Page 22 of The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back

"Understandable. What's this?" Jake fingered the piece of tape and started to pull on it. I came out of my shocked haze and practically leapt on top of the sketchbook.

"N-nothing," I stuttered. We had things in common. We could possibly get along very well. He could fall in love with me, even. The absolute last thing I needed was for him to get a look at the depth of my craziness.

I put the book under my chair and sat down, careful to keep my feet on top of it. No way could I ever let him see those pictures of him. Jake shrugged it off, shuffled the deck and started dealing. "Just basic poker then, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "Sure."

"So is it just a hobby or do you want to do something more with it?"

I picked up my five cards and looked them over quickly. I had two tens. I gave back the other three cards, and he handed me three new ones. "You mean poker?"

He laughed. "No, I meant your manga."

I picked up three more junk cards. It didn't matter. I wasn't playing to win yet.

"Oh. Well, to my parents' dismay, I want to go to UC Santa Ana. They have an amazing animation program and I can focus on manga. They have these great internships, the opportunity to work with actual studios, it's awesome. I mean, if I wanted to major in drawing manga specifically I'd probably have to go to school in Japan. And I'm not about to make my mother that happy."

Jake had another funny look on his face but didn't ask me to explain about Pearl, for which I felt grateful. Not exactly an appropriate first fake-date conversation topic. Instead he said, "I got offered a full-ride baseball scholarship to UC Santa Ana."

"Small world," I managed. I never, ever imagined that Jake and I might end up at the same college.

"Yeah, but a UC school's not good enough for my dad. Has to be Yale for undergrad and then Harvard Law like my dad and my grandpa and my great-grandpa." He tossed a chip into the pile and I anted up.

That one sentence dashed my newly created daydreams of us attending the same college. It might be harder for me to ever date him if we were on different coasts. But this wasn't about me. It was about the tone in his voice. The one that said this did not make him happy. I wondered why. "You don't want to go to Yale?"

"Let's not talk about that," he said with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Let's talk about…the election."

"What about it? I'll raise you fifty."

He put his chips in. "Why are you running?"

"Why not? Maybe you could stand a little competition"

"Maybe. I call."

Jake won that hand and he smiled a real smile at me as he pulled the pot over to his side of the table. I could see how much he liked to win. I was sure he thought he would win the election for senior class president because he was good-looking and popular and rich and good-looking and an athlete and good-looking. Well, obviously, that was why everyone in school would vote for him. At least, that was why the other good-looking, rich and popular types would vote for him. The wannabes too.

But as he sat there grinning at me, I wondered, what about everyone else? The other ninety-nine percent of the school? They weren't like Jake.

They were like me.

I could even see my future campaign: Mattie Lowe: She's not popular and she's not beautiful, so she has time for student government.

I wondered if Ella could fit that on a pink, glittery campaign poster.

The thought of my stepsister made me feel guilty all over again. No, I reminded myself, she said she didn't mind if I liked Jake. I wondered if Jake had thought about Ella while at our house. But he hadn't asked about her and I hadn't noticed that he seemed too heartbroken over the break-up. I thought he should be at least a little upset. But to be fair, Ella didn't seem all that put out by it either.

I decided not to think about Ella. I needed to focus on Jake and our friendly game. I watched for his tells. I had to lose several hands to build up his confidence and to read him. Not that this was a burden; as I'd mentioned earlier, Jake-watching was one of my favorite things. I noticed that he would put his hand near his mouth when he was bluffing. His eyebrows would go up slightly when he had a good hand.

"Really aren't that good, are you?"

I gave him my best crocodile smile. Time to move in for the kill. "Again?"

He shuffled the deck. "Why don't we make it interesting?"

An image of a shirtless Jake flashed in front of my eyes.Stop it, I told my brain. I blinked. "What did you have in mind?"

"If I win this next hand, you do seventy-five percent of the project." At my expression he held his hands out in front of him. "Not trying to be a jerk again—I really am super busy. I had to tell coach that I was really sick to miss practice so that I could come over here."

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