Never Bite a Boy on the First Date by Tamara Summers Page A

history book, leaning back calmly in his chair as if this were the most natural place in the world for him to be.
    Was it a coincidence? Or had he done that on purpose? Maybe I was reading too much into it. At least one of the cheerleaders and a couple of band guys from the woodwinds section were in all my classes, too. Surely that happened all the time.
    And Daniel couldn’t have changed his schedule last night after meeting me, because we’d left the school together.
    Right?
    We kept quiet for the rest of class, but whenthe bell rang, I leaned over and said, “Want to hear something freaky? We have the exact same schedule.”
    He gave me that wry little smile. “That sounds very fortuitous. Does that mean you can lead me to”—he glanced down at his schedule—“physics?”
    “Sadly for you, yes,” I said. We gathered our books as I told him about our scatterbrained physics teacher. When we walked down the hall together, he stayed close beside me, and a few times his arm brushed mine as we swerved around the rampaging hordes.
    It felt so normal, you could almost forget the whole meeting-in-a-dark-hall-at-a-murder-scene thing.
    Speaking of which, I still had one suspect to check off my dance card, and I didn’t even know his name yet. Part of me thought, Aren’t two dreamy, mysterious guys enough for you to investigate? But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to know more about the guy with the cute smile. Not because of the cute smile, mind you. No, no, no. I was interested in the way he’d looked atthe murder scene. Surely that warranted further investigation.
    And then finally, at the end of the day, I saw him.
    I had just left Daniel at his locker, which was on the first floor because all the regular junior lockers on the top floor were taken. I was on my way toward the school’s back exit, hoping that if I snuck out that way and headed through the cemetery, I’d make it home before Zach did. He was always trying to walk home with me, but I usually managed to give him the slip.
    Between the main body of the school and the cafeteria and gym buildings, there’s a little courtyard with benches and trees and tables where the upperclassmen usually eat lunch. Luckily for me, Vivi prefers to eat inside because of her delicate, easily sunburned skin—yet another reason I’m friends with her.
    I happened to glance out there as I went by, and there he was: Mr. Smiley, sitting on one of the tables and joking around with a couple of muscular blond guys.
    I stopped by the door to the courtyard andreapplied my lip gloss, watching him surreptitiously. This was a bad sign—or a good sign, I suppose, depending on whether I wanted him to turn out to be a murdering vampire or not. He was sitting right out in the sunshine, which seemed like a very un-vampire-y thing to do, unless his supercharged vampire sunscreen was a lot more powerful than mine. His sunglasses were pushed up on his head, holding back his curly mop of dark hair, and I could see gold flecks in his brown eyes. The sleeves of his faded blue shirt were rolled up, revealing toned arms.
    How was I going to meet him? I could just saunter out there and say hi, but (a) sunshine, and (b) would that make him suspicious? Like, Why is a random girl talking to me? Oh, and also, gee, the sunlight sure seems to make her dizzy…. Hmmmm .
    What I really wanted was some way for us to “meet cute”—you know, like in a movie, where the hero and heroine accidentally run into each other and it’s hilarious, and then of course they fall in love. Except, of course, we’d skip the “falling in love” part if it turned out that Mr.Smiley liked to savagely bite people and throw them out of windows.
    I listened with my vampire hearing, hoping that something would give me an idea.
    “All right, I’m heading home,” said one of the blond guys. “Need a lift?”
    “Sure,” said the other blond guy.
    “Nah. Thanks, though. I brought my car today,” said my guy.