“Don’t call me that,” I said, feeling a pang at hearing Leo’s name for me.

“Wasn’t my name for you anyway,” he reminded me tartly, poking me on the shoulder with a pencil.

I poked him back. “Maybe you should call me Nora like everyone else?”

“Um, yeah, I think not. Not my style at all. How about Rosebud ? Oh, or Flame Brain?”

I shook my head because he really was fun. “My brain is not on fire.”

“Okay, what about Cherry or Towering Inferno?”

I snorted. “Are you saying I’m an Amazon? Because that’s been overdone.”

“Okay, okay, I can see you’re hard to please. Wait, I think I have one since you don’t like my nicknames. How about girlfriend?” he asked suggestively, making a face at me.

“Now, I know you’re joking.”

“What? I’m serious all the time. Do you have a boyfriend I don’t know about, ’cause if you do, I’m gonna challenge him to a duel . . . with pistols at dawn or swords . . . or whatever the fuck they do here in Texas.” He flicked his eyes at Drew.

“We mostly fight with our fists in Texas, Mr. LA,” I said, pointing down at his loafers. He and I needed to go shopping. “And wear cowboy boots while we do it.”

“Easy peasy. I know Kung Fu, you know,” he said, jumping into a karate stance and chopping his hands around.

I chuckled and my eyes lingered over to Drew who appeared grim as he watched our banter. I sighed. “Sebastian, this is Drew. He’s super smart and a basketball player. Drew, this is Sebastian. He’s wicked funny and plays football. Now bond,” I said, having a gut feeling these two would hit it off.

They eyed each other warily and must have decided the other was cool, because they started talking sports. I said my goodbyes and headed out to my car at twelve fifteen in the afternoon, leaving them to the mercy of BA.

“Even after all that has happened to me, I’ve never given up wishing on stars.”

–Nora Blakely

SOMETIMES, YOU JUST need a badass theme song to get you through the day. All the superheroes have them. Even the Power Rangers have a hardcore guitar anthem. So, I may not be Wonder Woman with her invisible plane, but I have been called brilliant before. In fact, I have a collection of theme songs for different days, depending on what was going on in my life, and tonight my theme song was “Perfect” by Pink. I blasted it in my car, listening to her sing about a girl who’d been mistreated and misunderstood.

It was Saturday night and Emma Eason’s party, but first I was swinging by Club Vita to pick up Sebastian and Mila. Sebastian and I had eaten lunch together every day at school this week, and I’d told him all about my passion for sewing and how I planned to wear one of my creations. Tonight I was wearing last year’s Dior black prom dress, or at least part of the dress, since I’d chopped off the long skirt and the sleeves. Now it was strapless and super short. I’d worn my hair braided and twirled up low in the back with loose curls hanging down the sides. I’d put on more make-up than usual, too, coating my eyes in dark liner and smoky eye shadow. On my lips I’d worn the deep red color that matched my hair. Did I look trashy? I shrugged. Who cared. Tonight’s goal was to get drunk and get fucked.

“Sweet,” Sebastian said, whistling as he let me in. “Got a hot date tonight?”

I wiggled my eyebrows like he always did. “I might get lucky.”

“Mm-hmm,” he said, watching me with an interesting expression. I started to ask him what that look meant . . .

Just then the buzzer rang.

“That’ll be Mila,” I said eagerly. Since I’d been leaving school early, we hadn’t had a chance to catch up.

She bounced in, and I swear she looked like a teenage Laura Bush, wearing pearls, a pink velveteen tailored jacket and a pleated chiffon skirt. She’d flung a pink Coach bag over her arm, and I wanted to hug her she was so cute.

I introduced them and her eyes widened, taking in Sebastian’s tall form and blue eyes.

Wait until she met the full-sized version.

“Alrighty then, let’s head up to the loft. Leo’s date brought appetizers for us to try, and he wants to meet Mila,” he said. I noticed when he had said date, his eyes had locked on mine, like he was assessing my reaction.

“You didn’t mention how frickin’ hot Sebastian is. I’m pissed I don’t have any classes with him. By the way, your hair is sweet. So glad you went the Monte Carlo Red and not the blue,” Mila whispered to me as we followed Sebastian up the stairs.

“It was called Midnight Indigo.”

She scrunched her nose. “Whatever. Blue hair is strange.”

When we walked in the spacious kitchen, Leo was laughing down at the petite twenty-something-year-old that had been with him at the park. Up close, I could see she was pretty in polished, confident way, with lots of make-up and manicured nails. She looked relatively normal, too; I couldn’t compete with that.

I watched them, remembering how he didn’t want me. Even though he wasn’t mine, I wanted to pummel her with my fists; I wanted to rip out all her long dark hair. Which looked like extensions.

I stood there uncomfortably until Sebastian eased up beside me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I leaned back against him.

Leo saw us, stiffened, and quickly looked away. I wondered if it was going to be weird between us. It’d been a week since our movie. I’d seen him a couple of times, once when I’d dropped off Sebastian from eating out and once when I’d come to deliver some muffins he’d ordered from Aunt Portia’s. He’d been cordial then, yet detached, his eyes looking everywhere except at me.

He sat down his bottle of Corona. “Guys, this is Tiffany. She works for the catering company that’s doing the food for the grand opening,” he said. “Tiffany, this is Nora and her friend . . . Mila?”

Mila nodded, a dazed and goofy expression on her face. I wasn’t surprised my normally loquacious friend was suddenly struck quiet. Leo could do that.

“They’re both attending Briarcrest Academy with Sebastian.”

Tiffany smiled at us, showing her super white teeth. She raked her gaze over me and Mila, and I assumed mentally dismissed us as no competition. “Oh, really! How charming!” she exclaimed in a true, slow-talking Texas drawl.