Read Online Boy Shopping by Nia Stephens - Free Book Online Page B

Mark on crack,” Jasmine said, ducking behind an armchair. Sasha was pitching ice cubes at her head.
    â€œWhat are you talking about?” Kiki knew her voice sounded funny, but she couldn’t help it. The truth of Jasmine’s words hit her like a wave of feedback blasting through stadium speakers.
    â€œHe’s like Mark two-point-O, the debugged version, with better graphics.” Jasmine held up her hands for a truce and Sasha dropped her ice cube back into her soda. “Lyman is smart, like Mark, but even smarter. He’s got to be, to write like that. Mark is musical, like Lyman, but Mark only got into it because you and Franklin made him. Lyman is so into it he’s competing. And he’s got serious talent. Well, you heard him.”
    â€œYeah.” All four of them sighed. They had listened to Lyman’s music in homeroom on Kiki’s iPod. The three tracks from Lyman’s website were pretty amazing. All three began with a piano solo, but they were layered with samples of choirs singing, or a single, scratchy vocal track that had to come from the ’20s or ’30s, and traffic sounds, and crickets, and all kinds of things that you wouldn’t normally think of as music. The production quality was bad enough to give Kiki goosebumps, but the music was phenomenal. No matter what happened between her and Lyman, she was definitely going to get her managers to listen to his demo. His music was a lot better than some of the electronica already in the RGB catalogue.
    â€œI see what you’re saying,” Camille said. “But there’s one important difference between Mark and Lyman.”
    â€œLyman’s cuter?” Sasha suggested, sprawling on one of the dusty couches, rejects from the teacher’s lounge downstairs.
    â€œMaybe. I think both of them need a haircut.” Camille frowned, trying to decide which one was better-looking. Of course, now that Jasmine had mentioned their other similarities, Kiki realized that they even looked a lot alike.
    â€œThe big difference between Mark and Lyman is that Lyman actually wants to go out with me,” Kiki said, trying not to sound pitiful.
    â€œI already said that Lyman was the smart one,” Jasmine said.
    â€œBut you also said that he was a freak.”
    She shrugged. “He is. But I didn’t say that was a bad thing.”
    Kiki sighed, then ate another bite of lo mein. She always meant to wake up early and make herself a real lunch, but she always slept in and wound up eating leftovers.
    â€œHome-school kids are always weird.” Jasmine settled next to Kiki on the couch. “But let’s face it, K.—you’re not exactly the queen of normal.”
    â€œI’m not a freak.”
    â€œYou’re a very freaky girl,” Jasmine sang in her creaky, atonal alto voice, which always made Kiki laugh. She almost fell off the couch when Jasmine’s voice broke on, “The kind you don’t bring home to Momma!”
    â€œIt’s ‘mother,’ Jazz, and I’ve never met a mother who didn’t like me. They usually think I’m a good influence.”
    â€œYou usually are a good influence, ’cause you’re hanging out with musician types. But you could probably corrupt this Lyman guy, hard-core. I’m telling you, home-school guys are weird little momma’s boys.” Jasmine paused thoughtfully, then said, “I wonder if he’s gay.”
    Sasha caught Kiki’s eyes across the battered coffee table, covered with all that was left of their lunch, and made the “redneck face”—a special combination of lolling tongue and rolling eyes that meant that somebody, usually Jasmine, sounded like a backward and countrified Southerner stereotype.
    â€œWell, I’ll let you know if he’s gay or not on Saturday morning. We’re going out Friday night.”
    â€œWHAT?” This time Camille almost fell off the sofa. Kiki