Sugarbaby Read Free

some social-media blitzes for it over the summer. Now it was the favored hangout of art students from the community college and trendy kids from school. A few of them were even in the balcony tonight instead of at Homecoming.
    My kind of people.
    As Carley led us to the top row, center, my phone buzzed in my jeans pocket. Another message from Mystery Texter?
    Before I could do anything about it, we sat. Diana was in the middle and Carley leaned over her. She had on one of her cool bracelets.
    â€œSo station two?” she said. “They ended up being awful tippers.”
    â€œI’m really sorry for sticking you with them,” I said.
    Diana kicked her blue cowboy–booted feet up on the empty seat in front of her. “What happened at station two?”
    Carley smacked Diana’s leg, and she planted her boots on the floor.
    Satisfied, Carley said to her, “Station two was a table with alumni jerks. They were giving Jade a hard time.” Some kids a few rows down were watching the blank screen and munching on popcorn, and Carley quieted herself, sitting back in her seat.
    My phone buzzed in my pocket again, repeating its summons. Without thinking, I rested my hand against it, tempted. Sorely. But why? Was I so bored with life that I needed to fantasize that someone was on the other end, wanting to chat with me about humping in showers?
    My uncle used to tell me that curiosity killed the cat, and I was dying a little more each second. Also, it seemed rather rude to ignore the texter when they’d been polite enough to let me know my message had gone off course. But were they being polite or taking advantage of a misfired sext?
    Diana glanced at me. “Sounds like every Rex butt-kisser is still having a good time harassing you, Jadyn. God, what a tangled web we weave, huh?”
    Okay, this conversation was going to happen.
    â€œAnd it’s all because of Micah Wyatt, too,” Diana added. “Carley remembers
him
. He was at a party we went to after she moved here, after she started to get these TellTale messages.” Diana cocked her eyebrow at me. “Are you on TellTale?”
    It was some kind of phone app that allowed people to post confessions anonymously. Why deal with that when I could stumble into that kind of relationship with my own texts?
    â€œI’m not on it,” I said, “but I’ve heard of it.”
    â€œWell, Carley had an admirer on TellTale, and I thought it was Micah Wyatt.” Diana fanned herself. “Man, oh man, he was so hot. But you’d know
that
, Jadyn.”
    My, she was straightforward, and my face heated up. Yes, I knew Micah. He and Shelby were together now, after a crazy summer in which he’d tried to seduce her, the Nice Girl, just as he’d seduced me during the spring, when I’d been at my most vulnerable with Rex, when I’d cheated on him with a wicked Don Juan who’d made it a game to go after every romantic challenge he could find. Shelby had changed Micah, though. I was glad she had.
    Diana was still filling me in. “So I brought Carley to a party where Micah was supposed to be . . .”
    â€œYou dragged me there,” Carley said.
    â€œOkay, I dragged her.” Diana corrected herself with a mild shrug. “And I turned out to be wrong about him. He wasn’t the TellTale admirer at all.”
    Carley looked at me. “Bret was.”
    Bret, her boyfriend. Until this moment, I hadn’t known how they’d met. He was out of town now, teaching at some music camp, and from what I knew, that was for the best, really. Carley had been hinting to me that the two of them were on less than ideal ground, that what they had was fast and intense, and she felt as if she didn’t know who he was at all.
    Cold feet
, I thought. Some of us weren’t used to passion, and we didn’t handle it very well.
    â€œI don’t know what you think, Jadyn,” Diana said, wrestling