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“Yeah—I heard about you sending Danny photos. Ryan told me. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. As if you would ever do something like that. I wouldn’t believe you’d sent him a picture of your bra even if I saw your own boobs were inside of it.”

And even though I was lying to her, my heart swelled with the power of female friendship. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“So the thing is now I need to find a cheap dress. Between now and Friday.”

“That’s rough.” She brought a finger up to her lips in pensive thought on my behalf. “Unless…you’re not gonna be picky, are you?”

“Psssh. It’s just Darius.” Lying, again—only this time to myself.

“In that case, I think I can bring you something to try out tomorrow. My sister’s bridesmaid dress for my cousin.”

Sarah’s sister and I were roughly the same size. It was perfect. “Oh, Sarah—that’s awesome!”

“Don’t get too excited, till you see it, okay? It was a Christmas wedding. And she left it at home when she went to college.”

Meaning if it was cute she would’ve taken it with her. But beggars and choosers and all that. “Whatever it is, it’s perfect,” I said, and Ms. Liebel started class.

I ate lunch in the library again with my eyes and ears in the other-world. By now the gossip machine had made a full rotation—Danny himself had apparently taken my photo, of my bra, on his floor, me presumably naked in his room with him. Which explained a lot of the looks I was getting in the halls, boys looking at me hopefully and girls pretending that I didn’t exist. All that, after one chaste and non-descriptive photo? No wonder Lacey was so freaked.

I got to chemistry in one piece though, and ignored Liam’s purposeful ignoring of me right back, and when class was finished I went outside as fast as I could—and wound up almost running into Darius.

“Hey,” he said. “Got tickets.”

I couldn’t help it. I beamed at him. And for a second, it was like it’d been under the shadow of the cell-phone tower, allshining white and crackling. “Awesome,” I said, and fully meant it.

I was so enamored in that moment that I hardly realized Liam roughly brushing by me.

Darius was waiting for me beside his car after last period, leaning against it. It was hard to walk straight out to it and not do something stupid, like skip. He smiled at seeing me, then beeped it open so we could both get in. “So, uh, you heard you gave Danny a blow-job this past weekend, right?”

“Yeah. In between kissing you, saving Ms. Harper’s life, and going to the hospital. I’m a busy girl.” I fastened my seatbelt. “I can’t believe what a liar Danny is.”

“The problem is this school is deprived of real gossip. If you had feuding gangs here, people wouldn’t care who fucked who.”

My eyes met his in the rear-view mirror—he was amused/bemused/serious and I was trying and failing not to crush hard. “Let’s start one,” I said, trying to sound cavalier. “What’ll we call ourselves?”

“The Electric Company,” he answered, without a second thought.

“I like it.”

“Me too,” he said. Then he popped his car into reverse and we were on our way out.

Allie was playing at our neighbors when Darius dropped me off—and the second she saw me getting out of a strange car she raced over.

“Who was that?”

“A friend.”

“Why haven’t I met him yet?”

“Because he’s just a friend,” I asserted, ignoring the way she was squinting up at me. “He gave me a ride, okay? I hate the bus.”

This confused her even more. “I like the bus.”

“Why?”

“Because I get to hang out with all my friends.” She looked back at the passel of other elementary school kids playing tag next door—their tag game had likely began on the bus itself. I could remember when Sarah, Lacey, and I had been like that too. Heck, even when we’d used to include Emily and Kortney.