The Fake Boyfriend Experiment Read Online Free Page B

watching his aunt, not me.
    Miss Jespersen’s face tightened. “Your mother’s looking for you, Lily. If you can drag yourself away, I suggest you let her know that you haven’t been abducted.”
    “Yeah, okay.” I stepped away from the keyboard, letting my fingers trail over the keys one last time. I wanted to stay and play more. I wanted to jam with the band until my fingers were so cramped they couldn’t move any more. I wanted to squeeze every last note out of that keyboard and let the music dance with Rafe’s drumming.
    But I knew it would never happen. Crusty would cut off my fingers before she’d let me waste my time and talent on an electric keyboard. With a sigh, I picked up my backpack and slung it over my shoulder. “So, um, see you guys.”
    Chris touched my arm. “Can you practice with us again? Like tomorrow?”
    “No, she can’t.” Miss Jespersen flicked his hand off me. “Lily is a gifted musician and doesn’t have time for this kind of music.”
    The welcoming expression vanished from Chris’s face. Angel looked surprised and a little offended, and the other guitarist shot me a look of pity. I felt my cheeks heat up as I tried to explain. “That’s not true, I—”
    “ Now , Lily.” Crusty propelled me toward the door
    I glanced over my shoulder at Rafe. “Thanks for trying,” I mouthed to him, trying to connect with this amazing world one last time before it was snatched away from me forever.
    He nodded at me just before the door shut behind us.

CHAPTER THREE
    Rafe inspired me.
    For the rest of the day and all that night, I was fired up. After a summer of torment under Crusty’s shadow, Rafe and his band had been like a spark of life. I wasn’t just Lily the piano player. I had friends and a life, and when school started the next morning, I was going to have it back.
    I’d been psyched for school before, but now I was so amped up that I was almost ready to camp out on the front steps of my house that night so I’d be halfway to the bus as soon as I woke up.
    I needed to get to school, because once Miss Jespersen had pried me away from Mass Attack, the rest of my day had been miserable. It had been relentless and merciless attempts by my mom and Miss Jespersen to strip away the piece of me that had come back to life when I’d been playing the keyboard.
    My mom had laid a major guilt trip on me for making her and Miss Jespersen think I’d been kidnapped when I’d bailed from my lesson. I was actually kind of surprised that Miss Jespersen had been worried about me. For one deluded moment, I actually thought maybe she was human, and I was even blindsided by the possibility that maybe she and my mom valued me for something other than my piano abilities.
    Until she and my mom had gone off on the audition again , brainstorming ways to help me rediscover my passion for piano, to overcome the pathetic failure and disappointment I was fast becoming. Then the conversation was all about my lackluster playing, the terrible reviews, my inability to live up to my talents.
    The time could not pass fast enough until school finally started the next morning.
    As I rushed into homeroom on Monday morning, the only thing keeping me sane was the thought of my friends. Sure, it was an all-girls school, but that didn’t matter at this point. Even the fact that the school covered grades sixth through twelfth, so becoming a freshman wasn’t exactly like launching into high school, didn’t make a difference. I was officially in high school and I was going to enjoy it!
    “Lily!” My best friend, Erin Fitzgerald, screamed my name as soon as I got inside the room. Her bleached out hair and her tanned skin were all about the summer fun I hadn’t had, and she was wearing a macramé necklace of rainbow-colored threads.
    “Erin!” I dodged desks and groups of shrieking kids, hurled my navy backpack on the floor and threw myself at her, tackling her in a giant hug. “I missed you!”
    She screamed and