The Boyfriend App (20 page)

“BRIGGS!”

I was a banshee.

“BRIGGS LICK!”

The foghorn that blared for fire alarms.

“BRIIIGGGS LIIIIICCCK!”

Cyndi Lauper hitting a high note.

I was alive and I was screaming. Louder than Carrie screamed from the top of the pyramid, louder than Claire screamed when you told her that her bike wasn’t actually a horse, louder than any high-school girl has ever screamed in any cafeteria in the fifty United States of America.

Everybody shut up.

If a pin had dropped, you would’ve heard it. But a pin didn’t drop—did it ever in these situations?—so there was nothing except deafening silence. My shaking legs made it nearly impossible to walk. Briggs stared at me, but so did everyone else, and I needed to get closer so I didn’t accidentally activate a different buyPhone in the direct line of mine. This was about Briggs. Briggs Joshua Lick II: my first French kiss, soccer hottie/jock superstar, bona fide make-the-girls-squeal Harrison Heartthrob, who just happened to be single at the present moment.

Briggs stared at me with the side of his mouth cocked into a snarl. He
still
looked hot, even snarled and confused.

My thumb hovered above the
IT’S ON
button when I heard it.

“You call this crap
food
?”

Jolene’s shrill voice echoed across the cafeteria. I whirled around. Jolene stood in the lunch line with her cream-colored plastic tray set on the metal bars in front of her. Her blond ponytail hung halfway down her back, the ends flipping into curls. One hand was on her hip and the other gestured with a palm toward the ceiling. “What’s the matter? You don’t need to understand English for this job? I said:
Do you call this disgusting crap food
?”

Jolene was talking to my mother. And Blake and Joanna stood on either side of her, laughing. My mother stood there with the silver ladle in midair, unmoving, like someone had pressed pause on a television screen. I flashed to her at home, in the kitchen, humming while she stirred hollandaise sauce. Fingers wrapped around my heart and squeezed. A curl escaped beneath my mother’s hairnet. Her green eyes blinked and she glanced between Blake, Joanna, and Jolene. Then Blake reached forward with a closed fist and slammed the ladle, sending gravy flying across my mom’s face.

A collective intake of breath snapped across the cafeteria.

Fire started in my feet. It rose like bile into my stomach, burning my lungs, climbing up my throat, pooling in my mouth.

“Mom,”
I heard myself whisper.

She raised her hands to wipe her face but it just made things worse, smearing the brown liquid across her cheeks. She looked furious as she rubbed her eyes with tight fists. She took a step back, and I could tell by the way she was blinking it was stinging her eyes and she couldn’t see.

The blaze burned inside me until my entire body felt hot. Stillness settled over me. There was only the feeling of fire: and it roared so loud it quieted my racing thoughts, until suddenly, I didn’t want Briggs Lick.

I wanted to get to Blake.

I wanted Xander Knight.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

chapter twenty-two

I
forced myself not to go to my mother.

Her coworkers surrounded her, fussing and pressing wet rags against her face. I overheard her assure them she was perfectly fine. She stepped into the small office next to the register—probably to call the Battery: I knew she’d report Blake, even if she knew the Battery would find a reason to excuse his darling niece.

Good. I didn’t want her seeing this.

My legs carried me one foot in front of the other across the cafeteria, my body bathed with hundreds of eyeballs. Carrie’s cheerleading friends covered their mouths. Kevin Jacobsen and the potheads gazed with watery eyes but unwavering focus. Annborg and the foreign-exchange students nudged one another, some of them unsure what had been said but sure
something
was about to go down. Sean DeFosse’s friends weren’t laughing anymore as I stopped inches from Xander’s table.

I looked down at Xander, registering how light-brown-instead-of-black his lashes were, and the patch of stubble on his jaw he’d missed shaving. “Hi, Xander,” I said, my voice a whisper. I liked the way it felt saying Xander’s name out loud, the way it tasted in my mouth. So I said it again.

“Xander.”

His eyes locked on mine.

I made out the tip of his buyPhone protruding from his right pocket. He blinked at me, looking unsure. I felt the weight of the cafeteria as I took out my phone and angled it at his pants.

IT’S ON

Xander’s palms hit the table—
hard
. His muscles flexed as he pushed back, his chair screeching.

