Samantha came too. She thought the exercise would be easy to do since she had good posture, but her book slipped off as often as Molly and Polly's did. Only I could walk and turn without The World of Shakespeare toppling off my head.

"It's your hair," Molly accused. "You've obviously used industrial strength hair-spray and the book is now glued to your head. I bet you could carry a four-course meal up there."

I did a turn like a model on a catwalk and smiled. "It's talent. Next I'm going to do a river-dance routine."

With her hands held out like she was walking a tightrope, Polly made a successful turn. "If I keep walking like this, do you think Joe will notice me?"

"Sure," Molly said taking a tentative step. "Who wouldn't notice that you're wearing The Atlas of the Medieval World on your head?"

Both Samantha and Polly laughed, sending their books crashing to the floor. That's when the librarian came over and kicked us out of the library.

We walked back down the hallway slowly, hoping that Mrs. Addington wouldn't notice that we'd gone AWOL. Polly tried to walk with her posture as straight as possible. "How do I look? Confident?"

"Or recovering from a back injury," Molly said.

"I think I could talk to him if the time was right," Polly said. "You know, if it wasn't the middle of class."

Samantha said, "He and Garret are having a party after the game on Friday. You should go."

Molly grunted and shook her head. "To a football party? They'd never let us in."

"They would if we came with you guys," Polly said, her gaze skipping between Samantha and me.

I hesitated for a moment. If Polly and Molly showed up and everything went well, then they'd gain confidence, maybe enough confidence to sing whatever Mr. Metzerol threw at them. But if it didn't go well, if people were rude, then they'd hate high school even more, and never listen to me again.

A risky venture at best, but what could I say? Polly wanted to go. "Sure, we can take you." I glanced over at Samantha but she was already shaking her head.

"Logan and I have a date after the game. He asked me to pick anything I wanted to do so we're watching Pride and Prejudice over at his house."

Molly and Polly simultaneously went, "Ohhhh. I love that movie."

Samantha smiled dreamily. "I know. Isn't Logan the greatest?"

Poor Logan, being forced into watching a chick flick. I supposed that would teach him not to go too long without asking Samantha her opinion on things.

"But go and have a good time at the party," Samantha said. "You guys can tell me all about it afterward."

"Right," I said, and made a mental note to ask Rachel and Aubrie to come with me. If all three of us brought Molly and Polly, there would be less chance of anyone being rude.

I spent the rest of the period coaching Molly and Polly on what to wear, say, and do at the party. It turned out that neither of them had ever watched a football game before, and their lack of knowledge on the subject was truly frightening. I told them that they both had to go to the game on Friday so they'd be able to talk about it with Joe at his party.

I was so busy doing this that I didn't check my phone again until after school. That's when I saw Tanner's text message.

He'd sent one sentence: Do you still believe in second chances?

I stared at the message, trying to shore up my resolve. I had to think of Adrian. But then somehow I found myself thinking about the way Tanner had held me close and kissed me. It was a dizzying sort of experience a person couldn't just forget. I texted him back: Yes.

In the card game of life, a good kisser apparently trumps resolve.

He called then, and told me that they were having a special on prime rib at the restaurant and they'd probably have some left over. If I thought my family would use it, he'd drop it by after he finished work around ten o'clock.

This immediately presented a glitch in my plan to hide the fact that I was seeing Tanner Debrock. I couldn't very well parade Tanner around my house and not expect Adrian to notice this fact. At the same time, after our rocky start, I wanted to convince Tanner that I was as normal as possible. If he pulled up to my house and I was sitting outside on my lawn in the cold at ten o'clock waiting for him, and then didn't let him into my house, he might cross me right off the normal list.

I said, " Um . . ."

"You don't like prime rib?"

"No, it's great. It's just that I'm going to be at Samantha's house tonight."

"At ten o'clock?"

"Late-night studying. Do you mind dropping by there instead?"

He said he didn't mind, so I gave him directions, hung up with him, and then called Samantha. I explained the whole situation to her—how it was all for Adrian—and asked if I could come over.

She listened quietly, and sighed when I was done. "We're back to verbal camouflage? Aren't relationships supposed to be based on honesty?"

"Don't be ridiculous," I said. "If relationships were based on honesty, none of us would wear makeup."

"If you date Tanner for long, Adrian will find out about it. She'll put two and two together."

"Yeah, but hopefully by then Rick will have moved on to the next girl who's tragically lacking in taste and common sense."

Samantha's voice sounded patient, as though trying to show me reason. "Adrian will be mad at you for deceiving her."

"I haven't deceived her. I've told her all along that there's nothing going on between me and Rick. Is it my fault that she won't believe me?"

"Chelsea . . ."

"Can we talk about this later? Like at 9:45 at your house?"

She sighed again. "I'll see you then."

It was 10:15 when Tanner came by, which was plenty late considering that Samantha had done nothing all night but shake her head and throw out sayings like: Honesty is the best policy, a clear conscience is a soft pillow, and all sorts of stuff about a tangled webs. When these didn't change my mind she finally said, "You're letting your sister think Rick likes you. That's just mean."

"Yeah, but the ends justify me being mean," I told her. I didn't get to say more because Tanner finally rang the doorbell. I told him Samantha and I had finished studying and did he want to go out for a bite to eat and to talk?

He stood on the doorstep, a warm silhouette against the cold night air. "We've both got school in the morning. I won't keep you up any later." He lifted the bag in his hand. "But besides the prime rib, I also brought you some cheesecake. We can eat a slice at your house if you want."

Samantha, who stood next to me in the doorway, sent me an arched-eyebrow all-of-your-plotting-was-for-nothing look.

I smiled back at Tanner. "Cheesecake sounds great, but this late at night my sister is usually wandering around the house half dressed . . . why don't we just eat in my car?"

He looked over at my Hyundai. "Let's eat in my car. It has a better heater."

I said good-bye to Samantha, all the while giving her my I-told-you-my-plotting-would-work look.

She watched Tanner and me head across the grass. "Good luck on your ethics test!" she called to me. "Remember, the ends don't justify the means."

"Ethics? Is that what you were studying?" Tanner asked.

I glanced back at Samantha, but she'd already shut the door. "Yeah." I didn't want to have a conversation about ethics right now. Especially since Tanner would probably expect me to know all sorts of philosophical things for my imaginary test.