P.S. I Loathe You Read Free

cake–flavored Glossip Girl. “He’s an actor,” she said with a trace of a British accent. “And he got a call back for the
Wizard of Claus
. For the Wizard.”
    “So you’re still into Dempsey?” Kristen smacked a pine air-freshener.
    Massie cocked her head to the side. “Why
wouldn’t
I be?”
    “I dunno.” Kristen shrugged. She bit her thumbnail before pressing on. “So how much do you like him? You know, out of ten?”
    “Ten,” Massie insisted. “Times ten.”
    Just then Layne Abeley and her alt-to-a-fault friend Meena strolled by belting out the song “Popular” from
Wicked.
And for some reason Kristen kind of half smiled at Layne when she passed. It had to be pity, because she was singing about something she’d never experience . . . well, either that or gas.
    “So basically you’d be upset if someone else liked him and he liked them back?”
    Massie leaned closer, her amber eyes fixed and serious. “Have you heard something?”
    “No,” Kristen blurted. “Why, have you?”
    “
No!
”
    “You know,
she’s
auditioning.” Kristen tilted her head toward Layne. “Doesn’t that tell you something about how
un
the play is?”
    “What’s wrong with
Layne
?” Claire snapped.
    “Nothing.” Kristen blushed. “It’s just that I . . . I thought maybe it would be cooler if you crushed on a guy who’s into sports, nawt middle-school
theater
.”
    Massie squint-looked into Kristen’s green eyes as if trying to read something blurry. Since when had Kristen become so concerned with Massie’s public image? Kristen was her poor friend, not her PR friend. Who had suddenly given her permission to drop those two essential
o
’s?
    “Um, are you saying actors are nawt hawt?” Massie hissed.
    “Kinda.” Kristen lifted her blond brows in a “truth hurts” sort of way.
    “Have you ever heard of Zac?”
    “Yeah, but—”
    “Hayden?”
    “Yeah, b—”
    “Hartnett?
    “Ye—”
    “Chace? Penn—”
    “Okay!”
Kristen held up her hand. “It’s just that you said we could
like
boys this week, so I assumed we’d be hanging at the game after school. Not shopping.”
    “Point.” Alicia lifted her French-manicured finger as she watched Josh high-five Cam.
    “We
do
like boys this week,” Massie insisted. “Just nawt soccer.”
    Just then the boys began laugh-chanting her ex-crush’s name.
    “Derr-ing-ton! Derr-ing-ton! Derr-ing-ton!”
    Massie immediately blushed. The Pretty Committee was studying her, ah-bviously wondering if she had any last drops of crush left in her, like an upside-down can of Diet Coke that continued to drip soda even when it was empty.
    “Ew, puh
-
lease!”
Massie rolled her eyes and snorted like a sleepy piglet. “I’m over him times ten times
twenty
!”
    “Good.” Alicia began walking. “Then let’s go see what that’s all about.”
    “Hold!” Massie swiped more Glossip Girl across her lips, then licked. Sugary sweetness coated her tongue and instantly lifted her mood. “Focus! I have an announcement to make.”
    The Pretty Committee formed a tight circle under the pine-scented maple, each girl resisting the urge to peek at the boys.
    “Derr-ing-ton! Derr-ing-ton! Derr-ing-ton!”
    Massie cleared her throat, even though it was already clear. “Last week I declared a boyfast and it almost tore us apart.” Her voice was somber.
    The girls nodded in agreement.
    “And you know why it didn’t work?”
    “Because Alicia hung out with Josh behind our backs?” Dylan blurted.
    “Go
flush
yourself, Cottonelle!” Alicia snapped.
    Dylan folded her arms across her brown-stained henley and huff-turned to face the boys.
    “Derr-ing-ton! Derr-ing-ton! Derr-ing-ton!”
    Everyone else turned too, except Massie. Her ex was ah-bviously doing
something
silly to get her attention, and she refused to fall for the childish trick.
    “The
maaaain
reason boyfast didn’t work,” she half yelled to recapture her friends’ attention, “is because we’re hawt times