Lovestruck Summer Melissa Walker (top 100 books to read .TXT) 📖

dust—literally.”“Really?”asks Jade. “You told him you loved him?”“Well, not exactly,”I say. “I told him I was ready.”She gives me a skeptical look. “Ready for what?”she asks. “That’s what he asked,”I say. “And I said I was ready to date him.”Jade rolls her eyes. “Gee, Quinn,”she says. “You’re a regular poet. I can’t imagine why a guy wouldn’t be swept off his feet when you say those two magical words: ‘I’m ready.’”“Well, he knew what I meant!”I say, frowning. I slump over on the bar and stare at the carvings in the old wood. JW + ND, DON LOVES TAY, CLEM AND NELL 4-EVER. I pick my head up again. Everywhere I look, people are in love. “Let me borrow your phone,”says Jade. I reach into my jeans pocket and hand it to

247 her. No one wants to hear me whine, I guess. I look back up at the band onstage as they fi nish their set and take a break. “Penny?”I hear Jade on the phone. “Yeah, Quinn needs you. We’re at the Continental Club on South Congress,”she says. “Bring Chrissy.”“. . . No, nothing life or death,”says Jade. “More like a heart intervention.”Through the phone, I hear my cousin’s high- pitched scream, which indicates some sort of over-the-top feeling—rage? Excitement? Who can tell? I haven’t quite decoded the sorority- shriek sound chart yet. Jade hangs up and hands my cell back to me. “Why did you call my cousin?”I ask. “Reinforcements,”she says. “You need a plan to get Russ, and who better to ask for help than two longtime friends of his?”I smile as Jade tosses her long red hair over one shoulder. “You have to be willing to do whatever we come up with,”says Jade, narrowing her eyes at me. “Even if it’s embarrassing.”I nod my head. I’ve screwed things up

248 enough on my own—it’ll be nice to have a team of love advisors. “Thanks,”I say. Twenty minutes later, two sorority screams echo in the chill retro bar, and all eyes turn to Chrissy and Penny, who is carrying Miss Tiara in a small brown-and-covered-with- logos purse. Penny races across the dance fl oor, weaving in between the befuddled couples to get to us. Chrissy is close behind. “What did that awful Sebastian do?!”my cousin snaps. “I am going to wring his scrawny little neck when I get ahold of him!”“It’s not Sebastian,”I say. “Yeah,”says Jade. “He’s kind of . . . um . . . out of the picture now. Right, Quinn?”I smile as I conjure up the image of the sopping-wet DJ. “Right,”I say. “What’s the deal then?”asks Chrissy. She looks like she might still be mad at me about the Russ stuff. “Well, obviously you know that Russ com- pletely rejected me the other day,”I say.

249 “Quinn, Russ isn’t really a talker,”she says. “No, I didn’t know. But since Penny told me you were going out with Sebastian tonight, I fi gured your conversation with him didn’t go well.”“I told you what happened, right?”I look at Penny. I’m sure I communicated my angst after Russ left me on the road. “You mean when you came home yesterday and grunted at me before you put your head- phones on for the rest of the night?”asks Penny. Hmm . . . guess I’m not a huge communica- tor either. “Okay—so what is the deal?!”asks Penny, waving her hands at me to hurry up and spill it. I hesitate a minute too long, and Jade is off like a shot. As she recounts the story I told her about me saying “I’m ready,”I suddenly realize how dumb and conceited that sounds. “I’m really smooth,”I say sarcastically when Penny and Chrissy smile in pity at my misstep. “We can fi x this,”says Penny, going into action mode and taking a purple Sharpie pen out of her bag. Miss Tiara barks in affi rmation and

250 the bartender raises an eyebrow. Chrissy fl ashes a smile (and pushes out her boobs), which makes him back off. Good thing too, because Penny is taking out her Tri-Pi notebook, spreading out across the bar, and starting to write. WIN HIS HEART: THE RUSS PLAN, she writes. “What’s this?”I ask. “Just wait,”she says. “Now comes the brain- storming. You didn’t know your old cousin was a boy genius.”“You’re a hyper-smart eleven-year-old boy?”asks Jade. “I mean a genius with guys,”says Penny, waving off Jade’s joke. “Now let’s get going.”Penny makes us write down romantic ideas—poetry, fl owers, music, dancing—and under each column, we have to come up with specifi cs that Russ likes. So Chrissy chimes in and tells us that he used to have a thing for Edgar Allan Poe, while I note that he mentioned bluebonnets once and that we’ve danced to “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”“But his favorite song is that ‘Waltz Across Texas’one,”says Chrissy. “He hums it con- stantly.”

251 I grin. Then Penny adds “Sports”because she says that—to guys—that is romantic. And Chrissy suggests that I wear a UT cheerleading uniform while I carry out the activities (that’s the third part of the brainstorming session). Jade nixes that part so I don’t have to. Phew. By the time we fi nish, fi ve pages of the note- book are covered with doodles and dreams of romance, and I have a plan. “Are you ready?”asks Jade. “Have I not made it clear by now that I am?”I joke. “Took you long enough!”says Chrissy, smiling. Penny, Chrissy, and Jade reach in for a group hug, and suddenly I’m feeling like, no matter what Russ says, this is the Best. Summer. Ever.

252 Chapter 23 After calling about ten florists, I realize that bluebonnets are hard to come by in July. As one lady put it, “That’s a spring flower, hon. How about a nice boo-kay of Knock Out roses?”So that’s what I got, and it turns out that Knock Out is their official name—they’re hearty, which seems suiting for Russ. They’re also pink, but hey, that made Penny happy. So I tie those up