My Know-It-All Nemesis - Maggie Dallen Page 0,8

as they both waited for my answer.

A part of me wanted to annoy her—say something to make her swipe at me with those claws like an angry kitten. But I wasn’t about to get the girl fired. I wasn’t that mean.

“Nope. Just enjoying the fine service at this lovely establishment,” I said.

The weasely looking teen didn’t look satisfied—or even like he believed me—but he did walk away. Kate, I noticed, slumped slightly when he did.

“Hey, Kate, I didn’t—”

“Just go,” she said, her tone lacking in heat, which was...weird.

Unnerving, even.

“I’m not going to—”

“I said go,” she hissed.

Now there was the spitfire I knew so well. I held up my hands as I backed away to join my teammates. “Fine. I’m gone.” I gave her an obnoxious wink because... Well, because I liked angry Kate a whole heck of a lot more than self-conscious, blushing Kate.

Spitfire Kate was scary, but an insecure Kate?

That was terrifying.

3

Kate

The next day I flipped through the racks at the Goodwill with a frown. “It was humiliating.”

My older sister, Daphne, might have been listening to me, but it was hard to tell, what with her head buried in a rack of winter coats. “It doesn’t sound like it was that bad,” her muffled voice said from inside the rack.

I turned to stare at her back. “I was wearing a chicken hat.”

She gave a grunt of acknowledgement—or maybe it was a muffled laugh.

“What are you doing in there?” I asked.

“I thought I saw…” She gave another grunt before falling back out of the rack with a triumphant grin. “Calvin Klein,” she said, holding the pale green coat up like a prize.

I nodded thoughtfully. “That has potential.”

She beamed as she looked from me to the coat. “Doesn’t it though?”

Daphne was home from college for the weekend, and the minute I’d walked in the door from work this afternoon and started whining about my day, she’d declared it a shopping emergency.

This was what we did—what we’d been doing since I was in the fourth grade and Daphne was in junior high. We’d head to Goodwill, scavenge for all the best pieces and then take them home and go all Project Runway on them.

It was our version of retail therapy.

And apparently all that thrift shopping and the homemade alterations had made me the butt of yet another joke, thanks to Miller-freakin’-Hardwell. I gave the next row of clothes a shove and the metal hangars screeched against the rack.

Daphne dropped the coat in her basket and gave me a no-nonsense stare that I had no doubt would do her well in law school next year. “Let’s be real, sis. It was just jeans, a T-shirt, and a silly hat. Not that big a deal. I mean, it’s not like he saw you in that ridiculous gorilla costume—”

I winced at the memory of my summer as a cartoon character at the nearby amusement park.

“And it’s definitely a step up from anyone seeing you in the baby-barf brown uniform you used to wear at the diner, remember?”

I pulled my lips back in a grimace and shuddered. “Don’t even remind me.”

She nudged my shoulder. “So what’s the problem?”

“Nothing, it’s just…” Everything. I couldn’t shake the image of Miller and the way he’d looked at me. Like he’d never seen me before. Like he was revolted by the sight of me. Eyes wide, jaw slack, he’d gaped at me like I was a sideshow attraction.

Nope. Just me. Dressed like a hooker.

So humiliating.

“You’re overreacting,” Daphne said.

I huffed in irritation. Okay, fine, so maybe I hadn’t looked like a hooker, but I’d felt way more exposed than I liked. And in front of Miller, of all people.

That had been the real kicker.

It would have been a little embarrassing in front of the other guys, but most of them had known me since grade school. I considered each of them a friend, of sorts. Or friendly acquaintances, at the very least.

But Miller?

Ugh. It was bad enough that I had a rival. I certainly didn’t want said rival to see my navel. Was that so wrong?

I didn’t think so.

Daphne came to stand beside me and flicked through the hangers faster than me going in the opposite direction. She was more of a hasty grazer, and I was a thorough searcher. Alone, we were both excellent thrift store foragers, but together? We were unstoppable.

“I still don’t see the big deal,” Daphne said.

I sighed loudly, my wispy, eternally frustrating bangs flying in the breeze as I did. Of course, Daphne wouldn’t get it.