Page 42 of Kiss the Girl
OH MY GOSH.
Pull it together right now, Grace Winters. You are a ridiculous woman.
“Let the massacre begin,” I said, reaching for my Trivial Pursuit pie.
In the end, Brooke beat us both. Noah dominated sports and leisure, and I had a good handle on geography and science, but Brooke was also a whiz on science plus she killed in entertainment.
At the end of the night, Noah and I had to endure her victory dance. We exchanged looks as she strutted back and forth beside the coffee table.
“Is this a seizure?” Noah asked.
“Maybe. Should we do something? Like first aid? Or call 911?”
“Funny, guys,” Brooke said, but she didn’t stop the dance.
“Why are we friends with her?” I asked Noah, and Brooke added arm motions.
“Good snacks?”
“Oh, yeah.”
We helped her clean up, and Noah offered to walk me out to my car when I yawned. “I need to get going too,” he said.
“You ready for Saturday?” he asked as I opened the car door with zero key fumbling. It would be our first day working with the boys on the booth.
“Yeah. My dad’s excited to supervise.”
“Evie too,” he said. “She’s pretty sure she’s an expert after hammering her box together.”
“Cool. Saturday will mostly be about making sure there’s a clear plan and figuring out who has which skills. You have someone bringing over the booth frame from the school, right?”
“About half the team drive pickup trucks, so a couple of the guys already got it from the custodian, and they’ll bring it Saturday morning.” He tilted his head. “You weren’t by any chance a project manager at your old job, were you?”
I gave him a small smile and slipped into the driver’s seat, starting the car and lowering the window. “Not quite. But I had just gotten promoted to team lead when I had to resign.”
“If you’re not running your own division in ten years, I’ll…”
“You’ll what?”
“I was going to say ‘eat my hat’ because that’s what they say in movies a lot, but it didn’t have the right ring to it. Besides, I definitely wouldn’t eat my hat. How would you even do that?”
I don’t know why that made me laugh, but it did. Hard.
“It’s not that funny,” he said, his lips twitching.
“But it is,” I said between giggles. “I’m picturing you sitting there with your hat on a plate, a napkin tucked into your shirt—”
“Like I’m five?”
“Like you’re five,” I confirmed, “and then you’ve got ketchup and mustard and barbecue sauce and a look of total confusion.”
He bent to meet my eyes through the open window. “Grace Winters, you are a total weirdo. I’ll see you on Saturday.”
I drove off, still grinning, something that seemed to happen every time I hung out with Noah.
I looked forward to Saturday morning way more than I should, right until Tabitha ruined it for me. She called right after breakfast, as usual. She always tried to fit us in between her morning run and getting ready for whatever fancy adventure she had going on that day. Soirees. Personal appearances. I didn’t even know. It all sounded completely foreign to me. And kind of sucky. I never wanted to be as busy as she was.
“Hey, Gracie,” she said when I answered. “Is Mom around?”
