Gettin' Hooked Read online

  “Sure. What about you? You dig anyone at Creekside? Have a thing for a guy you’ve never told me about?”

  Shrugging, I glanced back out the window to where Maurice was mowing the grass. The fact that Kayla didn’t know that I was into Maurice was kind of weird, considering there wasn’t much my cousin didn’t know about me.

  His white T-shirt was damp now, from sweat or the moisture hanging in the overcast sky, I was too far away to tell, but it made his dark skin visible through the material. His body was sculpted—toned like an athlete’s. More perfect than the pictures hanging on my cousin’s walls.

  My heart was thumping, pounding my pulse all loud in my ears. I knew Kayla was saying something. Could hear her voice, but the words were drowned out by my reaction to Maurice’s movements as he pushed the mower.

  I stared at him even though I knew Kayla was waiting for a response—a response I was hesitant to give. The bed squeaked and I could sense her coming to my side.

  Taking a deep breath, I tore my gaze away from Maurice before she realized who I was so freaking hung up on. Swallowing to clear the dryness in my throat, I turned back to her and moved away from the window, though the hunk-a-licious image of him wasn’t easy to put from my mind.

  “So?”

  “Dunno.” My smile widened as I evaded the question. Maurice was my secret, and there was something safe about keeping him there. Not telling may have kept me safe, but it also kept me single. I struggled to keep my voice normal and my breathing slow. To disguise a rising, irrational sense of panic.

  “There’s some fine-ass guys at Creekside, and lawdy knows I’m not getting a date from Howard. I’d get hooked up, too, with the right guy.” Vague enough?

  “So who’s the right guy?”

  Again I ignored her question, figuring my plan would straight-up distract her enough to keep her from badgering for an answer.

  I sat down at her computer desk, flicking the mouse to bring it out of sleep mode. “Check this out.” A few clicks later I had my updated MySpace profile up on the screen.

  “Ooh, I like your changes.” Her head bobbed to “Yo,” the song I’d uploaded just an hour before. Kayla reached around me to scoop up a bottle of nail polish, then tapped it against her palm.

  “Thanks. Just did ’em.”

  With a few more clicks the screen changed to the list of my likes and dislikes, info only people on my friends list would have access to. “But this is what I want you to see.”

  “Yeah?” She squinted, then slanted her face toward me. She was for sure skeptical, that was clear. “I’ve seen it all before, Imani, so what’s it got to do with getting hooked up with someone?”

  “What if we could see this info about guys from each other’s schools? And what if they could see ours?”

  “They can.”

  “But only people on friends lists. And, that could be anyone, from across the country. That’s whack and does us no good finding prom dates. What if there was a way to keep this local? Just our two high schools.”

  “Like our own locals-only MySpace?”

  “Yeah.” Logging out of MySpace, I went to GoDaddy and typed in GettinHooked. The name was available.

  “You wanna run a Web site?”

  “No, not really. But I do wanna go to the prom with the right guy. Running our own hook-up system will let us check out boys first, and will let your friends meet mine. I know I have hella girls that are tired of the dudes at our school. And are still prom-dateless. You do, too.”

  “True.”

  “If we set up GettinHooked.com, we can have pictures and profiles. Our friends will be able to see what they like—and don’t like—about each other, then can send us a message and asked to be hooked up.”

  “We’d set up the dates?”

  “Yep.” Glancing over my shoulder, I winked at her. She was still shaking the nail-polish bottle—the tap-tap-tap on beat with “Yo,” which was still playing low in the background. “And we could even sit in on some of the first meetings, ya know, so no one gets freaked.”

  Kayla plopped back onto her bed, her blond hair flung out around her, and laughed. “I love it, Imani. I’ve got tons of friends that’ll be game.”

  “Me, too. So?”

  “So?”

  “Should I buy the domain?”

  “Hell, yeah, girl. Buy it.”

  “We’ll still need a server.”

  “We can use my dad’s and a basic template. It should be pretty easy to set up.”

