The Tomboy & The Movie Star: A Sweet YA Romance (Jackson High Series Book 3) Read online

  “Nice shirt, Bernard. Pretty sure I saw it in the boy’s department at Target.” He smirked his smirky face at me while his guy posse snickered around him. “Or are you wearing your brothers’ hand-me-downs again?”

  Like I usually did, I ignored him. I’d learned the hard way that feeding the beast usually backfired. And there was a high probability the T-shirt was one of my brothers’ hand-me-downs.

  “Who’s entering the Texas State Auto Tech Competition this year?” Todd sat on top of his worktable, running his gaze around the room. “The deadline to enter is coming up and I want to get a good look at who’s going to lose to me. Bernard, you have to sign up again. I could use the laugh.”

  I liked to think I was a nice person, but sometimes I tried to estimate how many Burger Barn Habanero burgers it would take—shoved into Todd’s mouth—to get him to stop talking. Maybe two.

  “Remember last year’s competition, Bernard?” Todd asked loudly, making sure everyone in shop class could hear. “Man, it’s a great memory.”

  Three. Definitely three.

  “Hahaha. I still laugh thinking about how you thought you could compete against boys.” He made one of those whistling noises that ended in a boom while his friends laughed and snickered. “You crashed and burned. Because girls suck as mechanics.”

  Four. I could totally shove four habanero burgers into his sexist pie-hole. Heavy on the habaneros until his face turned red and smoke came out his ears.

  It was hard to swallow my failure at last year’s competition and attempt to turn it into a positive with Todd’s near-weekly reminders. It still stung. Enough that there was no way I was going to put myself through that again.

  “Quiet down, people,” Mr. Miles said, clumping through the doorway just as the late bell rang. “A couple things before you get started working today. First, we’ve got a new student joining us. This is Grant Stutterfield. I hope everyone will make him feel welcome at Jackson.”

  The new guy stood next to Mr. Miles. He wore sharply-ironed khaki pants short enough to see a couple inches of white athletic socks, a baggy hoodie with the words “cool kid” emblazoned across his chest, and a thick pair of black framed nerd glasses. Curls of blond hair peeked out from under a brand-new Jackson High ball cap.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think I caught that last name… Did you say St-St-Stutterfield?” Todd asked, drawing laughs from his friends.

  Five. Five burgers to shut Todd up.

  “That’s enough, Todd.” Mr. Miles shot him a glance before grabbing his clipboard from his desk. “I’ll need someone who can help get Grant up to speed. Todd, how about you?”

  “I’d like to help, but I’m signing up for the state competition again, sir, and I’ll be studying hard. I plan to make it to the national competition this year.”

  What a bunch of baloney. First, there was no way Todd wanted to help. Todd was a bully and a jerk. I doubted he even knew the meaning of the word “help.” Second, he wouldn’t be studying hard. Todd was a good mechanic, but he was cocky about it. Too cocky to study and work at getting better.

  Mr. Miles nodded and looked back at the list, but I knew how this was going to go. The new guy was going to be forced to stand up there in the spotlight while everyone in class rejected him. Because Todd set the tone in class and most of the guys followed. It wasn’t that all the boys in class were mean. Some were nice, but going against Todd was like painting a bullseye on your back. Speaking as Todd’s number one target, I totally understood.

  No point in putting the new guy through that.

  “I’ll do it,” I said. Ignoring Todd’s snort, I sent a nod to the new student. I expected to see his shoulders sag in relief, but instead he rolled his shoulders back and cocked his head. Dang. If he was just another Todd, thinking girls didn’t belong in shop class, then I’d let him fend for himself.

  The new guy hit me with his nerd-gaze. Something about his brown eyes and the crooked smile on his lips turned my stomach into a taffy-pulling machine. Uh…whoa, what?

  “Awesome. Grant, go ahead and take the empty seat at the back table.” The new guy spared Todd one glance on his way past and settled on the stool next to me. “Pass your homework forward and then get to work finishing the electrical system lab.”

  I pulled out my paper on the comparison of disc and drum brakes and handed it to Gary at the next table who passed the stack in his hands on up until it landed on Mr. Miles’s desk.