My heart pounded.

He leapt to his feet and came at me. His palm went to my cheek and his fingertips trailed the skin along my jaw.

“Xander?”

Blake’s voice. Ringing across the cafeteria.

Xander’s eyes never left mine. His hand dropped to my collarbone.
“Audrey,”
he whispered.

I tried to catch my breath, but his hands were at my waist now, pulling me against him. He covered my mouth with his and suddenly we were kissing. We were
kissing
. Xander Knight was kissing me. I was kissing Xander Knight. And, okay, so maybe the kiss didn’t live up to everything I’d fantasized about during freshman year, but it was a
kiss
, and I hadn’t been kissed in so long, and it felt so good.

“Stop it!”

She was close—I guessed about ten feet away—but Xander was so busy kissing me like I’d never been kissed—like no one had ever been kissed, not even the contestants on
The Bachelor
—that he didn’t seem to register the sound of her voice. His lips traveled from my mouth to my neck to my collarbone. I tried to keep up with him, but it was like making out with a ten-mouthed beast from Xion: His hands were clawing me everywhere, and wherever his hands weren’t, his mouth was.

I let out a crazed scream—partly for effect, partly because I couldn’t help it. Xander’s hands went beneath my butt, lifting me so my legs straddled his waist. He looked at me and I looked at him—staring into the gold-flecked hazel eyes I half-pretended to obsess over with Mindy.

“XANDER DAVID KNIGHT!”

But it was like Blake’s voice only spurred him on. He jumped onto the lunch table cradling me in one arm and lowered me onto my back. I stared at his handsome features, but I couldn’t focus on him. Aidan’s face flashed through my mind. He was only a few tables away.

“I love you, Audrey McCarthy,” Xander whispered into my ear. “I always have.”

I didn’t want Aidan to get the wrong idea—even if he was with Carrie. But I needed to do this.

“Say it louder, Xander,” I begged.

“I LOVE YOU, AUDREY MCCARTHY! I ALWAYS—”

Blake’s fist connected with Xander’s mouth. She jumped onto the table and tried to tear Xander from me. “You are nothing without me, you impoverished tramp!” she shrieked at Xander. “Get off her!”

Xander’s hands were flailing as she dug her fingernails into his bicep and all I could think was:
Xander Knight is poor?

“I love her!” Xander shouted, diving back on top of me like a fumbled football.

Gasps sounded across the cafeteria. Then the cheering started.

I squirmed farther beneath Xander to avoid Blake’s fists, scared she was going to
Single White Female
my eyeball with her stiletto. Her black stockings snagged on the corner of the table as she drew her knee back and nailed Xander’s crotch.

“Ow!” Xander grabbed his injury and rolled off me.

I was still on my back—not a wonderful position now that Blake was hovering over me. “I will
end
you,” she said through gritted teeth. She cocked a fist.

Lindsay’s tribal beads flashed turquoise and yellow balls in the space between Blake’s fist and my face.

“Not while wearing knockoff Gucci, you won’t,” Lindsay said. She jumped. Her arms cinched Blake’s waist and the two of them went flying off the table. I dove after them. Jolene and Joanna raced toward us with Aidan and Nigit close behind. Everyone in the cafeteria was on his or her feet. I was trying to pry Blake’s grip from Lindsay’s hair when I heard it.

“Attenshayn, Harrison soodents!”

I whirled around. Mindy had climbed onto our lunch table. Her patent-leather Mary Janes
clickedy-clack-clack
ed across the table like tap shoes. She lifted her chin and brushed her caramel waves off her shoulder.

“The Bo-friend App 2.0 is now availabill for download! Every girl can gayt her dream guy like Ohdrey McCarthy!”

A roar exploded across the cafeteria.

“Go, Mindy!” Carrie shouted, which prompted her cheerleading teammates to shout Mindy’s name, too.

Lunch aids scrambled through the standing ovation to break apart Blake and Lindsay, who rolled across the linoleum. Aidan and Nigit tried to keep Joanna and Jolene from jumping on Lindsay’s back. Xander recovered from Blake’s knee and crawled across the floor in my direction. “Down, boy!” I shouted as he pawed my legs.

