Running on Empty Read Online Free Page B

caught the sun as it rippled in waves over her shoulders, fluid movement matched by every part of the willowy body coming toward him. It was obvious to anyone seeing her walk—even those seeing her for the first time—that Alexis Fontaine was a dancer. Having taken ballet since she was four, the girl lived to dance, and she’d moved on to jazz and alternative forms that made Ethan’s pulse race whenever he saw her perform.
    And made him wonder what this amazingly beautiful, talented girl ever saw in him.
    Okay, he knew he wasn’t a troll. At five eleven, he was in good shape, and the big bucks his old man had spent on orthodontics when he was in junior high had paid off—as Allietold him soon after they met, he had a “thousand-kilowatt smile.” But no way was he in her league. For one thing, when it came to dancing, he was one of those shuffle-on-the-spot guys. And where she was passionate about everything she did, he was interested in almost nothing, always doing just enough to get by. Mr. Rahib, the senior-high guidance counsellor who had met with Ethan a couple times already this year, had described him as “unfocused,” but Ethan suspected what the guy
really
wanted to say was “lazy.” Ethan, on the other hand, preferred to think of himself as “unmotivated.” There were only two things that ever got him excited, one of them his dream of restoring his own Cobra. The other was coming toward him now.
    Dropping her bookbag on the grass, Allie slid into Ethan’s arms and kissed him while a mass of bodies rivered around them.
    “Missed you,” he said when he finally released her, reaching down and picking up her bag.
    “You missed more than that,” she said, her face flushed as they continued toward the street. “Beaker gave a quiz.”
    Ethan shrugged. Mr. Becker, their physics teacher, was pathologically fond of pop quizzes, so it was actually more surprising when he
didn’t
give one. Ethan imagined him standing at the front of the physics lab that day, his scrawny hands just itching to pass out the papers. The guy was so thin that, in profile, he looked more like a test tube than a teacher, an observation made by a student that had resulted in his unfortunate nickname.
    “I had the flu,” Ethan told Allie, holding up a sheet of monogrammed stationery he’d taken from his father’s study after Kyle and Pete dropped him off at his house. On it was an excuse neatly penned in what Moore-or-Less would assume was Jack Palmer’s handwriting when he gave it to her tomorrow.
    A shadow passed over Allie’s face. “One of these days, Ethan,you’re going to get caught.” The concern in her voice was real, and just one more thing he loved about her.
    “It’s never failed me before,” he said. After all, he’d been using his father’s stationery for the same purpose since junior high.
    “At least Ms. Moore won’t be there when you pass it in tomorrow,” said Allie. “Her sub won’t care if it’s real or not.”
    “Three-day weekend, huh?
Please
tell me she’s not going back to that museum to load up.” Their English teacher, Ms. Moore—Seth had dubbed her Moore-or-Less the first day of classes—had spent a week in New York City that summer, and she was forever bringing in stuff she’d bought at the gift shop during her visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Last week, she’d perched a miniature model of Rodin’s
The Thinker
on top of her filing cabinet, and this week she’d brought in a print of a painting called
Freedom from Want
that showed a picture-perfect family all set to scarf down Thanksgiving dinner. Christ.
    Allie grinned. “Conference. She told us today she’s been looking forward to it for months.”
    “At least
someone’s
getting what they want,” Ethan muttered.
    “Why? Something wrong?”
    His arm around her, he led her to a bench that the Public Works department had given up trying to keep painted green. Anonymous artists in the area considered it their own