Crush du Jour Read Online Free Page B

“That might have something to do with your panic too,” she suggested. “The hotness.”
    I snorted. “Unlikely.” She was talking nonsense. I paused for a beat. “How so?” Okay, so I was slightly curious. Can you blame me?
    She pushed her long, ash blond hair out of her eyes.
    “Well, didn’t you swear off cute boys for the summer? Because of how they ’interfere with your concentration’?” She made little quote marks with her fingers.
    I grunted noncommittally. Leave it to Anna to use my own words against me. Sometimes it was superannoying to have a best friend who knew me so well.
    And as much as I can be a flirt, I wasn’t totally psychotic when it came to the opposite sex. I mean, it wasn’t that I was so insecure—more like inexperienced. At the tender age of sixteen I’d only had one real boyfriend, andthat was at camp a whole two summers ago. I’d also never crushed on anyone as objectively cute as Seth. Not that I have any sort of major facial disfiguration, but Seth was adorable, while I was more … quirky. My blunt little bob and pervasive freckles sort of sealed that deal for me. Anyway, all I meant was that Seth was a hottie, and potentially just slightly out of my league. But only slightly .
    And anyway, it didn’t matter. Because I wasn’t going to hook up this summer—no matter which refugee from a CW dramedy was thrown into my path.
    I waited a moment or two for Anna to chime in again, but she seemed pretty focused on her chocolate chip ice cream cookie sandwich, which was slowly dribbling onto the Formica table.
    ”Obviously,” I continued, when it became clear that I was losing Anna’s semidivided attention, “even if I hadn’t made a pact with myself, Seth and I can’t date if we’re going to be teaching together. That would just be unprofessional.”
    “Maybe you won’t get the job.” She licked around the edges of her ice cream sandwich to prevent drippage.
    “Thanks,” I grumbled.
    Not dating this summer was, as Anna pointed out, a rule that I had devised all by myself, for myself. I couldn’t go back on it five seconds after the first attractive member of the male species crossed my path.
    But Seth was way more than an attractive guy. He oozed cute-itude and exuded charm. He emitted some sort of pheromone that I couldn’t help but take note of.
    In fact, he was downright yummy .
    Even if he was a snotty little know-it-all in the kitchen.
    I came home from Scoops to an empty household. I wasn’t surprised; dinner with Mom was about as frequent as sightings of the Loch Ness Monster (and really, when would you see the Loch Ness Monster in Philly, of all places?). However, as I defrosted myself some turkey meatloaf for dinner, I saw that she had left me a note on the wipe board that we have hung on the fridge.
    Nora called. Call her back tonight before six or tomorrow.
    My mother wasn’t very cutesy—she definitely wasn’t the type to engage inexcessive use of emoticons—so obviously Nora had said something to my mom when they spoke. Something good, that is.
    Something about me getting the job.

Four
    “My name is Pete, and I like to eat pizza.”
    “Hi, Pete!” Like a deranged chorus, Seth and I and the five other students in the class, which Nora had named Stirring Things Up, welcomed one of our own.
    Even though the icebreakers were mostly my idea, I still couldn’t believe we were doing them. From icebreakers, it was a very slippery slope to trust falls, name games, and quasi-paranormal levitation exercises. The last time I’d been forced to levitate or to pin a name tag to my chest was on my first day of middle school—which made sense, since these kids were all around twelve years old.
    And while we’re on the subject: Twelve years old? Is pretty old. I mean, we’re talking free-thinking, gum-snapping, loud-talking old. This didn’t bother me so much, but Seth didn’t seem totally comfortable or in control of the room. Against my advice, he’d