“Cheer, cheer for Audrey!” Carrie screamed. No matter how jealous of her I was—I could’ve kissed her in that moment. Everyone was suddenly screaming my name: “Audrey! Audrey! AUDREY!” I turned and glanced over the heads of my clapping, cheering classmates. My mother stood in her same position behind the lunch line. She wasn’t wearing her hairnet now and someone must have helped her wipe her face clean. Her light green eyes caught mine. She ran a hand through her hair. She shook her head slowly and gave me one of her
What am I going to do with you?
looks.

Then she started clapping.

“Break it up!” Hot Gym Coach shouted as he raced across the cafeteria in his maroon-colored Umbros. The lunch ladies got between the Martin sisters and Lindsay, and HGC manhandled Blake and Xander. “Sit! Now!” he shouted. “Martins, Gurung, Fanning, Bailey, McCarthy!” He managed to line all eight of us up on opposite sides of a lunch table. “Who started this?” he demanded. His tan hands were clenched and rugged from doing athlete stuff like coaching or rowing a canoe.
“Audrey?”

Of course he blamed me with Blake sitting right there, her pouting lips so glossy I could practically see my reflection.

Blake pointed at me. “It was Abby, Taylor,” she whined, still breathing heavy. I’d graduated from Aubrey to Abby. And
Taylor
? Who called a teacher by his first name?

HGC shot Blake a look, but she faked a whimper and he melted.

Aidan’s blue button-down was ruffled from intercepting Blake and Co.’s attacks on Lindsay. He caught my glance. A smile played on his lips.

Nigit’s white glove was smeared with a raspberry-colored lipstick that matched Joanna’s mouth, and I recognized the eight tiny indentations on his index finger as teeth marks. He looked freaked out—probably because he’d never been in trouble in the history of his educational career. Jolene sat next to her sister, staring at me beneath a puffed, swelling eye socket.

“Blake attacked my aunt Marian!” Lindsay said, smacking a hand on the lunch table. Her wooden necklace had broken, and now only a few multicolored beads remained around her neck, like a half-eaten candy choker.

HGC restrained Xander, who was practically panting. I waved my fingers suggestively and Xander lunged again.

“Enough, Audrey!” HGC said, slamming his forearm against Xander’s chest.

I glanced around Xander’s flailing body to see nearly every girl in the cafeteria bent over her buyPhone. (This time, I’d coded the app so only female users could download it.) Annborg Alsvik was reading the Boyfriend App instructions out loud: “Point your phone at your Dream Guy. As soon as he makes eye contact with you, press the
IT’S ON
button. To end his obsession with you, press
IT’S OVER
.” She translated this for another foreign-exchange student who only knew how to say
hello
,
good-bye
,
cheese
, and
Beyonce
.

The next second, Annborg’s voice was drowned out by a girl screaming, “What’s up now, Briggs Lick?”

CRACK!

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

chapter twenty-three

I
turned to see Briggs Lick’s porcelain lunch plate in two jagged pieces next to his feet. He sprung from his chair. He darted across the cafeteria, dodging kids and chairs like he was on the soccer field.

The student government president (I forget her first name—but her campaign buttons read
ELECT RIC-
hardson) clutched her buyPhone with both hands and pointed it at his crotch.

Briggs raced toward her. Then he stopped, standing tall before Richardson. He ran a hand over her smooth black skin, and pressed his lips against hers. Richardson arched back and kicked her heel up like an actress getting kissed in a movie.

Girls. Freaked. Out.

In a wave of chaos they jumped from their chairs and scrambled across the cafeteria, forming amoebalike clusters around the hottest guys. Water-polo boy Wes Clark, who smelled like chlorine, but had modeled as a child in California, flattened himself against a window as a dozen screaming girls vied for eye contact.

“Wes!”

“Over here, Wes!”

Theresa Rexford (who everyone called T. Rex on account of her name and her masculine voice) secured eye contact with her booming “WES CLARK!” and stood there, her mouth shaped like an O, as Wes swam through the crowd and Frenched her. Sara Oaks, a mousy-haired girl who was always apologizing for things out of her control (like the weather, or a zit) pointed her buyPhone at viola player Robby Timson, who sat alone with wide eyes primed for Apptivation. “Sorry, Robby!”