Excerpt: The Fangirl's Guide to Life

This went on for a while. Various people would pop up and introduce themselves or ask who I was and randomly exclaim, "You're younger than I thought you'd be!" whenever they put two and two together. In the meantime Russell was talking to a guy who was wearing an official Phase One logo t-shirt. He spotted me and waved, and I waved back in return and spun around to see who else I had yet to talk to, and I saw two familiar looking figures with their backs turned towards me. I started toward them and heard only a snatch of conversation:

"…oh yeah, that was definitely one of the better ones, you know? I absolutely thought that it was a cool intro even though it brought all the crazy fangirls to the yard."

"Oh geez, I agree," a female voice said. I stopped and saw the girl standing across from the two guys. Her honey blonde locks were cut in an angular bob and she had on a teal tank top and a skirt that wasn't completely unlike the one that Jackie had worn on our way down the day before. She shook her head and the silvery baubles that dangled from her ear shook back and forth. "I mean, Drake is great and all, but sometimes I think he's just a distraction and doesn't really add that much to the narrative."

"Wow," a voice that sounded vaguely familiar to me said. "I think you're probably the first girl who's not completely bowled over by him."

I walked around them and nearly gasped one I truly processed who was talking. "You!" I exclaimed. I even pointed and regretted it a second later. God, Shannon! Make yourself look like a massive spaz, why don't you?

"Shannon, right?" Jake asked, snapping his fingers. "Whoa, hi. I think this is one of those… pleasantly coincidental moments!" He was smiling at me, and not wearing his glasses again, I noted. "Wait. What are you doing here? I thought you said…" He cocked his head to the side a little, his eyes glancing over something on me.

For a second, I thought that he was checking out my boobs, which made me feel uncomfortable at first, because I'm really not comfortable with being blatantly checked out. It makes me squirming. But on the other hand, he was ridiculously cute, and to have him check me out…

"Wow."

I've read enough books and fan fiction to know enough about meaningful glances. They are the looks that are usually preludes to a deep, emotional confession or a kiss. Jake was close enough for me, but it was way too soon for anything of the heavy sort to happen between us now or probably even ever. After all, I wasn't a criminal on the run and he wasn't a bleeding con artist tied up to a tree. But we were making serious eye contact, though—that is always a serious indicator that…

The corner of his mouth curled up into a smile. "You know, you never mentioned that you were coming to this and you also neglected to mention the fact that you were, I don't know, internet famous. What gives?"

Just like that, I was crashing back into the real world. He hadn't been looking at my breasts, just reading my name tag. Of course! How could I have been so insanely, ridiculously dense? "Well," I stammered. "See… I didn't…"

"Oh, cool, you're the head mod!" the other guy—Aviators, only without his glasses at the moment—said. "And you're the girl from the hotel!"

Jake just gave him this look, and then he looked at me as if to say, Dear God, see what I go through? I absolutely understood that. He clapped sarcastically. "Thank you, Senor Obvious. Anyway," he said, "Shannon, this is Kay. Kay, Shannon, who has run into me at least three times in the past twenty-four hours. I think that's a record." I could have sworn that he winked at me.