Magic Hands by Jennifer Laurens Page A

yeah.”
    “What’s she like?”
    Lizzie took a drink. “Total y cool. Real y nice. Not like the gossiping snots I’ve seen you hang around.”
    “I do not.” He grabbed for her Coke.
    “Oh, since when are Bree and her pack of friends anything but a bunch of self-serving wenches?”
    “One drink, come on, Liz.” He grabbed again before she handed it to him.
    “So.” He drank, wiped his mouth. “You haven’t heard anything weird about Rachel?”
    “What kind of weird?”
    He handed her back the drink with a shrug. “Anything.”
    “She’s rich, that’s al I know. And, like, is an actress. She’s, like, real y good.”
    He bet that. He’d been fooled. He guessed everybody else was fooled too.
    Lizzie suddenly stil ed, looking over his shoulder. “Shh—
    I think Mom’s coming.”
     
    Cort darted for the nearest cabinet and tossed the chips into it while Lizzie held the soda behind her back as their mother entered.
    She looked at them both over the rim of her glasses.
    “What are you two doing?”
    “Going to bed.” Cort started toward the stairs but she sniffed.
    “I smel something,” she said, moving as she sniffed until she was right in front of the two of them. “Something smel s like Doritos.” She looked from one to the other. “Where’s the bag?”
    Lizzie shook her head. Their mother raised her eyebrow.
    “Is that what you think of my dinner?”
    When neither Lizzie or Cort said anything, she looked at them deciphering. “I’l al ow one cheat and this is it. As of this moment however, cheating’s over. What kind of mother would I be if I ignored the facts—healthy nutrition leads to healthy lives. Now get to work on that essential eight hours you need for your stil -growing bodies,” she told them. She grabbed an empty mug from the glass cabinet and went on her way.
    Lizzie looked after her, bringing her soda back around.
    “You think her sense of smel has like gotten sharper with this tofu thing?”
    “No doubt.” Cort stuffed the bag of chips under his shirt.
    “Lock up.”
    “That’s not my job,” Lizzie complained.
    He shot her a grin over his shoulder as he headed to his room. “It is tonight. And you thought I rol ed.”

TEN
    The message window was open on his Facebook page.
    Cort sat down and clicked it open. Rachel. The endless stream of Doritos he’d just consumed turned to rocks in his stomach.
    RACHEL: you there?
    He debated getting into anything more with her. He was stil weighing what Bree and Shaylee had told him against what Lizzie said, and then there was what Lizzie had said about Bree and Shaylee to consider.
    Recently he wondered about Bree and her friends. Being a guy, he only saw one side to her; a flirty, friendly vixen. But after listening to her rag in the salon, he started wondering how nice she real y was.
    Rachel, on the other hand, appeared to be everything he fantasized she would be—until today. The nasty rumor ate at him. He wanted the truth but he didn’t have the nerve, or couldn’t be mean enough, to confront her directly.
    He had to find another way.
    CORT: hey.
    RACHEL: hey, did you suck in too many fumes or something?
    CORT: no.
    RACHEL: OK. but u r mad at me 4 some reason.
    CORT: it was u that threw my $ down on the table.
    RACHEL: i wasn’t mad at u
    CORT: so what was it?
    RACHEL: u tel me.
    Rachel stared at the screen, waiting. Ever since she’d left Miss Chachi’s she’d been bugged. She ran their conversation over and over in her head and saw no reason for Cort to turn lame on her. She’d gone from mad to sorry to afraid and back to mad again. With some time to consider the future, which looked total y destroyed, she rotated back to fear.
    She didn’t like that. Fear meant she cared too much, and that her heart was the next thing to take a hit. But she couldn’t get Cort’s face out of her mind and that was enough for her to try to suck it up and figure out what had happened.
    RACHEL: did i say something?
    It’s not what