Girls We Love Read Free Page B

by the general madness infiltrating the usually staid restaurant.
    â€œThis really isn’t my regular scene,” Liv said with a giggle, to no one in particular. What she meant of course was that it was filled with guys who were cutebut totally uninteresting compared with Patch, who was even more sparkly-eyed and delicious than when she got sent away to boarding school by her parents.
    But she couldn’t think about them now. If she thought about her parents she would have to admit to herself that they were probably wondering where she was right now, and then she would have to deal with that. For Liv, ignorance-is-bliss had always been a friendly motto.
    She took a sip of her champagne and surveyed the crowd. There were a number of older women with big dramatic hats, though the place was jam-packed with kids, too, most of whom looked pretty preppy but also looked like they knew how to party. Whoever this Liesel girl was, she had really gone all out. Downtown-famous DJ Tahoe was spinning, which had inspired a small but enthusiastic dance floor in the corner. He was playing a Kanye West song, and a bunch of kids were getting down quite a bit farther than Liv would’ve thought they could.
    â€œIt’s not my scene, either,” Jonathan said emphatically. He was wearing a light brown suede motorcycle jacket and his bangs were styled diagonally across his forehead as though he were an actor playing a private-school boy on TV. “This place was built in what, 1910?”
    â€œI like the Boat House,” the Ava girl with all the freckles said. She had a big smile on her face. “I thinkit’s really classic. And I think it’s much older than that.”
    â€œMmmhhmm,” Liv said, rolling her eyes. Liv had decided that Jonathan was totally cute, and Ava was totally not. She leaned over to Flan and whispered, “He is so darn cute. For you, I mean.” Flan evidently agreed, because she jabbed her elbow into Liv’s side in excitement/horror.
    Two guys wearing blazers and gigantic chrome watches walked by and gave Liv the up and down.
    â€œIt must make you sort of uncomfortable that all these guys are hitting on you,” Patch’s friend David said. He was really tall. David was obviously not a guy who had ever been very smooth with girls and probably wouldn’t know fun if it came over and yanked down his baggy jeans.
    â€œNo, I’ve gotten used to it,” Liv said. Then she laughed (being careful not to shoot champagne through her nose, which was so something she would have done two years ago, except with milk) just to show that she didn’t take her new hotness too
too
seriously.
    â€œOh, okay,” David said. Liv gave him a pitying smile, because she could tell he wanted her a little bit, and then she craned her neck for Patch. He’d been kind of oblivious to the fact that they were about to begin the most important romance of their young lives, which of course made him totally all the more irresistible.
    A new song came on, and Flan grabbed Liv by the arm, in this weird awkward way that made Liv wonder if maybe Flan wasn’t a little jealous of the new, hot Liv. “Let’s dance!” she said really loudly, and started pulling her away from the other kids.
    â€œNo, wait,” Liv said. “Where’s your brother? Let’s get him first. He loves to dance, right?” She looked around, and realized that Patch, who had been standing so quietly and patiently, had finally snuck off to some secret place, probably hoping that she would watch him go and then follow a few minutes later. But she had totally missed it, and now she had no idea where he was or even which direction he might have gone in. Damn!
    â€œUm, not really,” Flan was saying. She widened her big blue eyes at Liv in a way that made Liv wonder if something was wrong. Like, maybe Flan was trying to tell her that she had lipstick on her teeth?
    â€œPatch definitely