Gettin' Hooked Read Free Page B

was tripping. “All gravy, girl. GettinHooked.com is ours.”
    â€œThat’s hella tight.”
    â€œWhat now, computer geek?”
    Kayla clicked her tongue, along with giving me an an eye roll. “Whatever.” She got to her feet, careful to keep her toes up, and walked toward her door on her heels. “Now what? Now we go to my dad’s office and get server space.”
    She hobbled back to her bed, grabbed the phone, then tossed it to me. “I’ll set up the site. You start making calls.”
    We went downstairs and into her dad’s office, spending the remainder of the afternoon there, playing with Web site templates and making phone calls.
    The design we chose was simple; a pure black background so that once we had pictures of our friends to upload they’d really stand out.
    Our home page announced what we were all about— Prom date hook-ups. We included a log-in feature where a name and high school ID number had to be entered in order to start checking out the profiles. We mimicked some of the features from MySpace we thought were important, but we also added some of our own.
    We added a music plug-in and uploaded a shuffling of slow songs from my iPod. Once someone logged in they’d be taken to a page that divided the guys from the girls. Not that we had any yet, but the pictures would load four per page, and once clicked on, the link would take you to their complete profile page, giving all the details that’d help someone decide if they wanted the hook-up.
    By the time we were done it was nearly dark, my ass was tired of sitting and my voice was tired of talking. A few hours in and we had hella friends hyped on the idea and ready to sign up as soon as our site went live.
    Gathering my backpack, I retraced my steps through the kitchen. My auntie was there making dinner and invited me to stay, but I was ready to go.
    Maybe because I’d been thinking about my momma leaving me, or the fact that I was really missing my dad, but I wasn’t in the mood to hang with them and longed for the solitude and quiet of my own thoughts. My own space.
    I was offered a ride home, but declined, kinda looking forward to the walk.
    Outside the evening air had cooled, but rain held off. Streetlights had clicked on even though the sun hadn’t quite set behind the clouds.
    Maurice’s garage was closed, causing a little pang of regret over not seeing him again. But I would. Soon.
    As soon as GettinHooked.com was up and running, I planned on using it to my advantage. I grinned. What Kayla didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, but the entire idea was loaded with ulterior motives. Mine. To make Maurice not just my prom date, but my man.

CHAPTER 3
    â€œCan you see what they’re doing?” Kayla asked, batting my hair out of the way and pressing her weight into my back.
    Lawdy, Kayla and I must have looked like a couple of straight-up fools, kneeling behind a bush with discarded McD’s bags tucked beneath our knees to keep them out of the mud. The ground was wet and getting wetter, the continued light rain causing all sorts of messed-up damage to my hair.
    Sliding a hand over my head, I tried to tame the increasing frizz by tucking it into the baseball cap I’d snagged from my dad’s room, but the wild curls had a mind of their own. “Shoulda braided it,” I mumbled, glancing right quick at Kayla.
    Her focus wasn’t on me, but fixed across the parking lot to the strip of stores located in The Plaza, an outdoor mini-mall.
    â€œLook,” she whispered, jabbing me in the side with her elbow, “I think they’re holding hands.”
    â€œAlready? Is Missy a bopper?”
    She shook her head. “She’s not fast like that.”
    â€œIf you say so,” I replied, rolling my eyes and sucking air between my teeth.
    Holding a branch down, I angled my body to see past the leaves and through the front window of Starbucks, where