How to Get Ainsley Bishop to Fall in Love With You (15 page)

“So the crying was . . . a good thing?” I’d never understand women.

“The crying was a good thing.” My dad sat back and pulled his glasses off again to rub at his eyes. “I’ll get you the software, son, and Ainsley will be amazed you even thought of it.”

I stood up to head for the door, unsure why he seemed kind of . . . sad, almost? “Okay. Thanks, Dad.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Oh, and Oliver?”

“Yeah?”

“When Ainsley realizes what she’s missing, I expect you to bring her by so your mom and I can meet her.”

I spluttered but managed to nod before fleeing to my room. I could feel my face—my whole body, actually—heat with embarrassment as I headed up the stairs, but I also couldn’t keep from smiling, just a little.

Monday evening, Ms. Sherman asked for anyone who could to stay after drama club practice to paint scenery. After much arm-twisting and favor-promising, Viney agreed to stay with me—although I think the stack of pizza boxes Ms. Sherman had delivered to the auditorium might have weighed as heavily in his decision. To my surprise, Ainsley plopped down next to us on the stage and grabbed a slice out of the box between us. Viney gaped at her mid-chew.

She paused before taking a bite. “What? I like olives.”

I reached over to shove Viney’s mouth closed. “You’ll have to forgive Viney. He’s not used to civilized company.”

Ainsley smirked. “What’s that say about you?”

Viney snorted. I ignored him.

“Ms. Sherman seems to like the changes in the play,” I said instead. “I actually heard her laughing.”

Ainsley’s face lit up. “Everybody likes them. They all keep saying it’s so much better.”

“I told Hank about it this weekend. He said to tell you he’d be in the front row opening night.”

“No!” She dropped the crust of her pizza into the box. “He can’t! I would die!”

“What are you talking about?” I was vaguely aware of Viney watching our conversation, his head moving back and forth like he was in the stands at a tennis match.

“He’s a Broadway actor!” Ainsley exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air. “He can’t come to a school play. How humiliating!”

I picked up a slice of pizza and shoved it into her hands. She took it grumpily and bit off the point.

“Hank’s a nice guy,” I told her, trying for a soothing tone. “He knows it’s a school play. He’s hardly going to expect Broadway, Ainsley—”

“But—”

“And he deserves to be here,” I pointed out. “It was his idea to make the play a comedy.”

Ainsley deflated. “I suppose. It just makes me nervous, you know?”

“It’ll be great. Don’t worry so much.”

“Easy for you to say. You’ll be in the back hiding in your sound booth—”

“I am not
hiding
!”

Viney choked on his pizza and reached for his Coke to gulp down a couple of swallows just as Ms. Sherman called Ainsley over to consult with her about some of the paint choices.

“You okay?” I asked Viney.

He shook his head. “This is weird. Since when does Ainsley Bishop sit and eat with us? Since when do you guys
banter
?”

I frowned. “We don’t banter.”

“You
totally
banter. It’s weird.”

“You said that.”

“Well, it is.”

I chewed on my pizza for a minute, my eyes straying to Ainsley. “You really think we banter?”

Viney let out an exasperated breath. “Oh my God!”

“Okay, okay!” I held up my hands, and Viney grunted, turning his attention back to the pizza.

“This is great,” I said finally. “This is . . . great.”

“You said that.”

I looked over at Viney in irritation, but he was grinning at me.

“She said I have her,” I said slowly. “I mean, as a friend, but she said that. And now we’re bantering and working together toward a common goal.” I dropped my pizza and reached for my backpack, checking over my shoulder before pulling out my notebook. “
Establish Rapport
, check,” I muttered, going down the list and marking off item after item with my red Sharpie.
Pay Attention
.
Be Encouraging and Supportive
. I hesitated at
Be More Attractive
, my hand lifting to my hair as I ran my tongue over my teeth. I shrugged, figuring it was about as good as it was gonna get, and checked it off.

“Impressive,” Viney said, eyeing the list. “So is she in love with you yet?”

“Not yet.” I closed the notebook and put it away. “But we’re friends. That’s a start, right?”

Viney, proving yet again why he was my best friend, smiled and said, “That’s a start.”

9.
Establish Rapport

Be thoughtful and supportive, but also show her you’re fun. Smile and make her laugh.

I was so sick of trees. Well, painting trees anyway. Ms. Sherman had sent a group of us to the parking lot to paint backdrops while everyone else was inside painting the smaller pieces. I had varying shades of green paint all over my clothes, and I was pretty sure there were streaks of it in my hair as well.

But I was having an
awesome
time. Because while I stood on a ladder painting leaf after leaf after leaf, Ainsley was right below me painting tree trunks.

And we were bantering again.

“I’m telling you, Oliver, you have
no idea
what you’re talking about,” she said, adding some texture to the bark. “
Pretty Woman
is a classic.”

I smirked down at her. “It’s about a hooker.”

She smirked back. “A hooker with a heart of gold.”

“What does that even mean?”

Ainsley rolled her eyes and dabbed on a little more paint. “She was only a hooker out of
desperation
, Oliver. But love showed her she could have more.”

I snorted. “Yeah, like a millionaire to buy her giant bathtubs.”

“Hey!” She glared, affronted. “Don’t mock the power of love.”

