Is Bridgeport big enough for Kae, Robyn, Alex and Jasmine? They're all beautiful, captivating, and a little bit crazy... but there can be only one It Girl.
[ Based on the It Girl series by Cecily Von Ziegesar ]
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Alex didn't have time to check her email in between afternoon classes because she hadn't finished her translation assignment for last-period Latin. She was in an intermediate class, and until three weeks ago, she'd been cursing herself for not testing into beginning Latin, taught by sexy Mr. Jordan. Past tense. Due to an altercation of a sexual kind with a student named Alexandra Crane, he had been fired and would no longer be available for intimate wine-enhanced student-teacher conferences. Alex was grateful now that her teacher was the somewhat asexual, forty-something Mrs. Graver and not someone she had almost—almost—slept with. Still, the last week and a half with Quincy had almost erased all memories of how she'd completely made an ass of herself over Mr. Jordan. Almost.
After class, she grabbed her belted raincoat and rushed out to the field house, hoping to practice shooting before the rest of the field hockey team got there. But there was a note taped on the heavy metal doors, telling the team to meet at Lasell gym instead. Ugh. All the way back across campus in the hair-frizzing rain? Alex tugged on the door—it was unlocked. She grinned and pulled out her phone.
Thirty-five minutes later, she was lying on one of the blue pole-vaulting mats next to Quincy. Their bodies sank into the cushy mat like they were sprawled on the softest, queenliest mattress in the world. The field house, where all the Bridgeport sports teams stored their equipment, felt ghostly and romantic.
"I've never seen the inside of this place." Quincy looked up at the high, beamed ceiling, his hands beneath his head. Rain pounded the aluminum roof relentlessly.
Alex turned on her side to face him. A short lock of black hair—the piece that always managed to fall into her face no matter how many clips she had holding it back—was hanging right in front of her eyes, and it felt like she was looking at Quincy through a gauzy dark curtain. Before meeting him, she wasn't into jock types. She was always attracted to older men—well dressed, sophisticated, maybe even foreign—like the European guy she'd met on a ski trip, whom she had supposedly lost her virginity to. At least, that was her story. But now that things were going so well with Quincy, she wanted to clear up any lingering misunderstandings between them.
When they'd first started dating last year, after meeting at Dave's spring bash at his parents' estate in Woodstock, she hadn't exactly been up front with him. He'd assumed she was the worldly, mature, experienced girl she'd pretended to be since coming to Bridgeport. That assumption included the fact (or non-fact) that she wasn't a virgin. She'd made no effort to correct the misunderstanding, even after he'd confided to her that he still was. Alex knew it was stupid and immature to pretend to be something she wasn't, but it had made her feel more confident about their relationship. She liked being the one who made the rules, the one who drew the boundaries, the one who had been there, done that. Besides, she hadn't been ready then to tell Quincy the truth or to lose her virginity.
But now, things were different.
"You won't get in trouble for skipping practice to make out with your girlfriend?" she asked coyly, tracing her fingers gently across Quincy's broad chest. He was so...delicious. Alex kept her touch light since, for the whole week following a football game, Quincy's entire body was completely bruised and battered. He was St. Lucius's star quarterback this year, and he got tackled a lot.
