Confessions of a Queen B* by Crista McHugh Page B

I didn’t sleep well the night before because of our project.”
    “He’s totally into you, then.”
    “Dad, please, he’s supposedly dating the head cheerleader.”
    “‘Supposedly’?”
    This was when it sucked having a professor of philosophy for a dad. He loved dissecting everything I said and throwing it back at me. “Well, he told me she wasn’t his girlfriend, but Summer’s draped all over him all the time like she owns him.”
    “And?”
    “And what? Why should he be interested in me when he can have her?”
    Dad crossed his arms and nodded. “And there’s the root of your problem. You think you don’t deserve him.”
    I went back to massaging my temples.
    “Let me put it this way, princess—no teenage guy goes out of his way to do something nice for a girl unless he likes her.”
    “So?”
    “So, has he done anything else you’d consider nice?”
    I could still taste the blueberry pancakes from this morning. “He made me breakfast.”
    “Yeah, he’s totally hot for you. Men won’t cook for a girl unless there’s sex involved. Just use a condom, okay, please? I’m not ready to become a granddad yet.”
    And we were back to the “ew, not going there” part of the conversation. “You have nothing to worry about in that department, Dad, because that’s the extent of the moves he’s made on me.”
    “He hasn’t tried to kiss you?”
    “Nope.” There’d been several times when I thought he would, but I was obviously delusional.
    “Touched you?”
    “Not unless you count the quick feel he got when he was helping me put on a baby carrier earlier this week.”
    “Are you sure he’s straight?”
    I had to laugh at that. “Yeah, pretty sure.”
    Dad nodded and stroked his beard. “Then this brings up two scenarios. One—he just wants to be friends.”
    “Which would be a cold day in hell.” Even though part of me protested when I said that. I could be friends with him—in secret, like today. But as far as school interactions went, it wasn’t going to happen.
    “Or he could really, really like you—like more than the ‘wham, bam, thank you, ma’am’ kind of way.”
    Sweat prickled along the back of my neck. “I can’t believe I’m talking about sex and boy issues with my dad.”
    He snorted. “Do you think your mom would offer better advice?”
    “She’d probably tell me to start wearing makeup and dress nicer so I can fit in better with the other kids.”
    “Bingo. And I’m telling you to be yourself and not give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks. You’ll see when you get to college—all this high school clique bullshit will be gone.”
    “In the meantime, I’m trying to get through one more year of it without going insane.” I twirled my finger in my hair, thinking about the way Brett had tucked it behind my ear earlier. “So, what should I do in the meantime?”
    “Well, you could always capitalize on your attraction and jump his bones.”
    My head hit the desk. “Not everything can be solved with sex, Dad.”
    “Sure it can. Love makes the world go round, after all.”
    “This is not the sixties, Dad, and there are consequences to free love—like AIDS and herpes and teen pregnancy.”
    “Fine, but then let me ask you this—has he exposed a vulnerable part of himself to you? A secret? A weakness?”
    “Maybe.”
    “It’s yes or no, Alexis. Would he catch flack from everyone at school if they knew about it?”
    I pulled up the picture of Brett with his sisters on my phone and held it up to the screen for my dad. “How about that?”
    Dad nearly spewed his coffee. “You said he was a jock?”
    “Star quarterback of the team.”
    “Does he know about the photo?”
    “Yep.”
    “And he didn’t ask you to delete it?”
    “Nope.”
    Dad went back to stroking his beard. “Then his actions demonstrate a willingness to be intimate with you.”
    “We’re not going back to sex again, are we?”
    He shook his head. “Intimacy has to do with more than