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Hook Up or Break Up #1: Love Is Random Too

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Chapter One

"I'm going to do it. I'm going to ask Josh Marx out," I announced. "Today."

My best friend, Kerri Lawrence, who knew me better than anyone, lowered her dark sunglasses and squinted at me. She looked ready to call for help.

"You feeling all right?" she asked.

"Sure! Fine! Great, actually! Seriously! Never better!"

Okay, so maybe I sounded a bit manic. My voice was freakishly shrill, and my forced grin bordered on painful.I curled my bare toes into the grass beneath my feet and tried to tone it down. "I mean, I'm cool."

"You're going to ask out Josh Marx," Kerri said finally. "You."

"Yes, me. Right now. Or, within the next five minutes."

That was when Kerri cracked up laughing. She leaned back against the leg of her lifeguard chair and held her stomach. She almost doubled over. A middle-aged woman shot us a pissed-off scowl and moved her swimmies-sporting kid to the beach towel on her far side, as if our psycho tendencies were going to rub off on him or something.

"Kerri!" I said through my teeth.

I hate it when people laugh at me. Absolutely hate it. It's probably my least favorite thing in the world. And Kerri knows this. Yet there she was, gasping for air, laughing until we were both red in the face.

"I'm sorry. It's just, I--" But she couldn't finishthe sentence. That's how hard she was laughing.

People all around us were starting to stare. We were standing near the edge of the water at The Mill--the big man-made pond that is technically "The Garden Hills Old Mill Town Pool and Recreation Area"--and the place was jam-packed. Every year the citizens of my little suburban town of Garden Hills, Maryland, came out of the woodwork for the end-of-summer blowout, attracted, apparently, by the promise of free ice cream and face-painting. Basically my entire hometown was there to witness this little spectacle if they so chose.

"Sorry. I'm sorry," Kerri said, getting control of herself.

She stood up to her full height, a good four inches taller than me. With her red life-guarding bathing suit set against her dark, oiled skin she looked like a regular from Baywatch. She even had the breasts for it--developed practically overnight in the summer between sixth and seventh grade, while the rest of us were still flat. I, of course, still am.

Which may be why no one's ever bothered trying to feel me up. But that could all change if everything worked out with Josh Marx. He could be the first guy to--

Whoa, boy. Okay. Shouldn't think about that just now. I had to keep as level a head as possible, and it was already twisting off its axis without adding my embarrassing lack of sexual experience into the equation. Josh Marx was, shall we say, light-years ahead of me in that department. As were all the girls he'd ever hooked up with.

"It's just...Quinn, do you know how long I've been listening to you say that?" Kerri asked with a sympathetic smile. "Like, five years."

"Well, this time I'm actually going to do it," I told her. The butterflies that had been bothering me all day went zinging through my stomach like hornets on speed. "Do you realize how many times I've talked to him this summer? Eight! Nine, if you count the first one."

"The one where he came up to you at the skate park and told you he liked your new board, but you were unable to formulate a response through all your love-struck shock?" Kerri said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten I told her about that. Actually, I'd probably told her a few thousand times.

My face burned. "You're mocking me."

"No! I'm not! I'm sorry," Kerri said again.

Everything was different because of those eight or nine times. I mean, he'd smiled at me. He'd looked me in the eye on several occasions. He'd noticed the original artwork on my board. Was it possible that, finally, after years of my pining in silent misery, Josh Marx was actually thinking about me? Was it possible that it was finally, finally my turn?

"The thing is, I have to do it," I told her, picking at the black sweatband on my wrist. "It's senior year. If I don't do it now, I'm never gonna do it. And then I'll always be wondering what if."

"Okay. If you're sure..." Kerri said.

I felt a sudden swoop of insecurity. "What?"

Kerri eyed me uncertainly. "I don't know. What if he turns out not to be that great? What if he isn't the Mr. Perfect you've been pining for all this time? Won't you be crushed?"

"Kerri!"

How could she say this to me? How could she say this to me now of all moments? Was she trying to freak me out?

"I just don't think he's all that great. He's so cocky sometimes," Kerri said. "Plus he's kind of a slut," she added matter-of-factly.

My face burned. "Okay, I know he's gone out with a lot of girls--"

"And hooked up with ten thousand more," Kerri pointed out--a little too enthusiastically, if you asked me.

"But, maybe that's just because he's looking for the right one," I said.

Kerri smiled and sighed. "The eternal optimist. Well, fine then. I'm all for it. Go talk to him. Hey! Maybe if you guys start going out, we'll finally be able to talk about something else!"

"Ha-ha," I said flatly.

"Although it would probably just get worse, because instead of daydreams, you'd have actual details," Kerri said. "Details to dissect and analyze and talk about over and over--"

"Why do I even tell you anything?" I asked her.

"Because you love me," she said with a shrug.

"Lawrence! Break's over!" shouted Tim Walsh, head lifeguard and power freak.

"Okay!" Kerri shouted back.

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Excerpted from Hook Up or Break Up #1: Love Is Random Too by Kendall Adams Copyright © 2006 by Kendall Adams. Excerpted by permission.
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