Major Crush by Jennifer Echols Page A

faded. There was the look I’d come to know and love, the one that said he wanted to pitch me off the top of the bleachers.
    We walked back toward the band together. “So, why did you get your nose pierced?” he asked.
    “I don’t even discuss that with my real friends, much less my fake friends.”
    I thought that would shut him down, and we would just blend in with the rest of the band wandering to their starting positions for the show, and not talk to each other for the rest of practice.
    No, he wasn’t finished. “A ren’t you afraid it will get infected?” he asked.
    “My dad’s a doctor. I have twenty-four-hour surveillance on my antibodies.”
    We’d almost reached the band. A llison was talking to Drew’s best friend, Luther, and trying her best to look disinterested.
    “Does it hurt?” Drew asked.
    I wished I had a dime for every time someone had asked me that. Usually I told the truth: It hurt like hell when I had it done, but now I couldn’t feel it. Like getting your ears pierced.
    But after all Drew’s fake flirting, I didn’t feel like telling him the truth. I felt like embarrassing him, if I could. I gave it my best shot.
    “Poor Drew,” I said. “You’re so innocent.”
    We’d walked close enough to the band that Luther heard this. He laughed really, really hard. Drew just stood there. Luther ,put his arm around Drew’s shoulders. “Bro, we need to talk.”
    A s Luther led Drew away, Drew gave me a sideways glance. He didn’t look mad at me anymore. Dark eyes darker, long lashes heavy. He looked … I wasn’t sure what that look was.
    But he wasn’t mad.
    I watched him duck with Luther past the flags. Then I turned to A llison. “Luther’s cute,” I said hopefully. He was in her A P classes, like Drew.
    I had thought before that Luther might have taken a shine to her, and that the shine might be mutual.
    Well, maybe not. A llison tossed her head. “He dresses like the ’hood.”
    “That’s ridiculous. You’re such a snob. He dresses cool. A nd our town isn’t big enough to have a ’hood.”
    She sniffed. “So, did Drew ask you out yet?”
    “No, Barry asked me out. Drew just went down on me. Did you see it?”
    She fluttered her eyelashes, like a well-bred hostess whose cocktail party had just been crashed by a motorcycle gang. “For a virgin, you have the dirtiest mind.”
    “You’re one to talk, Rapunzel. Let down your hair.” I poked one of her gelled finger waves.
    She removed my hand with two manicured fingers. “A re you kidding? It took me hours to get it this way.” She glanced after Luther and Drew, like she was concerned about what Luther thought of her finger waves, after all.
    Then she said, “Speaking of hairdos. The majorettes wanted me to tell you that your dip with Drew is so romantic.”
    I shouted laughter, and the nearby saxophones turned to stare at me. “Y’all are real bored over there,” I said.
    “A nd that in the third grade, one of the Evil Twins attacked a girl’s hair with safety scissors because of a boy.” She touched the back of my head, where my short hair grazed the nape of my neck, like she was worried.
    Despite myself, I searched the milling crowd for Tracey/Cacey, and found at least one of them giving me an unfriendly look.
    I said, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

    For the rest of the week I took Walter’s advice and ran a one-woman public relations campaign. First, on Wednesday morning, I cornered Tonya, Paula, and Michelle in algebra and told them I didn’t appreciate the way they’d treated me in the restroom at the game. Now that they were away from the mob, they said they were sorry. I fed them some touchy-feely lines about how Drew and I were having a hard time adjusting to the partnership but were dealing with our problems.
    A fter Tonya, Paula, and Michelle, I worked my way through the rest of the band, talking to all one hundred and fifty of them alone or in small groups. A ll of them, that is, except Drew’s