The Fake Boyfriend Experiment(9)

“The best,” Erin said. Her blond hair was so much blonder than it used to be, and I think she’d gotten even taller. She looked gorgeous, even wearing the navy pants and white shirt of our school dress code. She kind of reminded me of Angel actually, and I glanced at her feet to make sure she wasn’t wearing high wedge sandals. I relaxed when I saw her school-issue loafers. Okay, yeah, she was still Erin.



“But we missed you big time,” Val added. As she shifted, the lights in the classroom caught her hair, and I realized that she had new highlights as well, copper streaks that made her brown hair glisten. Plus, she was awfully tan too.

I frowned and slid a sideways glance at Delilah, who was putting on lip gloss. She had auburn highlights in her red hair as well. Clearly, I’d missed out on a “let’s get our hair done” day on the town. Not that I could have participated. Streaked hair was inappropriate for pianists. “Love the hair,” I said to everyone, trying to sound cheerful. “You guys look great.”

Val fluffed her curls, and tossed her head with a pleased giggle. “Thanks! We got it done last week. Don’t we look fantastic?”

“Yeah.” I fingered my boring dirty-blond hair and decided I was going to wear a hat tomorrow.

“Lily, we need your opinion.” Val held out her cell phone to me. “So, what do you think of this guy? Cute or not?”

I took the phone and peered at the image of a guy with short blond hair in football pads and mud. He was grinning, and he looked pretty friendly. Very athletic. “Cute.”

“See?” Val snatched the phone back. “You have to go to the semi-formal with him.”

“Me?” I asked. They’d arranged a date for me to the biggest event of our freshman year, which was only three weeks away? They were the best friends ever!

“No, you goof. I’m talking about Delilah,” Val said with a laugh that made me want to crawl under my desk. “She’s afraid he’s not cute enough to be seen in public with.” She waggled the phone in Delilah’s face. “Lily thinks he’s cute.”

“He is cute.” I grabbed the phone from Val and looked at it again. He was pretty hot, and I’d never seen him before. “How’d you meet him?” Since we all went to an all-girls school, meeting boys was high on our list of priorities and low on our list of successful activities. Except for Rafe, of course. He was hot, I’d met him, and life was good.

Well, at least not as bad as it had been before he’d defended me to his aunt.

“Delilah met Jeff through me.” Val looked smug. “The Inverness football team was practicing on the next field while I was at field hockey camp.”



Inverness was the boys school across town that was affiliated with our school. Varsity and junior varsity teams from our school used the Inverness fields for practice. I’d never been to Inverness, but I’d dreamed about it. I looked at Val with renewed interest. “You really went to Inverness?”

“Sure did.” She grinned. “Now that we’re in high school, we don’t practice on our small fields anymore. Inverness all the way, baby.” She held up her hand, and Delilah high fived her.

“But that’s not the best part,” Erin interrupted. “Delilah and I went to watch Val’s practice and we met this group of guys on the football team.” She grinned and waggled her eyebrows, which were a lot thinner than they were the last time I’d seen her. My friends had gotten their eyebrows done as well? “And they’re sophomores.”

“Wow. Really?” I felt a glimmer of jealousy flicker through me, and my smile got kind of stiff. “I met the Governor this summer when I—”

“Keith is having a back-to-school pool party on Saturday,” Erin interrupted again.

“Keith? Who’s Keith?” I asked. I felt like my head was spinning trying to keep up with all these names and guys and things my friends had done.

Delilah poked Erin’s arm. “You know he’s having the party only so he can make a move on you.”

Erin’s cheeks turned red. “No way! He likes you.”

“Nope. Jeff already asked me to the semi,” Delilah said.

“No way!” Erin screamed. “When?”

“Last night. And he said Keith wants to ask you, and Hugh’s going to ask Val. If you guys go, I’ll go.”

Val sucked in her breath. “Hugh? Really? He’s going to ask me?” She leaned back in the chair. “He’s so hot.”

I stared at my friends as they gossiped, feeling more and more left out. I had no clue what they were talking about, and they didn’t even seem to remember I was there. Suddenly, I was getting the feeling that they hadn’t spent as much time this summer thinking about me as I’d spent missing them. I tapped Val on the arm, trying to get in on the conversation. “Who’s Hugh? Is he one of the football players?”