“Care for some company?”

“Can the company bring avocado egg salad sandwiches and sweet potato chips from Pinder’s?”

“Can Floyd Mayweather dodge a punch?” Shane opens his arms wide with a grin.

“I have no freaking clue who that is, but I’m taking a wild chance here and guessing the answer is yes.”

“You’re killing me, B.” He laughs, hooking his arm around my shoulder and pulling me into a friendly hug, messing my hair with his free hand. “Now what am I going to do with you?”

“Dirty, naughty things that will make my twin sister blush?” I arch an eyebrow and feign a devilish laugh.

Shane jumps off the red bench like he’s been slapped. Jaw clenched, he strides to a concrete trash can, discarding the evidence of our blunt. “I’ve got to go,” he tells me.

I cough, wondering why my little banter pissed him off. It’s like I pushed the very-wrong button.

***

It isn’t until almost midnight that I remember about our Journalistic Reporting assignment. Between shopping at Target, visiting my parents and an early shift at Ned’s, I managed to forget all about the promised e-mail.

I fire up my five-year-old Dell, and it occurs to me that I’m probably the only person under thirty in the Bay Area who doesn’t have a MacBook. Izzy, my twin, says that a twenty-three-year-old working on anything else is the uncoolest thing she’s ever seen. But I secretly believe I’m way cooler than everybody else for giving zero f*cks about what anyone else thinks.

My e-mail screen finally graces me with its presence and notifies me of two unread messages. One from Professor Penniman and the other from Shane. Apparently he’s over whatever upset him earlier today.

I open Professor Penniman’s e-mail first:

Ms. Stern:

As per my instructions in class, I would like a 2000-word article, no less, excluding the headline, on the subject below. Your whole grade depends on this assignment, so please take it as seriously as I do. I want you to interview people who work in the industry. Follow them around to understand the ins and outs of their line of work. Your article is due the first day of exam week, June 1. This should give you plenty of time to complete the assignment.

Please DO NOT e-mail me back, call or otherwise approach me about changing your subject. You may ask for further guidelines or clarification about the assignment itself, but the subject is mandatory.

Subject: MMA

I wrinkle my nose. And just what exactly is MMA? The initials sound vaguely familiar. A government agency maybe?

I jot down the three letters so I won’t forget to Google them, and then I double-click on Shane’s e-mail. He wants to know what subject I got and why I’m not answering my texts. Oops, I put my cell phone on silent when I was having dinner with my parents. House rules.

I turn on my phone now and see a text from Shane asking the same question.

I type: MMA. Wtf?

Shane replies almost immediately: Mixed Martial Arts. Lucky you. My roommate Josh works out in an XWL gym in Concord.

I text back: XWL? More initials?

Shane translates: Xtreme Warrior League. Josh says you're better off trying to find another gym because this one is full of jerks. Anyway, I logged into their website. Talk to the general manager/coach, Dawson.

He includes a phone number for the gym.

Then he texts: Don’t forget our TWD binge Saturday night. TTYL.

I realize he’s signed off before he even told me his topic. Maybe he was so busy helping me he forgot. The thought makes me smile. Where would I be without Shane?

We’ve been friends forever. He grew up down the street and has been my closest friend for as long as I can remember. When Shane traveled the world for a while after high school, I felt like I was missing a limb. I'm not exactly a social butterfly and Shane has always stuck by me. Even when we were kids and Aiden, the lazy-eyed kid down our road built a tree fort and invited everyone (Shane and Izzy included) except me to come and play, Shane preferred to stick around with Boring Blaire. We caught fireflies with jars and, because my mother was concerned and guilty about my lack of social life, she pretty much let us raid the kitchen and gorge on sweets.

I know Shane dates a lot of girls. Sometimes he has less time to hang out, or he receives a sassy text or steamy call when I’m around, but he’s a great friend.

Me? I’m saving myself for a fair-haired Englishman who is oblivious to my existence.

I enter Dawson’s number into my phone, walk to my bathroom and start filling up a bath. I dust the coffee table while the water's running. My twin Izzy's the one footing the bill for the rent and pretty much everything else. I'm the one who does all the cleaning. It sucks, but so does everything else about being Boring Blaire in comparison to Sizzling Izzy.

I run the magic swipe along a picture of my sister and me. I’m petite, slim with curvy hips. Lily-white skin, full lips and dark, wavy hair with blue tips. I have freckles sprinkled on my nose and high on my cheeks. I guess I’m like, air-hostess hot. Meaning I look better than the average girl but nowhere near as perfect as those girls in the magazines.

But Isabelle? Pffft. She is that girl from the magazine cover. Taller, slimmer and prettier by a mile. Higher cheekbones, deeper shade of blue eyes and the aura of a goddess. Izzy basically makes me look like a beta version of her. So at eighteen, instead of debating what to do with her life (like me), she decided to become a model and make tons of money off her beauty.