My body tensed. Lexie Hoppenfeffer's mother might be paying me to drive her kid to the ice-skating rink and back each weekday afternoon, but that hourly wage did not cover divulging details of my personal life. Especially not answers to questions I couldn't even understand how she knew to ask. And couldn't really understand myself.

“None of your business,” I said, glaring in the rearview mirror.

“It
is
true.” She giggled. “Don't you even want to know how I heard?”

Yeah. “No.”

“Sally's older sister is a sophomore at Franklin Pierce. She said everybody is talking about you and Brandon Callister.” She let out this exaggerated sigh and pressed the back of her hand against her forehead. Then she laughed. “I told her
no way
. That the Kate DelVecchio
I
knew wasn't even all that nice, let alone hot enough for a guy like him.”

Rolling up to a yield sign, I braked hard. Lexie jerked forward against her seat belt. “Be sure to tell her,” I said, catching a glimpse of her baby blues again, “that I'm a terrible driver, too.”

She gave me a yeah-yeah squint.

I grinned. Probably for the first time since the baseball hotshot had asked me to the athletic banquet.

The crazy thing had gone down during chem lab. Brandon had been bored—as usual. Talking at me, messing around. The very reason, I'm sure, the chem teacher—who was also the baseball coach—had made us lab partners. I'm no brainiac, but I make up for my shortage of gray matter with determination. I have a personal agenda for acing every class, and nothing and nobody is going to get in my way. Not even some attention-challenged jock.

The whole fall quarter, I'd managed to effectively ignore Brandon and get our work turned in. Then came our much-needed Christmas break, and now we were in the January premidterm grind. Which was probably why he'd started ratcheting things up. Saying things about my hair being pretty (uh-huh, shoulder-length, medium brown,
real
special), my eyes sparkling (brown—double special), and my mouth being beautiful (yeah, right—it's teeth, lips, tongue—check).

Eventually, he got on my last nerve. He claimed he had to present the football MVP award since he'd won last year's baseball MVP (“Tradition, babe”) and I just
had
to go with him.

Oh, puh-lease. Didn't he know I didn't date outside my own species?

But instead of stooping to his level, I blew out a sigh and called his bluff. I said sure, whatever, I'd pull something baggy and beige from my mom's closet and go with him. If he'd just shut up.

Amazingly, he did.

I'd turned back to examine the salt water in the crucible, wondering how he'd squirm his way out of the invite. But to my further astonishment, after class, he'd sauntered through the throng of almost three thousand people to the student store and bought the banquet tickets, going as far as telling the clerk—one-man PA system Carlton Camp—that I was his date.

I had shown up at my locker before lunch to see the Who's Who of our Rolling Hills, Washington, high school waiting to check me out, with arched brows and question marks in their eyes. Was it
true
that Brandon and I were now a couple?

All that was missing was the Spokane network TV affiliate.

“You're not denying it,” Lexie announced now from the backseat. “This is so great. My chauffeur and Brandon Callister.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. I'd told her a gazillion times I was not her chauffeur. I was her escort. Or her babysitter. But whatever. I guess it was nice that
somebody
was getting something out of this date.

I was sure that by now Brandon was in total regret mode. His act had blown up in his face, and he was stuck with me. Me—president of the Future Business Leaders of America club. Big whoop to a guy who would forever bask in the glory of having taken our baseball team to its first-ever championship.

Although I failed to see his sex appeal, I was apparently in the minority. Ever since he and Summer Smith had split, the prettiest of the pretty and the most popular of the popular had been cat-scratching to cuddle up to him. I could think of four or five girls off the top of my head who'd trade their Louis Vuitton bags for a date with him.

And
that
's what I'd say to him tomorrow. (More or less.) Joke's over, ha ha, you won. If you really need a date, ask one of your perfectly accessorized hangers-on.

He'd be relieved. Sure he would. And I'd feel the release of some of this air in my overstuffed lungs. I'd be glad to have my (private) life back, to be back on track for the things I wanted and I'd planned.

