Awkwardly Ever After by Marni Bates Page B

pretending to watch a Disney movie. It seemed ridiculously PG now. Especially since having Mackenzie’s dad show up was the emotional equivalent of dropping an atomic bomb on both Mackenzie and Dylan.
    I didn’t exactly want to stick around and observe the aftermath.
    Well, that wasn’t entirely true: I did want to soak it all in. Maybe even jot down a few notes while I was at it. But I had learned the hard way that most people don’t enjoy being studied and treated like a case subject when they are at their most vulnerable—or at any time, actually.
    And since I didn’t exactly want to alienate the handful of people at Smith High School who didn’t feel the need to put a brainiac nerd like me in my place, I crawled into the passenger’s seat and buckled in with sweaty palms.
    I braced myself for an attack. Not a physical one. That would be too easy. No, it would be something snide and cruel that he could rationalize to himself later had “just been a joke”; if I was offended by it, that was because I obviously lacked a sense of humor.
    Oh yeah, because nothing was quite as hilarious as being asked if I wanted to grab a muffin, only to have someone point to my stomach and say, “Never mind. You’ve got a muffin already!”
    Although I didn’t think there was anything worse than having someone lean in too close, gaze pointedly at the round swell that began right under my rib cage, and murmur, “Have you picked out a name for it yet?”
    Fake had earned her fifteen points with that one.
    â€œSo where am I taking you?” Spencer looked totally unperturbed about being stuck with the biggest geek at Smith High School. I had half expected to hear him muttering about Logan sticking him with the chubster, but then again I hadn’t counted for how unflappable he could be . . . well, all the time.
    Okay, maybe he had looked a little flustered when Fake and Bake tried to corner him at school.
    But he’d managed to stay a whole lot cooler through the exchange than just about anyone else—certainly better than me.
    Come to think of it . . .
    â€œWhy were you running from Fake and Bake?” The words just kind of popped out of my mouth and I found myself nervously shoving up the bridge of my glasses while I waited for his response.
    None of your business, Fatty.
    Spencer glanced at me and there was something in his eyes I didn’t quite trust. Something mischievous that made me achingly aware he was not going to be categorized into a personality type that fit neatly within my psychology textbook.
    He was one-half bad boy and the other half . . .
    I couldn’t help shivering slightly with unease. The other half I doubted anyone at Smith High School knew at all. Well, nobody beyond Logan Beckett, and I had a feeling the hockey captain wasn’t going to start spilling his best friend’s secrets anytime soon.
    â€œSteffani and Ashley,” he said pointedly, while my cheeks overheated from my social slip, “have different interests than I do. That’s all.”
    â€œThey have interests? ” I couldn’t hide my fascination. “Really? In what?”
    I wasn’t being facetious. It was difficult for me to imagine either of them having any kind of passion for, well . . . anything. As far as I had seen, they were all about status, style, and securing their place in the high school yearbook so that someday they could toss their hair back and brag to their kids about how they’d been the queen of the prom.
    â€œThey want you for prom, don’t they?” I could feel the rightness of the words in my mouth and I knew—I just knew— that I had nailed down the situation. “Let me see if I can get this right. Okay, so Fake and Bake both want to be crowned prom queen, but neither of their former boyfriends had the social power to make it happen. Which wasn’t a problem back when Chelsea Halloway was at our