Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1) Read Free Page B

pre-game party with you, Boone Ramer.” Rather than make a mistake, I’d typed it all out, purposely removing some punctuation so I didn’t highlight my geekness.
     
    Text from Boone:

     
     
    His quick reply made me bounce on the bed. But…he’d stop by? Guys only stopped by for formals. And he knew my dorm? I chewed my lip, undecided between awesome or creepy. I remembered his amused glance over his shoulder this morning and landed on awesome. In fact, I landed so hard on awesome I said the word out loud in a sing-sing voice while bouncing on the bed. “Awesome!”
     
    Text to Boone:
     
 
    Mia and I dug through my wardrobe on Saturday, a day of perfect football weather. Chilly temps on the walk to cafeteria “brunch” morphed to blindingly sunny and warm by noon. Mia and I had totally different taste in everything, which meant I couldn’t pull off her ruffled mini skirt and black leather jacket look. She understood me, though, and we settled on a pair of skinny jeans, a yellow sleeveless top with black trim (school colors!), and my sporty flip-flops with floral straps. I slathered sunscreen on my shoulders and arms while Mia searched her collection of hair clips.
    My brown hair rested a tad below my shoulders. I finger combed a sloppy part down the middle most day and usually had at least one side tucked behind my ear. I tried not to pull it up all the time ’cuz the bulk made the top of my head look too wide. Mom said my face was heart-shaped which I interpreted to mean my chin was too narrow for my forehead.
    Mia twisted the front pieces of my hair back and secured it with a bobby pin so it didn’t blow into my lip-gloss if a breeze kicked up at the stadium. (I’d rejected a rhinestone clip and a daisy barrette.) “You sure you won’t wear some eyeliner?” she asked for the third time. “I could make your eyes look big as pool balls if you’d let me.”
    “Just the look I’m going for,” I said, picturing one of those big-eyed puppies that adorned every greeting card a few years ago. “This is a football game, not the prom.” I already felt overdone with one coat of black/brown mascara.
    “If one wants to be treated like an aristocrat, one must dress like an aristocrat,” she said in a voice like the Queen of England’s.
    “I’m a Copperhead, not Princess Kate.”
    “Whatever.” She sulked. “Ooh, ten ’til one. I’m outta here.”
    “You don’t have to leave .” The panic I’d been fighting since daybreak changed my breathing to hitching gasps. Boone Ramer. Here. To get me. Soon. I thought I might puke up my ham and cheese omelet.
    The best roomie ever grabbed my shoulders to show me my reflection in the mirror screwed into our dorm room wall. “You got this thing, sister. His Hotness obviously likes you, and you’ve been ready to have his babies for a year. Be you. Except lose the expression of terror.”
    I nodded and smiled and practiced not looking like a deer in the headlights.
    Mia grabbed her jingly neck lanyard and skipped through the open door.
    What if I blow this , I thought as I tucked away all evidence I’d spent even one minute perfecting my casualness. I scouted the room to make sure nothing appalling like a box of tampons lurked. Safe. My worst sin was Gloria, with her oval plastic eyes and tiny pink ears.
    What if my first date with my twelve-month obsession crashes and burns like a space shuttle with a faulty tile ? I sat cross-legged in the round chair, pretending to be engrossed by something on my cell while my stomach turned flips and my heart thumped.
    I glanced around the room again, in the midst of a minor panic attack and, seeing my bike, remembered the first time I’d ever talked to Boone, for real. Last September, on a gorgeous Saturday evening, I’d taken my old bike—a heavy blue Neanderthal compared to my Giant—for a quick spin to escape the freshman roommate from hell who’d gotten high, or drunk, or both—in the middle of the afternoon, no