Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)(20)
“Cute outfit, Phoebe,” “Since when did you start channeling slutty?” and “Nice boots” followed me to my seat. But I didn’t pay attention to any of that. My lungs were already compressed into a golf-ball-sized lump somewhere in my throat.
I passed Dev’s desk and tried to make my hair bounce so it would fill the air with the scent of the cherry blossom shampoo I’d borrowed from Trixie. But instead of leaving behind a cloud of flowery prettiness, strands of my hair got stuck in the lipgloss Em had pushed on me the second I walked into the lobby. Ducking my head, I swiped at my face and hoped I didn’t pull pink streaks of gloss all over my cheeks.
I barely made it to the front of the classroom between fussing and tugging and feeling tempted to turn around and dart to the nurse’s office. It was just Dev, the same Dev as always. So, why were my palms all sweaty?
Maybe he’d see me differently, now that I looked different. Maybe he’d see me dressed like this and ask if I wanted to grab a water ice at Marranos after school or something?
Never in a million years.
I focused on the new binder Grace had given me as an ‘accessory,’ my finger tracing the cute little teal skulls. Leave it to her to think of details like this that fit me perfectly. One skull even sported a pair of oversized glasses and a giant bow.
I didn’t hear him at first. The skull and crossbone Converse entered my line of vision and I looked up. Dev dropped his bookbag onto the floor and slipped into the seat in front of me—which was going to annoy Sarah, who had had that seat since September—and turned around to wave a book at me.
I took it out of his hands and studied the cover. “Sentinel Eighteen?” It was the latest YA dystopian novel, number two on the New York Times bestseller list for weeks. I passed the book back to him, but not before catching that he was a dog-earer. It hurt my heart to see page abuse like that, but I’d deal.
“You told me to pick up a book or two and call you in the morning. I didn’t have your number, so I figured this is second best.” He flashed that grin again, the one that had gotten under my skin on Saturday and now made me speechless. What was wrong with me? Maybe it was the way he held the book, with his thumb absently running over the raised swirls on the cover. It was kind-of hot. Sarah appeared over his shoulder and glowered over both of us before making a grumbly sound and moving up to an empty seat no one ever took because they said a kid died in it. She was too much of a kiss-up to take a seat in the back of the room. “I also picked up Ghost Warrior.” Dev added, like he was prompting me for a response.
Ohmigod, Phoebe. Talk. I forced my jaw to move. “Nice picks. I’ve heard awesome things about both of them.”
“It’s really good so far.” He slipped the book back into his backpack and leaned closer in the process, his eyes scrunching a bit as his smile grew wider. “So, how did the signing go? Did the crazy girl behind you tackle anyone for cutting in line?”
His comment caught me off guard and I let out an embarrassingly loud non-Marissa-like snort. “No, but she almost shoved me out of line to get to Niamh.” He raised his eyebrows, as if prompting me to keep speaking, and so I added, “And the signing was really good.”
“You got your bow signed?”
I nodded. “I did, and she said she loved my costume.”
“Definitely sounds like it was good.”
“It was.” My manners kicked in and I quickly said, “Thanks for hanging out with me in line.”
“It was fun. When I’m done these, we’ll have to hang out again so you can give me some more book suggestions.”
Ohmigosh. Was he asking me out or did he mean just a lunch table/band/the next time he bumped into me at the mall kind of “hanging out?” I hunted for something to say. Something Marissa-like. Flirty or witty or just anything. Like tugging on his shirt and saying it made him look as hot as the model on the Sentinel cover. Or pretending to fakesteal his book so he’d have to reach into my bookbag to get it back. But then my mouth defaulted to book-geekery info dump. “Maybe. Sounds like you’re into sci-fi/dystopian.”
“Um, okay…”
I smiled as the late bell rang and Ms. Zhdanova stood up. Marissa always glanced up winsomely through her eyelashes. I tried, nearly crossed my eyes, and had to blink a few times to see straight again. “I’m paranormal and fantasy, myself. Well, mostly. But I’ll think about it and let you know.”
Dev turned to face the board, but threw his answer over his shoulder in a stage whisper. “Aren’t those books about girls who make out with vampires or ghosts?”
He caught me off guard with that one and I gave off a snort-y laugh that made Ms. Zhdanova pause midsentence and look right at me. I covered my mouth and waited until she went back to talking about Brave New World.
I never talked in class, but I couldn’t help one last answer. I leaned forward and whispered as seriously as I could. “Leprechauns, actually.”
Dev’s shoulders shook with silent laughter.
12
“Wait. Say that again?” Em pretended to study her sheet music while Ms. Osoba ran the clarinets through their section for the fifth time.
“He said he didn’t have my number so he wanted to show me the book he bought.” I told her, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. Why she insisted on dissecting every tiny conversation was beyond me.