Lucky by Rachel Vail Page B

ELLO ?” M Y HEART WAS POUNDING from how startled I was. My ringer must’ve been on superhigh.
    “Hi this is Luke may I please speak with Phoebe?” Luke said practically as one word.
    “This is Phoebe,” I said. “Luke?”
    “Yeah,” he said.
    “Hi.”
    My sisters were staring at me. I shrugged. Why was he calling me on the phone instead of texting me? Sometimes he texts hey and I text back hey. That doesn’t feel weird. We sometimes even complain about our homework. Why was he calling me?
    “Yeah, um, hey,” he said.
    Neither of us said anything for a while. It was odd. It seemed like he was waiting for me to explain why he had called me. My heart was still thumping. It was Kirstyn’s fault, what she said about me liking Luke, making me allweird with him. Well, that and talking on my cell with him in front of my sisters, at a kind of awkward moment. Quinn whispered that she was going downstairs to her tutor.
    I popped up and almost fell off the bed because I forgot to untangle my legs. Chill, Phoebe, chill.
    “So, um,” he said. “What’s up?”
    “Nothing,” I lied. Just found out my life is in the toilet, that’s all.
    “You okay? You know, from, when you, like, fainted?”
    “Fine,” I said in a shockingly high voice. “Anyway…”
    The doorbell rang.
    “Oliver’s here,” Allison whispered. “Hang up!”
    “I gotta go.”
    “Okay,” he said. “But, I mean, what are you doing?”
    “Now?”
    “No, next Tuesday.”
    “Oh, um…” What? I couldn’t think. Next Tuesday?
    “Just kidding,” he said. “I meant now.”
    “Oh, just…um…nothing.”
    Allison glared at me impatiently. I turned my back to her.
    “But, if, um,” Luke was saying. “I mean, a couple of us were going down to the Shops, you know, to hang around, just, you know. How about you?”
    “Me?”
    He laughed. “No, somebody else.”
    “Obviously,” I said. “Me. Um…”
    Allison chucked her tennis racquet at me.
    “Ow!”
    “Well, anyway,” Luke said, very fast. “We’re gonna get some sodas, you know, me and William and I think maybe Dean. Maybe, whatever, get a slice at D’Amico’s and, are you okay? Did you just say ‘Ow’?”
    “No,” I said, rubbing my hip where the racquet had hit me. “A couple of us were thinking of going down to the Shops, too,” I lied, walking out of Allison’s room.
    “Great,” he said. “So maybe I’ll see you there.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe. Later.”
    Gosia was screaming up to us as I shut my phone and sped downstairs, one step behind Allison.
    “You don’t think he could be asking me out, do you?” I asked her.
    “Have you made out with him at all?”
    “No,” I said.
    “Then no.”
    “That’s what I thought,” I said. “Hey, how did it go with Tyler?”
    She grabbed my arm and twisted until my knees buckled. “Never ask me that again.”
    “Okay. Sheesh.”
    “He is a jock, I am a nerd, and never the twain shall meet.”
    “Huh?”
    “I said forget it!”
    “Fine!” We never used to have secrets in my family.
    I mostly let Oliver play during my piano lesson. Obviously Dad’s musical genes missed me entirely. I knew Oliver wished he could just have Quinn the whole time; he has such a huge and obvious crush on her.
    “Why don’t you ever practice, Phoebe?” he asked, closing my level one piano book.
    “Dunno,” I said. “Sorry.”
    He bent over to pull some new Brahms music out of his bag for Quinn. “No sweat,” he said. Cute butt, I thought. “I get paid either way.”
    That’s what you think, I thought. “Oh, um, my dad said he’ll give you a check next week.”
    “No problem,” he said. “Hi, Quinn.”
    “Gosia!” I yelled, leaving them alone with the piano. “I need to go down to the Shops!” On my way into the kitchen I texted Kirstyn:
    Shops? Pick u up?
    She didn’t text back right away so I texted:
    U mad @ me?
    Maybe I should’ve asked Zhara or Gabrielle or even Ann instead, I thought, and was about to try