Deal With It Read Online Free Page A

leotards. “Why do you ask?”
    “There’s a party on Saturday night at this teen club on Jonesboro Road. You going?”
    I hadn’t been to a party in a long time. After all, I was a busy man—basketball, school and working part-time in my father’s dental practice left me little time for extracurricular activities.
    “I hadn’t really thought about it, but if you’re going…yeah, I’ll probably go.” I blushed as she pulled a piece of lint from myeyebrow and brushed her fingertips across my face. She was so natural with me. I felt comfortable with this girl.
    I wanted to ask her what the name and complete address of the club were, and what time the party would start. I wanted to ask what I should wear, but I decided that questions like that would make me seem silly—like I was uncool or didn’t know my way around a high school party.
    “Cool.” She smiled. “Maybe I’ll see you there.” She threw her gym bag across her shoulder, left the bleachers and headed for the door. I knew then that she would be my girl.
    That was four months ago, and we’d been like Elmer’s glue and construction paper ever since. Stuck. That is, until the new girl at school, Darla Union, walked into my American history class. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She had cute little dimples and a set of crystal-white teeth, which my father would appreciate, and she wore her hair in long curls and reminded me of Alicia Keys. She wore jeans that were glued to her hips and a top that clung to her vanilla skin. She even looked like she worked out at the gym, because her arms were a little muscular, like Angela Bassett’s were in Tyler Perry’s movie Meet the Browns.
    She stared as she took a seat at the desk next to mine. I stared, too, because I was mesmerized by her beauty.
    “You got an extra pencil?” she whispered, opening her American history book to the page that Mr. Harris was teaching from.
    “Yeah.” I handed her the worn-down, chewed-up number-two pencil that I’d picked up at my father’s dental office.
    She looked at the pencil as if it had cooties, twirled it around and read the black letters on it: Armstrong Dental—Smile Brighter! “Thanks.” She smiled when she caught me watching.
    “What’s your name?” I asked.
    “Darla. What’s yours?” She smiled that smile again.
    “Vance.” I stuck my chest out. “Vance Armstrong.” I was sure that she’d heard my name before. After all, everybody in ourstudent body knew me. I was a superstar—the LeBron James of Carver High School. Surely she’d heard all the hype.
    “Nice to meet you, Vance Armstrong.”
    That was it.
    At that point she took a nosedive into her American history book and never returned. She was one of the few people who actually took notes during Mr. Harris’s lecture. Maybe it was because she was brand-new, but she listened intently to his monotone voice, which normally put everyone else to sleep. Darla seemed carefree and so sure of herself. She was nothing like the other girls I knew; they were all so needy and shallow. Not Darla. She didn’t even care that I was sitting there, staring at her, as she ferociously recorded every syllable that Mr. Harris spoke.
    There was no doubt in my mind—I wanted to know her better. But having a girlfriend definitely made that tricky. The problem was, I happened to actually like my girlfriend, unlike some of my friends on the team, who dated girls for one reason and one reason only. Tameka was smart, funny and had a nice body, too. I enjoyed talking to her on the phone until the wee hours of the morning—even on school nights. And she definitely knew her way around a dance floor and could skate her behind off—backward, too. Not to mention her pops was a music producer. I was just waiting for my opportunity to free-style for him since the first time Tameka told me what he did for a living. She’d promised to tell him about my lyrics. And I knew that once he heard me flow, he’d talk to his