Free The Sweetest Thing by J. Minter Page A

a flicker of something—disappointment, maybe?—came across his face. Almost immediately, though, he turned to Bennett and offered his hand for him to shake.
    Bennett took his hand, glancing between Adam and me. “Nice to meet you. So … you’re in bio together, right?
    â€œLab partners—we have a tadpole together.” Adamgave me a playful wink, and I blushed a little. Then he pointed to the comic book Bennett still had in his hand. “Hey—is that
Green Lantern
?”
    â€œYep—number seventy-five,” Bennett said, holding up the cover for Adam to see.
    Adam took the comic book from Bennett and flipped through the thin pages. “My brother’s obsessed with
Green Lantern
. He has a bunch of these comics—all the way back to the beginning of the series.”
    â€œReally?” Bennett lit up, and if I didn’t know better, I would say he looked at Adam with almost as much adoration as Meredith and Judith had at the pep rally. “You’re kidding me. This series is incredible. I only really got into it a few months ago, but the art, the stories—”
    â€œYeah, that’s what Darren always says. He’s kind of a nut about it and keeps them locked in a filing cabinet.” A girl with curly brown hair squeezed past us to go upstairs, shooting Adam a flirtatious grin in the process. Adam smiled back, and then continued talking to Bennett. “You should come over sometime. He loves showing them off, so I bet he’d be happy to let you check them out.”
    â€œThat’s really nice, Adam,” I said, almost to remind them that I was still there. It was kind of weird how they were both totally ignoring me all of a sudden.“Anyway, Bennett and I were going to go grab a cup of coffee, so we better get going. …”
    â€œYou want to come with us?” Bennett asked as I started inching toward the stairs. “We’re heading down to the Bean Garden.”
    â€œI wish I could, but I promised a friend I’d help him with his English homework. If his grades drop any lower, Coach’ll have to put him on academic probation.”
    Bennett looked impressed. “No offense or anything, but I didn’t actually think football players helped each other study.”
    Adam shrugged. “Well, he’s one of our best players—it’d hurt to lose him for even a couple games.”
    â€œStill, it’s cool of you to help him,” I agreed, a little grudgingly.
    â€œWe’ll see how much progress we make. I’m still trying to convince him that
The Catcher in the Rye
isn’t about a baseball player.” He hefted his backpack down off his shoulder and took out a notebook. “Anyhow, here’s my e-mail address. I should be around this weekend if you want to stop by.”
    â€œCool!” Bennett said excitedly. “I’ll give you mine, too.”
    Even though Adam had been nothing but nice to me, it seemed like every time I saw him my life gotmore complicated. What was this guy’s deal, anyway? Tutoring his friends, charming mine … and now he was going to hang out with Bennett? As the two of them scribbled down their e-mail addresses, I tried to convince myself that things would be better now that all of us were becoming friends … and that being friends with Adam wasn’t exactly against the Rule. But I couldn’t help feel worried. What if they got together and talked about
me
? I mentally scrolled through all my past conversations with Adam, making sure I hadn’t said anything that could possibly be construed as flirtatious.
    A second later Adam said good-bye and bounded down the second-floor hallway. Bennett was standing still, looking more than a little awestruck.
    â€œThat guy’s awesome. And can you believe his brother’s a
Green Lantern
fan?”
    â€œI can barely wrap my mind around it,” I said dryly. But what I really couldn’t