Free Everything You Want by Barbara Shoup Page B

it?” Tiff asks the second I walk into our dorm room Sunday evening.
    “Fine,” I say. “You know, the turkey thing—”
    “I mean Gabe ,” she says. “ You didn’t e-mail me about your date like you promised you would. So how was it?”
    I’m over reminding her it was an interview for the IDS , not a date. Tiffany’s made up her mind I had a date with Gabe Parker, and there’s no point in trying to change it. I set my duffel on my desk chair and start unpacking my stuff.
    “ Emma !”
    “We had coffee together,” I say. “I told him about winning. He was very nice.” No way am I going to tell her the truth about how I felt when I was with him, how the whole time I was home he kept creeping into my mind.
    “And cute?” Tiffany leers at me. “ Very cute? Didn’t I tell you?”
    “Cute?” I say. “Yeah. I guess. So, how was your break?”
    “Good,” she says. “Except I ate too much.”
    “What, you went up to a size 2?”
    “Don’t try to sidetrack me, Emma,” she says. “Did you like him?”
    “Gabe?” I shrug. “Sure. I liked him. I said he was nice.”
    “Arrgh.” Tiff throws herself backward onto her bunk, but I know she’s only temporarily deterred. She’ll grill Matt next time she sees him, then go at me again.
    Which is exactly what happens. “Matt said Gabe told him he thought you were really cool,” she says, the next day.
    She’s a terrible liar. Gabe Parker might have said I was nice, or funny—just to be polite. Maybe he actually did think I was nice or funny. But cool? Absolutely no way. So why do Tiff’s words give me this scary little twist in my heart?
    “He did ,” she says. “Really.”
    I ignore her.
    Thank God finals are looming. In the next few weeks, everyone, Tiffany included, is studying nonstop and I’m beginning to think we may make it to Christmas break without any further discussion of my social life—or lack thereof. Then after my very last class, I come back to the dorm and there’s Gramps in my room, chatting with Tiffany.
    “First road trip!” he says. “Brought the Chieftain down so you could check it out. She rides pretty darn smooth and, man oh man, wait till you see the interior.”
    “Look,” Tiffany says. “You can see it out the window.”
    I peer out. There it is, a large tan-and-brown-striped vehicle dwarfing the cars in the parking lot. “Wow,” I say weakly. “You made the right choice with the Chieftain, Gramps. Definitely.”
    He beams.
    “We’ve been dying for you to get back,” Tiffany says. “Dutch says we can drive it over to the Phi Delt house to show Matt, and then he’ll take us all out to dinner.”
    Characters in books are always blanching when something shocks them, and I’m pretty sure blanching is exactly what I do now at the prospect of a cruise over to the Phi Delt house in the Winnebago, followed by dinner—which I strongly suspect will include Gabe Parker, if Tiffany has anything to do with it. I’m certainly speechless, scrambling to come up with some excuse for why this plan is impossible. But if Tiffany and Gramps are a challenge one at a time, together they’re a force of nature. It’s fruitless to argue with them. Still, I feel like a zombie following them down the hall and out to the parking lot.
    Gramps is wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, with a silver and turquoise bolo tie; his cowboy boots, of course, and his awful Harley jacket—black leather, with fringe on the sleeves and an eagle in flight painted in full color on the back. He has a springy step, just like Dad’s. Tiff and I have to hurry to keep up with him.
    He hops up the steps of the Winnebago and opens the door. He grins, gesturing us in like a maître d’ .
    “Oh! It’s just like a playhouse,” Tiffany says, glancing into the living area. She plops down in the white leather passenger seat and swivels it around a few times.
    If either she or Gramps notices I’m a reluctant participant in this adventure, neither of them