The Boyfriend Thief

CHAPTER 3





“For the next six weeks,” said my business economics teacher, Mr. Freeman, on Monday afternoon, “we will be conducting an experiment.”

Most of the class groaned at his words. Business econ wasn’t exactly a class where you expected to do experiments. It was one of those easy A electives, where you read a bunch of stuff from the book, participated in discussions, and then took a few tests. Everyone liked Mr. Freeman, who was only a couple years out of college and had a laid back style of teaching, but nowhere in the course description was there anything about experiments.

Mr. Freeman held up his hands. “It won’t be that bad. All year long, we’ve studied business law and how companies work. Now you’ll learn firsthand about the ins and outs of running a company. You will be splitting into pairs. Each pair will create a business from the ground up. You’ll write a business plan, prepare a loan proposal, and receive weekly reports about how your business is doing. Along the way, you’ll have a few twists thrown in, which I will decide randomly as we go along.”

Actually, that didn’t sound so bad. Some of the students had already started to pair up and so I turned toward Molly, intending to ask her to be my partner, when Mr. Freeman spoke again.

“I will assign pairs by drawing names from these two bowls.” Mr. Freeman held up two plastic bowls for us to see. “Boys’ names in one, girls’ in the other. Since we have more girls than boys, the remaining two girls will be paired together. I want this to be a true experiment, so you could be working with someone you might never have worked with before. Someone you can’t ever imagine going into business with.” He grinned. “Because in the real world, you don’t always get along with your coworkers.”

Molly held up her crossed fingers, hoping we’d be the odd girls out.

“The first team,” said Mr. Freeman as he took a name from each bowl, “is Nathan Thompson and Molly Pinski.”

“I demand a redraw!” Molly exclaimed. She looked over at Nathan, who was a skinny boy with huge glasses. He was my treasurer in the math club and was a pretty nice, though very quiet, guy. “No offense, Nate,” she told him, even though Molly knew for a fact that Nathan hated to be called Nate. His forehead scrunched into a scowl over his glasses.

“No redraws,” Mr. Freeman said. He pulled several more pairs from the bowls and then finally, “The next team is Zac Greeley and Avery James.”

I groaned a bit under my breath. Zac turned to look at me from his seat a few rows away and gave me the thumbs up sign. I doubted he’d take this seriously, which meant my perfect grade point average was in jeopardy. Plus, I’d probably have to keep track of everything so he wouldn’t lose it or drop it in a mud puddle. I wrinkled my nose as I took in the sight of his dirty Converse. The bottom of his left shoe was held in place with duct tape.

I might as well be prepared to do the entire project myself so it could be done well.

Just in front of Zac, Hannah Cohen turned around in her seat. She stared at me longer than was necessary with a strange look on her face. I shifted a little, trying to ignore her. What was her problem today? Thank goodness I hadn’t been paired with her. I could imagine her thinking of every possible way to torment me throughout the project.

What if she got Zac to torment me for her? Would he do that? He was dating the witch of Willowbrook so there had to be an evil streak in him somewhere.

When the bell rang signaling the end of class, Zac came over as I gathered my books.

“Hey, partner,” he said, smiling wide.

“Hi.” Zac had one of those smiles that was infectious and so I couldn’t help smiling back, even though I didn’t want to.

Over his shoulder, Hannah watched from where she waited at the front of the room.

“So I guess we should set up a time and place to meet so we can brainstorm,” Zac said. “I have a few ideas already, but you can tell me if they’re stupid. Because sometimes I come up with these crazy plans and I don’t even realize how crazy they are until I’m riding down the sidewalk on a skateboard attached to a pack of miniature poodles. Which, trust me, isn’t exactly the best method of transportation.”

“Well, we can—” My hands froze in midair, my economics book only halfway inside my backpack, and my head snapped up to look at him. “Wait. What?”

Zac laughed. “Just something I tried to do a couple weeks ago. My neighbor’s dogs didn’t appreciate it. Neither did my neighbor.”

I shook my head to clear away the image of Zac riding a dog-powered skateboard. “I can’t meet today because I have to work, but how about tomorrow after school? At the Rose Castle?”

Zac nodded and brushed at his long black bangs, which flopped right back down in front of his eyes as soon as he moved his hand. “I have to work today too, but I can get time off tomorrow. I’ll meet you there at three-thirty.”

“Great.”

Zac gave me another smile, then turned and walked toward Hannah, who gave me one last hard stare before leading Zac out of the room.

* * *

“James!” Mr. Throckmorton barked as soon as I entered the back door of Diggity Dog House after school. “Watkins called in sick, so you’re Bob today.”

My mouth dropped open. “But I was Bob on Saturday!” Two days in the same week wearing that hot, smelly costume was not my idea of a good time.

“No arguments,” Mr. Throckmorton said before disappearing into the office.

I shoved my backpack into my locker and then stomped toward the supply closet. It was just like Tara to call in sick on the day she was supposed to be Bob.

I didn’t even have time to enjoy the cool air conditioning inside Diggity Dog House before heading back out in the sweltering sun. I had just zipped up the costume and got the mesh part covering my face in place when someone entered the room behind me.

