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Authors: Nia Stephens

BOOK: Like This And Like That
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A loud giggle followed by Nick bellowing for more beer sent shivers along Gemma's spine—and not the good kind.
“I think I'll decline,” Gemma said, laying the flyer back down on the kitchen counter and taking a swig of her soda. “I'd probably just end up with another Nick.”
“That's exactly why you should try it. This weeds out guys like him,” Maria said. “The best part is,
you
choose the guy and decide whether you want to ask him out. It's all about girl power, baby.”
“Hmmm.” Gemma nodded, and picked up the flyer again. “
I
do the choosing, instead of waiting for a guy to ask me out? And
they
weed out the bad seeds?”
Maria grinned, her dark eyes sparkling. “If I were single, I'd go for it myself. Shopping for boys. What could be better?”
“You've got a point,” Gemma said. The more she thought about it, the more she liked this idea. And if none of the guys on the website appealed to her, she could just drop the whole plan.
“And when you find that hot guy, I'm taking all the credit, and I'm going to throw it in your face whenever I can,” Maria teased.
Could this actually work?
Gemma wondered. Fortified by caffeine, she and Maria wandered out of the kitchen with their sodas.
“Yo,” Nick called out to her over the loud music. Pretending she couldn't hear him, Gemma shoved the flyer into the back pocket of her low riders.
Someone please remind me what exactly it was I saw in that guy?
As if reading her mind, Maria slipped her arm through Gemma's. “This website is going to restore your faith in dating,
chica
,” she promised.
Gemma winced as she watched Nick drunkenly weave his way toward her. “I don't know if that's possible.” She sighed. “But I guess it's worth a shot. Now let's get out of here before Nick gets any closer. I can smell the beer from here!”
Chapter 2
Action on the Cour
t
“I
sn't your game against East Wellington today?” Gemma's I father asked. He buttered his wheat toast with the light margarine he loathed, but her mom loved. “Make sure you stay on your defense. Don't want those Wellington Wailers to score on you.”
Her father was her number one fan. While she was still in the crib, anyone within earshot was forced to hear her dad proudly declare that he knew she would be a star basketball player. Then he would go on about how, in his daughter's first game at summer camp, she had scored eight points.
Michael Jordan, watch out!
he yelled at every single point she scored. It had gotten so bad, Gemma thought the counselors were going to escort him off the premises.
“Got it covered, Dad,” Gemma replied.
“How was the party last night?” her mother asked from the stove.
“Fine,” Gemma mumbled. She knew neither of her parents wanted to hear about the underage drinking and the hooking up that regularly occurred at these parties, so she kept her responses to a minimum.
“Are we going to see Nick again?” Dr. Williams asked, passing behind Gemma. She nudged Gemma's shoulder. “He was a hot one. And he seemed like such a gentleman, too.”
Gemma almost choked on her orange juice.
If she only knew
, she thought.
“So will Nick be taking you to that beach shindig thing?” her mother asked, setting down a plate of scrambled eggs.
Gemma sighed. As if sensing her frustration, LeBron, Gemma's black and white shih tzu, scrambled under the kitchen table and nuzzled his wet nose against Gemma's bare foot.
That “beach shindig” was the most highly anticipated event of the year. J. Marshall held it every spring, and usually around this time—right after Christmas break—her mom would ask about it. Gemma hated this subject.
LeBron jumped up and made himself comfortable on Gemma's lap.
“Get the dog down, please,” her mother commanded. After LeBron had settled back down on the floor her mother added, “Well? Do you have a date yet?”
“Nothing to report, Mom. I'm still dateless in OC,” Gemma told her, hoping the interrogation would end soon. She was running late for school.
“Mike Thompson down the street is a hottie,” her mom suggested with a sly grin.
Gemma rolled her eyes. Her mother thought she could relate better if she sounded “down with the lingo,” as her mom put it. So she said things like
bling bling
and
hottie
and generally embarrassed Gemma in the process. She did have her good points—and she definitely wasn't like so many of the other mothers around here who dieted down to nothing and then enhanced their lips, boobs, and in some cases, rears, with multiple plastic surgeries. Her mother was thick and liked it that way. Apparently, so did Gemma's dad, because he was as touchy-feely with Gemma's mom as Manny was with Maria. Sometimes Gemma thought she would choke on all the love in the air.
