Life in the No-Dating Zone Read Online Free Page B

“Yeah?”
    “So will you come?”
    No freaking way. “Don’t think so. Sounds like a couples’ thing.”
    “I’m sorry. We can go out tomorrow night.”
    “I’ll have to see. I’m waiting to hear if the Carters need me to babysit.”
    “Okay. I’m sorry about—”
    “Look, I need to go. One of the kids just spilled her juice.” A total lie, but hey, I didn’t want to hear any more meaningless apologies.
    “Okay.”
    I forced myself to say goodbye before I hung up.
    After lowering the TV’s volume, I sat at the table with the kids. But not even SpongeBob could distract me. I fingered the green gem of my teardrop necklace—the one that supposedly represented the girls-first pact we’d made at the beginning of summer. We’d been making fun of girls who glommed all over their boyfriends, and vowed never to let boys interfere with our friendship.
    We even bought matching teardrop necklaces to seal the pact. Mine was green, Lindsey’s was red, and Rose’s was blue. But I seemed to be the only one who wore hers every day.
    Was this the way things were going to be all year? Rose and Lindsey ditching me for their boyfriends? Probably. I mean, I could understand Rose wanting to spend time with Sam. Their relationship was still new. But Lindsey had boyfriends all the time. And she’d always been pretty good about dividing her time equally between us and whomever she was dating. Guess not anymore.
    As my dad liked to say, there were always options in any situation, you just had to figure out what they were. Right now, though, I could only think of one—find new friends.
    Tears burned in my eyes. No. I was not going to cry. I started cleaning up the snack mess I’d left on the kitchen counter. I was mature, right? Ha. At the moment I felt like I was about ten years old. All I wanted was to get revenge somehow, to make them sorry for leaving me out. I banged the small cutting board into the sink, turned on the water and scrubbed.
    “Squidward!”
    The kids laughed.
    Get yourself together, Claire. I took the kids’ plates to the dishwasher. No. There’d be no revenge in my future. I was way too grown-up for that. But maybe … maybe I wasn’t too mature to shake things up a little. Before I could change my mind, I dried my hands. Then pulled out my phone to text Gray.
 

Five
     
    Gray
     
    Being in the mall’s food court was a lot like visiting an alien planet. Well, a really boring alien planet filled with screaming toddlers, laughing middle schoolers, and shell-shocked moms who looked like they couldn’t remember why they’d wanted that third child. I hadn’t been there since I was a kid—way before my mother started lawyering. Way before the divorce.
    The line in front of the Sbarro moved. I edged forward. I was still five people away from the counter. That didn’t matter. I’d picked the longest line possible so I’d have something to do while I waited to hear from Claire.
    Warm, yeasty bread scents drifted toward me, making my stomach growl. But there was no way I could eat. Not with the prospect of sitting at a table across from Lindsey Taylor in my immediate future. Iced tea was all I could manage, and with my luck, I’d probably spew it all over her.
    Another person paid and left. I edged forward again. I’d been surprised when Claire texted two days ago saying she’d decided to help me. I still was. She wouldn’t tell me why, but at the time I didn’t care. And even now I was only mildly curious. Probably because the thought of what I was about to do made my insides feel like I’d eaten a bottle of Elmer’s Glue.
    Which was stupid, because Claire couldn’t have made it any easier. I was going to walk by the table where she was eating lunch with Lindsey and Rose, and she would invite me to sit with them. I would talk for a few minutes, then leave.
    That was it. No huge plan for whisking Lindsey away so we could be alone, no flirting—as if I even could—and no asking her out.