“Hey.” Elliott gave me a crooked grin. “I have to say, you’re the cutest giant hot dog I’ve ever seen.”

Was he talking to me? I turned as best as I could, checking to see if maybe there was another giant hot dog in the room.

Elliott deposited his backpack in his locker. “Too bad we’re not on hot dog duty together again.”

He thought I was Tara! It was hard to tell who exactly was inside the costume and she was supposed to be Bob today. He must not have known she had called in sick.

“Well,” Elliott said, making sure his red Diggity Dog House shirt was tucked into his pants neatly, “I better go before Mr. Throckmorton yells at me for not being out there with the hot dogs. I’ll meet you during break, okay?”

I gave him a thumbs up. If I spoke he might figure out that who he thought was inside the costume wasn’t. I wasn’t sure why I let him go on believing I was Tara, but something told me I could use this to my advantage.

During my time outside, I kept thinking about Elliott and Molly and Tara. I knew something was going on behind Molly’s back. He was such a creep. He’d always been a creep who sneaked around and told lies and forgot about you the first chance he could get.

No one cheated on my best friend and got away with it.

So as I did the Hot Diggity Shuffle for the kids that demanded it, ideas about what to do about Elliott and this opportunity that had been given to me bounced around in my head.

“Dance!” the little girl standing in front of me demanded again.

I groaned. “Come on, kid. I’ve done the shuffle five times for you already.”

Bob wasn’t supposed to talk back to customers, but this kid had pushed me to the breaking point. My feet hurt and the foam costume stuck to my sweat-covered skin.

The little girl’s face turned red and she pressed her lips together in a tight white line as her eyes grew bigger. I knew that face. I’d been working around kids at Diggity Dog House long enough to know when they were about to throw an all-out temper tantrum.

“Okay, okay, I’ll dance,” I said quickly, launching into the shuffle. My moves were slower and not as enthusiastic as they had been the first four hundred times, but hopefully it would do.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten there was one other face a kid could make that also resembled the beginning of a temper tantrum.

The puke face.

Which was what that pig-tailed little girl in front of me did as I finished up the shuffle. Chewed up bits of hot dog propelled out of her mouth and all over the front of my costume.

The girl’s mom grabbed her hand and snatched her away, now that I was covered in hot dog barf. I stood frozen in place for a moment, my arms extended straight out to my sides in an effort to not touch the barf at all.

A group of middle school boys walked by, laughing and pointing. It worked to snap me out of my stupor and I hurried back inside Diggity Dog House, straight for the employee bathroom.

The best way to keep from getting any barf on me was to remain inside the costume while I tried to clean it. So I was still dressed as a giant hot dog when a knock sounded on the door behind me.

“Occupied!” I shouted.

But the door opened anyway and Elliott squeezed himself in. I pushed the mesh back into place before he could see my face. “I thought I saw you run in here.” He wrinkled his nose at the front of the costume. “Gross. Kid puke again?”

I tried to make my voice sound like Tara’s. “Yeah, totally gross.” I added a giggle to the end of my words for good measure.

“Here, let me do that.” Elliott took the paper towels from me and wiped the costume. Not many guys would willingly clean barf off a girl.

“There,” he said after a moment, smiling kindly. “The worst of it is gone.”

Of course, Elliott thinking I was Tara erased any bit of decency he had. I didn’t see him cleaning barf off Molly.

“Thanks,” I said through clenched teeth.

“No problem. It’s not like we haven’t all been puked on while in that costume at one time or another.” His smile faded and his expression grew serious as he looked at me, his eyes searching to find mine through the screen. “How are you doing? Have you thought anymore about what we discussed yesterday?”

What had they talked about? My mind raced with a million ideas. About going out with him? About kissing him? About running away to Vegas with him? In every scenario, I could see Elliott and Tara in each other’s arms, laughing at how stupid Molly was for not suspecting a thing.

I realized Elliott was still looking at me, waiting for an answer. How would Tara respond to that question?

“Oh, um…” I giggled. “I haven’t decided yet.” That seemed like a vague enough answer to hopefully get me by.

Elliott sighed, looking annoyed. “You can’t keep hiding from it. Sooner or later, you’ll have to deal with the truth.”

The truth? The truth that Elliott was totally in love with Tara and was sneaking around with her? Or at least, he wanted to? Maybe Tara didn’t want to be the other woman and was holding out.

My hands clenched into fists inside the puffy gloves of the costume. “You’re such a creep, sneaking around behind Molly’s back.”

Elliott blinked. “What are you—”

He stopped, and then before I could make a movement to get out of his reach, he snatched the mesh off the costume and stared angrily at me.

“Avery,” he growled. “I should have known.”

I snatched the screen back from him. “I caught you red-handed this time. I knew you were making dates with other girls when Molly wasn’t around and now I have proof.”

Elliott shook his head. “You are insane, Avery James. And you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He spun around and stomped out of the room, leaving me with a wad of wet, puke-covered paper towels.