Her parents were both born and raised in Brooklyn, but they wanted a different life for their only daughter—beach houses, not brownstones. Even though they had money and lived out here with the “California Raisins,” as Gemma's mother called them, her parents were not OC airheads. They couldn't care less about how much money someone had, how many famous people they knew up in LA, or any kind of SoCal new age nonsense. Her parents still cheered for the Knicks, ate their pizza with pepperoni, not goat cheese and pine nuts, and they still used old school East Coast slang, like calling the partners at her father's law firm “The Man.”
Surprisingly, race wasn't much of an issue for Gemma's family, even though Orange County was mostly white. In OC, the color that really mattered was green.
“You don't want to wait until the last minute to find a date,” her mother scolded. Gemma's dad glanced up from his morning paper and shot her mother a warning look.
Her mother's intense interest in Gemma's love life began when her mother quit her job teaching African-American literature at UC Irvine. After fifteen years of department politics and the pressure to publish or perish, Dr. Williams needed something to do all day. Now she seemed to think that finding Gemma a boyfriend was her new full-time job.
“Mike is a good-looking guy. You should ask him,” her mom said, making one last try. “Or maybe I should say something to his mother.”
Gemma nearly choked on her eggs. Her spine went rigid at the prospect of her mother setting her up on a date, especially with someone like Mike Thompson. He looked good, all right, and she had known him forever, but he hadn't tried to look any higher than her chest since they were fourteen.
Gemma took a quick swig of juice to wash down the eggs then turned to her father. “Do something,” she begged him. “Stop her!”
“Mona,” her father said between bites of toast, “if the girl doesn't like this Mike then she doesn't like him. There's no use forcing him on her.”
“She's seventeen, Donald, and only has first dates.” Gemma's face burned, knowing just how true that was. She sank lower in her seat as her mother went on and on. “She's never had a steady boyfriend. We were practically married at seventeen.”
“So now you want to marry off our only child to some kid because she's never had a boyfriend?” her father asked.
“That's not what I'm saying,” her mother protested. “I don't think ...”
“Mona, please,” her dad interrupted. He took a sip of his coffee. “Gemma's old enough to know what's best for her. There are worse things than a girl who sets high standards.”
Game, set, point.
That was the way Gemma's dad ended every disagreement. How could anyone be against setting high standards? The discussion of Gemma's love life, or lack thereof, was over. Though not for long, Gemma knew. Enduring these conversations was just another painful element of dating that made Gemma just want to give up on the whole thing.
 
At school, the first person Gemma ran into was Nick. He walked past her as if she somehow had faded into the concrete of the school hallway. If she had to call it, she would guess he didn't even remember the night before. She noticed he still had that same raggedy Band-Aid stuck to his forehead.
“Hey, girlfriend,” Maria said, coming up behind her.
Gemma watched as Nick charged Neal Hardly and both tumbled to the floor.
Maria rolled her eyes. “There ought to be a law against being that stupid.”
“I can't believe I actually liked that guy. What was I thinking?” Gemma asked.
Nick scrambled to his feet and crouched into a football stance. His backside was in perfect view.
“I'll tell you what you were thinking,” Maria commented. “Now that's a tight end if I ever saw one.”
Gemma whipped her head around. “I
know
you are not checking out the enemy.”
“I'm just saying,
that's
what you were blinded by.”
Gemma rolled her eyes. “I'm not that shallow, Maria.”
“I know. That's your real problem.”
“Huh?” English was Maria's second language, but she wasn't usually this hard to follow.
“You're tall, gorgeous, and you dress to impress—so you scare the crap out of ninety-nine percent of the guys at J. Marshall. But you do attract guys who think they can get hot girls— that is to say, hot boys. They assume that a hot guy is all you're looking for.”
“You can't tell me that every reasonably attractive guy is just looking for hot sex with no strings. Manny's not bad looking, and he's all about relationships.”
“Manny's different,” Maria said slowly. “He's a good Catholic boy at heart. And if you think that's what you're looking for—”
“At this point, I'm not thinking about anything except my game this afternoon. You're coming, right?”
