Read Online How to Hook a Hottie by Tina Ferraro - Free Book Online

glanced over to see four girls heading straight for us, smiles plastered across their faces. I'd been in classes with all of them at one time or another, but the only name that stuck in my head was Aimee McDonald, who was the ringleader.
    Aimee was one of those people whose skin was so pale it was almost translucent. But since she exuded such a supernatural sense of self-confidence, you pretty much looked past her washed-out complexion to her dazzling blue eyes and dynamic aura.
    Chewing gum and smiling at the same time—which was gross, take my word for it—she stopped in front of me.
“So . . . ,”
she said, like we talked every day. “How's our guy doing?”
    I was tempted to ask, “Who?” But I wasn't a fool—even if I wasn't a girlfriend, either. “Fine, I guess.”
    She looked as shocked as if I'd said diet soda had been banned from the campus. “You
guess
? You haven't heard from him?”
    Truth was, I couldn't be bothered to respond to the IMs he'd sent and I'd turned off my laptop. I wouldn't boot it up again until this afternoon at the rink.
    My sister must have read my mind, because she pushed ahead of me. “Brandon probably left her a hundred messages. She'll find out when she gets around to checking.”
    Aimee's palm went to her cheek in one of those clichéd gestures. “You haven't checked them since he's been gone?”
    “Not really,” I admitted.
    “Omigod.” She laughed, then shook a finger. “You are
so
bad, Kate!”
    I just stared at her. What was I supposed to say? Sorry? Or explain for the hundredth time that I was not Brandon's girlfriend?
    “Actually, she's smart,” my sister piped up. “While half the girls at school were throwing themselves at him, she was sitting back, playing it cool. Now she's got him. So why change what's working?”
    Surprised, I turned to Suz. For someone who could be so blind about what was going on in our home life, she was killer on these defensive comebacks. I might have to hire her to do my PR someday.
    Aimee smacked her gum. “Try checking your e-mails on a class computer. And go off campus during morning break and turn on your phone. Then come by our table at lunch and give us the absolute latest, okay?”
    I nodded, although I knew I'd do nothing of the sort. And where
was
their table, anyway?
    “Remember, us first, okay?” she said, then threw her arms around me.
    I nearly gagged on her bubble gum scent.
    “We're so happy for you, Kate,” a husky-voiced girl added, and almost sounded sincere.
    “I mean, okay,” Aimee said, pulling back from me. “
Some
of us wouldn't have minded getting our hands on Brandon Callister ourselves.” She laughed, a little too loudly. “But you got him fair and square. Playing hard to get or whatever. Plus people say you've got some get-rich-quick scheme that's going to make you a millionaire, like, tomorrow. How could he
not
love that?”
    “Well,” I said, suddenly on more comfortable ground. “It's more like a plan. And it'll be a few years, for sure.”
    “Whatever.” She patted my arm, as if I'd been tried and found worthy of being Queen to His Royal Hotness. “So . . . later, right?” She turned away, and her friends fell in behind her.
    Mrs. Quack and all her little ducklings.
    I just stared. Then I leaned toward my sister. “What,” I asked, “was that?”
    Suz rested her head on my shoulder. “I don't know how to tell you this, Kate. But I think you're popular.”
    •
    In the halls, people I barely knew nodded at me. Those I did know flashed smiles. Some said my name.
    I wondered if Katie Holmes had gone through something like this when she'd first hooked up with Tom Cruise.
    Arriving at my locker, I found my locker-mate, Yvette DelaCruz, holding court with a few girls. She and I had been sort-of friends since elementary school, even though she was one of the most hyper people I'd ever met. Not in a needs-meds kind of way, but in a needs-a-life kind of way. Yvette got totally pumped up at