But the truth is, I just can’t look at him and see the tall, muscular godlike figure he is today. I just can’t. I CAN’T! He’s like…I don’t know. Mybrother , or something.

Tina, of course, completely mistook my revulsion for something else.

“Don’t worry, Mia,” she said, taking my hand and gazing worriedly into my eyes. “We’re totally safe. You know neither of us has ever been with anybody else. And I’ve been on the Pill since I was fourteen, because of my dysmenorrhea.”

I blinked at her some more. Oh, right. Tina’s dysmenorrhea. She used to get out of P.E. because of it every month. Lucky duck.

Tina looked at me uncertainly. “So…you don’t think I’m a slut for not waiting until the prom?”

My mouth fell open. “What? No! Of course not! Tina!”

“Well.” Tina winced. “I just…I wasn’t sure. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how you’d feel about it. I mean, we had our plan for prom night, and I…I ruined it because I couldn’t wait.” Then she brightened. “But then, when you said you thought prom was lame, and J.P. didn’t ask you—and then when I read your book—well, I just put it all together and thought you must have had sex already, too! Only now that you and Michael—”

I looked around the penguin enclosure quickly. There were people everywhere! Most of whom were five years old! And screaming about penguins! And we were having this totally intimate conversation! Aboutsex !

“Now that Michael and me what?” I interrupted. “There’s no Michael and me, Tina. I told you, I just spilled hot chocolate on him. That’s all!”

“But you smelled him,” Tina said, looking concerned.

“Yeah, I smelled him,” I said. “But that’s it!”

“But you said he smelled better than J.P.” Tina still looked concerned.

“Yeah,” I said, starting to feel panicky. Suddenly, the penguin exhibit was making me feel a little claustrophobic. There were way too many people in there. Plus, the echoing shrieks of all the sticky-fingered kids—not to mention the faint odor of penguin—was getting a little overwhelming. “But that doesn’t mean anything! It’s not like we’re getting back together, or anything. We’re just friends.”

“Mia.” Tina looked stern. “I read your book, remember?”

“My book?” I could feel myself getting hot, even though it was super air-conditioned in the penguin house. “What does my book have to do with anything?”

“A handsome knight who’s been away from home for a long, long time returns?” Tina said meaningfully. “Weren’t you writing about Michael?”

“No!” I insisted. Oh my God! Was everyone who read it going to think this? Was J.P. going to think it? WasMichael ? OH, NO! HE WAS READING IT RIGHT NOW!!!! Maybe he was reading it WITH MICROMINI MIDORI! AND LAUGHING ABOUT IT!

“What about the girl who felt obligated to care for her people?” Tina went on. “Weren’t you really writing about yourself? And the people were the Genovians?”

“No!” I cried, my voice cracking. Some of the parents, holding the smaller kids up to see the penguins, looked over to see what the two teenaged girls in the dark corner were talking about.

If only they knew the truth. They’d probably have run screaming from the zoo. They might even have asked the wardens to shoot us.

“Oh.” Tina looked let down. “Well…it seemed like it. It seemed like…you were writing about you and Michael getting back together.”

“Tina, I wasn’t,” I said. My chest was starting to feel tight. “I swear.”

“So…” Tina looked at me intently in the blue glow from the penguin tank. “What are you going to do about J.P.? I mean…you twoare having sex? Aren’t you?”

I don’t know how what happened next happened—what heavenly miracle occurred to save me—but at that very moment Mamaw and Papaw showed up with Rocky in tow, screaming my name. I mean, Rocky was screaming my name. Not Mamaw and Papaw.

Then the zoo was closing, so we all had to leave. Which pretty much closed the discussion on Tina’s sex life. And mine. Thank GOD.

So now I’m here at Applebee’s.

And I don’t think I will ever be the same. Because Tina just confessed that she and Boris have been having sex regularly.

I should have known. They have been showing little to no public displays of affection at school all year—no kissing, no holding hands in the hallway, nothing like this—which should have been an indication to me that something serious was going on.

Such as major play under the sheets after school when Mr. and Mrs. Pelkowski weren’t home.

God! I’m so blind!

Oh, no—my cell phone is going off. It’s J.P.! He must be calling to tell me what he thinks ofRansom My Heart .

I just answered even though I’m in the ladies’ room and there are people and flushing and stuff all around me. I personally think it’s disgusting when people answer their cell phones in the ladies’ room, but I haven’t heard from J.P. all day, and I left a message with him earlier. Ido want to see what he thinks of my book. I didn’t want to sound needy or anything, but, you know. You’d have thought he’d have called already to let me know. What if HE thinks my book is about Michael and me, too, just like Tina?