Maria nodded. “Of course I'll be there. How can I not watch my girl kick some ass?”
Gemma gave her friend a suspicious sideways glance. Maria was hardly a sports fan and most times Gemma had to beg her to come to one of her games. “Let me guess. Manny has another detention today and you're killing time at my game until he gets out?”
“Whatever. The point is, I'll be there,” Maria said, laughing.
The first bell rang. Gemma grabbed Maria's arm. “Just get your little sneaky, lying ass to class before
you're
the one with detention.”
 
After school, at the game against the East Wellington Wailers, Gemma heard her dad up in the stands as she made her last three shots. “Go, Ms. Michael Jordan, go!” he shouted through cupped hands. Gemma had learned to block him out a long time ago, but today he was extra loud.
Martika Schmidt, East Wellington's six-foot-four starter, glared down at Gemma. “Hey, didn't I see you in the
Wizard of Oz
... as one of the munchkins? Be prepared to get sent back to Oz, little girl,” Martika taunted.
“Your visa must be up. Shouldn't you be getting back to East Germany?” Gemma shot back. Sometimes Gemma believed the girls talked more smack than the guys.
The ball was thrown to Gemma. The crowd roared as she swiveled to the left and then to the right. She may have been shorter than the rest of the girls but that made her faster. She jumped, released the ball and
swish
. In for another two, just before the final buzzer rang. That was it. Gemma had scored twenty-two points. The crowd cheered wildly as she and her teammates embraced in celebration. They had beaten their biggest competition by seven points and had gotten that much closer to the championship game.
“Hey, it's Ms. Gemma Jordan!” Gemma's dad yelled as he made his way onto the court. “I am so proud of you.” He lifted Gemma up and wrapped his enormous, teddy bear arms around her.
“Daaaad,” she whined. “Do you have to do that every game?”
When he finally released her from his ginormous grasp, he offered to take her out for a celebratory dinner, but Gemma declined. She wanted to watch the boys' team play.
By the time the guys started their game, Gemma had showered and changed. She sat up in the bleachers with Maria and Manny, who had been released from detention.
“Look at him play.” Maria nodded toward Ethan Jackson. “He's good.” She leaned in close to Gemma and whispered, “And
muy caliente
.”
Gemma's eyes landed on Ethan. He was the star power forward and was, in Gemma's opinion, one of the best high school players in the league. He was also one of the hottest guys at J. Marshall. She'd had a secret crush on Ethan for as far back as she could remember. He seemed to dance across the court, as if he had a completely different relationship with gravity. And he played smart ball—he always seemed to know exactly where his teammates were, and exactly what the other team was about to try. Basketball wasn't just a sport for him: it was art.
But today, as Ethan ran up and down the court, Gemma found herself more interested in his backside than his jump shot. She decided that this was a good thing.
Embrace the shallow,
she told herself.
If looks are the only thing that matters to guys, maybe looks should be the only thing that matters to me. It would make everything a lot simpler.
Bam!
Ethan slammed on the other team and the crowd, especially the girls, cheered wildly.
“You should go out with him,” Maria urged, leaning in close to Gemma so that Manny wouldn't overhear them. “That boy is fine.”
“He's fine all right,” Gemma murmured. Ethan had an angelic face and a toned, hard body. His lightly toasted brown skin was matched with beautiful hazel eyes and dark, curly hair. He wasn't Jamaican, but he looked like the rapper, Sean Paul, especially when he had his hair braided. He was sheer perfection. At least that was what Gemma and every other female in the free world thought. Ethan was one of those guys that Maria and Gemma called an equal opportunity dater.
That last thought popped the bubble of Gemma's Ethan worship. “Are you crazy?” she asked Maria. “I would never go out with Ethan. He's had more women than are in a Busta Rhymes video. Besides, he's hot.”
Maria looked puzzled. “Have you suddenly decided to only date ugly guys?” she asked.
“If you remember, I thought Nick Simmons was hot and that got me nothing but a ripped T-shirt—that I liked a lot, even if it was so last season.”
Maria nodded in agreement. “I guess you're right. But hey, you never know, Ethan may be the one. How stupid will you feel then?”
“The one what? The one who will give me my very first STD? No thanks.”
“What are you two talking about?” Manny asked.

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