"Cool," he said, leaning forward and kissing me on the cheek. "I'll pick you up at seven, okay? Dress up. We'll go somewhere nice. Mom is going to some work retreat this weekend, so we'll have the house to ourselves if you want to come back to my place after."

"Sounds good."

"Great. Well, I have to get to practice. I'll see you around."

I let him give me a quick kiss on the lips before he ran back toward the double doors that led into the gym.

When he was gone, I turned and walked over to Chloe's car. "Let's go," I said, smacking the hood of the black convertible. "I can't be late for work."

Chloe slid off the hood as I got into the passenger's seat.

"Now, Lissa, was that so hard?" she asked.

"Yes… but I'm glad I did it. You were right; it is better for me to just be honest with him."

"When am I ever wrong?"

"Well, there was that time last year when you attempted to convince me that Harrison Carlyle was straight by going up to him at The Nest and trying to — "

"Hey, hey!" Chloe raised a hand to silence me. "We do not

talk about that night." She sighed. "I should have known when he told me what kind of shampoo would help with my frizz."

"So you can be wrong."

"Rarely," she said. "And I wasn't wrong in this situation — so there." She winked at me and laughed. "It's good to know that my dreaded Hallmark moments do pay off."

I rolled my eyes at her.

She started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot, heading toward the Hamilton Public Library, where I shelved books every Tuesday and Thursday. Since I couldn't afford a car and Randy had football practice, Chloe usually gave me a ride.

That's how Chloe and I had started hanging out, actually. She heard me talking about needing a ride at the lunch table last year and volunteered to drive me. At first I was kind of nervous. I knew the rumors about Chloe, and I was sure being alone with her would be totally awkward. Like, her car would be full of condom wrappers or freaky sex toys or something. Not exactly the kind of girl I'd usually hang out with.

But I'd misjudged her. Chloe was shockingly normal. She listened to Top 40 radio, wanted to see the same movies I did, and, aside from a few empty bottles of Diet Coke on the floorboard, kept her car fairly clean. Nothing really set her apart from any of the other girls whose cars I'd ridden in. And, honestly, after talking to her during that first car ride, I'd realized how much I liked her. Chloe started driving me home or to work every afternoon, and within a few weeks, she was my new best friend.

"So Friday, huh?" she said as we sped past the Fifth Street movie rental with the top down and the radio blasting an old Backstreet Boys song.

It was ninety degrees outside, normal for late August, and I was already dreading the cooler days of autumn that would be coming all too soon.

"Were you eavesdropping?" I asked, unconsciously popping open the glove box the way I always did when I got in Chloe's car.

"Of course I was… and will you get out of there?"

"I'm just looking for a CD."

"No, you're not. You're alphabetizing them." She reached over and swatted at my hand and, with a sigh, I shut the compartment. "So if the strike starts ASAP, it looks like your date will be interesting. Poor Randy. He's got that empty house and everything."

"We'll still go to his house," I said. "Maybe we'll watch a movie or something."

"Yeah, I'm sure that's an alternative he'll be thrilled with." She laughed and grabbed a cigarette from a pack on the dash. "Shane wants me to come over to his place Friday night, too," she said, lighting up and taking a drag. "I told him I'd love to, but the idiot isn't going to know what hit him when I don't give it up."

"You could have just said no," I told her. "You didn't have to say you'd do it."

"What's the fun in that?" She took another drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke out between her pink-glossed lips.

"It's not about teasing, remember?"

"I won't tease him…. Well, not much." She took another puff on her cigarette. "What about you? Are you sure you can handle this, Lissa? Being alone with Randy and not jumping his bones? I mean, he is pretty fine. Will you really be able to say no?"

"Trust me, I'll be all right," I said. "Randy's hot, but it isn't like he's Adonis."

She looked skeptical. "Whatever you say. He may not be a sex god, but I know you like it."

I blushed. "God, Chloe. Can we not talk about this?"

"What?" she asked. "Come on. If you're mature enough to have sex, you should be mature enough to joke about it with your super-fabulous best friend."

I didn't say anything to that.

We pulled into the library parking lot and I quickly undid my seat belt.