The only person who'd be disappointed was Lexie. And somehow that thought made tomorrow's back-out all the sweeter.

•

Shuffling into the Winter Wonderland locker room minutes later, Lexie realized she'd left her water bottle in the backseat of my car.

“Go get it,” she said.

While retrieval was technically part of my job description, no way I was putting up with her attitude. I rolled my eyes so high I could practically see my hairline, and told her to chill.

“
Hurry
. I'm thirsty, Kate.”

“Somehow I know you'll live until I get back.”

Frowning, I reminded myself—for the hundredth time—that I didn't work for little Lexie. I was contracted by her overprotective and overextended big-time-romance-author mother, who happened to have an overabundance of cash with which to make sure her precious sweetums was properly coddled.

Cash I was more than happy to take. This job wasn't about pride. It was about empowerment.

The capital I pocketed was going to help make all my dreams come true. Help me burst from my graduation robe in June to reveal a sleek business suit. And put me on course to fulfill my carefully prepared plans. My destiny.

To become a self-made millionaire by twenty.

And just like I wasn't letting Brandon derail my chem grade, I wasn't letting some bratty twelve-year-old stand in my way, either. Even if it meant biting my tongue until it almost bled.

Crossing the parking lot in the fading daylight, my breath making wispy clouds in the cold air, I trudged back toward my Honda, past SUVs and mom-vans. Bright, attractive, with the ability to be idle or be a powerhouse, my car was a symbol of what I planned to be. If I could just stay on course for another six months, getting the grades and socking away the bucks.

“Hey, you!” a deep voice from down the row startled me back to reality. “Whatcha doing?”

I didn't need to look up, but I did anyway. Jason Dalrymple had had the same husky voice since kindergarten, back when he used to dare me to time-out-worthy pursuits like eating jarred paste and aiming for kids dumb enough to stand at the bottom of the playground slide.

His voice was deeper now. His eyebrows were darker. He was several feet taller. Even his name had evolved. He'd gone from being Jason when we were little to J-Dal in middle school. And now, with so many Jasons roaming the high school halls (and no need for J-Dals), he went simply by Dal.

These days he had far better things to do with his energy than try to get me in trouble. In fact, he was the one who'd hooked me up with Mrs. Hoppenfeffer. He worked at Winter Wonderland, helping fund his hockey “habit” and saving for college, as well as splurging on the occasional weekend trip to see his University of Washington girlfriend.

He and Marissa Penny had been together since last year, when she'd been a senior at Franklin Pierce. The whole thing had started as a dare—Dal had wanted to go to the homecoming dance, and I'd called him a coward for asking me and not trying to get a “real” date. Hours later, he'd strutted up and told me he was going with Marissa. I'd patted his shoulder and told him “Good going,” and to this day acted happy for him that the date had blossomed into such a beautiful relationship. Still, sometimes I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. Not because I wanted
my
hands on him, but because I liked being the only girl in his life.

My best-friend jealousy had eased up when Marissa went off to college, except on mornings after he'd been away to see her. When he'd go on and on about how much fun they'd had, how great campus life was. Yada yada yada.

I was
not
into going to college and I was
not
into spending weekends without my best friend, so those mornings, I pretty much had to zip my lip until he changed the subject.

Grabbing Lexie's water bottle from my backseat, I held it up. “The Rink Rat sent me back to the car to get this.”

He knocked some dark strands out of his eyes. His hair was usually a mess of bed-head curls and angles, but today it actually looked combed. Imagine that.

“Yeah, what a bummer if she got parched.” A smile tugged at his mouth. “Although I'd think that someone who was going to a sports banquet with Brandon Callister would be above such a menial task.”

I felt my mouth drop open. Give me a break. Not him, too!

He knew Brandon and I were lab partners. He couldn't have been as electrically shocked as the people who didn't know me or how I could have risen to such awe-inspiring, Brandon-worthy heights.

“Oh, please, Dal,” I said, putting just enough disgust into my tone to get my point across.

“It's bull, then?”

I stared into his eyes, which he called hazel but which were known to change with the light and his moods. Right now they were sort of pine green. But I couldn't read the emotion behind them.

