Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,76
Java Cup turned out to be only a block and a half away from the library, and by the time Kylie parked she decided they would have gotten there faster walking. The coffee shop itself was quaint, though. Kylie liked the atmosphere, with cork walls covered with posters, some of which looked like they’d been hanging there for years. When she saw the young people behind the counter, with their piercings and tattoos, her impression of the place dropped. It was a teenage hangout in disguise.
“I never dreamed of drinking coffee at your age,” Kylie mused.
“Whatever, like you are so much older than I am.” Dani rolled her eyes and breathed in the aroma of her drink. “I can’t start my day without a cup.”
“Not me.” Mandy led the way to a doorway that entered into a smaller room where two computers and then several tables with decks of cards and magazines were scattered. “It’s Pepsi all the way, baby.”
“Whatever happened to orange juice for breakfast?” Kylie took the chair next to the computer chair, letting the girls decide who would sit at the helm.
“God, I told them you were cool.” Dani nudged Kylie. “Don’t embarrass me.”
“I’ll try not to,” Kylie said dryly, giving Dani a look to say she should consider herself lucky to be hanging with Kylie.
The look worked, surprisingly, when Dani grinned easily and nudged her way between her friends to take the seat in front of the monitor.
“Mandy, there’s James.”
“Where?” Mandy spun around with enough force that she almost toppled sideways. She then turned back to face them so quickly it was comical. “Don’t say anything,” she hissed.
Nancy and Dani giggled and Kylie searched the small room and then looked through the doorway into the larger shop area where a handful of teenagers now huddled in a group, as if plotting their moves while they were at the Java Cup.
It was odd sitting with the three girls, listening to them tease and insult one another and then profess their love in the next sentence. By the time Kylie was fourteen, her teenage years had ended. Kylie didn’t have one memory of hanging out with girlfriends like this. Dani and her friends believed Kylie was a lot younger than she actually was, but that was their assumption. Mandy told a joke and Kylie found herself laughing with the other girls. It was easy fitting in with them, their lifestyle so simple and dramatized that it took little effort to act their age.
“Whoa, dude,” Mandy said, and laughed, pointing at the screen when Dani logged in. “Look at all of your off-line messages.”
Kylie leaned in, staring at the list of messages that appeared over Dani’s buddy list as soon as she signed into her chat program. Apparently Dani used Yahoo! Messenger, which offered a list of comments people had sent her while she’d been signed off.
Nancy leaned over the back of Dani’s chair and rested her arms on Dani’s shoulders. “Who is Pfietterphish?” she asked.
“It’s pronounced ‘Peter Fish,’ and it’s Petrie, that exchange student I worked on my German assignment with last semester. Remember?”
Kylie leaned in, noting the spelling of the screen name while her stomach twisted into a cruel knot. She didn’t want to think about Peter stalking Dani. But if he was, with her uncle being a cop it would make sense that Peter would disguise his screen name and the name he gave her.
“Where is he from?” Kylie asked, trying to sound unconcerned while she slowly repeated the screen name and how it was spelled in her head, saving it to memory.
“Spain, but he speaks several different languages and he helped me get an A in German.” Dani highlighted each message and read it before deleting it.
“Have you met him?” Kylie tried not to be too obvious but managed to catch a few of the messages before Dani deleted them. It looked as if the two of them were rather flirty online. The cruel knot in Kylie’s gut rose to her throat, leaving a bile taste in her mouth.
“No, but . . .” Dani turned and met Kylie’s gaze. “Oh no, dude. Don’t even go there.”
“What?” Kylie asked.
“I know you aren’t more than five years or so older than me, but sometimes you get this really adult attitude about you. And no offense, but it’s really annoying.”
“What did I say?” Kylie asked, managing to sound wounded and fighting to stay calm so she could learn as much as possible about Petrie.