Winter's Kiss Read Free Page A

goading Nick and me about each other. I certainly understood what Chloe saw in him, even though he drove her crazy too.
    Gavin turned to her. “Give me some gum.”
    “No.”
    Liz and I dodged out of the way as Gavin backed Chloe against the lockers and shoved both his hands into the front pockets of her jeans. You might think the class president would find a way to stop this sort of manhandling, but actually she didn’t seem to mind too much.
    By now the crowd had dispersed. Nick and Davis were walking down the hall together, getting smaller and smaller until I couldn’t see them anymore past a knot of freshman girls squealing about the Poser concert and how they were working extra shifts at the souvenir shop to pay for the expensive tickets. Go home, people. I resisted the urge to stand on my tiptoes for one more peek at Nick. If I didn’t run into him on the slopes, this might be the last I saw of him for ten whole days.
    “I don’t have any gum!” Chloe squealed through fits of giggling, trying to push Gavin off. “Gavin!” She finally shoved him away.
    He jogged down the hall to catch up with Nick and Davis, holding the paper-wrapped stick of gum aloft triumphantly.
    “That was my last piece!” Chloe called.
    I never would have admitted that Gavin’s gum theft made me jealous. Nick was bad for me, I knew. He was the last person on earth I wanted to steal my gum. Still, I stepped to one side so I could see him behind the Poser fangirls. I watched him turn with Gavin and Davis and disappear down the stairs, and I couldn’t help but feel like a little kid on Halloween night, standing in the doorway in my witch costume with my plastic cauldron for trick-or-treat candy, watching the rain come down. Such sweet promise, and now I was out of luck. Damn.
    Chloe stared after the boys too. I assumed she really wanted that gum. Then she looked at me. “Oh my God, did Nick ask you out? It sounded like he was asking you out, but we couldn’t quite tell. Ms. Abernathy finally came to check on you because the whole first row got up from their desks and pressed their ears to the door.”
    I answered honestly. “For a second there, I thought he was going to ask me out.”
    “But he didn’t?” Liz wailed.
    To hide my disappointment, I bent down to stuff my chemistry notebook into my backpack as I shook my head.
    “At least you got a see you around ,” Chloe pointed out. “Normally if he bothered to say good-bye to you at all, he would do it by popping your bra.”
    “True,” I acknowledged. And then I realized what was going on here. Chloe and Liz had been hinting that I should go out with Nick now that they were dating Nick’s friends, but at the moment they seemed even more eager and giddy about it than usual. I straightened, folded my arms across my chest, and glared at Chloe and then Liz. “Please do not tell me you put Nick up to asking me to the Poser concert.”
    Chloe stared right back at me. But Liz, the weakest link, glanced nervously at Chloe like they were busted.
    “Come on now.” I stamped one foot. “Even y’all aren’t going to the Poser concert with Gavin and Davis. It’s too expensive.”
    “Nick has more money than God,” Chloe pointed out.
    I turned on Liz. “You really want me to go out with him after I told you he made that fire-crotch comment about me?” Liz was all about people being respectful of one another. We were in school with teenage boys and this was asking a lot, I know.
    “That did sound disrespectful,” she admitted. “Are you sure he didn’t mean it in a friendly way?”
    Incredible. Even Liz’s sense of chivalry and honor was crushed under the juggernaut called Wouldn’t It Be Cute/Ironic If Nick and Hayden Dated Again.
    “What if he did ask you out?” Liz bounced excitedly, and her dark curls bounced with her. “Oh my God, what if you saw him on the slopes over the break and he asked you to the Poser concert? What would you say?”
    I considered this. Part