Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(48)

“I wouldn’t have put it that way, but . . . yeah,” Lauren said.

Wallace shrugged and handed me his phone. “Makes sense.”

“Thank you!” I cried. “What’s Peter’s number?”

Lauren read it to me and I dialed it into the text box, which took way longer than I expected, since every number I hit came up as another number. I groaned in frustration. The one thing I couldn’t stand about this damn phone was the touch-screen keypad. If I could only use my powers . . .

“It takes a little while to master it,” Wallace said, patting me on the back. “Patience, Luddite.”

I gave a tense laugh, turned away, closed my eyes, and pictured the number. When I opened them again, the digits had appeared on the screen. It was just a small thing. Nothing Zeus would ever notice. I hoped.

“Okay. Here goes. Let’s pray he has his phone on.” I typed in my message.

AY SACE AMD VIDTWS. VLAIDOA HETR WORG AOE GIT HUT.

My lips pursed. Screw it. Sometimes a girl just had to use her powers. And until I had time to practice with this thing, this was a necessary evil. I kept my back to Wallace and Lauren, closed my eyes again, and pretended to text. When I opened them, the message was clear.

AT DAVE AND BUSTERS. CLAUDIA HERE WITH SOME HOT GUY.

I hit send and turned around. The three of us gathered close and stared at the screen, awaiting a reply. Finally the phone vibrated in my hands, startling me so much I almost dropped it into the fountain. Wallace gasped and grabbed it from me.

“I got this.” He read the text to us. “He wants to know who I am.”

“Say ‘A friend,’?” I instructed.

Wallace typed it in and hit send. Peter texted back.

“?‘Is she with that Lance dude from Ridgefield?’?” Wallace read.

Lauren sighed. “He is so paranoid about Lance, and I’m, like, ninety percent sure the guy is gay.”

“Type, ‘No. Someone from St. Joe’s’—”

“Say he’s wearing a varsity football jacket!” Lauren instructed. “That’ll get him.”

“But don’t tell him who it is,” I added. “We need the shock value.”

“Nice,” Lauren intoned, and we slapped hands. Wallace typed and hit send. We stared at the phone and waited. And waited. And waited. People shuffled around us and chatted, tossed coins into the fountain, tried to calm their overtired babies. The phone remained silent.

“He’s not texting back,” Wallace said finally.

“Do you think it worked?” Lauren asked.

“Definitely. He’s not texting because he’s on his way over here,” I said, crossing my fingers behind my back for luck. I hoped that maybe, just maybe, since we were at the central gathering point of the mall, Harmonia would smile down at us and nudge things in the right direction. I looked up at the ceiling and smiled. “Guaranteed.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


Claudia


“So how long have you been taking dance lessons?” Keegan asked before biting into a huge bacon cheeseburger. Nearby the video games dinged and clanged and exploded as people shouted and laughed. It was Friday night, and it seemed as if every twentysomething in a fifty-mile radius had decided to unwind here.

“Since I was three,” I replied, spearing a dainty bite of my salad. “My mom took me to see The Nutcracker at Carnegie Hall, and I thought I was in heaven. I wore a tutu everywhere I went for, like, a year after that.”

“Really?” He laughed and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “I bet you look cute in a tutu.”

I blushed. “Cuter then, probably.”

“Yeah. Now you probably look hot.”

I laughed nervously, feeling flattered. “Well, maybe you’ll come see me dance sometime, and then you can tell me.”

He sucked some ketchup off his pinky. “Yeah. Maybe.”

The waitress came by to refill my water glass and brought Keegan a new soda.

“Thanks,” I said as Keegan reached for his drink.

“Anytime,” she replied. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

“So, big game tomorrow,” I said.

He grabbed a couple of fries. “Yeah, I guess.”

I stared. He casually chugged some soda, then picked up his burger again. Keegan was 100 percent Peter’s opposite. He’d never casually shrugged off a game in his life, and there was no way he’d be eating this much grease before a start.

“You’re not nervous?” I asked. “Thinking strategy . . . ?”

He tilted his head. “We have a game plan,” he said. “We stick to it, we’ll be fine.”

I wished I could have been so chill about my upcoming audition. Every time I thought about it, nervous butterflies started to mosh around my stomach. Even now, I felt guilty for being here instead of in the studio rehearsing. But there were other things in life besides dance. Important things. Like Peter.

“What about you? You coming to the game?” Keegan asked.

“Um . . . yeah, I guess.”

Keegan lifted his arm to wave at a pack of guys on the other side of the room, huddled around some shooting game. I tensed, waiting for him to beckon them over to join us, but he didn’t. Thank goodness. I wasn’t exactly interested in meeting Keegan’s friends. If this was going to be a one-and-done scenario, it would be easier for everyone if we kept it between us.