My (Not So) Perfect Plan (Believe In Us #2)

ONE

My (Not So) Secret Crus h

LUCY

“Lucy, truth or dare?” Ella’s voice is dark and scary and the rest of us giggle at her antics. I chew my lip because it really is a tossup with her. Truth could involve really embarrassing things from childhood because Ella has no sense of TMI and I would be mortified if some stuff came out.

“Dare…?” I ask, unsure of myself.

Ella cackles with glee and rubs her hands together. Mine and everyone else’s eyes grow big. Oh crud. This is not a good sign. She tosses my phone at me, her insane soft brown curls bobbing every which way with the movement.

“Prank call time!” she whoops.

I groan because I hate this. “Can’t we just text and call it done?”

“Uh uh,” she smiles evilly and slaps a post it note with a phone number on the lap table sitting on the bed in front of me. Above a phone number is the name Raven.

I balk to the sound of my besties laughing their heads off. “No way! You can’t ask me to do that.”

“Yes. I. Can.”

Keira and Dawn nod their heads in agreement.

“You are evil. How did you get his number anyway?” I ask.

“You don’t even want to know,” Ella rolls her eyes.

“OMG, El, how long have you been planning this?” Keira asks, laughing.

“A loooong time. It’s about to get real, y’all. Mark this down as the day that Lucy finally talks to Raven. It only took four years.”

“Guys,” I whine, nausea settling in my stomach.

“I think it will actually be really cathartic for you, you know. Then Tim won’t keep asking me why you won’t give it up to him,” Keira says.

I chuck a pillow at her head. “Oh my gosh, please tell me you told him I don’t believe in sex before marriage?”

“Yeah, right. As if,” Dawn scoffs. “Tim is fine as fine, I wouldn’t mind giving it up to him.”

I slap my hands over my ears and shout, “lalalala,” and then uncover them. “You guys are being disgusting. That’s my boyfriend you’re talking about, and worse, my cherry. Leave it alone, or better yet, if they ask, tell them to take it up with me. Some friends you are.”

“Okay, whoa. Time out,” El says, cutting her hands together like a coach. “We are getting waay off topic here, which was the dare. Are you going to do it, or are you going to streak?”

Ever since I moved here four years ago and became best friends with El, Keira, and Dawn, the penalty for not completing a dare was that the other girls were going to strip the defaulter down to her underwear and dump her outside. So far, everyone had always done the dare. I start sweating because they are all looking back at me with narrowed eyes. Why did I decide to play with them tonight? I knew what the dangers were and I’m playing anyway.

I lick my lips. “Fine. I’ll do it. But on my terms.”

“Okay,” Ella nods “What are your perameters?”

“I’m not, absolutely not, revealing who I am.”

Ella narrows her eyes at me again. “Fine. But it has to be sexy talk. It can’t just be like, hey, what’s up. You have to make him want you.”

My skin boils up to my hairline. “What? How am I supposed to do that?” I pluck at my overlarge t-shirt and look from me to them. They all have super cute, bordering on sexy silky matched pajama sets of tank and shorts. I’m in my older brother’s hand me down, supersoft striped pajama pants and a huge tshirt. “Seriously.”

Ella flops back against the mound of pillows on my headboard. “Honestly, Lucy, we’re not asking you to facetime him and strip naked. I said a phone call.”

“You want me to have phone sex with him?” I shriek. “Ewww! Perverts!”

“No!!” Ella says, while Keira and Dawn shriek with laughter. “Though, now that I think about it -”

The pillow I throw in her face cuts her off.

“Okay, then what am I going to say, if that’s not what you had in mind.”

“You know, just be suggestive. Like one of those 1—800 call in services,” Ella says.

I glare at her. “You mean the ones who do the phone sex?!” I snap.

“Well, yeah, I guess, but don’t take it that far, obviously.” She pauses and looks at me slyly. “At least not when we’re here.”

“Oh my gosh,” I groan, covering my head in my arms, “I’m running out of pillows to club you with.”

“Okay, okay, we’ll have mercy. All right. Here’s the plan: sexy, breathy voice. Repeat back to him whatever he says, but make it sound suggestive.”

Now it’s my turn to narrow my eyes, at Ella. “Why does it sound like you’ve done this before?”

Keira and Dawn turn to her, their eyes huge. They gasp. “Have you?”

Ella’s eyes dart around to each of us in turn, growing increasingly more guilty looking with each pass. “Maybe…?”

We all start beating on her with pillows until she cries for mercy.

“Okay, okay. It was just once,” she holds her hands up in front of her defensively, her huge curly hair sticking out all over like an afro.

“Who?” Keira demands, kneeling in front of her. “Spill, woman.”

“Troy Hollis. This past summer.”

“And?” Dawn growls out. “I can’t believe you kept this from us.”

“And nothing. It was a total dud. The guy is more boring than vanilla pie topped with vanilla cream and vanilla extract.”

“What happened?” I ask. I can’t believe she had the guts to do something like that. “How’d you get his number?”

Ella’s face closes up. “I never reveal my sources.”

“Fine. What happened?” We all lean closer as Ella leans in and takes a deep breath.