    That snapped me back to reality. “What?” I blurted out. “Uh, we? You mean you and me? Going out on a date?”
    â€œSure, why not?” Andrew shrugged. His lower lip was twitching slightly. “Hope it’s not too soon. I just don’t want to miss my chance again.”
    â€œAgain?”
    He winced, looking as if he wished he could take it back. “Well, yeah,” he admitted. “I thought about asking you out oncebefore. Back in eighth grade. I wanted to ask you to the Christmas Ball, but you and Cam got together before I could.”
    Wow. That was so out of the blue I didn’t know what to say for a second.
    â€œUm, okay,” I said at last. “Sure. That would be . . . nice.”
    â€œGreat! Are you free tonight? How about dinner at Manfredi’s?” Weirdly, he had that same triumphant gleam in his eye that he got on the rare occasion he received a higher grade than me on a test. I could only imagine what kind of theory Allie would come up with to explain that.
    â€œSounds good,” I said, trying to sound normal. “I love that place.”
    â€œFantastic. I’ll pick you up at six.”
    You could call it bad luck. You could call it a statistical improbability. Or you could just call it what it was—life in a small town. Whatever the terminology, I could hardly believe my eyes when Andrew and I walked into Manfredi’s that evening and I saw Cam and Jaylene sitting at one of the tables for two along the cozy little restaurant’s back wall.
    Date number four,
I thought, Allie’sDozen Dates Theory flitting across my mind.
But who’s counting?
    Cam looked up and spotted me. He froze in midchew. I didn’t have to look to see what he was eating: fettuccine carbonara. That was what he always ordered at Manfredi’s.
    We stared at each other for a second. Then his expression relaxed into sort of a sad smile. He lifted one hand in a wave, and I waved back, feeling as awkward as humanly possible. I mean, what were the odds? Even in Claus Lake? I was still waving when Jaylene glanced around curiously. She waved back cheerfully, then leaned forward to say something to Cam.
    Andrew had just turned after giving our name to the maître d’. Following my gaze, he took in the sight of the happy couple. I had to hand it to him—he was as cool as a cucumber. Only a slight twitch of the lower lip gave away that he’d noticed anything. Without acknowledging the situation at all, he reached out and put an arm around my shoulders.
    â€œCome on, Lexi,” he said. “I think our table is ready.”
    I was so distracted as we walked across the tightly packed restaurant that I’m surprisedI didn’t trip over a table leg and land in someone’s soup. When we reached our table by the front window, the maître d’ stepped forward as if to pull out one of the chairs for me. But Andrew blocked him neatly, steering me to the other chair—the one with no view of Cam’s table.
    â€œUh, thanks,” I mumbled, still trying to wrap my head around what was happening here. Was I doomed to spend the rest of my senior year running into Cam and Jaylene everywhere