right.
Crap! I was meeting here there. “But she still agreed to go…”
“Mmhmm,” Simone started to smirk as she took a few steps backwards. “Just after she got you to admit that she was the most beautiful girl…what was it?” She snapped her fingers. “That’s right. In the universe.”
She shook her head with a laugh as she turned and walked away from me. Making her officially the second girl to walk away from me in so many minutes. The third if you counted Hannah, too.
I stared at Simone’s back as she got swallowed up by the crowd, her words registering like a blow with each passing second.
Well, crap.
What on earth had just happened back there?
9
Rose
Hannah and I both had study hall after lunch and she’d nicely offered to help me with my fundraiser, since it was becoming very clear that I might have bitten off more than I could chew.
“What was that back there?” Hannah asked when we were alone in the auditorium.
It was also becoming very clear that Hannah was less interested in helping me than in getting the scoop on me and Jax.
Not that there was a scoop to be had. There wasn’t. Not even a little one.
“That,” I said as I snapped open my binder filled with to-do lists, “was nothing.”
Her brows arched as she sank back into one of the auditorium seats. Amusement glinted in her eyes as she tossed her long brown ponytail over her shoulder. “It didn’t seem like nothing. Why’d you pretend that you didn’t know he had a band? We listened to their demo months ago and you loved it.”
My jaw clenched as I stared down at the papers in front of me unseeingly. I hadn’t told Hannah about the bet. I’d stewed over it the whole way home in the car, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to talk about it.
It was humiliating.
“Rose?” Hannah’s voice softened and I looked up to see her watching me with gentle eyes.
Shoot. Hannah being nice was my Achilles’ heel and she knew it. I felt tears sting the back of my eyes and cursed under my breath.
This was the other reason I hadn’t told her. I didn’t want my best friend feeling sorry for me because I was pathetic.
And I was pathetic.
But not telling Hannah wasn’t going to make me any less pathetic. I told her the whole story quickly and when I was done she was glaring so fiercely I almost feared for Jax’s life.
“What a jerk!”
I nodded. I’d never thought of Jax as a jerk before. Conceited, yes. Hot, of course. Funny, sometimes. Charming—my heart did a funny little flip at the memory of his lips brushing against my ear as he told me I was the prettiest girl in the universe.
Yeah, the guy definitely had game. He knew how to flirt and he knew just how irresistible he was to the opposite sex.
To me.
I swallowed hard.
Of all the guys in this school, it hurt that it was Jax who’d made this bet. The worst part was, I couldn’t even say why.
Maybe because I had really nice memories of my time with him. I’d hung out with plenty of guys over the last two years but my time with Jax was different. Even after all this time, my memory of those two weeks was still clear as day. I thought about it more than I cared to admit, and maybe a little part of me even…treasured it.
I always figured that when I went off to college, he’d be the one I referred to as the one who got away. He’d be the one I told my new college friends about. The first crush, the first date…
My first kiss.
And he’d gone and ruined all those memories by making a bet about me.
“Are you okay?” Hannah asked.
“Me? I’m fine.” I managed a scoff that probably fooled no one.
She studied me in silence for a second. “So what’s your plan? How do you want to play this?”
I smiled, and this time it felt somewhat natural. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to play his game…only better.”
“You’re gonna make him fall for you and then ditch him before payday,” she said.
My smile grew with grim satisfaction. “That’s the plan.”
I waited for Hannah to laugh. To roll her eyes. I didn’t see the sad sigh coming, nor the hug that nearly tackled me off my high heels. “Oh, Rose, I’m so sorry.”
I patted her back awkwardly because her embrace had pinned my arms to my sides. “It’s not