Read Notable (Smith High) for Free Online Page B

Houston.”
    “Not San Antonio?”
    Ben laughed, releasing a rich chuckle as he draped an arm across my shoulder. “You’re a hellcat, aren’t you?”
    I batted my lashes up at him. “I have no idea what you mean. Unlike Texas over there, I’m perfectly nice to everybody.”
    “That’s a state, not a city,” Houston pointed out crisply.
    “And Houston is a city, not a name.”
    “Uh, let’s huddle up, everyone!” Neal called out enthusiastically. “We’re going to take a taxi to the hotel and break into rooms of two or three.”
    “Um, Neal?” Amy raised her hand as if she were sitting in a classroom. “When are Jeffrey and Micah going to get here?”
    Neal cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Uh, well, they’re not coming.”
    Everyone else stared at Neal as if he had casually announced that water wouldn’t be available for the rest of the trip.
    Houston was the first to speak. “What happened?”
    “Well, they decided to travel independently before meeting up with us, and Micah got into a motorcycle accident in Thailand yesterday. He’s going to be fine,” Neal rushed to assure us. “But given the circumstances, the two of them are going to fly back to make sure that Micah gets the proper medical help he needs.”
    “So this is the whole group.” Houston didn’t look happy about it. His green eyes darkened as he ran a frustrated hand through his hair, mussing it up in the process.
    Which, of course, looked downright sexy on him.
    Talk about unfair. After the number of hours spent cramped in airplanes, he should at least have had bloodshot eyes and a waxy glaze of exhaustion.
    “Yep, this is it!” Neal was trying way too hard to make it sound like that was a good thing. “We’re going to be a tight-knit pack by the time we return.”
    Simply scanning my eyes over Houston’s dark good looks, Ben’s golden boy sheen, Liz’s chaotic explosion of color, and Amy’s pale, worried face confirmed my suspicion that hell no, we weren’t going to become sitcom-family close. Lewis & Clark might be a college of misfit toys, but that didn’t mean they would accept a packaged Barbie in their midst. Excluding Neal, the only one in our group to make even the slightest effort to be nice to me was Ben. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out that he was primarily interested in getting into my pants, especially when his eyes lingered on the front of my V-neck shirt.
    I was the odd girl out. And I was so fed up with being unwanted, I was tempted to try sprinting back toward the terminals. It wasn’t as if my heart was so exclusively set on Italy that I wouldn’t consider other destinations. London definitely held appeal. I could easily picture myself walking the cobblestone streets in my favorite heels alongside a charming British boy who was distantly related to Lord Something-or-other. The two of us could throw some darts together in seedy pubs before checking out the coolest underground clubs.
    My daydream dissolved as my suitcase was loaded into a taxi and Houston gave me a not-so-gentle shove into the car. I glared, but, if anything, his smirk only widened in response. I could practically hear him thinking, Daddy’s little girl isn’t the center of the universe anymore. Bet she doesn’t like that!
    I pointedly ignored him and stared out at the streets of Siem Reap, Cambodia. Actually, calling them streets was overly generous, in my opinion. The paved road leading away from the airport soon became dirt-packed and bumpy. Small dilapidated houses broke up the landscape, but they didn’t look like they had ever seen better days. Instead it was as if the glorified shacks had come into existence looking ramshackle and were fighting just to stay that way. There was no mistaking the poverty around us. All the locals wore ripped jeans that were not distressed by design, yet along the main road were advertisements for Gucci and Prada. Photos of skinny white women clutching purses were everywhere—their