Page 88 of Nerdy or Nice
But this was Drake. And until now, I'd seen no signs of true vanity. I took the yearbook and scanned face after face, but none of them jumped out at me. I looked back to Drake. "So where are you?"
"Keep looking. You'll see me soon enough."
I tried again, this time more slowly. "No, I still don't–" My eyes widened as I honed in a tall skinny kid standing in the back row. He wore not a football uniform but a white button-down shirt along with thick eyeglasses and a baseball cap that he wore slightly off-kilter. Into the camera, he smiled nice and wide with teeth that practically sparkled with braces.
Next to me, Drake laughed. "Told ya."
I looked up. "Told me what?"
"That you'd spot me eventually." He gestured toward the book. "Like I said, pretty hot, huh?"
I lowered my head to study the face again. Oddly enough, the old Drake wasexactlythe kind of guy I would've gone for – not too flashy but with lots of heart.
Even now, I could see those qualities practically leaping off the page in his happy eyes and eager grin. I smiled at the guy in the picture. "You were so cute."
Next to me, Drake snorted. "Yeah, right."
I turned to look at him. "I mean it. If we were in high school, I would have had such a crush on you."
He gave me a dubious look. "Uh-huh."
"I'm not joking," I said. "If you want the truth, I always went for the nerdy types."
He made a show of looking offended. "Did you just call me a nerd?"
I grinned. "Heck yeah. But I meant it as a compliment." I looked down to give the page another look. "But why aren't you wearing a uniform?"
"Because I wasn't on the team."
I was still eying the page. "But you're in the picture."
"Yeah, because I was their statistician."
I looked back to Drake. "Is that really a thing?"
"No, but I talked the coach into it. I also did some competition research. Believe it or not, it gave us a nice edge."
Oh, I believed it, alright.I was still processing what I'd just learned when Drake reached for the yearbook and turned several more pages before stopping on a full-page spread featuring the school's varsity cheerleading squad.
He pointed to a stunning blonde at the head of the pack. "You seeher?"
Did I ever.I scanned the caption. "Courtney Rockwell? Oh yeah. She'd be pretty hard to miss." The girl was movie-star gorgeous, like something out of central casting for Miss Popularity in one of those teenage caper movies. "So whowasshe?" I asked. "Your secret crush?"
With something like a laugh, he replied, "You're only half right."
I looked back to Drake. "How so?"
He was no longer smiling. "She was my girlfriend."
"Oh." And now I felt incredibly stupid. "Sorry, I guess I just didn't see the two of you together."
He was frowning now. "Yeah, and you wanna hear something funny?"
Judging from his tone, I wasn't expecting to laugh. Still, I replied, "Sure, what?"
"Even if you'd gone to our high school, youstillwouldn't have seen it."
"Sorry, I'm not following."
