Excerpt of The Queen B* and the Homecoming King by Crista McHugh

I'd never greeted a Monday morning with dozens of giddy butterflies in my stomach. Usually, I reserved my most dramatic sighs and biting comments for Mondays because—let's face it—they suck. But this Monday morning was different. I, Alexis Wyndham, was officially Brett Pederson's girlfriend. But I still wasn't ready to announce that to the world. As we floated in a canoe among the water lilies in Lake Washington yesterday, I lay down a few ground rules to help me ease into this unprecedented (and unimaginable) situation. After all, it's not every day the Queen B* and the Quarterback become a couple. Dropping that bomb on our classmates could cause a rift in the space-time continuum. Or at least cause my nemesis, Summer Hoyt, to have one very public and dramatic meltdown. Rule number one: I refused to be one of those disgustingly cute couples that were joined at the hip between classes. We were dating, not merging our lives and identities into a single life-form. Brett had his group of friends and I had mine, and until recently, they never intertwined because I despised most of the in-crowd. If I hadn't gotten to know the real Brett during a class project, I would've continued to write him off as a dumb jock. Lesson learned, but still… Rule number two: no public displays of affection at school. Not that I had any problem with PDAs with Brett. I liked kissing him. But I also had been known to lose control when I was with him…and lose articles of clothing. And after having that awkward run-in with my mom and her boyfriend's PDA on our living room couch last week, I'd rather not make a spectacle of myself in front of everyone. It opened up the doors to ridicule. Rule number three: I wouldn't go to Homecoming with Brett. I'd made it this far through high school without plunging into that cheesy sea of balloons and crepe paper while wearing a silly sequin-laden dress, and I wasn't going to cross that line during my senior year.