Twisted by Amity Hope Page B

agreeing to come. Hailey was in her usual overly perky, silly mood. It did not pair well with my gloomy and just plain blah mood. I’d thought being with my friends would cheer me up but instead, I was starting to feel annoyed.
    Hailey’s eyes started to sparkle as the sugar hit her brain. “Okay, back to business. If it’s agreed that Blake is mine, then who are you two interested in?” She leaned forward, waiting in anticipation.
    Phoebe scoffed. “As if I’d tell you, oh gossip queen of Beaumont High.”
    Hailey smiled proudly. “Maybe I could help. You know, put in a good word. Come on Phoebe. Who is it?” Her eyes twinkled expectantly.
    Phoebe shook her head and laughed. “I was kidding, there’s no one. I don’t have time for that stuff. I have competitions coming up. I need to add in some extra ice time.”
    Hailey leaned back again. She crossed her arms while mindfully keeping her dark plum nails from smudging. “There’s always time for a love life. Come on, you’re a teen with raging hormones. Who are they raging for?”
    Phoebe gave her a playful nudge. “No one. I swear.”
    Hailey turned her speculative gaze my way.  She raised her eyebrows and waited.
    “Uh-uh, don’t look at me. I just moved here,” I reminded her.
    “But you’ve been in school for weeks. You’ve seen all there is to see. Someone must interest you.”
    “Nope.”
    Phoebe glanced at me, totally blank faced, giving nothing away.
    Hailey gave us both a look of disgust. “You two are such disappointments. In fact, there must be something wrong with both of you. There’s a whole school full of guys. You know,” she added as a side note, “some of the juniors aren’t bad. I mean, now that we’re at the top we can’t expect to just sit back and take such a drastic cut in our options. Any juniors interest you?” she asked hopefully.
    Phoebe and I both shook our heads and made faces at each other.
    “Maybe some of us have more important things than boys to worry about,” Phoebe suggested.
    “Not possible,” Hailey informed her with a scowl before turning to me. “I wish you were coming with us tonight,” she said. She sighed again to emphasize her continued disappointment in me. “There’s going to be a lot of people at the party. I mean a lot of people. It would be so easy to fix you up with someone. When I was talking to Blake last night he said Ty was asking about you. I bet the four of us could double date sometime.”
    I clenched my jaw. The only thing I knew about Ty was that he was friends with Alec. Therefore, I knew I disliked him by default. Was that fair? Probably not but that’s just the way it was.
    “Yeah, too bad about tonight,” I mumbled.
    “Can’t you and Remy have a girls’ night out a different night?” Hailey asked. She was dangerously close to whining again. “This is going to be the first big party of the year. Think of all of the people you could meet. It won’t be the same without you. We were counting on having you come with us. Everyone is going to be there!”
    I knew that wasn’t true. Ben wasn’t going to be there. But I knew that to her, Ben was a nobody so he didn’t count.
    “I can’t cancel on Remy,” I said stubbornly.
    Remy and I did have plans. They weren’t exactly for the kind of girls’ night I had let Hailey imagine. As soon as Remy woke up in a few hours we would make the five hour drive to see Mom. We’d stay in a hotel tonight and then spend the day with her tomorrow. Then we planned on leaving late in the afternoon so we’d be home around bedtime. It was going to be a quick trip. I was nervous and excited to be going. I hadn’t seen my mom for almost two months. I’d never been away from her for more than a few days before. I just wished we were visiting under better circumstances.
    “You look so serious,” Phoebe noted.
    “Me?” I asked as my head snapped up. “No, I was just thinking. You’re going to have a lot of fun tonight. I’ll go to