"Have fun at work," Chloe said.

I watched as she put out her cigarette and left the butt in her ashtray. "Doesn't your mother see those and get pissed?" I had to ask.

"Psh. Nah. She bought me the pack." Chloe shrugged and gestured to the glove compartment. "She swore she'd quit for real last time. But after the divorce, she asked me to go out and buy her a pack. I told her she could only have one if she bought me one, too. I figured she'd be like, ‘No way in hell,' or something, but she just tossed me a twenty and said it was okay."

"My dad would kill me," I said.

"Eh. I'm eighteen now. Even if she didn't like it, there isn't

much she can do." Chloe started messing with the radio dial, and I climbed out of the convertible.

"Thanks for the lift."

"You know it's not a problem. See you tomorrow."

I slammed the car door and waved over my shoulder as I made my way up the steps to the front entrance.

"About time," Jenna snapped when I walked over to the front desk.

"I'm five minutes early," I told her.

She chose to ignore this, of course, and jabbed a finger at the cart of children's books beside her. "All of those need to be shelved right away," she informed me, tossing her curtain of cherry-red hair over her shoulder. "Hurry. There are some kids up there now. What if someone is looking for one of those books and can't find it on the shelf? Chop, chop."

Jenna was insanely anal-retentive. She was my coworker, a student at Oak Hill Community College, and a royal pain in my ass. She'd seemed cool for, like, the first week I worked at the library, but I quickly learned that she had serious issues. Working with Jenna was the only part of this job that I hated.

I grabbed a few of the adult fiction books that had accidentally been placed on the children's cart (Ha! Jenna could make mistakes, too!) and put them on the correct shelves before walking back to the front desk to grab the cart, which I needed to lug up the stairs. Judging by her attitude, Jenna wasn't going to help me drag the beast to the second floor — great.

"Oh, by the way," Jenna said, turning away from her computer and meeting my eyes, "you have a new coworker."

"Who?" I asked.

"Some high school kid." Jenna sighed. She wasn't bothering to hide her agitation. I'm sure she saw it as one more idiot to deal with. Funny, really. As much as she loved to boss people around, you'd think she'd be thrilled to have someone new under her command.

"Name?" I pressed.

"Can't remember. But he's hot. Don't let that distract you from working, though. I don't want it to become a problem."

I rolled my eyes when she wasn't looking.

"He's late," Jenna said. "By two and a half minutes. Not a great way to start a new job, is it?"

I was about to respond when the library doors opened behind me.

"Sorry I'm late. I had to talk to my soccer coach about making up practice."

My whole body went rigid. I knew that voice.

"There you are," Jenna said, flicking her red hair over her shoulder in the sassiest way possible. "Okay. I'll excuse your lack of punctuality today, but don't make a habit of it, please."

She'd excuse it? Jenna was not our boss. She couldn't punish us or anything just because she worked a few more days a week. She might have called herself an "assistant librarian," but she was just another shelver. You needed a degree to be a librarian (I'd googled it out of curiosity once), and she was still a student. Really, Mrs. Coles, the head librarian, was the only one with the power to hire, fire, or punish.

"Sorry," Jenna said. "Can't remember your name. What was it again?"

"Cash."

"Right. Good. Cash, this is Lissa. You'll be working together to keep this place in top order."

I had to keep myself from blushing as I turned to face him for the first time since he'd walked into the library. I was annoyed to find him smiling at me. Not a sly smile or a knowing smile, just a casual smile. Like he was vaguely happy to see me.

"Hey," he said.

"Hello."

"You two stop having a staring contest and get to work. Take those books and shelve them in the children's section," Jenna ordered, pointing at the cart again. "Upstairs."

"I know where the children's section is," I told her.

"Cash doesn't, though. Now hurry up. What if some poor little kid is looking for The Velveteen Rabbit and can't find it because you guys took so long putting these books on the shelves?"

I sighed and grabbed one end of the cart.

"Elevator," Cash said as I pulled the cart toward the stairs.

"What?" I looked over my shoulder at him.

"The elevator," he repeated, gesturing to our left. "You know there is one right here, don't you?"