“I can see some potential problems with that. Can you just see a sexy video on the school’s website?”
“It can’t happen. Their coach has to approve the post before it goes live. Not a perfect solution but it keeps something bad from happening.”
“That’s good. What else did you talk about?”
“Hey, Missy wants some alone time when you see her this weekend.”
“I thought we were talking about what happened in the group session,” I said.
“I want to change the topic,” Tami explained. “I told Missy that wouldn’t be a problem, but I wanted to check with you first.”
“Is she dating anyone?”
“No. The Christmas Dance was just a friend thing. He’s dating Jennie now, anyway.”
“Are you still dating Trevor?”
“Off and on. It’s nothing serious.”
I knew she liked the guy or they wouldn’t still be seeing each other. My guess was she was focused on studying.
“I’d like to spend some time with Missy. Maybe we could double-date on Saturday?”
She looked at me warily. She knew I didn’t handle her dating well.
“Are you sure about that?”
“I’m sure. I know he’s not your forever guy.”
I felt my chest tighten. I needed to get off this chat. I made some lame excuse and logged off. I needed to get better control of myself. It was just hard to think of her with some other guy.
Friday February 14
DURING THE WEEK, OUR plan started to show signs of working. Coach Hope talked to the different coaches of other sports teams about our off-season conditioning program and our academic program. Our workouts were getting bigger each day.
Alan helped us put together a database of everyone involved. This was especially helpful putting together the study groups. In Algebra, we had a quiz. We’d only been able to meet once, but a couple of the participants said they did better than expected.
I called Sandy Range and told her about my endeavor. She said they had a batch of camouflage t-shirts that the color was off. It came out with a blue tint. Since our colors were orange and blue, I figured they’d be perfect. I asked her if they could get a patch put on them. She told me they just needed the design.
I talked to Stacy in my art class. She had a great idea. Our mascot was a bulldog, so she drew a badass dog that had ‘Lincoln Elite’ at the bottom. Sandy and I liked her design, so Sandy told me she would eat the cost on them to help us out.
I swore Stacy and Sandy to secrecy. I wanted to surprise everyone with the t-shirts. I also wanted to have everyone wear them to school on the same day, to create a buzz.
AT LUNCH, THE CONVERSATION was all about the Valentine’s Day Dance. At our table, only April and I didn’t have dates. What they didn’t know was that Kara was going as my date. Adrienne and Kendal had been working overtime to let the various entertainment reporters know.
Not surprising was that April was still grounded for life. What was surprising was that she wasn’t mad at me. Cassidy was another story, but the girls had finally come to an uneasy truce. Everyone was currently speculating on why I couldn’t find a date.
“You guys already asked out everyone I would want to go with,” I threw out.
“Lisa Felton doesn’t have a date,” Alan responded.
That was very brave of our little Alan. He pulled the pin on that grenade and sat back to watch it explode. Gina shook her head at him. I sat up like I was looking for her.
“You better stop him. He’ll do something stupid like fly her to Vegas and marry her,” Tracy warned.
“It would be wrong on so many levels. I hate to say it, Dude, but that’s a bad idea,” Jim said.
“The problem with Lisa is neither of us has a car. Hey, Jim, would you give us a ride? We could double,” I said.
“No, Cassidy explained to me what would happen if I enabled your insanity,” Jim said.
“You know what his problem is?” Jeff asked, getting everyone’s attention. “He’s just too nice of a guy. Girls don’t go for the nice ones.”
That got stuff thrown at him. I tried to break it up.
“Hey, hey, hey, he has a point.”
Now stuff was being thrown at me.
“This from the guy who invented ‘boob cream,’” April told them.
The place went silent. April hit her forehead when she realized she just opened up a whole new can of worms.
“Oh, shit.”
“April, dear,” Kim started, “I think there’s a story there that you’ve been holding out on us. It’s not like you’re dating him and have to keep his secrets.”
“I think that only applies if they’re married,” Jim said helpfully.
“Thanks, Buddy,” I told him.
“Hey, no problem, I just wanted to get the facts correct,” Jim explained.
“Shut up, you two,” Kim told us. “Back to April. Spill it.”
She looked at me and I just shrugged.
“David has been working on an experiment. He claims he has developed a cream that, when directly applied to a girl’s breasts, it helps them grow.”
Kim looked skeptical.
“What’s in this cream? Better yet, does it actually work?” Kim asked to continue her interrogation.
“It’s a secret formula and Tami seems to think it works,” I offered.
“What?!” Gina exclaimed.
She was on the phone, my guess would be with Tami. She suddenly burst out laughing.
“The secret ingredient is ‘essence of David,’” Gina shared.
Half the table cracked up. The other half looked confused.
“What’s the secret ingredient?” Alan asked.
“I think I need to leave now,” I said, and started to get up.
“Sit,” Cassidy ordered.
I sat. I think it was a knee-jerk reaction to what Tami would have said; Cassidy hadn’t earned that level of respect yet.
Gina leaned over and told him.
“Oh, that’s gross,” Alan said.
“I still don’t get it,” Cassidy said.
I made a hand motion to give her the idea. She turned almost purple, which caused all of us to laugh.
“You’d better tell the rest of it before the rumors get started,” Gina warned me.
I took a deep breath.
“I was sitting around one day and it occurred to me that girls that had been exposed to ... anyways ... their breasts seemed to grow over time.”
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with them going through puberty, would it?” Tracy asked.
“Hey, don’t bury me in details. I have a pretty good idea that sex with me causes girls to get better looking.”
That got me some jeers.
“I can see that there could be some doubters. So I asked the girls at Wesleyan if they’d be test subjects in my scientific research. You’d be surprised how many volunteered when they heard the procedure. I’m just trying to give some back here at dear old Lincoln High.”
“Are you going to set up a test group here?” Mona asked.
“Hmmm, I think something could be arranged,” I said, leering at Mona.
“Get the fire hose. He just went off the deep end, and he’ll pull down half the female population if we don’t get him cooled off,” warned Gina.
I gave my best evil scientist laugh as I rubbed my hands together. The bell rang so we all got up to leave. Mona gave me a hip-check on my way out of the lunchroom. I needed to set up another session with my new patient.
I CAME HOME TO FIND Angie in my room, laying out an outfit for tonight. I give up. They’ve been brainwashed to believe that I cannot even get dressed by myself. She was trying ties and not having any luck. I dug through the bags of stuff sent home from New York. I found the latest ties from Armani. I handed them to her.
“Wow, you’ve been holding out on me. I thought you had zero fashion sense.”
“That’s still true; I just know these are the new ones.”
“Kara called. She’ll pick you up at six o’clock. She said to tell you to make reservations for dinner. I took care of that. I figured she wanted to go somewhere nicer than Monical’s.”