Seventeen-year-old Lindsey Taylor has been living a charmed life—always the lead in school plays, possessor of a healthy entourage and a hot boyfriend. But halfway through her junior year, the unthinkable happens. Her boyfriend dumps her. She screws up her audition for the spring play. And to top it all off, her theater teacher wants her to run lines with Trey Berger, a gamer guy who irritates her practically every time he opens his mouth. Lindsey needs to find some better luck and quick.
Trey Berger can barely tolerate Lindsey Taylor. It’s bad enough that their best friends are dating and he has to see Lindsey at group hangouts. Now they have to rehearse together. Berger would rather do just about anything else, even chill with his grandmother, whose dementia has forced her to move in with his family.
But as the semester continues, Berger discovers there’s more to Lindsey than the drama queen
persona she puts on for everyone else’s benefit. And the person behind the mask might be someone he cares about. A lot. So what exactly is he going to do about it?
And while Lindsey desperately tries to change her luck and heal from the breakup, she slowly realizes Berger has become her best friend. This video-game-playing boy makes her laugh. And holds her when she cries. Could he possibly become something more?
Berger leaned against the back of the couch and clasped his hands behind his head. A sneaky gleam entered his light brown eyes. “You know, watching the street won’t make it get here any faster.”
For some weird reason, heat rose up my neck and into my cheeks. I frowned at him. “Au contraire. They’ve done studies on it. When you’re waiting for something, if you watch out for it, it arrives faster.” Pretty lame joke, but I didn’t want him to have the upper hand.
He grinned. “That’s only if you’re standing in the middle of the street.” He started to get up. “Should we try that now?”
“Oh, shut up,” I said, dropping into the armchair across from him.
He chuckled, but then his face grew slowly serious. “Why do you think Mrs. Mac wants us to rehearse together for weeks and not just a few days?”
Because she was mad at me. “I don’t really know. I mean, she’s supposed to decide on the parts by Friday, and after that there’ll be regular full-cast rehearsals.”
“Maybe she thinks I’m too stupid to pick up on your brilliance right away.”
I shook my head. This topic made me want to pace across the room. “You know how quirky she is. Sometimes she does stuff that doesn’t make sense to anyone.”
The loud peal of brakes made me jerk. Through the wood blinds, I could just make out the white van with its huge purple and orange letters on the side. I jumped up.
Berger waved his hands up and down. “It’s here, it’s here!”
“Shh,” I said. What with squealing brakes and Berger’s noise, my mom was sure to saunter into the room.
“Oh,” he whispered and then got up. “Is this a secret from Mommy?”
I wanted to laugh. I also wanted to put my hand on his face and shove him back onto the couch. “Would you relax?”
“Are you kidding? This is way too exciting.”
“Come on, then,” I said, leading the way to the front door. I had to stop the FedEx guy from ringing our doorbell.
We spilled out onto the front walk, jostling each other and laughing. Berger was worse than my brother, Austin. I started to stride forward, but Berger grabbed my elbow. “Have a little dignity,” he said, laughter still in his voice.
“I would if you’d just let go.”
“All right.” He released me.
By this time, the delivery guy was approaching us slowly, as if we were rabid dogs or something. I hurried forward and met him before he’d even made it halfway. “Lindsey Taylor?” he asked.
I smiled. “Yes, that’s me.”
“Here you go,” he said, handing me a padded mailer the length of a piece of paper.
My heart thudded somewhere near my throat. My luck was about to change.
The mother of two grown sons, Patricia B. Tighe lives in West Texas with her husband and two dogs. Her love of the written word caused her to get a journalism degree from Texas A&M University in 1980 and an MA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University in 2008. When not writing or reading, she can be found walking the dogs or yelling at the TV during an NFL game. She's also a fan of British TV shows. Downton Abbey, anyone?
