Olga waved her hand. “Oh, don’t thank me, dear. You earned your spot. Now come with me, there are some other strings I want you to meet.” She pulled Mac by the hand toward a clump of kids at the back of the restaurant. Mac looked back at Oliver over her shoulder, giving him an apologetic smile. He winked in response, and she stifled a giggle. Flirting was fun.
Fifteen long minutes and endless small talk with two violinists, one viola player, and one harpist later, Mac made her way back through the crowd. She wanted to find Oliver again. Finally, Mac spotted him on the far side of the bar, talking to someone she couldn’t see.
Mac looked at the bartender and gestured to the punch bowl. “Can I have two of those?” The bartender complied, smiling as he handed over the cups. Drinks in hand, Mac headed toward Oliver. But as she rounded the corner, she realized who he was talking to.
Claire.
Her old friend was shaking her short, bouncy curls and laughing lightly at something he’d just said. She casually touched his arm as she began to talk. Oliver didn’t pull away.
Mac seethed. Claire was in full flirt mode—and it wasn’t a coincidence she’d chosen Oliver to flirt with. Mac was willing to bet Claire had seen him with Mac earlier.
Mac stood a few feet from Claire and Oliver, unsure what to do. She was trying to think of something clever to say to break up their tête-à-tête when Claire looked up and caught her eye. Then she placed her hand on Oliver’s elbow possessively and mouthed, Taken.
Fierce anger blazed through Mac. Suddenly she knew what she had to do. She wasn’t going to meekly back down, the way she had when Claire had gone for Blake. This time she was going to fight back.
With a confident flip of her hair, she licked her lips to give them some shine and headed right for Oliver. He’s mine, she thought.
This time, she was going to get the guy. No matter what.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THAT SAME EVENING, CAITLIN AND JEREMY were walking up Beacon Heights’s main drag. They’d just come out of the movie theater, and they were licking ice-cream cones and looking in the shop windows. The sun had set, all the lights in the shops were on, and the street had a festive atmosphere—music was bumping in the bars, a street guitarist was doing a kick-ass rendition of “Come Together,” and clusters of kids were gathered at each corner, laughing and gossiping. Caitlin held her cone in one hand and Jeremy’s hand in the other, fully aware of how public they were. But hey—they had to go public sometime. And it just felt . . . good. Right. She was with Jeremy Friday, not Josh Friday, and she was totally proud of that.
A dribble of vanilla ice cream slid down Jeremy’s chin, and Caitlin reached over to wipe it with her thumb. He grabbed her hand and popped her thumb into his mouth, licking the ice cream from it. Caitlin’s body vibrated with the sensation of his tongue on her fingertip. She leaned forward and pulled him toward her, kissing him firmly.
“Mmmmm. Mint chip,” he murmured into her lips.
“My fave,” she sighed back.
Jeremy looked down at her lovingly. “I know. It always has been. Except for your brief dalliance with caramel swirl in middle school.”
Caitlin laughed, but inside, she felt a rush of appreciation. She’d known Jeremy for almost her entire life—they did joint Martell-Lewis–Friday family dinners and even family trips, and then later, while she was dating Josh she spent so much time at his house. She hadn’t realized that during all that time, Jeremy had been paying attention to her in a way that Josh never did. He remembered how she’d hated her geometry teacher two years before, and how the first thing she’d had to eat after she’d gotten her braces off was Laffy Taffy, and that her favorite way to rile Taylor up had been to pretend to pull a quarter out from behind his ear, mostly because their uncle Sidney did that and they both hated it. Caitlin could guarantee that Josh remembered none of that stuff. But listening to Jeremy reference all those details? It made Caitlin feel so loved. So . . . noticed.
Jeremy pulled her down onto a bench outside the stationery store. She scooted as close to him as she possibly could, enjoying the warmth of his body as the cool evening breeze brushed her cheeks. “So what did you think of the movie?”
Caitlin wrinkled up her nose, and he tapped it lightly with his fingertip. “I loved it. You?”
“Loved it. But I don’t totally get—”
“—how he was able to switch the formulas and then lure the thing with the tentacles out from under the bench?” she interrupted.
“Exactly. It’s like you read my mind.” He smiled.
Caitlin nuzzled into Jeremy’s peacoat, the navy wool scratching against her cheek. Josh would never have gone to see a Japanese anime with her. He would have dismissed it with a laugh as “too freaking nerdy.”
Jeremy wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. “I wish we could go to one of our houses instead of this cold, hard park bench.”
She sighed. “I know. But maybe we’ll get to do that soon. My moms might come around, you never know.”
Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “Things are better?”