But it turns out I needn’t have worried: He hasn’t had a chance to read it yet, because he’s been in rehearsal all afternoon.

He wanted to know what I’m doing for dinner.

I said I was at Applebee’s with Mamaw and Papaw and my mom and Mr. G and Rocky, and that he was welcome (that I was even DYING for him) to join us.

But he laughed and said that was okay.

I don’t think he really comprehended the gravity of the situation.

So then I said, “No, you don’t understand. You NEED to come join us.”

Because I realized Ireally needed to see him, after the day I’d had…what with smelling Michael and finding out from Tina about her and Boris and all.

But J.P. said, “Mia…it’sApplebee’s .”

I said, feeling a little desperate (okay—a lot desperate): “J.P., I know it’s Applebee’s. But that’s the kind of restaurant my family likes. Well, some of my family. And I’m stuck here. It would really cheer me up so much if you could stop by. And Mamaw would really like to meet you. She’s been asking about you all day.”

This was a complete and total lie. But whatever, I lie so much, what difference could one more lie make?

Mamaw hadn’t mentioned J.P. at all, though she’d asked me if I had ever thought of asking out “that cute boy from that showHigh School Musical . Because, as a princess, I’m sure you could get him to go out with you.” Um…thanks, Mamaw, but I don’t date boys who wear more makeup than me!

“Besides,” I said to J.P., “I miss you. It seems like I hardly ever get to see you anymore, you’re so busy with your play.”

“Aw. But that’s what happens when two creative people get together,” J.P. reminded me. “Remember how busy you were when you were working on what I now know was your novel?” His reluctance to set foot in the horror that is the Times Square Applebee’s was palpable. Also, may I just add, perfectly understandable. Still. “And you’ll see me in school tomorrow. And all night at your party tomorrow. I’m just really zonked from rehearsal. You don’t mind, do you?”

I looked down at the squashed fry beneath my shoe.

“No,” I said. What else could I say? Besides, is there anything more pathetic than a nearly eighteen-year-old girl in a bathroom stall begging her boyfriend to come meet her and her parents and grandparents at Applebee’s for dinner?

I don’t think so.

“See you later,” I said, instead. And hung up.

I wanted to cry. I really, really did. Sitting there, thinking how my ex-boyfriend was maybe—probably—reading my book and thinking it was about him…and my current boyfriend hadn’t read my book at all…well…

Honestly, I think I must be the most pathetic night-before-her-birthday girl in all of Manhattan. Possibly on the entire East Coast.

Maybe in all of North America.

Maybe in the whole world.

An excerpt fromRansom My Heart by Daphne Delacroix

Hugo lay beneath her, hardly daring to believe his good fortune. He had been pursued by a great many women in his time, women more beautiful than Finnula Crais, women with more sophistication and worldly knowledge.

But none of them had ever appealed to him as immediately as this girl. She boldly announced that she wanted him for his money, and she wasn’t going to resort to seductions and stratagems to get it. Her game was abduction, pure and simple, and Hugo was so amused, he thought he might laugh out loud.

Every other woman he’d ever known, in both the literal and biblical sense, had a single goal in mind—to become the chatelaine of Stephensgate Manor. Hugo had nothing against the institution of marriage, but he had never met a woman with whom he felt he wanted to spend the rest of his life. And here was a girl who stated, plain as day, that all she wanted from him was money. It was as if a gust of fresh English air had blown through him, renewing his faith in womankind.

“So it’s your hostage I’m to be,” Hugo said to the stones beneath him. “And what makes you so certain I’ll be able to pay your ransom?”

“Do you think I’m daft? I saw the coin you tossed Simon back at the Fox and Hare. You oughtn’t be so showy with your spoils. You’re lucky ‘tis me that’s waylaid you, and not some of Dick and Timmy’s friends. They have rather unsavory companions, you know. You could have come to serious harm.”

Hugo smiled to himself. Here he’d been worried about the girl meeting up with trouble on her way back to Stephensgate, never suspecting that she was sharing the same concern for him.

“Here, what are you smiling at?” the girl demanded, and to his regret, she slid down from his back and prodded him, none too gently, in the side with a sharp toe. “Sit up, now, and stop sneering. There isn’t anything amusing about me abducting you, you know. I know I don’t look like much, but I think I proved back at the Fox and Hare that I truly am the finest shot with a short bow in all the county, and I’ll thank you to remember it.”