  “Thanks. I really appreciate this,” the new guy said. “So…I’m Grant and you are…?”

  “Bernie Jewell.”

  “Bernie? Is it short for something?” Grant asked.

  “Bernadette,” I said. My parents had gone with all “B” names for my brothers. Brent, Brodie, Benjamin, and Brice. When they finally got to choose a girl’s name, Bernadette was the only one they agreed on.

  “Like the song by the Four Tops?” Grant asked.

  I gave him the side-eye because no one in our generation knew that. Okay, except maybe Grady—but he was big into music. I tipped my head across the table. “That’s Trig.”

  “Yo,” Trig said without looking up from the pencil drawing he was doing in his notebook. Trig was big into comic books and only took shop so he could keep his car running.

  “So… A girl in auto shop,” Grant said.

  “Uh huh. It’s shocking, right?” I narrowed my gaze at the new guy. “Just like giving women the right to vote.”

  “Oh, hey. I didn’t mean it that way.” He pushed his glasses up with one finger. “I meant like it’s cool.”

  “Whatever.” Yes, I was a tad defensive, but, honestly, having to deal with kids like Todd did that to a girl. So, I’d give the new guy the benefit of the doubt—for now. I pulled out my shop class binder, pressed the tab to open the rings, and handed him over my notes. “Here you go. I’ll need them back. Mr. Miles is pretty good about sticking to the syllabus, so the notes should be easy to follow.”

  “Can I…um…get your number? In case I have a question when I’m going through them.” His brown eyes blinked innocently behind his glasses but I hesitated. I didn’t like giving my number out to just anyone.

  “Maybe Trig can—”

  “Bern, it’s not like he’s going to call you for a date. Just give him your digits, yo.”

  Valid point. And that totally was not a swoosh of disappointment in my stomach at the thought. Nope. It was probably stress. I’d been thrown off the minute I saw my dad’s note about Grandma Lolli arriving today taped to the fridge. Between that, setting the microwave on fire, and Todd bringing up last year again… Yeah, definitely stress.

  “Okay.” I leaned forward and wrote my cell number on the top page. “Feel free to text or call, you know, if you have a question.”

  Leaning into his space, I caught the scent of fresh soap and dryer sheets, which was very different from the normal high school shop odors of grease, oil, and too much Axe cologne. He smelled…nice. And what the heck was my problem? Since when did I notice how a guy smelled?

  “Why don’t I show you our car?” I jerked myself away and stood abruptly, moving toward the back of the huge room with three wide open garage doors. “All the shop classes are divided into three teams with each team working on one car. Our table is team two. The ’79 Supra is ours.”

  “Sweet.” Grant followed along next to me until we stood in front of the car’s open hood gazing at the exposed transmission. “Or not. It’s sort of a mess, isn’t it?”

  “Pretty much.” I grinned down into the car. “That’s what makes it so much fun.”

  Grant laughed next to me. “You like a challenge?”

  “I like solving puzzles. Figuring out why a car isn’t running has so many possibilities.” I shrugged. “It’s like being a detective.”

  He smiled at me and even though I tried not to notice—it was a great smile. I tore my gaze from him and back to the engine in front of me.

  “You should know that Mr. Miles takes safety ser
iously. Everyone has to wear coveralls and goggles to work. Oh, and put tools away when you’re done. It’s another pet peeve of his. He’s cool if students want to come work on the cars during lunch.”

  “Great. I’ll need the extra time to get up to speed,” Grant said. “Do you want to have lunch here today and work?”

  “What?” I whipped my head around to look up at him. “Me? Oh, um… Sorry, no. I can’t today.”

  “Okay. Sure.” He grinned and shrugged. “But if you change your mind, you’ll know where to find me.”

  Obviously, he was just asking me to eat lunch with him so I could help him. Not for any other reason. I wasn’t trying to be mean, but between my dad leaving on deployment and my Grandma Lolli arriving, today wasn’t a great day and I was looking forward to talking with my best friend Lacey at lunch.

