The Starter Boyfriend by Tina Ferraro Page A

you.”
    “Fun? That’s it?”
    “Well, yeah, I mean, who doesn’t like fashion?”
    He exhaled, then bit on the inside of his cheek. “I forget girls think about that stuff.” Then he made a loose fist and grazed my upper arm, all buddy-buddy. “I shouldn’t have lost it. Sorry. This whole thing—qualifying, needing sponsorship, Saffron—it’s kind of freaking me out.”
    I did a “No prob” with a wave of my hand.
    “But it’s a definite no-go on the monkey suit. Tell her that, okay? I mean, I’ll dress up. Suit and tie. I’m not a total dork. But you and I both know if I go all out for this date, it’ll be giving her the wrong message.”
    I nodded, spying my teammates at their lunch table across the way, talking and laughing with such intensity that if you didn’t know better, you wouldn’t know their collective radar was pinging in on Adam and me.
    “If she’s so dead-set on a date in a tuxedo,” he went on, a quirky grin tugging one side of his mouth. “Fix her up with that mannequin in the store window. What did you call him again?”
    “Tux,” I managed, then laughed. Although nothing was remotely funny. Not Adam bringing Tux into a real-time conversation here at school, and definitely not the image of Saffron getting her talons in my secret boyfriend, either.
     
    * * *
     
    Saffron stared at me through tinted sunglasses when I slid in across from her at the lunch table, but even the darkest lenses couldn’t have hidden her anticipation. “So? Did you ask him?”
    Flea scooted down to give me room, while Madison offered up some of her Mini Oreos.
    “Sorry, babycakes,” I said to Saffron while grabbing a couple of cookies. “Adam gave me a No Way, Jose.”
    “Seriously?”
    I figured it didn’t hurt my overall team rep to show Saffron how “hard” I’d tried, so I pulled the picture out of my back pocket. True, I’d chosen not to show it to Adam, but I could get around that. “I even had this,” I said, unfolding the photocopy paper. “To show him one of our top of the line styles.”
    Pouting, she took it from my hand. I crunched the cookies, waiting for her to veer off into expletives or some kind of tantrum, and was surprised when she did nothing more than sigh and put the paper back on the table. I wasn’t sure if she’d done the math and realized that Adam + tuxedo = total long shot, or if it was the audience of our teammates that kept her from a grieving-widow-at-a-wake or how-dare-he-refuse-me scene.
    Most likely she merely got upstaged by Randy, whose long shadow fell upon us, turning all our heads and shushing all our voices.
    “Courtney,” he said, looking down at me. “Can we talk?”
    I could practically hear the fluttery eyelashes all around me, flying back against brows. With the same kind of excitement as when it was bases-loaded, and we were at the top of our line-up.
    Flea jumped up to let me out, which I maneuvered without much trouble, having used up all my clumsiness and awkwardness on Adam. Besides, I was torn between being proud of Randy for saying my name with such confidence, and wondering if he was here as the relater of news, as well.
    Did he get back with Jacy? Was he here to break our date? (Did I care?)
    I moved in beside him, and we fell into step toward the main classroom building. But before he could get a word out, courtyard security Betty Anne lumbered past from the opposite direction, her usual no-nonsense nod or squint replaced by a full-on smile of approval. Either she was friends with his mom, or Jacy really was a piece of work.
    He nodded, then slanted a look down at me, his small eyes like half-crescents. “We never did talk specifics about Homecoming. I need to be there early, so I’m thinking six-thirty. Where do I pick you up?”
    His phone appeared in his hand, and he typed in the address I rattled off.
    “Now, for the corsage, what color is your dress?”
    Aha, a mission from his mom. “Sky blue,” I told him, and for some