Chapter OneMatt & Sunny
"Look, boys and girls. It's Matt Calhoun and Sunny Bamberg, Lincoln High's own glamour couple."
Matt hated Clint Shaffer's gushing gossip reporter bull, but he smiled because Sunny had told Matt about four thousand times that she wanted every single shot of them that ended up in the video yearbook to be perfect.
And perfect did not equal Matt scowling at Clint. Or covering his own face with his binder. Or smashing his fist into the camera lens.
Perfect equaled Matt putting his arm around Sunny and smiling, and so that's what he was doing. just sucking it up, the way you had to do sometimes if you were a boyfriend who wanted to stay a boyfriend. And Matt most definitely did. Being Sunny's boyfriend, walking around school holding hands with Sunny, watching TV and cuddling with Sunny, talking on the phone to Sunny, making out with Sunny, making out with Sunny, making out with Sunny ...
It just didn't get any better than that. Being Sunny's boyfriend was pretty much Matt's reason for dragging his butt out of bed in the morning. Even after three years together, he could hardly believe that she was his. And that she loved being Matt's girlfriend as much as he loved being Sunny's guy.
Oh, man, if Elias could hear what I'm thinking right now ... Matt shook his head, imagining his best friend's eyes rolling.
"So what are you kids up to today?" Clint asked as he sat down across from them at the primo cafeteria table-by the window and closest to the fro-yo machine. He kept the video camera trained on Matt and Sunny, waiting for their answer.
"We're having an intervention for the Gee," Elias Jarrett answered, shooting a glance at Sunny's best friend, Geena Ciannelli. "We're trying to convince her that being flat doesn't mean she can't have a normal and somewhat happy future."
Clint turned the camera to Geena and did a zoom onto her chest. Geena crossed her arms in front of her, and her olive skin took on a reddish tint.
Elias, clearly having noticed the zoom, the arm cross, and the blush, gave his hyena laugh, the one Sunny claimed made her teeth crawl back into her gums.
Matt had never told Sunny that he was the one who'd invented the hyena laugh, back when he and Elias were in the second grade. He'd definitely never told Sunny that he still occasionally did the laugh himself-when he and Elias where hanging out without any girl types around.
"We're finishing up the plans for Matt and my double Sweet Sixteen party," Sunny said, her voice just a little bit louder and higher than usual, the way it got when she was annoyed. She hadn't been amused by the crack about Geena being flat, or Clint's breast zoom, or Elias's hyena laugh.
Clint turned the camera back on Sunny, and she gave him her full-force smile, along with a head toss that called attention to her shiny blond hair. "The party's going to be legendary," she continued. "Massive buffet at my parents' country club. Limo convoy to Disneyland. Then we have all night in the park. It's just for people who booked private parties, so there probably won't be any lines."
"Beautiful," Clint answered. He lowered the camera and looked at Sunny in a way that made it clear he was talking about her, not the birthday party plans.
Matt's stomach started spurting acid. Having the hottest girlfriend in school was great. Except for the part about guys like Clint-make that guys like everyone-looking at Sunny in that way. That interested way. Sometimes Matt couldn't help picturing Sunny's body covered in slime trails left by all those eyeballs.
What does Sunny think of Clint? he wondered. Does she think that crew-cut, bleached-blond hair is cool? Has she noticed that Clint's practically been living in the gym?
Matt tightened his arm around Sunny and pulled her right up against him-side to side, thigh to thigh. They can look, he thought, but only I can touch. The acid spurt slowed to a trickle.
"We were just deciding who's riding in each car," Geena volunteered. She adjusted the little clippy thing in her curly dark brown hair. Matt noticed that it was the exact same little clippy thing Sunny was wearing in hers-except Geena's was a different color.
Clint didn't bother raising the camera and getting some footage of Geena. He'd clearly gotten what he came for-more film of Sunny. It seemed like Clint had been shooting Sunny practically every day lately.
"So where's Brittany?" Matt blurted out. He ignored Elias's jealous-much? smirk, Geena's raised eyebrow, Sunny's laugh, and Clint's knowing grin. He made a production out of adding more ketchup to his last three-already ketchup-soaked -- fries, trying not to feel like a total idiot. "Brit had to take a makeup test in Spanish," Clint said.
"Oh . . . 'cause I wanted to ask her what the homework assignment is in history," Matt added quickly. He glanced from face to face. He was serving it up, but nobody was having any. He could tell everyone knew the only reason he'd asked about Brittany was because he wanted to remind Clint that Clint had a girlfriend -- a girlfriend who wasn't Sunny. "I forgot to write the assignment down, and if I miss turning in the homework one more time, I'm doomed. So doomed. Mr. Gaida said that if I missed one more, that I'm ... doomed," he continued, his diarrhea mouth getting totally out of control.
"Uh, Matt, I'm in your history class," Geena volunteered, her caramel brown eyes glinting...
