Almost Perfect Read Online Free Page A

friends.
    Sage, on the other hand, seemed to warm up to anyone nearby. By the time I got to class, she was already sitting at the lab table laughing with Tim. Annoyed, I plopped down next to her.
    “And that’s when they told Jack he was no longer welcome at Chuck E. Cheese’s,” finished Tim.
    Sage’s laughter boomed across the lab. Then she turned to me.
    “You’ve got something on your shirt, Logan.”
    I looked down and she bopped me on the nose. Kind of hard.
    As I pretended to blow my nose to make sure it wasn’t bleeding, I looked at Sage. She had forced her spirals of hair into two pigtails. She wore ragged jeans and a short-sleeved sweater. Her arms were almost solidly freckled.
    Brenda wouldn’t be caught dead in an outfit like that. And she wouldn’t have bopped a strange guy in the nose. And she always seemed annoyed around Tim and Jack. I used to think her stuffiness was kind of sweet. Now it just seemed irritating.
    The bell rang before I could be charming. Luckily, Tim volunteered to go get the frog, so I had a couple of seconds.
    “So, Sage, where are you from?” I asked. It totallysounded like a pickup line. I might as well have been wearing an open-collared disco shirt.
    “Near Joplin. Hey, I forgot my pencil. Give me yours.”
    I handed her my only pencil. “Joplin’s, like, three hours away. Why did you move here?”
    Sage ignored the question. “Tim was telling me about you.”
    I smiled as my brain went into full panic. Tim had known me long enough that he had some real dirt on me.
    “What did he say?” I asked with the nonchalance of an FBI interrogator.
    Sage was picking through the various plastic bags of candy on Tim’s side of the table. “He said you run track. I believe it; you’re in great shape.”
    Sage turned back to me and unashamedly scoped me from top to bottom. I felt like I should be hanging in a butcher’s window, the way she was checking me out. It was a great feeling. I tried to flex without making it too obvious.
    Apparently, she wasn’t content with just looking. “Here, make a muscle.”
    I obediently showed her my bicep, the result of years of shoving around a lawn mower. Sage clutched my forearm, squeezing me with her painted nails. Her hands were soft.
    “Wow!” she said, not letting go. “I’m surprised you don’t play football.”
    When a girl you hardly know starts touching you, it’s hard to think about anything else. It didn’t seem to be the right moment to explain that I’d tried out for the team but never made it. I didn’t have the bulk or the coordination.
    Luckily, Tim showed up at that moment with the deadfrog, causing Sage to release me. As Tim feng shuied the frog, the dissection tools, and his food, I tried to get my brain back on track. Brenda was the last girl who had ever touched me for that long (except my sister, but she had had me in a headlock). I’d forgotten how nice it could feel.
    “So, do you play any sports?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation going.
    “Nope,” she said with a shrug.
    I tried to be complimentary. “Maybe you should. I think you’d be good at bas …”
    Sage’s smile collapsed into a scowl. Tim, who’d been flipping frog organs around like a master Japanese chef, grimaced.
    Nice, Logan. Tell the really tall girl she should play basketball
.
    I tried to recover. “… baaass fishing?”
    Sage frowned, then suddenly burst out laughing. She shoved me in the chest with her open palm but didn’t remove her hand from my chest.
    “Sage, Logan, get to work, please,” came the warning voice of Mr. Elmer.
    Sage sat up in her chair and began pointedly reading the lab instructions. After a few seconds, her eyes crept over the top of the paper. I’d never had anyone smile at me like that before. And I couldn’t even see her mouth.
    Five minutes before the bell, I stowed the frog in the lab fridge. Tim was packing up his hourly buffet when I returned to the table. Sage was at the front of the