I fought to maintain my serious expression, though a smile tugged at my cheeks. “I’m not mocking love. I’m mocking the ludicrous idea that a millionaire businessman would, A, pick up a hooker on Hollywood Boulevard—”

“It could happen—”

“B, that said businessman would then pay said hooker to be his arm candy for a week. Come on, the woman kept her boot zipped with a safety pin!”

“That’s discriminatory. Nothing wrong with safety pins!”

“And C. That said businessman would fall head over heels for said hooker just because she looks good in designer clothes and does the Arsenio woof at polo matches.”

Ainsley’s eyes narrowed, an evil grin sliding over her face. “Wait a second. How many times have you
seen Pretty Woman,
anyway?”

Crap. Caught in my own well-versed argument. “Umm . . . a couple?”

Ainsley threw her head back and laughed. “A couple? You know it backward and forward. You probably have all Kate’s lines memorized.”

“Kit’s,” I said without thinking.

Ainsley howled, pointing at me with her paintbrush. “I knew it!”

“Shut up,” I muttered, but Ainsley ignored me, gripping her stomach as she laughed. So I did the only thing I could, really. I dipped my brush into the can of lime-green paint and flung it at her.

We stared at each other, both stunned, though probably her a little more than me.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Ainsley all but growled, flinging green-tinted bangs out of her face as she swirled a brush in her paint. I leaped from the ladder and backed away nervously.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “It was an accident?” I couldn’t even say it with a straight face.

“Right,” Ainsley said, kind of snort-scoffing. “I’ll show you an accident.” She brandished her paintbrush, waving it in slow circles, brown paint dribbling to the asphalt.

“Now think about this, Ainsley. You don’t want to mess up our work, right?” I ducked behind a faux tree, but she continued in her slow pursuit, eyes wild and crazy.

Well, okay, not that crazy, maybe, but they were kind of wild . . . ish. And she had a stripe of green paint dripping down the side of her face.

“You kind of look like Braveheart,” I said without thinking.

“Braveheart was blue.” And with that, she took three quick steps and whipped her brush across in front of her, a spray of brown paint splattering all over my face. I wiped it away from my eyes with a clean corner of my shirt as Ainsley laughed hysterically.

“You . . . have a paint moustache,” she panted out between guffaws. Yeah, she was actually guffawing.

I grabbed a jar of paint from the ground near my feet.

Red
.
Excellent
.

Ainsley’s eyes widened as I dunked my brush into the paint, the resulting green and red swirl particularly satisfying.

“Come on, Oliver. We’re even now, right?” She backed away, scanning the ground for her own paint. She all but dove on a little can of blue, plunging her brush in with glee.

“I’ll give you Braveheart,” she said, flinging blue paint toward me as I did the same with the green and red.

Ainsley squealed and threw the entire contents of the can toward me, just as I dipped my hand in the red paint, grabbed her around the waist with my other arm and smeared it across her mouth. Not to be outdone, she kicked against me, and I lost my balance. She dropped to her feet and dunked both hands into a big can of white primer before whirling on me. I started to run, but she jumped on my back and I tripped, barely turning enough to catch her as we both fell to the ground.

Ainsley whimpered.

“Crap, are you all right?” I twisted out from under her, my hands fluttering over her but not landing anywhere.

“Oliver?” she pleaded quietly.

“What is it?” I leaned closer, wondering if I needed to call 911.

With a victorious shout, Ainsley smeared her primer-covered hands over my face and into my hair. “ ‘They may take our lives. But they’ll never take our FREEDOM!’ ” she bellowed, raising her fists into the air.

She’d quoted Braveheart. I was so impressed I couldn’t even be mad that she’d tricked me. Instead, I dipped my own hands into the primer and rubbed it all over her face. She rolled away, and I crawled after her, both of us giggling like five-year-olds.

Then I noticed we weren’t alone. Actually, I knew we weren’t alone. I’d just kind of forgotten for a minute. I paused mid-crawl and looked up to find Viney and the others gathered around, watching us with a kind of horrified awe. And right there in the middle of the group of spectators, front and center, stood Ian.

“What the hell is this?” He loomed above us, backlit by the parking lot lights so I couldn’t really see his face. “Ainsley, what are you doing? You’re a mess!”

Ainsley got to her feet, wiping her paint-sticky hair back from her face. “We were just . . .” She glanced at me and her lips quirked. “Painting?”

I snorted. Ian glared. Ainsley swallowed a laugh. I’m pretty sure Viney’s eyes were about to pop out of his head.

“Painting,” Ian repeated derisively. “Is that what you call this? We were supposed to go to dinner, or did you forget that while you were rolling around with this . . . this . . .” He waved toward me, and I braced myself for the insult, but it never came. Instead, Ms. Sherman came bursting out of the auditorium, hair wild and cat-eye glasses askew.

“What in the world is going on?” she all but shrieked, gaping at the mess—mostly on Ainsley and me, to be fair—as she straightened her glasses. “What happened?”

“Umm . . .” I wiped a bit of paint out of my eye, accidentally getting it
in
my eye in the process. I swore under my breath and kept that eye tightly closed, hoping Ms. Sherman didn’t think I was winking at her. “We just had a little accident. With the paint. You know how it goes.”

“I know how it goes?” Ms. Sherman looked a little stunned.

“With art, you know?” I gestured wildly, warming to the topic. “You get inspired and before you know it—
bam!
Paint everywhere.” I nodded like that made perfect sense and glanced pointedly with one eye at Ainsley, who obediently nodded along. Ms. Sherman, for some odd reason, started to nod as well.