  “Why don’t we go through the electronics? The coveralls are over on the hooks.” I glanced from his loafers up his pressed khaki pants to his “cool kid” hoodie and up, realizing how very tall he was. At five foot eight inches, I was a tall girl myself but he had a half a foot on me. “You probably need to ask Mr. Miles for an extra-tall coverall.”

  “Hey, cool kid!” Todd called from where he stood at the hood of his team’s car. “Come over and check this out!”

  Grant looked over and then back at me. “Why did he call me cool kid?”

  “Your shirt?” I tipped my head toward his chest before glancing over at Todd with a shake of my head. “I would advise you not to go look, but that’s me.”

  “Whoa, they have a Dodge Viper,” Grant said, his gaze moving between the Viper and the Supra and back to the Viper again. “I need to go look.”

  “Then you should. You’ll want to borrow these,” I said, handing him a set of work goggles. Vaya con Dios, cute naive nerd guy.

  2

  “Cool Kid” Squared

  Grant

  I strapped the goggles on, adjusting them over my glasses while Bernie looked up at me with the most gorgeous pair of hazel eyes I’d ever seen. I couldn’t decide if it was her long dark eyelashes that made her eyes so striking. Or the way she looked at me almost challenging me to like her. Or not like her. Like she could care less what I thought about her.

  Not a look I was used to at all. And I loved it. Although the defensive way she notched her chin up made me think she wasn’t as tough as she seemed. Which reeled me in even more. It was right then that I realized I’d been standing staring at her like, well, like an awkward nerd. So, achievement unlocked.

  I’ve always played the cool kid on TV. And as I got older, the super cool good guy on the big screen. So yes, I thought my “cool kid” hoodie was ironic and I was having fun playing the nerd. Probably too much fun and overplaying a little. But most people saw what they expected to see.

  The number one thing people recognized Kingsly Grant for was his eyes. I mean, my eyes. My eyes were a very light blue. Think Chris Pine blue. Or old school Hollywood Paul Newman blue. But Grant Stutterfield had brown eyes. My brown contacts would stop the majority of people from even thinking I reminded them of someone famous. The human brain was a wonderful thing.

  It was when those hazel eyes narrowed that I realized I was still staring at Bernie. Pull it together. I quickly jerked my gaze from hers, turned away and walked over to check out the Viper.

  Todd stood ready to draw me in until we both stood in front of the car’s open hood.

  “Well, what do you think?” He nodded down to the bright shiny engine.

  “Nice. Very nice.” And very different from my team’s car. “How did your team end up with a Viper while the other team has a Supra?”

  “My dad donated this one.” Todd crossed his arms over his puffed out chest. “So our team has a real car to work on.”

  “Is that a 427 engine?” I leaned down to get a closer look.

  “Sure is. A 7 liter 427 with 659 horse power.” Todd slapped my back. “Have you seen anything this sweet before?”

  I actually had. I’d been allowed to visit one of the shooting locations for the most recent Fast & Furious movies. Talk about sweet cars. Not to mention all the Hollywood actors I knew with fancy high-end cars. But a cool car was still a cool car.

  “It’s very nice.”

  “Wait until you hear her.” Todd gave a thumb’s up over the hood and then pointed back into the engine. “See that? Get a look back behind the alternator.”

  I leaned further in, craning my neck to see. “No, I—”

  “Hang on. Fire her up, Mark!”

  The engine roared to life and before I could move back, a stream of oil spurted out, hitting me directly in the face. I jumped back, oil dripping from my face, down my neck, and landing in splotches on my hoodie.

  The Viper shut off, letting me hear the hooting and laughing around me. Wiping the coating of oil from the goggles, I glanced at Todd.

  “Man, sorry about that.” Todd stood grinning wide, not looking sorry at all. “Guess we need to check some hoses.”

  “Looks like it,” I said, prompting another round of laughter from around the car. Todd’s, of course, the loudest. Well, I wanted research; I was getting it in spades on my first day already.

  I walked back over to where Bernie stood leaning over the Supra working.

  “Well, that was fun.” I pulled the goggles off. “Thanks for these, by the way.”

  “To be fair, I tried to stop you.” She handed me a shop rag.

