Brendon wasn’t in class when I got there on Monday. Mrs. Rae put on a film about stereotypes, and most of the back row dozed off during it. Brendon came in late and sat by the door. Great, now I seemed desperate and pathetic sitting by myself like I was waiting for him, which I totally was. When the movie ended, Mrs. Rae passed out worksheets and told us to work with the person to our right. Normally, Brendon sat on my right, but today I had an empty chair. I saw this girl, Rory, sitting by herself and asked her to be my partner. We started filling out the questions when I heard somebody laughing. I glanced over and saw Lauren walk in late and then start laughing at something Brendon said. Why did his ex-girlfriend have to be in this class? I went back to Rory, who was peeling the price tag off her notebook.

“Did you finish your paper?” she asked. “My partner hasn’t even watched the show yet. I knew I was going to get stuck doing the whole thing.”

Her partner, Kirk Woodsen, with his bleached hair and a deep tan, talked loudly about the basketball playoffs. “He teaches tennis to five-year-olds, probably because they are on the same mental level. He told me he wants to get into modeling,” she said, rolling her heavily lined eyes. “I should tell him my mom’s an agent, and maybe then he’d do some of the work.”

When class ended, I wondered if I should go over and say something to Brendon. I packed up my stuff slowly, hoping he’d come over to me. When I got up, I realized I was the only one left in the room. Meanwhile, Brendon was in the hall talking to Lauren.

“Hey, Emme,” he said.

“Oh, hi,” I said. “I didn’t see ya there.” Oh, how lame. I’m such a loser.

“I had a student board meeting this morning, which took forever. Did I miss anything important?”

I shook my head, and Lauren gave me the same condescending smile people give annoying children. And I felt like a kid next to her, with her high-heeled sandals and a short jeans skirt, while I was wearing a T-shirt with a cat on it and sneakers. What a femme fatale.

“Do you have a minute? Wanna grab something to drink?” he asked me.

I nodded.

“I’ll see you later, Brendon,” Lauren said, making a point to rub his arm as she left to meet her friend. Yeah, I always groped people when I said good-bye, too. Brendon and I went over to the Coffee Beanie Weanie across the street. He got an espresso and a cookie, and I ordered green tea. He offered me part of his chocolate chip walnut cookie and told me he was in charge of setting up tutors for the homework help lab. I offered to help, but he needed tutors in chemistry and advanced algebra. I barely made it out of algebra one and only because my math tutor went over all of my homework for me.

“I almost forgot. I got a bunch of teen magazines for our project,” he said, unzipping his backpack. “I dropped this one in the store, and this woman looked at me like I was a pervert, but look at this singer’s outfit. It looks like she was attacked by a mountain lion.” He pointed to the ripped-up shirt and jeans the singer, Crystalline, wore.

“It says, ‘You can look like Crystalline with Cosmic Powders makeup. She’s wearing peony blush and shimmering violet lip cream,’” I said, making a mental note to check out the lip cream later on lickitylips.com.

“Look at this picture of Lorenzo Crawford,” he said. “He’s definitely wearing makeup, but you don’t see the brand named.”

I could have pointed out I was wearing the same shade of bronzer as Lorenzo, but I decided to keep it to myself. Brendon made a joke about how Lorenzo’s last movie was all about him posing and being tan. I could smell his cologne as he leaned over. If it took the rest of my life, I would do everything I could to find out what cologne he used…without actually asking him and sounding like a stalker.

“You know Kirk—from our class?” he said. “He uses fake tan. I saw it in the locker room once.”

I realized how close he was sitting to me, and I hoped my mint green tea was masking any bad breath issues.

“Rory thinks he wears contacts to make his eyes bluer,” I said, not sharing I did the same thing to make my hazel eyes look like they were dark green.

He laughed, and we went back to the magazines. My head was reeling from sitting so close to him. I focused on finding examples for the project, but I caught him staring at me when I glanced up. He seemed embarrassed, and I figured he was probably staring at my messy hair.

“Since you’re so busy with activities and stuff, I don’t mind finding the articles for the next project,” I said.

“No, it’s okay. I found a couple last night, and there’s a lot of stuff in this issue.” He started to grab a magazine, but it slipped out of his hands. “Sorry,” he said as he got up to get it.

He put the magazine between us, and when I moved forward to see it, he put his arm across the back of my chair. Now lots of guys did put their arms on chair backs, even Kirk did that with Rory, and he definitely wasn’t interested in her, but I couldn’t help but hope it meant something. I got this shivery feeling, and he asked if I was cold. I shook my head. I always got a feeling before something major was about to happen, and it has nothing to do with being cold, but I didn’t know why I got the feeling. Grandma used to do the same thing and always said, “Somebody just walked across my grave.” Somehow I didn’t think Brendon would understand if I told him I needed to move my future burial plot to a less high-traffic area.

“Are we still on for the art fair?” he asked.

I had only been circling it with hearts on my calendar since he asked.

“Sure, I think I’m still free,” I said.

We finished up our work, and he walked me out to meet Kylie.

“Okay, I’ll pick you up at three tomorrow,” he said, walking off.

“Can I ask a stupid question?” Kylie asked as soon as Brendon was out of earshot. “What’s he like? Because he’s so well-known, and I can’t imagine what it’d be like to grow up with your whole life under a microscope. I mean, my mom remembers his first birthday party pictures being shown on the news. And he’s hot, but he’s not like I-know-I’m-a-hottie hot, but more like a confident, ‘Yes, I am hot. Any questions?’ I mean, he has to have noticed there aren’t any guys who look like him walking around.”

“I should tell him what you said.”

“Don’t you dare,” Kylie said.

“I get what you mean—he’s grown up with everybody knowing his dad and watching him, but he’s pretty down to earth.”

“So what’s up with you two? You guys didn’t do any work last Saturday, and now you’re going to an art fair.”

“I dunno. He just asked me to go with him.”

“Asked you to go with him as his study buddy or asked you to go with him because he’s desperately in love with you?” she asked.

I said we were just friends, but she wouldn’t let it go.

“Okay, duh, obviously I like him, but let’s be honest. He’s out of my league. He’s out of most people’s league. It’s weird because normally if I like a guy then one of two things happens—either he likes me and asks for my number…or I find out he’s not into me and I cry in my pillow and listen to man-hating music for at least three days,” I said. “But this time’s different because he’s, I dunno, not just ‘some guy.’ I mean, I’m not putting up a shrine to him in my room, and I haven’t rooted though his garbage can, but I have as much chance of going out with him as Kirk does of getting an ‘A’ in this class.”

“You listen to man-hating music?” she asked, and I narrowed my eyes at her. “Whatever. Anyway, Em, he’s asked you out once already, and you are seeing him tomorrow. Plus, he’s always staring at you.”

I said he was probably just bored in class today, but she wouldn’t let it go.

“I’m not just talking about today. When we watched the movie on Monday, he watched you instead, and whenever I see you guys, he acts like there’s no one else in the room,” she said.

I couldn’t hold back the big, stupid smile spreading across my face. “He does? For real?”

She nodded. “You know, it’s weird. Here you were all upset you didn’t have a partner at the beginning of the semester, and then you ended up with like, Mr. Perfection, as your partner.”

As I left, she made me promise to e-mail her when I got home tomorrow with all the details.