All's Fair in Love, War, and High School

By Janette Rallison

Copyright 2003 Janette Rallison

Kindle Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All the characters and events portrayed in this work are fictitious.

Other titles by Janette Rallison

Son of War, Daughter of Chaos

Blue Eyes and Other Teenage Hazards

Just One Wish

Masquerade

My Double Life

A Longtime (and at One Point Illegal) Crush

Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Free Throws

Playing The Field

My Fair Godmother

My Unfair Godmother

All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School

Fame, Glory, and Other Things on my To Do List

It’s a Mall World After All

Revenge of the Cheerleaders

How to Take The Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend

Slayers (under pen name CJ Hill) Slayers: Friends and Traitors (under pen name CJ Hill) Erasing Time (under pen name CJ Hill) Echo in Time (under pen name CJ Hill) What the Doctor Ordered (under pen name Sierra St. James) CHAPTER 1

The problem with getting bad news is you hardly ever get to go home and cry, or sulk, or rip things up, like you’d like to. Usually you have to be someplace that requires you to smile and make pleasant conversation. That’s exactly what happened after I got my SAT

scores.

I should have waited until after work to open up the envelope, but I’m not one of those patient types of people—you know, the kind who never even sneak a peek at their presents before Christmas. I had to know my score the moment I took the letter from the mailbox. I ripped open the envelope and scanned to the score results. I got a 470 on the language section and a 340 on the math. My score was 810 out of a possible 1600. I may have bombed the math portion of the test, but even I could figure out my score wasn’t high enough to be admitted to a good university.

I leaned against the mailbox and reread the letter more carefully, hoping there had been some mistake. Perhaps a typo. Perhaps the SAT people sent somebody else’s results in my envelope. But it was my name, Samantha Taylor, on the letter.

I shoved the envelope into my purse and walked over to my car. I had ten minutes to get to my job, and apparently a really long time to decide what to do with my life besides going to college.

While I drove I told myself everything would work out all right. I was only a junior in high school and could take the SATs again next year. Next year I’d do better. Much better.

Only I’m a terrible liar, and even while I told myself all of this, I kept hearing a little voice in the back of my head that said, Like what? You’re suddenly going to get smart in the next year? You ’re going to give up your social life and study every free minute?

I parked my car and walked into The Bookie, Pullman's only bookstore, then trudged upstairs to the general fiction section.

Logan Hansen was standing behind the book cart, but he looked up at me when I came over. “You’re late.”

“So fire me.” I went to the closet where Mr. Donaldson kept our vests and slipped mine on.

Logan handed me a stack of books. “I wouldn’t fire you if I could. It’s nice having you around because next to you I look like a really hardworking employee.”

I smiled back at him. “Next to me you also look ignorant and poorly dressed, but I try not to hold it against you.” Without waiting for his reply, I went to put my books away.

Usually I didn’t mind sparring back and forth with Logan. Most of the time I was the one who started it. But today I just wanted to avoid him. I felt too emotional, and the last thing I needed was to break down and make a fool of myself in front of him.

Logan and I had been at odds with each other since the eighth grade, when I broke up with him. It wasn’t that we were ever a serious couple. “Going out” consisted mostly of passing notes, hanging out in the halls, talking on the phone, that sort of thing.

We “went out” for a few of months, and then the big realization hit me. Logan was not the one. I'm not sure why it took me months to figure this out back in the eighth grade.

If I were to make a list of my favorite guys now, Logan would be way down in the triple digits.

My problem with guys is this: I always start out thinking that if a guy is cute, he’ll be perfect in every other way. Then after a couple of months of getting to know him, I realize he isn’t anywhere close to what I want in a boyfriend. I don’t remember what turned me off about Logan. He exhibits so many irritating behaviors now, it’s hard to recall which one it was that bothered me back then. And besides, I’ve gone out with a lot of guys. Their fatal flaws have all run together in my mind.

My last boyfriend swore too much. The first time my seven-year-old brother repeated one of his commentaries at the dinner table, I knew the guy had to go. The boyfriend before that talked endlessly about the people on the football team. I mean, really.

What girl wants to hear about the team’s ongoing battle with athlete’s foot?

I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to find just one ideal guy. I’ve probably read a hundred romances, and every single one of them has my ideal man in it. So they must be out there somewhere: all those tall, handsome, brooding men who exude high doses of testosterone yet, at the same time, can take a woman in their arms and murmur poetry into her ear.

None of the guys I meet are capable of murmuring anything that doesn’t involve food.

Logan walked by me and said, “We’ve got another book cart to unload in the back room, so get a move on,” then disappeared into the maze of bookshelves.

Logan, for example, could never have qualified as a romantic hero. True, he wasn’t bad-looking. He had thick brown hair and a smooth olive complexion that always made him look tanned, but not one of the romantic heroes I’ve ever read about has dirt underneath his fingernails. Logan loves to work on cars. He looks like he dips his hands in oil before he comes to work.

Besides, he took it very hard when I broke up with him in junior high. He told all of his friends I was a jerk and a snob, and ever since then it's been his personal mission to prove how worthless I am. A romantic hero would never do that. If a romantic hero was ever hurt by a girl, he’d never stoop to sullying her name. He’d just brood about it and be all the more attractive.

While I was shelving the next batch of books, Logan came up and leaned against the end shelf.

“So,” he said slowly, “how are you today?”

I barely looked over at him. “Fine. What do you want?”

He put his hand to his chest, pretending to be hurt. “I’m just making polite conversation. Don’t you do that anymore?”

“If you’re asking me to take your shift on Friday night, I’m not interested.”

“Oh? You must have a hot date. Who’s the lucky guy?” He said the word “lucky”