Waiting in Line for the New iPad Read Free Page A

actually kind of friends again."
    "But you live with your Dad most of the
time?"
    "They didn't want me to change schools."
    She nodded. "Sometimes I wonder if my parents
will split up some day - they seem to argue all the time."
    There was a slight pause, Dylan didn't know
what to say about Noelle's parental strife. Oh, but he didn't want
the pause becoming awkward. He was talking to an attractive girl
one-on-one! Okay, so it shouldn't have been a big deal for someone
of his age, but he had to concede that he was shy, that was his
nature. Now he was worried she was going to think he was dull, he'd
run out of things to say.
    He opened his mouth and just said the first
thing that came to his mind: "Hey, look, I'm sorry I interrupted
your conversation with your friends."
    "Oh, no, that's okay," Noelle said, and
actually smiled. "Oh, I'm Noelle, by the way. Noelle
Shaw."
    And then he nearly jumped out of his skin as
she suddenly picked herself up and moved closer to him, so she was
sitting right next to him, leaning up against the wall of the store
as he was.
    "It's kind of nice talking to someone
different for a change," she said. "I feel like I say the same
things to the same people all the time."
    He caught a hint of her fragrance on the
breeze, and couldn't help but melt a little inside. She was so
gorgeous. She had a girl-next-door freshness, a small-town
sweetness, but the confidence of a glamorous catwalk model.
    Dylan felt she'd mistaken his own reckless
bravado for a similar innate confidence. Women liked confidence in
a guy - he'd read that often enough - and yet the irony of it was,
most really confident guys their age were the kind of selfish
idiots that would never bother to please anyone but themselves,
even if they had a goddess like this interested in them. 
    Oh, he felt all weak in the knees to have
Noelle sitting so close to him, but he knew he had to attempt to
portray some kind of confidence if he was going to maintain this
veneer that had somehow enticed this princess from the school
across town to come talk to a lowly frog.
    "So it sounds as though girls at Marchmont
are being hard done by when it comes to the guys," he said, trying
to sound casually headstrong.
    "I guess we are," she said, smiling broadly.
"So are St Josephs guys so different?"
    Dylan shrugged. "I think we probably have our
own fair share of idiot jocks interested in no one but
themselves."
    "But there's also guys who could… you know…
out-compete a vibrator?"
    Was she being flirty with him?
    "I should imagine there's a few of us," he
said, once again surprising himself at how brazen he could be.
    "And wait," she said, "Are you saying that's
because you guys have read up on how to do it, or are you saying St
Josephs men can actually handle a girl telling them what she
wants?"
    "Both, I've no doubt at all."
    She flashed her eyes at him. "Intriguing,"
she said. He saw her fingers fidgeting with the hem of her skirt,
drawing his eyes down to the alluring sight of her thighs. "You
guys must have girls queuing up for dates, huh?"
    "Not especially," Dylan said, his mind
scrabbling for some kind of explanation other than - well, most
guys who know how the biology of the female body works are so shy
and socially awkward they won't manage to even talk to a girl until
at least college graduation.
    Instead, he said: "Trouble, I think a lot of
girls don't seem to know what they want."
    There was another pause. Dylan wondered if
he'd offended her by suggesting girls didn't know what they wanted
in a guy. That all their problems were their own fault.
    But she broke the pause by saying: "I know
what I want."
    "That's good. I like a girl who knows what
she wants."
    Jumping Jehoshaphat - where did that come
from? That was flirting, wasn't it? Class-A, triple-distilled.
Where on Earth did that come from?
    Noelle said: "So Dylan, do you like it when a
girl tells you what she wants?"
    Dylan felt all aflutter - so light, he could
have floated away if there