Secondary Characters (Novella) - By Rachel Schieffelbein Page 0,14

the movies in it and start straightening them, alphabetizing them, distracting myself by cleaning up. Even though it wasn’t a mess. I’ve been getting ready all day.

“You are not. You’re the biggest freaking chicken I know.”

“Just shut up, all right?” I snap at him. The girls are going to be here soon, and my hands are already sweating like an Olympian sprinter’s armpits.

“I will bet you ten bucks that I get another date with Amber before you get a date with Maybie.” He’s leaning forward on the couch looking up at me with a smug expression on his stupid face.

“I can’t believe Maybie even talked Amber into coming tonight. Even if Amber forgives you for ignoring her in favor of your phone, you were still pretty damn boring. If you want to get another date, you’re going to have to do a hell of a lot better than you did last weekend.”

He grins, showing his perfectly white teeth. “Well, tonight there won’t be a table between us.”

I shake my head. “You’re a tool.” The doorbell rings and my head spins toward the sound. Nick taps his hands against his knees. The bastard is all talk. He’s nervous as all hell, too.

Honestly, it kind of makes me feel better.

I wipe my palms on my jeans, and go answer the door. I take a deep breath, swing it open, and am greeted by a guy in a greasy shirt with a giant pizza box. “Thanks,” I say as I hand him the cash. I take the pizza down to the basement, where Nick has pulled down all the movies I had just so carefully organized.

***

Amber leans closer to the full-length mirror in her bedroom, her mouth stretched open as she puts on her mascara. Then she leans back, looks at her reflection and pouts. “What if it’s horrible?” she whines.

“You’ll live.”

She turns around and sticks out her bottom lip at me, putting her hands on her hips. It took her an hour to pick out her outfit. She finally settled on a pink-and-blue striped cardigan over a white slip top and her best jeans.

“It’s going to be fine,” I say in an attempt to comfort her. She’s way more nervous about this date than the first one.

So am I.

“Why are you freaking out anyway?” I ask her. “He’s the one who needs to prove he’s not a complete loser. You’re fine.”

“It is kind of cute he was all embarrassed about his mom texting him,” she says, twirling her mascara wand between her fingers before sliding it back into the bottle.

I know Lance asked me not to tell her, but of course I told her right away. There’s no way she would have agreed to this otherwise.

“But what if he wasn’t talking much last time because he thought I was boring? Or, what if he just really is boring? Ugh. He was so perfect in my head.” She plops down on her bed, wrinkling her nose.

I laugh at her. “First of all, you should always assume a guy will be about ten times dumber and a hundred times less romantic in real life than he is in your daydreams.”

She chucks the mascara bottle at me, then slouches back down and taps at her nails. She’s not normally the kind to get nervous before a date.

“Secondly,” I say loudly, making her look back up at me. “He doesn’t think you’re boring. He wouldn’t have had Lance beg me to beg you for another chance if he thought you were boring. And thirdly, he was nervous. Give him a break.” I find myself echoing Lance’s words. She’s Aphrodite to his Zeus.

I spin away from her and pretend to look through her eye shadows.

“It is pretty sweet that he was so nervous around me,” she says. “I mean, he’s so good looking I’d just never thought about him getting nervous, ya know?”

“Mm-hmm,” I mumble back, trying to pretend like I’m paying attention, when really, I’m trying to calm myself down by counting how many different shades of brown shadow she owns. She keeps talking about Nick’s eyes and his smile, but all I can think about are Lance’s eyes. Lance’s smile, the way it transforms his whole face and makes it nearly impossible not to smile back.

I’ve been anxious about tonight all week, too. Every time I see Lance in school my heart gets all fluttery and my stomach starts to dance an Irish jig.

Then, after what happened with Sophie yesterday, I swear I was ready