“Nope, totally true. He asked me during lab. I thought he was just messing around, and I told him sure, and that I'd wear something from my mother's closet.” I grinned, but Dal didn't.

“So that's your out, then. It was just a joke.”

My “out”? Okay, getting out was what I'd been thinking. But why had Dal jumped to that conclusion? Brandon was the prize most girls wanted. Why wouldn't I?

“You're all wrong for each other,” he said, as if tapping into my thoughts.

True. Starting with the fact that Brandon was all about basking in his today, while I was all about the future. But that didn't mean I cared to have my closest friend point out how mismatched we were. As if to say Brandon was all that—and I was, well, all not?

I turned to lock my car door and fell into step beside him. The chilly air crept through the openings of my black peacoat, and I struggled to conceal a shiver.

Finally, Dal's voice cut through the silence. “What would you two even talk about? His stats? How much beer he drank at some idiot's party? Come
on
. Is this the right guy for Complikate?”

“Ha ha, very funny,” I said, and bumped his shoulder with mine. Using my freshman nickname (be-stowed on me by a teacher who'd said I asked too many questions) was hitting below the belt. Even though he had a point.

We'd talk about my hair, I thought. My eyes, my mouth. Ha! But no need to go there. So I shrugged, as if admitting he was right. Which he was, of course. And Dal would be among the first to know that I planned to put an end to the date.

I just wouldn't tell him right now.

As payback for automatically assuming a hot-stuff baseball player and I were mismatched, I wanted him to squirm a little.

Reaching the building, Dal grabbed the front door handle and tugged it open, ushering me in. I glided under his extended arm, moving within inches of his collared Winter Wonderland shirt, and through the door. Then I moved inside without a word or a glance back.

•

Lexie was doing warm-up laps around the ice when I spotted her, so I set her water bottle down on the team's bench.

I climbed up to my home away from home, the top bleacher on the south side of the building. That was where you could find me pretty much five afternoons a week, along with my cell phone, schoolbooks, reading materials, and laptop. My portable office, as I liked to say.

I'd barely booted up my computer when footsteps thundered up the risers. Another of the rink's employees who also went to Franklin Pierce, Chelsea Mead, was making her way toward me. She had a great smile and a great figure, when she bothered to showcase it, but she always wore at least a couple of bulky T-shirts under her uniform polo shirt, and now her makeup-free cheeks were blotchy from running.

“Checking out dresses for the banquet?” she asked by way of hello.

God! Didn't
anything else
happen in the world today?

“Actually, I was about to check out the S and P Five Hundred and the Dow Jones.”

She paused, then did a yeah-right laugh.

Funny—people always thought that was a joke.

Resting a sneaker on the bleacher bench below me, she leaned closer. “Kate, can I talk to you?”

“Sure. Unless it's about Brandon.”

“Oh, uh,” she stammered. “Not really. Well, kinda.” She inhaled. “Okay, here goes. I want a date to the football banquet, too. With a
particular
player. And I want to know how you pulled it off. You know, what you did to get Brandon to ask you.”

What I did?
Like sprinkled fairy dust? Or maybe . . . snuck into his house, stole his Seattle Mariners autographed baseball, and refused to give it back unless he took me to an über-boring, rubber-chicken-on-a-plate banquet? Puh-lease! The general public's disbelief was definitely getting to me.

“My brother's on JV,” she went on, “so my parents are making me go. And it would just be sooo much better if I was sitting with
this guy
instead of them.”

“So tell him,” I said, in no way missing the irony that I had accepted a date to the very same banquet because it was easier than saying no.

“No way,” she said. “I couldn't. Besides, players ask girls to this thing. Not the other way around.” She seemed to swallow hard. “I need your help. How do I let him know I want to go—if he'd only ask, I'd totally say yes. I mean, what did you say to convince Brandon to ask you?”

“Convince?”

“Oh,” she said, and waved a dismissive hand. “That's not really what I meant. You know.”

BOOK: How to Hook a Hottie

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