Flavor Of The Month (Kiss & Tell Book 2) by Tori Carrington Page B

leaped out of Efi’s skinny arms and her niece plopped down on the couch next to her, sighing dramatically as she took a soda. “Mom thinks it’s because, you know, it’s nearing that time of the month.”
    Reilly still couldn’t seem to accept that her young niece was menstruating already. “And the truth is?”
    “Jason Turner.”
    “Ah. A boy.”
    Efi paused as she took a sip of her soda. “Not a boy. A full-grown man.” She frowned. “Well, almost anyway. He’s eighteen.”
    Reilly paused then affectionately punched her niece’s shoulder. “And too old for you.”
    Efi shrugged. “He’s a senior at school and has the biggest blue eyes you’ve ever seen and when he smiles I swear I go weak in the knees…and…and…”
    “And he doesn’t know you exist.”
    Efi deflated against the cushions. “Actually he did notice me today. He stopped in the hall to say that I’d chosen an interesting color for my hair. That I matched the curtains in the gymnasium.”
    Reilly cringed. “Ouch.”
    Efi nodded. “I hate Greek school.”
    “Why Greek school? I got the impression that this happened at public school.”
    “It did, but if I didn’t have to go to Greek school I could hang out at my real high school more and maybe see Jason more often.” She sulked. “I hate Greek school.”
    Reilly hugged her to her side. “You don’t hate Greek school.”
    “You sound just like mom. And I do, too, hate Greek school.”
    “Tell me why?”
    “You got an hour?”
    “Actually, I do. You see it’s Saturday night and my niece is staying over and I happen to have nothing but time on my hands.” She put her feet up on the coffee table. “Just remember we have that DVD to fit in.”
    “Let’s watch the DVD.”
    “Let’s talk about life as Efi first.”
    Her niece sighed in a way only an angst-filled fifteen-year-old could. God, Reilly would never relive that time in her life if you paid her a million dollars.
    Efi laid her head back against the sofa. “Which part do you want to hear? About how I can’t play softball with the rest of the girls in my class because I have to go to Greek school on Wednesdays to learn how to say ‘I want a loaf of bread’ in Greek? This when my mom can’t speak a word of Greek to save her life? No, wait, let’s talk about how I can’t go to my best friend’s house because her father’s a minister and Dad’s afraid it will confuse me? Then there’s how I’m in a class at Greek school with kids of all ages and the only others even close to me in age are Shy Sotiria and Fat Fodos, and both of them think I’m weird.”
    Reilly picked at the spikes on Efi’s head. “Sorry, honey, but I think everyone probably thinks you’re a bit on the strange side right now.”
    She remembered the day last week when Efi had dyed her hair with some sort of home kit she’d bought from the drugstore. Her sister had called to blame her for the overt act of rebellion. “You encourage her! Talking to her like she’s an adult. She’s just a kid, Rei. She needs guidance.”
    Reilly believed that she got enough guidance from her parents. What this girl needed was a little unconditional TLC. And she provided it whenever she could.
    “Then, of course, there’s Jason,” Reilly prompted.
    Efi groaned. “You would have to bring him up.”
    “And what about the boys at Greek School?”
    Efi crossed her arms over her modest chest. “There are no boys at Greek school. None worth mentioning. Anyway, they all think I’m weird, too. Besides, I don’t put out so I’m not even popular in that way, either.”
    Reilly nearly choked on her soda.
    Efi patted her on the back. “Are you all right?”
    She nodded and took several deep breaths. Is that why she hadn’t been popular in school, either? Because she hadn’t “put out,” as her niece had so not nicely put it.
    No, it had been because she’d been fifty pounds overweight.
    And, she realized, she still dressed like she was that fat girl…at