Don't Judge a Girl by Her Cover

But suddenly I was the one who was breathless as I stared down at the guy who lay beneath me, and I heard the only words I totally wasn't prepared to hear.



"Hello, Gallagher Girl."



Chapter Twelve



Zach was there. Zach was staring up at me through the shadow of the bleachers, lying on his back, his shoulders pinned beneath my knees.



He was real this time. This wasn't spy genes and teen hormones running away with me. I wasn't hallucinating or daydreaming or the victim of some freaky hologram-based countersurveillance diversion.



I was just looking…



At Zach.



"Hey, Gallagher Girl," he said after … I don't know … an hour or something, "you gonna let me up now?"



But I totally didn't want to let him up because A) I had the superior position, and with any boy—much less a Blackthorne Boy—superior position is something you should hang on to when you get a chance, B) if I didn't let him up, there was a lot less chance of him retaliating by flipping me through the air like a rag doll (which I totally wouldn't have



put past him), and C) I kinda liked knowing where I stood with Zach. For once.



So instead of moving aside and pulling him to his feet like a good girl, I just leaned over him like a Gallagher Girl and said, "What are you doing here?"



But Zach didn't answer right away. Instead, he did that Zach thing he always did. He gave me a look that was so deep—so intense—that it was as if he were trying to send the answer to me over some cosmic, psychic thread or something.



Then he smirked and said, "I'm very interested in Ohio politics."



I scooted backward, stumbling to my feet as I blurted, "You can't vote."



"Yeah, but I can campaign." He pointed to the winters-mchenry button on his jacket as if to prove his point. And then it hit me—the feelings of panic that cute boys and kidnapping attempts have probably been prompting inside Gallagher Girls for a hundred years.



I'd thought about seeing him about a billion times. I'd imagined what I'd be wearing and what cool thing I would say, but I can assure you that in none of my fantasies had I been wearing my most uncomfortable jeans and a T-shirt that was two sizes too large. I'd thought about what kind of girl I was going to be—interested but indifferent, lovely but amused. And yet I was none of those things as I looked down at him and muttered, "You're a long way from Blackthorne."



"Yeah." He smiled. "Well, I heard that Macey McHenry was going to be making her first post-convention public appearance here today"—he stood and brushed some stray confetti from my hair—"and where there's one Gallagher Girl, there are usually others."



His smile deepened, and at that moment I seriously thought I would scream (but for a totally different reason.)



"We're like smoke and fire that way," I stuttered, trying my best to act cooler than I felt.



He smiled his slow, knowing smile. "Something like that."



And then a whole new kind of panic hit me—ZACH WAS THERE! Because he knew Macey was going to be there? And because he thought I might be with Macey?



(Note to self: Modify Liz's boy-to-English translator to account for multiple interpretations at once!)



That couldn't be it—could it? Was it possible that Zachary Goode had broken out of his top-secret spy school because this was his first chance at seeing me outside of my top secret spy school?



Oh.



My.



Gosh.



Could I go back to battling rooftop attackers now? Because at least with rooftop attackers you know where you stand! But boys—especially that boy—seemed to always be a mystery.



I heard the crowd erupt into applause again as the governor continued his speech, but it felt like all of that was taking place on the other side of the earth.



"I thought you'd vowed to stay out of secret passageways and laundry chutes, but I guess…" he started but didn't finish. Instead he reached up and traced the bruise that had all but faded along my hairline, and I felt something that has absolutely nothing to do with blunt force trauma.



And then something dawned on me. "How did you know about the laundry chute?"



Zach took a deep breath then smiled and pointed to himself like he used to do and said, "Spy."



I heard a voice in my earpiece say, "Chameleon, I know you're being Chameleony, but if you could wave or something, or tell me where you are, that would be great."



"Bleachers," I told her.



"Bex?" Zach guessed.



"Yeah," I answered.



"So you've got backup?" It was a truly weird question in what was shaping up to be a truly weird day, so for a second I just stood there, wondering if he was asking me as a boy or if he was asking as a spy. "The girls are here? And Solomon?"



"Of course they are."



But then one of the hundreds of voices in my ear was saying "Alpha team, there's movement under the bleachers," and in a flash I moved.



"Zach, there's someone under—"



I stopped. I realized we were the people under the bleachers.



"You!" one of the agents called. But as I spun to face him, his right hand, which had been inching toward where his regulation sidearm was holstered, relaxed. He almost smiled. And maybe for the first time ever I realized how totally advantageous being a sixteen-year-old girl can be.



"Miss," the agent said, "this area is restricted. I'm going to have to ask you to go back behind the barricades."



