Lying Out Loud(20)

Mr. Buckley and Ryder both turned to face me. But I was totally cool. Because while communicating with Ryder may have made me a nervous wreck, lying about it was something I could do in my sleep.

“Excuse me, Ms. Ardmore?”

“Ryder wasn’t passing me a note,” I said. I’d already swiped the paper off my desk and hidden it in my lap while Mr. Buckley was looking at Ryder. “He was … tossing me something else.”

“Oh? And what’s that?”

“I’m not sure if I should say, Mr. Buckley.”

“You can either say it to me or the principal, Ms. Ardmore. Your choice.”

“Oh, okay. Ryder was tossing me a … uh … sanitary napkin. It fell out of my purse and he was giving it back to me.”

“A … oh.” Mr. Buckley’s face had turned quite red.

Ryder, however, looked confused. I wondered if he’d ever heard a pad referred to as a sanitary napkin. Since he hadn’t grown up reading Judy Blume novels, I doubted it.

“Sorry about that, Ms. Ardmore,” Mr. Buckley choked out. “I didn’t mean to draw attention to … such a private matter.”

“No big deal,” I said. “It’s just a pad.”

Now Ryder had caught up. But, to his credit, he looked only slightly uncomfortable. Which was more than I could say for Mr. Buckley. While the class broke out into giggles, he looked totally mortified.

God, male teachers were so easy.

“Let’s get back to England, shall we?” He turned to the board.

I sat back in my chair, fighting a smirk. It paid to be shameless.

After another half hour of taking notes, the bell rang. I leaned forward as Ryder shoved papers into his neatly labeled history folder.

“Sorry if I embarrassed you,” I said.

“You didn’t.”

His voice was stiff, and he didn’t look at me as he got to his feet. I stood, too, and for a minute, I thought he was going to walk out of the classroom without another word. But to my surprise, he turned to face me.

“Thank you,” he said. “For the lie. The weird, slightly over-the-top lie that, nonetheless, kept me out of trouble.”

Did he just use nonetheless in casual conversation? Oh, I knew I liked him.

“Hey, what are non-enemies for?” I asked. “Besides, it was my note. I couldn’t let you take credit for my rule breaking. People might start thinking you were cool.”

The corners of his mouth twitched, like his lips wanted to smile but his brain refused to let them.

I saw it, though. And somehow, I knew I’d just succeeded at something.

“See you around, Ryder,” I said, my shoulder grazing his as I moved past him, heading for the classroom door.

I didn’t look back, but part of me, the part that had seen a thousand bad romantic comedies, hoped he was watching me walk away.

Amy was waiting for me outside of the classroom, and we headed toward second block together.

“How did it go?” she asked.

I smirked up at her, Ryder’s almost-smile flooding me with unexpected confidence. “He’ll be mine soon enough.”





Okay, so maybe I was a little overconfident. Just, like, a tiny bit.

But so far my plan was working pretty brilliantly. On Tuesday, I asked Ryder if I could borrow a pen, and he let me. And on Thursday, he helped me pick up my books after I accidentally-on-purpose knocked them off my desk.

Progress!

My plan had one fatal flaw, however, because while I was making Ryder not despise me, making him not adore Amy was proving to be impossible.

Ryder, obviously thinking he and Amy had a great cyber connection, kept trying to connect with her in real life. Over the next week, he walked up to her in the hallways at school, waved to her in the parking lot, and he continued asking her to sit with him at lunch.

Amy always gave an excuse, but that was the problem. Amy was so sweet, so polite, that no one would realize she was trying to avoid them.

“We’ve got to do something about this,” I said. “Steering clear of him isn’t going to be enough.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” she said. We’d met in the parking lot before school that morning and were walking into the building together. “And he keeps texting me the sushi emoji.”

I laughed.

“I don’t get it,” she said.

“It’s an inside joke. We had an emoji war once. It ended over emoji sushi.”

“Well, I don’t know how to respond to it.”

“Don’t,” I said. “In fact … let me do it. You might be too nice to scare him off, but I’m not. Here. Give me your phone.”

She pulled it from her purse and handed it over. “You can hold on to it,” she said. “Like I told you before — the only people who ever call or text me are you and my brother. Well, and Ryder now, I guess, but he’s actually texting you, so …”

I pocketed the phone and gave her a one-armed hug. “Thank you. Have I told you lately that you’re the best, most generous, prettiest friend I have?”

“Yes. Last night when I let you borrow my nail polish.”

“Right.”

“And again five minutes ago when I let you have the last sip of my coffee.”