Saving Face (a young adult romance) Read Free

Thompson
had really big eyes.  Satisfied with the view Alyssa shimmied into a pair of
blue jeans, and a stretchy white turtle neck.  She wasn’t vain, but she wasn’t
dumb either and she’d never had any complaints about the way she filled out her
cheer uniform.  So no way was Lisa Thompson prettier.  Showered and changed
Alyssa walked back into her room to start strategizing.  She screamed.
                “Jesus Lyssa!” 
Brent caught her before she fell backwards.
                “Brent.  You
scared the crap out of me!  You can’t just crawl through my window—what if my
dad caught you.”
                His face wiggled
in an amused way.  “I came through the front door; your dad let me in.  I just
wanted to ask you to go to the corn maze with me today.  And I would have
called, but you left your cell at my house last night.”  He held the phone out
to her.
                “Oh.  Well,
whatever.”  Alyssa waved off the moment and took her phone from him.  “I can’t
go today; I have serious angst to suffer through.”
                “Sounds fun.”  He
commented wryly.  “You love the corn maze.  We could race.”
                “You’d lose.” 
Alyssa was starting to waver.  “Do you know how popular the corn maze is?  It’s
gonna be crawling with people from school.”
                “So you are going
to hide out here forever?  Lame.”  Brent could tell she was caving.  “Come on Chere.” 
He said reaching for his best Cajun accent (and it wasn’t very good) “I’ll do
my Gambit voice all day.  One drunken party isn’t going to ruin your social
standing.  C'est la vi .”
                The Gambit voice
did it for her.  “All right, but if we see anyone I know…”
                “You can hide in
the corn.”  Brent finished for her.
     
                The corn maze was
actually one of Alyssa’s favorite parts of the fall.  The town really went all
out with a huge corn maze, lots of food vendors, hay rides, games, and all
sorts of other fun stuff.  The maze itself was always really impressive.  They
advertized an average of 90 minutes to find your way out.  Alyssa usually made
it in 45.  Most years she went so many times that by the end of the season she
could walk through it blind folded.  One year Brent had bet against her doing
just that and at the end of that day Alyssa was the owed one homemade quiche.  She
hadn’t gotten around to it this year yet though.  And the season was half way
over.  Being seniors was extremely time-absorbing. Plus Pete hadn’t been
interested.  Really Pete had only been interested in one thing—something Lisa Thompson
was a little freer with than Alyssa.
               
    “So
did you really want to race?”  Brent slung his camera over one shoulder as he
climbed out of the car.
    “Nah,
but let’s get some hot chocolate before we go in.  It’s freezing out here.” 
She wasn’t wrong.  Halloween was still a two and a half weeks away but the
temperature was dipping dangerously closer to icy every morning. 
    “Ooh
yeah, and some of those cinnamon roasted cashews too.”  Draping his free arm around
her neck they headed off for their snacks.
    The
line for hot chocolate was pretty long, so they agreed Brent would go get the
roasted cashews and come back.  “Au revoir Chere” Brent winked at her and
walked off towards another line.
    “Alyssa! 
Who’s the French guy?”
    Alyssa
turned around to find Jennifer Pastings and another girl from school waiting in
line behind her.  Jennifer was the biggest gossip—and she had had a front row
seat to the previous night’s events.
    “Hey
Jenn, what French guy?”
    “Don’t
play coy with me Alyssa Maddow!  You’ve been holding out—he’s a hottie.”
    Alyssa
smiled.  Brent was pretty hot these days, and she was happy for him.  “Yeah he
is.  You remember