"Oh my gosh," I said, sounding a tad bit ditzier than my IQ might suggest. "I had to go to the bathroom so bad, so we—"



"We?" the agent said, going on alert again. He scanned the area. Big men in dark suits appeared out of nowhere. The earpiece was alive with chatter and commands.



"I was …" I started, the words coming harder now. And still I kept turning and looking.



But Zach was already gone.



Chapter Thirteen



"Yeah, we were looking for a bathroom." A voice came slicing through the barricade of agents in dark suits that surrounded me. Even though Secret Service agents are notoriously smart and incredibly well trained, everyone around me seemed to cower at the sight of Macey McHenry.



I watched my roommate turn to the agents and summon her inner Gallagher Girl (the snobby kind). "Do you have a problem with that?"



And that's how a chameleon was saved by a peacock.



"Thanks, boys," Aunt Abby said, appearing at Macey's side. "I think we can take it from here."



As dark suits scattered, my aunt took me by the arm and led me out from under the bleachers and into the sun of the main staging area while she softly sang, "I'm gonna tell your mother."



"I'm sorry, Aunt Abby," I told her. "I just"—I thought about Zach…mysterious Zach…suddenly disappearing



Zach—"saw something," I said—not someone.



But my aunt was shaking her head. "I don't even want to know how you got back here," She stopped. "Wait, you'd better tell me how you got back here."



After I explained, she walked twenty feet to where a security detail stood around a row of dark Suburbans.



"Emergency extraction vehicles," I said, turning to Macey, who was too busy staring at my feet to marvel at any of the totally cool surveillance things going on around us.



"I'll give you five hundred dollars if you trade me shoes," Macey said. I looked down at the pumps her mother had no doubt forced her into, and I totally knew she wasn't joking. But you can't put a price on comfort (as all pavement artists know), so I pretended like I didn't hear her, which wasn't all that hard considering that I absolutely had other things on my mind!



Zach had come to the rally! To see me?



"Macey, you're never going to believe who I just—"



"Hey," a voice cut me off. "I know you!"



I recognized the voice, but more than that I recognized the look on Macey's face as Preston came into view.



"Don't you have a baby to kiss?" Macey said with a sigh.



"Cammie, right?" Preston asked. "Macey didn't tell me you were coming."



"Yeah. It's a great chance to see the political process up close and—"



"Seriously," Macey snapped. "Go. Kiss. A baby."



"Can you believe her?" Preston asked, cocking his head toward Macey. "Every time she sees me, all she does is call me baby and talk about kissing."



Macey looked like she kind of wanted to kill him. But I kind of wanted to laugh.



Maybe it was just that I had boys on the brain. Maybe it was the relief of knowing, for the time being, that Macey was okay. But at that moment Preston seemed kind of…Hot?



No. No way, I told myself. And then I looked at Macey, who hated being in uncomfortable shoes and at her parents' disposal, and I thought that maybe Preston Winters was the one person who might hate all those things as much as she did. And as every spy knows, common enemies are how allies always begin.



"So hey," Preston said softly.



A gospel choir was singing in the distance. The Secret Service was getting ready for the long walk back to the busses. But Preston didn't seem to notice; he didn't seem to care. He seemed totally immune to those prying eyes and listening ears as he leaned closer and said, "I'm really glad I saw you."



Oh my gosh, I thought. Is it possible that two boys are flirting with me within ten minutes of each other?



But it wasn't flirting.



It was worse.



Totally, infinitely, utterly worse, because while the gospel band stopped singing and some military planes flew overhead, Preston looked at me as if he were really seeing



me and said, "I wanted to thank you … for Boston."



The girl in me started to exhale just as the spy in me studied the change in his breathing pattern and the dilatation of his eyes. I was seriously beginning to panic as he said, "That was really…awesome of you."



"Oh, it was nothing!" I blurted.



"Cammie's always doing stuff like that," Macey said, hearing my unease. "She's a total Girl Scout."



"Well, whatever she is," he said, turning to Macey, "it looked like you were one too."



As Macey glanced at me, I knew that neither of us wanted to imagine what might happen if the potential first son thought too hard or too long about what he'd seen on that rooftop.



"I was so freaked out," Preston said. "But you two, you were…rational."



"So, Macey," I said loudly, "I really enjoyed your speech."



"I mean"—Preston went on as if I wasn't even standing there … as if he wasn't standing there. Instead he stared into space as if the movie of what had happened in Boston was playing in his mind—"there were, what? Ten guys after us?"



"Two men. One woman," Macey and I corrected him at exactly the same time.



"And you guys were …" He looked at us as if he were seeing us for the first time. "You're girls!" he blurted as if the fact had totally eluded him until then.



"Thanks for noticing," Macey said, grabbing my arm and pulling me away.



Preston followed after. "But you held your own against like a dozen—"



"Three!" Macey and I corrected him again.