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kissed me before. His kisses were the one reckless indulgence I’d ever allowed myself in high school, but I shouldn’t be looking forward to the next encounter, not if I wanted to keep the in-crowd in check.
    “Hey, Brett,” his dad called from below, and he released me.
    I crumpled onto the edge of the bed, my pulse still erratic from the almost kiss. Those damn hormones were getting the better of me again.
    “I need your help in the garage,” his dad continued.
    Brett opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
    It was just the reprieve I needed. If I spent any longer in his room, I might do something I’d regret. I stood, tested my wobbly knees, and made it to the doorway before I collided with Brett. “I should go.”
    “Are you sure? I mean, we can get started right away—”
    “No, really, I should go.” I tucked my hair behind my ears and focused on the route to the staircase. “Email me a sample of what you have already, and I’ll get back to you with a critique.”
    I was almost to the front door before he caught up with me. “Alexis, please, wait.”
    I stopped and looked at everything but his face. The floor. The walls. The stupid preppy logo on his T-shirt. “What?”
    He drew in a deep breath like he was about to make some long-winded speech, but instead, blew it out as a sigh. “Never mind. I’ll see you tomorrow at school.”
    Not likely. He ran around with the popular kids, and I was the one person at Eastline who neither bowed nor cowered before them. “Yeah, whatever.”
    I checked the street to make sure no one would see me leaving his house and ran home more confused than ever. Just when I thought I could safely put Brett Pederson in the “just friends” category, I discovered how much of a hold he really had on me.

Chapter Four
     
    “Hey, Alexis, can you meet me at the fro-yo place on Eighth?” Morgan asked as soon as I answered her call.
    It was less than an hour after I’d returned home from Brett’s, and I was just beginning to feel normal again. “When?”
    “How about fifteen minutes from now?”
    I checked my phone’s clock. It was eleven thirty, and Morgan was calling me before noon. Something was up. And being a good friend, I couldn’t say no. “See you in few.”
    I arrived at the same time Richard did, and my senses went on high alert. She’d called in both of us. My unease doubled when we walked in to find Morgan sitting at a table, playing with an uneaten cup of chocolate-fudge frozen yogurt. Normally, she gobbled that flavor up like it was about to be permanently discontinued.
    Richard marched straight to the wall of machines and began filling his bowl with a variety of different flavors. For a skinny guy, he could eat more than Morgan and me combined.
    I was a devotee of one particular flavor. So, naturally, when I couldn’t find a machine with it, I almost blew a gasket. “What happened to the mocha?” I asked, forcing myself to remain calm and civil when inside I was throwing the equivalent of the temper tantrum of a two-year-old.
    “We stopped carrying it,” the bored-looking guy at the register said.
    No, no, no, no! It was all I could do not to stomp my foot in frustration. “Any idea when it will be coming back?”
    “Nope.”
    Idiot!
    I searched the wall for something new to try, but none of the other flavors appealed to me. I finally settled for a tiny bit of banana sprinkled with walnuts and prayed it would satisfy my taste buds. It would never be mocha, but it reminded me of the breakfast I’d just shared with Brett.
    I sat down at the table and poked at my frozen yogurt with my spoon. “So, what’s up?”
    Morgan answered with a dramatic sigh.
    “Uh-oh, sounds like frat-boy issues.” Richard shoveled another bite of his hodgepodge creation into his mouth. “Let me guess—he has a tiny little penis?”
    “No, it was average size,” she replied.
    Richard and I exchange grimaces. If she’d