Free The Starter Boyfriend by Tina Ferraro Page B

wreck his date would be.
    I jumped off the bed, energized. Go big or go home .

 
     
    Chapter 9
     
     
    I spotted Adam shuffling into school that next morning, his hair damp and crinkly, his eyes narrowed as if in mind-melting thought. I suspected he was reliving his finest moments of the morning, when he’d pulled off some complicated surf maneuver or maintained balance in a perilous position—and was almost surprised his board wasn’t absent-mindedly dragging behind him by an ankle strap.
    Playing it safe, I did the standard I-don’t-see-you-either thing.
    Later, at lunch, a printed-out copy of the Tux ‘n Me picture folded and in my back pocket, I motored my chicken strips around the courtyard. The dance was at three days and counting, and if I was going to honor that so-called promise to Saffron, I couldn’t afford any more delays.
    Unfortunately, Adam wasn’t easy to find. Whereas a person could go to the bank on me having lunch at the varsity softball table, Adam could be any number of places with any number of people.
    It was with dogged determination and quite a few, “Hey, you seen Adam?” questions that I found him in a circle of poker players out behind the language labs.
    “You!” I charged, one hand arched in a finger-point, the other cupping my lunch.
    He looked up and widened his eyes with forced innocence. “Me?”
    “You, sir,” I said. “With me. Now.”
    He snorted a laugh, dropped his hand of cards and scissored up on his flip-flop feet. His buddies, mostly surf stoners in faded tees and dark shades, murmured real mature sounds that came out like, “whooooa” and “ooooh.”
    A short guy with a zirconium nose stud went for combination syllables and words. “You in deep doo-doo, dude ,” he said, drawing that last word out and out and out.
    “Nah, Cody,” Adam rebuffed. “She’s cool.”
    A sunburned guy looked at me, then at Adam. “Hey, that’s not Saffron.”
    “Nope,” Adam said, going fishing in his side pockets of his print board shorts. “This is Courtney.”
    “Excellent,” said one of the murmurers.
    “ Two babes,” added Nose Ring. “Kinky.”
    Adam tossed a couple bucks down into the circle. “I’m out. Later, dudes.”
    He and I fell into step toward the courtyard, but I waited until we’d rounded a bend before razzing him. “Hanging with the National Honor Society, I see.”
    Muscles jerked on the sides of his mouth. “They’re harmless. And the only people I can beat at poker.”
    I smiled. “You’re a real card shark, huh?”
    He reached out for one of my remaining chicken strips. I pushed the whole tray at him. The honey-mustard sauce was almost gone, anyway.
    “Let’s just say that pretty much the only profit I’d make in Vegas would be in free cocktails. And you know when it comes to drinking, my give-a-damn gets busted.” He wagged his brow. “So what’s up?”
    “Saffron sent me. She wants you in a tux Friday night.”
    He scrunched his brow. Looking kind of like one of those pug puppies. A cute one. “She tried that on me already.”
    I wondered if that had been before or after our phone call, then decided it wasn’t important. “Well, I’m supposed to talk you into it. She even offered to pay me.”
    “Pay you? Why?”
    “Because tuxes are hot, Adam.” I thought of the picture of my sizzling boyfriend in my pocket, the one I’d planned to show him in a mock attempt to close the deal, but realized I had a much better way to go. “And she’s got even hotter plans for you later.”
    I figured I should make a kissy face or nudge him or something real middle school, but suddenly, all I could do was dive back at the chicken strips. What if I looked at him and saw previews of their backseat fun playing out in his eyes?
    “Crap,” he said.
    My head jerked up. No fireworks in that face. (Although maybe in mine now?)
    “We’re just going as friends. I told her that.”
    “Yeah, friends with benefits.”
    He made a sound in the