  “Fa sheezy.”

  Reaching for my backpack, I retrieved the prepaid Visa my dad gave me. Since I was on my own a lot, he figured I needed to be able to take care of my own needs. Mostly, I think, he just didn’t know how to deal with the girlie issues—things a momma shoulda handled. It was cool with me. Aside from food, I’d been shopping for clothes, makeup and girlie things on my own for years.

  So long as I’m responsible about spending my scratch, he kept a nice-size balance available for me. Ten bucks wouldn’t be a problem.

  Closing my eyes, I took a steadying breath and ended up inhaling the sharp scent of nail-polish. I glanced at Kayla, who now sat on the floor with her back to the bed and her knees bent.

  She painted her toenails.

  I moved through the pages of GoDaddy, finding my way to the purchase page.

  There was this crazy sizzle of energy creeping through my body as I typed in the info to secure the domain. A wound-up sensation of accomplishment and excitement that had my heart beating fast and my hands trembling—enough so that I had to think about the letters my fingers were striking and wipe my hands on my jeans a couple of times.

  There was this feeling—this stupid feeling—twisting and turning in my gut, like something big was going to come of this. Like this idea was going to blow up.

  And maybe—just maybe—this was the step needed to wind up with the guy I wanted.

  Whatever it was, it felt good. Damned good. My lip, which I’d been worrying between my teeth, popped free, a smile taking over as the confirmation page slid into place on the monitor.

  GettinHooked.com belonged to me.

  Grinning, I forced myself to keep from looking out the window again, to keep my secret, secret. With my back to my cousin, I lowered my lids and focused on the sound of the mower humming in the background. That was my man out there. He just didn’t know it yet. After a few minutes the sound of the engine sputtered, then stopped, but I kept my eyes closed hoping to hear what he’d be doing next.

  “We all set?”

  Startled, I gasped and turned toward Kayla.

  “What’s up with you today?”

  “Not a thing,” I lied, putting my Visa card back in pack. Something was definitely freaking me today, I just wasn’t sure exactly why I was tripping. “All gravy, girl. GettinHooked.com is ours.”

  “That’s hella tight.”

  “What now, computer geek?”

  Kayla clicked her tongue, along with giving me an an eye roll. “Whatever.” She got to her feet, careful to keep her toes up, and walked toward her door on her heels. “Now what? Now we go to my dad’s office and get server space.”

  She hobbled back to her bed, grabbed the phone, then tossed it to me. “I’ll set up the site. You start making calls.”

  We went downstairs and into her dad’s office, spending the remainder of the afternoon there, playing with Web site templates and making phone calls.

  The design we chose was simple; a pure black background so that once we had pictures of our friends to upload they’d really stand out.

  Our home page announced what we were all about—Prom date hook-ups. We included a log-in feature where a name and high school ID number had to be entered in order to start checking out the profiles. We mimicked some of the features from MySpace we thought were important, but we also added some of our own.

  We added a music plug-in and uploaded a shuffling of slow songs from my iPod. Once someone logged in they’d be taken to a page tha
t divided the guys from the girls. Not that we had any yet, but the pictures would load four per page, and once clicked on, the link would take you to their complete profile page, giving all the details that’d help someone decide if they wanted the hook-up.

  By the time we were done it was nearly dark, my ass was tired of sitting and my voice was tired of talking. A few hours in and we had hella friends hyped on the idea and ready to sign up as soon as our site went live.

  Gathering my backpack, I retraced my steps through the kitchen. My auntie was there making dinner and invited me to stay, but I was ready to go.

  Maybe because I’d been thinking about my momma leaving me, or the fact that I was really missing my dad, but I wasn’t in the mood to hang with them and longed for the solitude and quiet of my own thoughts. My own space.

  I was offered a ride home, but declined, kinda looking forward to the walk.

  Outside the evening air had cooled, but rain held off. Streetlights had clicked on even though the sun hadn’t quite set behind the clouds.

