Operation Prom Date (Tactics in Flirting, #1)(23)

Damn vultures. They saw a sweet girl with a nice body, and now that they thought she might be open to a little fun, they swooped in to take advantage of that sweetness.

I moved over to her, stepping slightly in front of her. “Yeah. Guess it’s good that we took off early.”

Kate’s hand curled around my arm, and I glanced down, my icy mood thawing a bit.

But she wasn’t looking at me. Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip as she grinned at none other than Mick Pecker, that lucky bastard.

“Hey, Kate,” he said, a cocky smile on his stupid face. “We still need to have that conversation about colleges.”

“Totally.” Her voice came out breathless, yet loud enough to make my pulse kick up a notch, and from the goofy look on Pecker’s face, he felt the impact, too. She ran her finger across her silver necklace, causing the fat charm there to swing back and forth in a hypnotizing fashion. “Find me later?”

He nodded and moved on, but he cast another glance over his shoulder before he turned the corner.

Great. Suddenly she was all smooth and flirty? What had I done? I was starting to hate myself for thinking this would work—I mean, it had worked. So I guess I mostly hated myself for being successful.

“Who knew that one party was all it’d take for my classmates to see me instead of see through me,” Kate said, her voice low so that only I’d hear. “Monte’s locker is right next to mine, and the only thing he’s ever said to me before is ‘Please move.’”

Jaden patted the books under his arm. “I better get to class. One more tardy and I have to serve in detention.” He looked at me. “You coming, Callihan?”

“One sec.” I turned to Kate. “Meet me at my truck after school?”

“That’s the plan.”

“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to claim to be too sore so you could try to wiggle out of it.”

Her mouth dropped, her expression mock shock. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Especially after you delivered so impressively this weekend.” She said the last part loud enough it gained the attention of not just the guys who’d already been swarming, but several more people. She probably didn’t realize how it sounded, either.

My gaze traveled over her in an attempt to land on somewhere that didn’t give me inappropriate thoughts, but every place it landed only made me think about her hips, her butt, her curves, her lips, and that eye-grabbing silver ribbon.

That bow under her ear is just begging for one good yank. I wanted to be the one to do it, too. And that’s definitely my cue to go.

“I’ll catch you later, then.” As I started away, I heard someone else call her name.

At least I’d secured every afternoon for the next few weeks before she turned into the most popular girl in school.

I quickened my pace and caught up to Jaden, but I couldn’t help casting one more glance Kate’s way.

“She’s cute,” Jaden said.

“I know.” In fact, more and more, it’s all I can think about.

“So you and her are…?”

“Friends.”

“Good to know.” The smug smile that spread across his face made me want to punch it off him, something I never felt toward Jaden, even when we argued about training and times.

“Don’t bother. She’s interested in Pecker.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized I shouldn’t have said them. She got weird about people knowing, and there were too many ears around. I’d reacted more out of wanting to keep the competition down, even though there was no competition.

She wanted Mick. She had an operation named for landing him and everything. And apparently I needed to be reminded of that fact over and over.

…

I thought I looked forward to the end of the school day and getting out on the lake before, but adding Kate to the mix took my anticipation to the next level. At least at the lake, it was just me and her, none of her ever-growing fan club.

Instead of making me maneuver the boat into the water myself on Wednesday afternoon, she took the initiative. But she definitely paused to scan the water, and I immediately knew why.

Yesterday we’d seen Pecker from afar—he was in a kayak and far enough away the only thing Kate could do was wave and yell hello—but it probably gave them something to talk about today, and stupid me, I’d given her that tip. I figured it was the lesser of the evils between rowing over to him and watching them flirt as I sat in the boat like a chump.

Thanks to overhearing a conversation between him and one of his cohorts last period, at least I knew today they were planning on playing football at the school field.

She’s all mine today. I shook my head at myself, because that sounded a little too creepy villain for my tastes. What I meant was we wouldn’t have any distractions of the jock kind. Not to mention the sun was shining, birds were happily chirping—something Kate had pointed out she loved—and all that glistening water was just begging to be glided across.

Kate gave up her search and focused on the boat. “You want to jump in first?”

“Go ahead. I’ll hold it for you.”

She shrugged and climbed in. I stepped inside, balancing my weight to keep the boat from wobbling too much. I sat down and grabbed the oars, ready to get out there, but then I decided we could take a few minutes to catch up—she’d been texting about some group assignment the entire drive over.