Read Don't Kiss Him Good-Bye for Free Online

Her face was nearly the color of her lipstick, which I knew to be Ruby Desire. “Oh, I’d hardly call it a romance,” she said. “But I suppose the May Day Ball has inspired that kind of thought in nearly everyone.”
    Just then Brian came up and joined our group. He sat thisclose to Hazelle and . . . I got it! I’d been asking Hazelle about the romance novel she was writing, and she thought I meant her relationship with Brian. Aha, now I understood why she was in maths early and not at the paper office. My Brian. Well, not really my Brian. But we were gum-chewing, cover-for-you-if-you-cover-for-me friends. And if we’d both understood that we were only friends, it might have been fun to go to the May Day Ball together.
    After class I walked toward second period with Hazelle. “I had no idea you and Brian were, um, dating,” I said.
    She grinned. “We’re not . . . not yet, anyway. But he asked me to the ball some time ago, and I said yes. Just as friends. I mean, we both knew we were just friends. But since then we’ve been talking and texting a lot more, and I’m not sure. He’s a really nice guy.”
    Her voice was so sweet and sincere and happy and . . . soft—for the first time ever. I tried hard not to resent her or be jealous. “I’m very glad for you,” I said.
    “Do you have a date?” she asked hesitantly.
    I shook my head. “I’ll be helping Natalie with her article about the ball, taking snaps, you know.” I tried to force sunshine and butterflies into my voice.
    “That’s nice,” she said. But my journalistic instincts were honed as sharp as acrylic fingernails. I knew she didn’t mean it. But she was trying, and her voice had no edge to it for once, so I let it go.
    At lunch Penny tried her best to cheer me up with some new clothes ideas she’d been sketching, and we also planned to get together at her house the next week. Inevitably, though, the conversation at the table turned to the May Day Ball. Apparently all the Aristocats were going shopping for dresses together that weekend.
    Penny reached over and gave me a one-armed hug. “I wish you were coming too.”
    “Bosh, they probably wouldn’t want me to come,” I said under my breath.
    “It’d be okay, really. I think they like you more than they let on.”
    I zoned out of their conversation and pretended to jot down some important things in my journalism notebook. Actually, I was writing down all the names of boys I’d been at least somewhat interested in, crossing out the ones who turned out to like someone else.

    Well, therse still was Rob. And Rhys. I’d see Rob at the newspaper office. And I’d be finishing Rhys’s paper with him at Fishcoteque after school tomorrow.
    After lunch was fourth period. I hadn’t earned my way into Mrs. Beasley’s good graces since last week’s detention yet. I think I’d been kind of one of her favorites, and now she was disappointed in me for getting two detentions. Fair enough. I was disappointed in myself.

Chapter 15

    “So what’ll it be then, luv? The usual?” Jeannie, the server at the local fish-and-chips place, grinned at me from behind the counter. I loved her, and her fish-and-chips, and she knew it and loved me right back.
    “The usual,” I said. The thought crossed my mind that Rhys might make fun of me for eating a full meal after school, and then I wondered why I even cared if he made fun of me or not. I took my laptop and sat down at my booth, waiting for both of them—Rhys and my order—to arrive.
    I worked a little on a paper and did some fact-checking for Natalie; then I pulled up my e-mail. As I typed in my password, I heard Rhys come up behind me. I quickly closed my e-mail.
    “I’m not late today—did you notice?” he asked as he slid into the opposite side of the booth.
    “I noticed,” I said with a smile.
    Jeannie brought over my fish-and-chips and asked Rhys if he’d like some.
    “No thanks,” he said. Jeannie sniffed and muttered