  “Not very hard,” I said, running a rag over my face and neck before wiping off the goggles.

  She shrugged. “It’s like my grandma Gigi says, ‘Sometimes, you’ve got to live through an experience in order to learn life’s greatest lessons.’”

  “What did I learn just now?”

  “Whoa, no. That’s not how it works. You tell me—what did you learn?”

  “That my ‘cool kid’ hoodie isn’t cool.”

  “That may be a moot point unless you get that oil out soon.” Her gaze flicked down to my sweat shirt and back up to my face. “That’s it? That’s all you learned?”

  “No. Mostly I learned that Todd is a jerk.”

  “See? So it wasn’t a wasted experience. There’s some dish soap over by the sink that’s pretty good with grease if you want to try to save your shirt.” Her lips tilted up into a sweet smile. “I definitely think the cool kid hoodie should live to see another day. It’ll be our inside joke reminding us how uncool Todd is.”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’ve got a twisted mind?” I grinned at her.

  “No.”

  “How did Todd manage that neat trick anyway?” I asked. “I feel like Judd Nelson in Beverly Hills Cop falling for the banana in the tailpipe.”

  “A pinprick in the oil pump supply line. You’re not the first guy to fall for it.” She threw me a sympathetic glance. “Seriously though, you’ll need to wash your shirt now or it’ll stain.”

  “It’s okay.” I wanted to be cemented into everyone’s head as a “nerd” before I took off my baggy sweatshirt. Millions of people—a majority of them teenage girls—admired my physique. Not that nerds didn’t work out, but I didn’t want to take a chance of blowing my cover on the first day. Looking into Bernie’s eyes—eyes so clear and full of honesty they took my breath away. No flirtation, or calculation, or breathless adoration. I wanted these four weeks more than I’d wanted anything in a long time. “I’ve got another one just like it.”

  “Ah, cool kid squared. Then let’s get to work.” Bernie flipped the Toyota car manual to the electrical system section and laid it on the rim of the open engine. “Electrical system. Prepare to be shocked.”

  “Ha! Very funny.”

  The only thing shocking was how quickly time flew by. Before I knew it, the bell sounded throughout the halls, class ended, Bernie slipped out before I could say goodbye, and it was time for me to join the scrum out in the hallways.

  The noise level and mass of bodies pressing around me felt a lot like getting mobbe
d by screaming fans. Only these kids wanted nothing to do with me. They yelled and pushed their way past to get to friends or maybe their next class. Even as tall as I was, I got bumped around and pushed aside. I finally arrived at my locker and tried to slide in to open it.

  “Dude, watch it!” the guy one locker over warned.

  “Hey, sorry.” Like I could help it that my 6’2 frame didn’t fit into the twelve inch space in front of my locker.

  “You’re the new guy, right?” Some other guy had leaned up against the locker on my other side where he stood dragging his gaze over me before he slapped me on the back. “Welcome to Jackson. The robotics club meets after school on Thursdays.”

  “Um, thanks. Are you in the club?”

  “Do I look like a loser? No, but I figured it was right up your alley.” He high-fived his friend over his dunk on me and left.

  See? This was the stuff I’d missed out on by growing up on a Hollywood set.

  By the time I found my next class I was late. So much for sliding in surreptitiously. As soon as I stepped inside the classroom, I was in the spotlight.

  “You must be our new student. Welcome, Mr. Stutterfield.” The teacher held a textbook out to me with a smile. “I’m Miss Rose. Go ahead and take any empty seat.”

  Accepting the book, I pushed up my glasses and aimed toward the first available desk only to be waved off with a frown and a head shake. The same happened to the next two seats.

  “Pssst, new guy,” a voice hissed.

  I ran my gaze around to find the voice and found two girls motioning me over to the empty desk in front of them. I nodded and made my way over, aware of the snickers and whispers circling the room.

  “Thank you, Rowena. If you could help with the note, too…” Miss Rose said, clearing her throat to quiet the class down. “We’re better than that here at Jackson, aren’t we, people?”

  I felt a tug on the back of my shirt and then the girl, Rowena, passed me the small post-it note from my back.