  Maurice’s garage was closed, causing a little pang of regret over not seeing him again. But I would. Soon.

  As soon as GettinHooked.com was up and running, I planned on using it to my advantage. I grinned. What Kayla didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, but the entire idea was loaded with ulterior motives. Mine. To make Maurice not just my prom date, but my man.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Can you see what they’re doing?” Kayla asked, batting my hair out of the way and pressing her weight into my back.

  Lawdy, Kayla and I must have looked like a couple of straight-up fools, kneeling behind a bush with discarded McD’s bags tucked beneath our knees to keep them out of the mud. The ground was wet and getting wetter, the continued light rain causing all sorts of messed-up damage to my hair.

  Sliding a hand over my head, I tried to tame the increasing frizz by tucking it into the baseball cap I’d snagged from my dad’s room, but the wild curls had a mind of their own. “Shoulda braided it,” I mumbled, glancing right quick at Kayla.

  Her focus wasn’t on me, but fixed across the parking lot to the strip of stores located in The Plaza, an outdoor mini-mall.

  “Look,” she whispered, jabbing me in the side with her elbow, “I think they’re holding hands.”

  “Already? Is Missy a bopper?”

  She shook her head. “She’s not fast like that.”

  “If you say so,” I replied, rolling my eyes and sucking air between my teeth.

  Holding a branch down, I angled my body to see past the leaves and through the front window of Starbucks, where GettinHooked.com’s first date hook-up was taking place.

  Well, sort of. Missy was one of Kayla’s girls. We had plenty of girls, all our friends had been hip. But getting dudes to sign up hadn’t been as easy, so this date was kind of an experiment just to see how things would work.

  And from the looks of things—fast or not—it was going just fine. Both had their hands on the table, but from our vantage point of spying from the shrubs, there was really no telling if they were really holding hands.

  It didn’t matter. Missy and Jason were there because Kayla and I had hooked them up. It gets better, too: they’d picked each other off our site profiles.

  There was pride in that.

  I could feel it in my chest, this warmth caused by the hype of accomplishment. “They’re talking. And laughing.”

  “This is so tight.” Kayla giggled. “I wonder who we’ll hook up next.”

  With a shrug, I pushed to my feet and kicked my legs to work out the freakin’ kinks in my knees. Clouds hugged the rooftops. The air was thick, scented with wet asphalt. The rain was picking up now; hella fat droplets splattered against the brim of my hat.

  The water was starting to soak through my sweatshirt, too, making me wish I’d followed Gram’s advice and worn a weatherproof jacket. I suppressed a shiver as I adjusted my pack over both shoulders, then wrapped my arms around my middle.

  “We need more people to sign up.” Because Maurice hadn’t yet, and he was it for me.

  “It’s going to take off.”

  I nodded. I knew she was right—just a feeling deep in my gut that’d been with me since I’d thought up this whole idea. “That’s what I need to do. Take off. I’m freezing.” We started walking toward the overhang of the strip mall buildings where we’d be protected from the rainfall.

  “You coming back to my place?”

  There was a long, hot shower calling out to me. And fresh clothes. “Nah. Heading home. I’ll check you later, though.”

  “’Kay.”

  “Bye, girl.”

  We hugged right quick, then moved away from each other, our homes were in opposite directions, but the walk wasn’t far for either of us.

  I hadn’t made it to the end of the mall when I spotted him.

  Maurice stood with a few other fellas just outside The Body Shop, a workout center where he must have just finished up. His stance casual, he stood there all sexy like, half dressed, steam rising from his skin.

  Crap, why now? I wondered, knowing I must look like a bum, with mud splattered on my knees, my sweatshirt soaked and my hair freakin’ jacked up, half sticking out from under the ball cap.

  Swallowing down the tightness in my throat, I tucked my chin to my chest and ignored the pounding tha-thump of my heartbeat. With a little luck, I’d be able to walk right on by and he wouldn’t recognize me. With a big gulp of air burning in my lungs, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, though it wasn’t easy keeping my eyes off him. I wanted to stare, take in every inch of his bare chest and fine-ass body.

