Chasing Midnight Read Online Free

she swerves hard around the corner. In an instant my own feet are on solid ground and Aly is chasing after her runaway board, which is racing straight into traffic. A car skids to a stop directly in front of her, its horn blaring and lights blinking. She pops her head up and smiles at the driver, mouthing “sorry,” before continuing to weave around the stopped cars, waving at anybody else who dares honk at her. I can’t stop laughing. Aly has literally stopped traffic.
    She’s almost across the street when I hear behind me an unmistakable voice just above the noise of the traffic.
    That voice.
    I spin around to find none other than James Odera, coming out of Tuxedo King, Tanner Slade on his right and a suit bag in hand. Two doors down from me. Two doors down. They’re in the middle of a conversation, and I can’t hear much of what they’re saying other than a few words here and there like ball, tonight, dude, no way . . .
    That’s about it.
    I inch closer, trying to hide myself behind a tree or a post or something inconspicuous. Anything and everything Aly and I were talking about earlier instantly vanishes from my mind at the sight of the two most eligible bachelors at Piedmont High walking down the street right in front of me.
    Here’s the deal. James Odera and Tanner Slade are in an entirely different league from everyone in the entire school.I mean, these boys are royalty. They belong in the movies—James with his coal-black hair and dark olive skin smoldering in muscles; and Tanner with his six-foot-four basketball bod, complete with broad shoulders and swanky GQ hairdo. You can’t help but stop what you’re doing when either of them walks into a room, all eyes on them.
    Of course they know this too.
    “Why can’t hot guys be nice too?” Aly says beside me, hugging her board to her chest. I’m relieved to see she’s made it back in one piece.
    “Rub it in, will you?” I elbow her.
    Like trained spies, we follow them down Main Street, keeping enough distance so neither of them catch us gawking. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if, in addition to their movie star charm they also had superpowers and could sense our presence a mile away. They’re probably reveling in the thought that two nobody girls are lusting after them right this second. With my luck, they’d be able to read minds too, and James would already know about my ridiculous daydreams about him.
    When they slide into James’s black Porsche, Aly and I pretend to be mid-conversation under a Laundromat awning just in case they catch us staring. No such luck. They don’t notice us at all. They just start up their engine that sounds something like a jetliner, and speed away from us, not even acknowledging that we exist.
    Come to think of it, I prefer they knew Aly and I were following them. At least that way I’d be a real person to them.
    Not a nobody.

three

    T he rest of the way home feels like the giddiness from our longboard fiasco has been sucked out of us. No more jokes about snagging guys, no goofing off on the longboard or brainstorming ideas on how to get my record back. Mostly just dead air. Maybe it has something to do with being reminded of the Piedmont caste system, about how the way things work around here. How neither of us will ever be lucky enough to get invited to an exclusive ball, much less get noticed by the royalty that rules this town.
    It appears the sun is in agreement too, and has since slumped below the tree line, stealing away the last streaks of light as we make our way along the creek path. It’s the shortest route home from work; otherwise, we’d have to climb up the hill through the meandering streets and then back down again. That’s how Piedmont is situated—one giant hill veined with winding, tree-lined streets, all overlooking the San Francisco Bay. The higher you climb, the better the view and coincidentally the better the house too.
    I live at the bottom, right along the creek.
    That party tonight?