Puppy Love by A. Destiny and Catherine Hapka Page A

as Ozzy brought it back. “I mean, the school’s pretty big, and he’s a senior. We don’t really hang in the same crowd, you know? But I’ve seen him around. Didn’t know he was into dogs until Rachel told me, though.”
    I recalled him saying that before. Even though I was itching to ask more questions, I held back. For one thing, it didn’t sound as if Jamal would be able to answer most of them, since he didn’t know Adam much better than I did. For another thing, I didn’t want him to think I was some crazy stalker. After all, Jamal had no way to know about that spark that had passed between Adam and me the other day. He’d probably just see me as a pathetic girl with a crush on the teacher.
    Jamal hurled the ball across the enclosure again, sending both puppies zooming off after it. “So what’s your story, Lauren?” he asked. “I know you like obscure Scottish bands and dressing up as a disco goddess, but what else do you do for fun?”
    Uh-oh. That sounded an awful lot like flirting. And while it was flattering to think such an amazing guy might be interested in me, I didn’t want to let him think I was interested back. Not in that way. I wanted us to be friends and leave it at that.
    So I scanned my mind for something about me that would turn him off. Something that made most guys look at me like I had two heads. Aha . . .
    â€œHorror movies,” I blurted out. “I love ’em. The bloodier the better.”
    â€œFor real?” His eyebrows shot up in surprise.
    I smiled. Mission accomplished. An admission like that should put me squarely in just-one-of-the-guys territory.
    â€œAwesome! I love horror flicks!” Jamal’s face broke into a big grin, and he raised his hand for a high five. “See? I knew you were cool as soon as I met you! So what are some of your favorites? Do you get into the classics—you know, Hitchcock, Romero—or mostly newer stuff?”
    I returned the high five weakly. “Um, pretty much all of it,” I said. “Except I usually wait for the new ones to come out On Demand or whatever, because Robert hates scary movies. He’s always dragging me to sappy romances and stuff.”
    Jamal chuckled. “Robert seems like . . . a character.” He hesitated, sneaking me a sidelong glance. “So are you guys, you know, best friends, or what?”
    Despite meeting Robert, he still seemed to want confirmation that our relationship wasn’t romantic. As if. And yeah, by the way, mission obviously not accomplished. This wasn’t a problem I was used to having, to say the least, and I wasn’t sure how to handle it.
    But it was clearly way too late to go back to pretending that Robert and I were a couple. “Yeah, we’ve been best friends since I started at County Day last year,” I said. “I met him on my first day, at lunchtime. . . .”

ChapterTen
One year and two months earlier
    I skulked over to the empty end of a long table in the far corner of the cafeteria. The nonempty end was filled with a bunch of freshman boys arguing over some sports event. The cafeteria at County Day Academy was a lot smaller than the one at MVMS, which meant it was hard to find a spot to be alone.
    And I definitely wanted to be alone. My first day at private school wasn’t going well so far. I’d figured it would be easier making friends and fitting in at a smaller school, but that wasn’t turning out to be the case. Everyone here appeared to have known one another since kindergarten, if not before. And they didn’t seem interested in getting to know someone new. Nobody even said hello when I stumbled into my homeroom after spending twenty minutes searching for it, too intimidated to stop anyone to ask for help.
    For the rest of the morning, I’d wandered around silently and listened to my new schoolmates fill each other in on their