  Come on, he was half naked, wearing nothing but baggy shorts—in the rain—with a duffel bag slung over one muscular shoulder. Freakin’ normal to wanna look my fill.

  He didn’t say anything to me as I approached, just kept talking to his friends, his voice deep and soothing. It drew my attention and I glanced up in his direction.

  And he was looking right back at me, our gazes catching and holding for a sec. I felt the blush on my cheeks, the heat spreading down my neck, and I hoped like hell it wasn’t near as bright as I feared.

  He grinned, then gave this little what’s up lift of his chin. It wasn’t easy, but I forced a small smile as I kept walking. All those times I’d hoped he’d notice me, just look up and wave or do something. All those times he hadn’t, until the one whack moment I was looking my worst.

  Slanting my head, I looked away and kept going.

  “Imani.”

  Riiight, now the sound of the rain was playing tricks on me. No way did Maurice just call to me. “You’re trippin, girl,” I murmured under my breath, forcing myself to not end up a fool by glancing back.

  “Hey, Imani, lemme holla at you.”

  The fact that I didn’t fall smack down on my face should be noted, because as I paused and turned slowly toward him, my knees were shaking hella bad. He jogged the short distance between us, until he was standing all close to me, just inches apart.

  The warmth of his skin rolled across the space, along with the musky scent of sweat and the spice of cologne. My skin prickled. Closing my eyes, I gulped down the lump forming in my throat, then glanced up at him.

  “H-hey, Maurice.” Adjusting my backpack, I put one hand on each strap and held on tight, just so he wouldn’t see my hands trembling.

  “I wanted to ask you ’bout somethin’.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Heard you were looking for a guy.”

  Looking for a guy? Pullease…I’d found him. I was looking right at him, into eyes so dark it was hard to tell the difference between his pupils and irises. Eyes that glistened with interest, and brightened with a smile that dug dimples into his cheeks.

  He cleared his throat and eyebrows arched over those eyes I just couldn’t seem to tear my gaze from. He licked his lips as his smile widened.

  Staring into his eyes was one thing, at his lips was something else—suggested I wa
nted something. Which I did, but no way was I ready for him to know it. Trippin’ wasn’t nearly a strong enough word for how I was behaving.

  “A g-g-guy?” I shook my head, not really sure what he was talking about.

  “Or guys, I guess.” Maurice adjusted the strap on his shoulder, bunching up his muscles as he moved.

  “Guys?”

  His brows pulled together, his narrowing for a sec. “I was talking to Kayla. She mentioned—”

  “Oh, yeah. For our site.” There was really something wrong with me if just being next to him caused me to go all stupid and forget all my plans. “We need more dudes. You going to sign up?”

  “Feeling it out.” His voice dropped, low and husky, and there was something in the tone that caused a shiver to run down my spine. The sensation moved through my body with a visible tremble.

  “You cold?” he asked, pulling the hood of my sweatshirt out from under my pack and adjusting it around my neck. “Wanna a lift home?”

  With a nod, I responded, “Sure, beats walking in the rain.”

  Maurice nodded, then turned back toward the guys he’d left standing in front of The Body Shop, flashing them a peace sign. “I’m out, fellas.”

  They mumbled goodbyes back, but I wasn’t really paying attention, my mind whirling around the fact that he’d left his boys to take me home.

  “Ready?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  Slanting his head toward the parking lot, he said, “This way.” Then his hand settled on my back, just gentle like, and hardly noticeable since I was wearing my pack. But I knew it was there, the light contact making my stomach do all sorts of whacked-out flips.

  Not more than five cars down the row, he paused by a black Nissan Altima, his hand falling away as he dug in his duffel bag for the keys.

  The disappointment was sharp and immediate, the need to step closer was straight-up crazy. Blinking hard, I took a breath and stepped in the other direction, toward the passenger side of the car.