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followed the throng through the door. A sixth sense told me to scan the hallway crowd, and yep, there was Rascal, leaning against a wall.
    Knowing Kylie was just a few designer-shoe steps behind, and not wanting to give her any more ammunition, I acknowledged his nod with a mere lift of my brow. Why tempt fate?
    But he took things a bit further. “You and Mc-Creary, huh?” he said as I passed, his steely blue gaze bearing down on me. “What's with that?”
    I bit back a grin and managed a monotone response. “Just friends.”
    “Yeah, right.” He grunted as I kept walking. “Hey, Nicolette …”
    His voice was like a lasso, circling me and pulling me back. But I kept up my pace, moving away—fast. Before my face was taken over by a disfiguring and revealing smile.
    Moments later, I was successfully standing beside Alison at her locker.
    “You'll be proud of me,” I announced.
    One side of her mouth curled up. “You managed to sell a property for your mother?”
    “Not
that
proud.”
    “You … you … got tickets to the Lakers' season opener?”
    I gave her a thumbs-down, meaning her next guess should be lower.
    “You aced your geometry test?”
    “More. It's better than that. Last chance.”
    She shut her locker with a click. “Prouder than acing a test? Um … my brother offered you another ride somewhere and you told him where to shove it?”
    Her response was so out of left field that it made my head spin. Her message, however, was crystal clear, that she wasn't thrilled with me hanging out with her brother.
    Well, neither was I, so no harm, no foul.
    “You lose,” I said.
    “Okay …”
    “Rascal was outside my class and he tried to talk to me. But I kept on walking.” I held her gaze, stubbornly, weakly. “Aren't you proud?”
    “I am,” she said, and we fell into step together. “Any progress you make toward realizing he's the King of the Losers gets applause from me.”
    Okay, so why didn't this feel like a compliment?
    •
    School buzzed by as my mind turned over all the new data it had collected in the past few days. At the end of classes, I made a mad dash for the locker room. There was no way I could be late for practice today.
    Zoe was already there, suiting up. The baggy uniform actually flattered her long body, making her legs look like they went on forever. But I liked her anyway.
    “What happened to you yesterday?” she asked, glancing up, dark hair framing her heart-shaped face. “I saw you in the hall, but not at practice.”
    Not showing up for practice at Hillside was
big
news in any sport. We were Division A and the administration was determined to keep every gold cup we had in the gym exactly where it was.
    “Luther let me skip—I was sick,” I answered simply, and spun the dial on my locker.
    She nudged me with a sneakered foot and waited until I looked over. “Was it about a guy?” she asked in a low voice.
    “Huh? Why?”
    “I pulled the sick thing once,” she whispered. “So I could go be with Matt.”
    Matt was her boyfriend, and of course now Ihad my answer as to whether she'd faked or not. But that left me in an awkward position, whether or not to come clean.
    The thing was, for a casual friend, Zoe was pretty cool. And she'd told me things that she really shouldn't have, so my conscience made the decision for me. “I went to see my dad,” I whispered back.
    “Oh,” she said quietly, nodding. “Yeah, Luther would have never gone for that.”
    I touched her arm. “You won't say anything?”
    She stood up and started toward the gym, then looked back and gave me an are-you-crazy look. “Hey, I'm guilty, too.”
    With a sigh of relief, I followed her out of the locker room and caught up with her to start our warm-up laps.
    Running side by side took effort because her legs were twice as long as mine. But about a year ago, we'd discovered we liked jogging together. We laughed and rolled our eyes at the same kinds of things.
    Not to mention that Zoe had become