Kissing the Shy Guy - Stephanie Street Page 0,19

her a hug. She might be older than me, but she’d grown up only fifteen minutes away. We used to see each other at least once a month before she graduated high school and moved away to go to college.

“Did you see Jenna Bradford,” she murmured in my ear before pulling back and widening her eyes at me.

“Yeah,” I answered out of the corner of my mouth. “I ran into her outside. She was putting trash bags in the dumpster.”

Megan bit her lip to hold back a grin, but her eyes twinkled with amusement. “I know! What in the world is going on?”

“She said her mom is one of the ladies who provided the dinner.” I scanned the room again, this time looking for Jenna. I found her near the buffet table, collecting empty food containers with all the efficiency of a veteran waitress.

“Seriously?” Megan followed my gaze. We watched together as Jenna carried the dishes through the open door to the kitchen. “Weird.”

“I know, right? I didn’t know she had it in her.”

“Who, Jenna?” This time it was Laura whispering at my side. “I about died when I saw her earlier.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Kyle asked. He pulled out a chair for me and then another for himself. Another cousin, Jonathan, dragged a second table closer to the first. All the teen and young adult cousins gathered around to talk.

“Nothing. It’s no big deal.” Annoying as Jenna might be, the girl was here doing a good deed. She didn’t need us gossiping about her, especially within earshot.

Laura had no such qualms. She leaned toward Kyle and began talking in low tones. “That girl is Jenna Bradford. She goes to our school. And I’ll just say this—Regina George.”

Every face around the two tables cleared. Apparently, we’d all seen Mean Girls.

“She’s not that bad, is she?” I asked Laura. Sure, I’d heard Jarom talk about how controlling she could be and that she’d made this girl, Sasha from choir, cry. But I doubted she kept a secret mean diary.

Laura gave me a look. “Are you kidding?” She glanced around the table. “She’s awful.”

“What has she ever done to you?” It was one thing to hear distant rumblings about what Jenna had done to other people, but her giving my own sister a hard time was another.

Laura faced me again and rolled her eyes. The tip of her nose had turned red, a sure sign of embarrassment. But she wouldn’t let that stop her, not even in front of our cousins. “I already told you about it last semester.”

I stared blankly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Laura squinted her eyes at me but turned to the table at large to tell her story—quietly. “Ms. Jackson picked me to sing a solo at our Christmas concert. I worked for weeks preparing by myself, and when I performed it in front of the choir, Jenna had a whole list of suggestions. She wouldn’t let up. Finally, I came up with some lame excuse and told Ms. Jackson I didn’t want to do it anymore.”

Justin, one of our out of town cousins, spoke up. “Your teacher didn’t realize what Regina was doing?”

Everyone snickered when he called her Regina, but then Kyle asked, “Did you stand up to her?”

Laura grinned, her expression smug. “No. I did better than that—I stole her boyfriend.”

Every set of eyes around the table bulged. But before anyone could say anything, Jenna walked within a few feet of us, picking up empty dishes and pushing in chairs. She walked with her back straight, but I wondered if she’d heard us talking about her. No one said another word until Jenna walked through the door to the kitchen again.

“Shut up!” Megan exclaimed, her voice carefully low despite her stunned disbelief.

I stared at my sister. “Are you talking about Josh Miller? He’s the guy you got a ride with the other day?”

Laura rolled her eyes. “What is your deal? Josh is a nice guy.” She grinned impishly. “And he’s totally into me. I’ve been working for months to get him away from her, and now he’s mine.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Do you even like him? Did he tell you he not only dumped her but dropped out of that fancy scholarship Diana got a few years ago?”

Laura waved her hand, dismissively. “Oh, that. Yeah, he was so glad to be done with that. Jenna’s such a diva. She’s never happy about anything, no matter how hard you