Hannah paused outside a shoe store to examine the contents of the store window.
“Can we please get something to eat? I’m starving,” I complained.
“You’re always starving,” Hannah replied. She whipped out her pink cell phone and began scrolling through her messages.
“Emmett’s here,” she said.
“Here in the mall?”
Hannah nodded. “Over at the Gap. He wants to meet us for lunch.” She punched a rapid succession of buttons on her phone. “I’m telling him to meet us at the food court.”
“Great,” I said, my heart sinking.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Emmett. I did. In fact, once upon a time, I’d liked him way too much. Emmett was a year ahead of me at Geek High. He was nice, an academic superstar—his specialty was science—and absolutely gorgeous. I’d had a secret crush on him for years. But Emmett had taken one look at Hannah and become instantly smitten with my stepsister. I’d been devastated at the time, but was long over it by now. For one thing, Hannah and Emmett did make an adorable couple. And, for another, I’d fallen pretty hard myself for someone else.
Dex McConnell, boyfriend extraordinaire. He really was great. Smart, bitingly funny, and very handsome, if—like me—you happen to like redheads. Dex was also an amazing surfer and had been the star player on the Orange Cove lacrosse team. Had been, as in past tense. Four days earlier Dex had left our small town of Orange Cove to go to boarding school in Maine on a lacrosse scholarship. It was an amazing opportunity for Dex, but I missed him so much that my stomach curled over on itself whenever I thought of him.
I was pretty sure Hannah had proposed this shopping trip to distract me, and so far it had been working, mostly because my I’m-stuck-in-a-shopping-mall misery was, for the time being, drowning out my missing-Dex-so-much-it-hurts misery. But that was before I found out I was going to be hanging out with Hannah and Emmett. Nothing makes you feel more alone than playing third wheel to a happy couple.
“He’s meeting us by Big Top Pizza,” Hannah announced, pocketing her cell phone. “Not that I’d eat the pizza there. Gag.”
“Why?”
“Tiffany’s boyfriend Geoff’s older brother used to work at Big Top Pizza. He said that they once had a cockroach fall into the vat of pizza sauce, and their manager wouldn’t let them throw out the sauce,” Hannah said. “So they kept using it on the pizzas. And, get this—when they reached the bottom of the pan of sauce, the cockroach was missing. So it must have ended up on one of the pizzas.”
“Ewww,” I said.
“I know, right? Ever since I heard that, I refuse to eat there,” Hannah said.
I tried not to think of how many hundreds of slices I’d eaten at Big Top Pizza over the years. I’d always viewed a slice of their pizza as my reward for withstanding the horrors of the mall.
“Um, Hannah?”
“Yes?”
“How long have you known about the cockroach pizza?”
Hannah tossed her hair back as she considered. “I’m not sure. Maybe a year or two?”
“A year or two?”
“I think. Why does it matter?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about it before? It’s information I would really liked to have had,” I said.
Hannah shrugged. “I don’t know. It never occurred to me to tell you. Look, there’s Emmett.”
Emmett was standing in line at the now-notorious pizzeria. He was tall—even taller than me—with broad shoulders, blond hair, and eyes the color of the ocean. He smiled when he saw us approaching.
“Do either of you want a slice?” he asked.
“No way,” Hannah and I said in unison.
“And neither do you,” I added.
Emmett looked confused.
“Just trust me,” I said. “Let’s go to Sunshine Burger instead.” I shot Hannah a sidelong look. “You don’t know anyone who worked there, do you?”
“Nope,” she said. “It’s safe, as far as I know.”
“Good,” I said.
Emmett looked curious, but he just shrugged, and we all headed over to Sunshine Burger. Ten minutes later we were sitting at a table with our trays. Emmett and I had ordered exactly the same thing: a double-decker cheeseburger, large fries, soda, and a chocolate shake topped with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry. Hannah had a salad with grilled chicken and low-calorie dressing on the side. After eating three bites, she groaned and pushed back her tray.
“I’m stuffed,” she said.
I had just taken an enormous bite of my double-decker, so it took me a few minutes to chew and swallow before I could respond. “How can you be stuffed on two lettuce leaves and one tiny piece of chicken?”