Salem rolls his eyes. “Aren’t you late for an unprotected orgy under the bleachers?”

Matt starts to reply, and is immediately cut off by a stunning blonde who bounces right up to him and kisses him full on the mouth. “Matty, you promised to…” She trails off and whispers the rest in his ear, for which I am extremely grateful. Next thing I know, she’s leading him—where else?—under the bleachers.

“Not unprotected!” he calls back. “Never unprotected.”

“Gross,” Salem and Sabrina say simultaneously, but before I can respond, the door flies open and in walks Isabel with three similarly stunning friends. They promptly take up residence in the back row of the bleachers, as if hoping not to draw attention, but there isn’t an eye in the room that isn’t sparing them at least one lingering glance.

Well, other than Salem’s. He’s pretending to be immune, but I’ve already seen him preening in front of Isabel, and when he excuses himself back to the court, he is definitely puffing out his chest a little. I can’t really blame him—they do look like one of those Vanity Fair spreads on Young Hollywood—but I wish he’d just own it.

And then I realize: This is the perfect thing for me to deliver on for our pact. Good grades, making the team, and cleaning up your act are all well and good, but what says “parent pleaser” like a respectable girlfriend?

I shoot glances at Isabel for the next fifteen minutes until I finally catch her eye, then wave, just enough to remind her that she knows me. I’m relieved when recognition does in fact dawn on her angelic face.

I’m going to make this real for Salem, and if it happens that I get myself inducted into the school’s hot-girl clique at the same time, an undeniable cool-girl move, well. That’s just good planning.

I spend half of English on Friday trying to think up how to get my plan in motion at community service tonight, and half of it wanting to take the pen Salem will not stop clicking next to me and jam it through his brain.

“Must you?” I whisper fiercely as he taps his thigh with it in no pattern I can possibly discern. “I’m like three seconds away from luring you down to a cellar with a cask of amontillado myself.”

“Aw, look at you, doing the reading.” Salem uses his makeshift instrument of torture to tap the cover of the Poe anthology we’re studying this month.

“Clearly you did too, if you get the reference,” I point out.

“Touché. I do love me some Gothic literature.”

“A jock and an academic. Why Salem Grayson, you do contain multitudes.”