Read Online M or F? by Lisa Papademetriou - Free Book Online

She and Jeffrey exchanged shy little smiles, then both went back to their menus, even though they had both supposedly decided what to order already.
    â€œFrannie told me you really like this place,” I said to Jeffrey, which wasn’t actually true, but I wanted them to look at each other again. The problem was, Frannie turned to Glenn at that exact moment and asked, “Did you grow up in Roaring Brook?”
    No, Frannie! my mind yelled. Bad girl! Wrong boy!
    â€œWe moved here when I was two,” Glenn said. “I was born in Alaska, actually. . . .” I could already tell it was going to be an epic answer. He seemed like the type to use twenty words where just one will do.
    â€œWhere in Georgia are you from, Marcus?” Jeffrey asked me, and all of a sudden it was two separate conversations.
    â€œAthens,” I said. “Actually, Frannie was the first person I met here.” Maybe I could at least get the topic back to her.
    Frannie burst out laughing—at something Glenn had just said, I realized.
    â€œThat’s hilarious,” she said, twirling the straw in her water.
    â€œWell, you lucked out, then,” Jeffrey answered me, blushing just a tiny bit, with another shy-cutie look her way. And Frannie totally missed it.
    If nothing else, Jeffrey was winning some best friend approval points from me. The hardest part of it was trying to forget what I already knew about him from the online chatting. As far as he knew, this was our first conversation ever. I had to keep reminding myself of that.
    By the time we left, nothing really bad had happened, but nothing really good had happened, either. I spent more time talking to Jeffrey than Frannie ever did, and we all spent most of our time listening to Glenn. I drank a Coke and left hungry.
    â€œYou know, if you go out with Jeffrey, you’re going to have to eat vegetarian all the time,” I told Frannie in the car.
    â€œHey, as long as he’s nice and has cool friends, I’ll be fine,” Frannie said.
    â€œWhich cool friends would those be?”
    â€œOh, come on.” She wiggled her fingers at the stereo so I’d know to turn it down for her. “I thought Glenn was great. And you have to admit he’s funny. I love how uninhibited he is. Did you hear that thing he said about getting caught in the bathroom?”
    â€œI guessed I missed that part,” I said.
    â€œAnd he’s even good looking, almost as cute as Jeffrey.”
    â€œMore my Jeffrey than yours so far,” I said. “You’ve got to step up.”
    â€œBlahbie, blahbie, blah,” Frannie said. “Seriously. It’s fine. I’m kind of glad it was like that. Just little steps at a time. That way, I can ease into things with him, you know?”
    I saw right through her. “You were still afraid to talk to him, weren’t you?”
    Frannie slapped the steering wheel. “What’s up with that, anyway? Why is it so hard to talk to the people we like the most?”
    â€œUh, hello?” I said. “You don’t seem to have any trouble talking to me.”
    â€œYou know what I mean.”
    â€œYou’ll get there,” I said. “The thing to think about now is what happens next.”
    â€œI already know what happens next,” she said. “Can you come over tonight?”
    â€œBack to the chat room?”
    â€œHe’s usually there around eight-thirty.”
    I clapped. “Stalking boys is fun.”
    That gave me about five hours after school to write an overdue English paper, mow the lawn, and have yet another uncomfortable conversation with my grandmother. At dinner, she passed a bowl of succotash and just as casual as that, she said, “What words are the kids using for sex these days?”
    Dad and I yelped at the same time.
    â€œMomma!”
    â€œPatricia!”
    We never can get used to her little stealth bombs.
    â€œI’m just wondering,” she