Page 1 of Electricity

CHAPTER 1

Iheard Lacey’s phone ding the second that I felt mine buzz in my back-pocket. We gave each other alook—it was Friday night and despite its comparatively low rating on the Health Inspector’s website, the Snax Shax was full.Lacey and I both knew who the messages were from: Sarah, coming through on our party invites.

Thirty minutes too late.

I slammed the cash register closed more roughly than normal and heard the change inside it shimmy.

Up until half an hour ago, Lacey and I could have both called in sick, claiming to have ebola-cholera and gotten off somehow. But now? Hip deep in the weekend rush with the mist of grease from the Fryolater heavy in the air? Burton would never agree.

Lacey made a face in my direction, and I shot one right back at her.

This fucking sucked.

“Break time, my lovely ladies of the register,” Burton said, sidling up to me with Darius behind him.

Burton was our boss in name only—everyone that worked here knew how to run the place better than him, but our last name wasn’t the same as The-Absentee-Owner-Of-Shax, whocould give two shits about what really went on here as long as the cash kept rolling in.

“Come on, come on,” Burton said, bumping me aside with his hips. He liked to work the counter on the weekends so he could comp cute girls fries. Made him feel generous, saving someone a whole buck-fifty. I didn’t move quite fast enough. “Unless you want to stay? Because you like my company?” He was always leaving you these creepy openings to butter him up.

“No,” Lacey said, grabbing my arm and pulling me aside.

“No, thank you,” I said, giving him a smile wide enough to make up for the fact that Lacey had forgotten hers. I needed this job more than she did. Mad at myself a little, I turned away from him and trotted quickly with her back to our small break-room.

“I hate him,” she announced, the second the door was closed.

“Me too.” The break room wasn’t air-conditioned like the rest of the restaurant was, which meant that taking a break felt like you were running laps, minus Coach Stevens shouting at you.

I pulled my phone out to confirm what I thought I knew and saw Sarah’s picture—a goofy triple-chin one she’d unwisely sent me off of ZoomBoom years ago, that she begged me to delete anytime she remembered I still had it.

I got you guys invites! LOOK GOOD.

“World’s worst timing,” I said.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Lacey said with an angry sigh.

Sarah, Lacey, and I were the trailer park trio, plus or minus the trash depending on who was saying it and who else was in earshot—or we had been, until Sarah’s dad started making better money and they’d moved out last summer. Then three months ago she’d started dating Ryan, a senior on the baseball team, andshe’d almost disappeared, apparently sucked into the vortex his mouth created whenever they made out.

The only upshot was that for the first time in our entire high school career we—two relatively uncool sophomores—had an official invite to a senior party.

That we couldn’t attend. Because we were here.

“Look-good,” Lacey sing-songed. “Like she’d even see us if we were there. She’s probably already in some closet with Ryan.”

“I know.” But it was the principle of the thing. I swiped my thumb across Sarah’s face, sweeping her message away. She knew we had a time limit—she hadn’t waited until the last minute on purpose, had she?

“And Liam’s going to be there.”

“I know that, too.” I couldn’t help but know. The party was going to be at his house and he was only fifteen lockers down from me. Cooler kids than I had been herding around, talking about tonight all week. And ever since he’d broken up with Hailey, there’d been a chance—a Powerball-lottery-ticket-winning-chance—that he might accidentally look at me. Like we’d both happen to be after school for some reason, and we’d slam our lockers simultaneously, look up and over at each other, and just know. From that day on, he wouldn’t mind that I was too smart for him, and I wouldn’t mind that his letter jacket I got to perpetually borrow was weighed down by so many red Rs. Somehow, we’d both manage to get by.

Lacey gasped.

“Jessie—Jessie Jessie Jessie—” She flapped her arms excitedly. I loved her, but when she did that she looked like a bird. Her pointy nose and glasses didn’t help.

“What?”

“I have a plan!”

I shoved my phone into my pocket and leaned forward. “I’m listening.”

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