Sugar Rush Read Free

says as she leans her elbows on the rail bordering the upper level of the mall. It overlooks the food court below, and the smell of greasy burgers and stale Chinese food filter upward. My nose crinkles in disgust.
    “Agreed,” I say as my eyes slowly roam around the upper level, checking out the action tonight. I’d already scanned the food court below, and nothing of interest was going on down there.
    “He didn’t say why?” she asks.
    “Nope,” I say calmly, although my stomach curdles when I think about the very public brush-off I got yesterday after school. Bryce and I had been dating for three months, and my face flushes with embarrassment when I think of all the proclamations of love I’d given him. He was my first real boyfriend in high school and I had fallen head over heels.
    Bryce was very tall with sunny good looks that would have been common in Southern California, but only made him stand out like a beacon in our school in Menlo Park. He was the star of our basketball team, every girl wanted to be with him, and every boy wanted to be him. Some of the best days of my life were spent just strutting through the hallways between periods, my hand grasped tightly in his as he’d walk me to my next class.
    It was like a dream, and I was giddy, and happy, and in love.
    And then he crushed me by dumping me after school in the parking lot standing outside the driver’s door of his Mustang, surrounded by his buddies. I thought he’d be driving me home as he did every day after school since basketball season was over. Instead, he simply told me, “Listen, Sela…I want to break up.”
    I was stunned, and sure I heard him wrong. “What?”
    “It’s the end of my senior year. I’m heading off to college in a few months. I don’t want to be tied down, especially not with a girl as young as you. You’re not going to be able to hang with me and it will just be awkward, you know?”
    No, I didn’t know.
    I didn’t understand at all.
    “But I’m sixteen,” I told him lamely.
    “Tomorrow you’ll be sixteen,” he pointed out, and one of his friends snickered loudly. At least Bryce had the grace to shoot him a dirty look and a small shake of his head.
    “And you’re breaking up with me the day before my birthday,” I said in wonder and not to him in particular, and not a question either. Just a statement as to his douchiness.
    Bryce just shrugged and reached for his car door. But then, as an afterthought, he said, “Look…you’re a nice kid and everything…”
    I tuned him out as I turned and walked away. That’s all I needed to hear from him.
    He thought I was a kid.
    And now my eyes roam the busy Saturday night floors of the mall, bustling with shoppers and teens just hanging out, looking to have some fun. My eyes cut over to the Gap, directly across from me, and I see three guys walk out. All in jeans, T-shirts…look about my age, maybe a little older. Two of the guys are okay, but one is really cute. He’s carrying a bag in his hand and laughs at something one of his friends says. He then pauses, takes his phone out of his back pocket, and answers it. His eyes travel left as he talks with a smile on his face, sweeps across the expanse of the mall, and then his gaze lands right on me.
    While he converses with whoever is on the other line, he stares at me…lips quirked upward and eyes bright with interest. I smile back at him, conveying interest because he’s really, really cute with light brown hair that’s worn a bit long and what looks to be brown eyes.
    My pulse starts fluttering when he ends the call, says something to his friends without taking his eyes off me, then starts heading my way across the bridge that connects to the opposite sides of the second story.
    Whitney is rambling on about Bryce, something about wanting to crush his nuts in a vise, but I don’t pay attention to her. He gets closer, his friends following a few steps behind him.
    I can tell the minute that Whitney sees him