I wasn’t going down without a fight, and even though I was completely lost in the alternate dimension that was Abercrombie & Fitch, I decided to play to my strengths. Flirting might not have been one of them (understatement), but I don’t think I’m bragging when I say that mocking the flirtations of the Hayley Hoffmans of the world was more than one of my strong points. It was a calling.

So that’s what I did. I sashayed up to the salesguy and thrust out my chest in an Oscar-worthy parody of the flirt styles of the bitch and famous. “Do you have this in blue?” I asked, holding up a microscopic miniskirt. I pressed it against my body and posed. “Black is soooooo depressing.”

I batted my eyelashes at him at a ridiculously high velocity. And he fell for it. It was completely and utterly disgusting, and yet…strangely empowering.

“I…uhhh…uhhh…”

Two seconds, and I had reduced him to a bumbling fool. Was it wrong that I liked this? All this time I’d been knocking guys out, when I could have just made them grovel at my girly feet. Who knew?

“Blue?” He finally managed a coherent word. I almost felt sorry for him, but I was in superspy femme fatale mode. Take no prisoners!

I reached my hand toward his jeans. “Blue,” I repeated, and even though the Toby inside was wishing we’d opted for tossing our cookies before stooping so low, I forced myself to let my hand graze over his belt loops. “Like maybe the color of your jeans.”

“You mean a jean skirt?” the guy asked, coming back to his senses. “Sure, we have those.”

And just like that, my spell was broken. Was the inner Toby showing in my face? Were my eyelash bats too slow? Were my boobs too small? That was it, wasn’t it? My boobs were too small. I knew there was a reason I pummeled guys instead of flirting with them.

As the guy turned to show me the jean skirts, I lost my patience. Okay, okay, maybe I never had my patience. Long story short, I slipped the gum in his pocket, and when he turned around to look at me, I slapped him on the butt. There you have it. I’m not proud of it, but hey, it worked.

He turned a bright shade of pink, and I could feel my face turning much the same color.

“Sorry,” I said, completely straight-faced. “There was a fly.”

And then I did what any self-respecting pseudogirl would have done. I turned on my heels and walked as fast as I could out of the store. For Tara’s benefit, I even put a little shake in my hips.

She caught up with me halfway to the food court.

“I cannot believe you just did that,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, well, that makes two of us.”

I couldn’t tell whether she was fighting down anger or hysterical laughter. “What was that?” she asked.

“That,” I said simply, “was misdirection.”

CHAPTER 12

Code Word: Gel Bra

“So…where to now?”

Tara hadn’t said a word about whether or not my butt-slapping performance, which she’d somehow “transmitted” to our superiors, had passed Squad scrutiny. This was my not-so-subtle attempt to see if we were ready for our real mission, or if I was about to be fired for sexual harassment.

Tara stirred her iced mocha (with caramel swirl) with one hand and looked down at her watch. “It’s time,” she said. She stood up, neatly tucked a wayward strand of dark hair behind her left ear, and picked up the mocha to leave.

“Time for what?” I kept my voice low. This was the mall, and who knew what kind of bizarre and twisted enemy forces were lurking around every corner.

Yeah, right.

Tara took another sip of her mocha and then threw it into the trash can, still half-full. I crumpled my empty cup into a ball and tossed it in after hers. She gave me a look, and I got the impression that cup crumpling wasn’t a preap-proved cheer girl course of action.

“Come on,” Tara said. I followed her.

“Time for what?” I asked again.

Tara’s eyes flitted to the side, and I got the distinct feeling that she was checking our surroundings.

“Time to get to work,” she said, like that wasn’t vague.

“Work,” I repeated. By this time, we’d left the food court, and she was a girl on a mission. Literally.

When she stopped in front of a lingerie store, I gave her a look of my own.

“Victoria’s Secret?” I asked dryly. “Really?”

Tara smiled, and her eyes told me not to argue. “Shop for underwear now,” she told me. “Ask questions later.”

“Blink once if there’s a purpose to all of this.”

I was expecting another look, but instead, I got a smile and a slow, deliberate blink.

“Okay then,” I said. “Underwear shopping. Lucky me.”

Five minutes later, I couldn’t even manage a sarcastic yay. There are certain things that should never be stuck onto underclothes. The list (and believe me, it’s extensive) includes, but is not limited to: bows, chains, rhinestones, ribbons, ruffles, feathers, and anything that spells out the words kiss me. Call me old-fashioned, but I like my underpants plain and simple. And sometimes I like to call them underpants, but that’s beside the point.

My arms full of offending articles, I trudged toward the dressing room. As soon as we got back to the Quad, I was going to kill Tara.

“Cheer up, Tobe,” the traitor in question said. The double meaning behind her words wasn’t lost on me, but I wasn’t exactly in the mood to put a little more pep in my step.

I’d no sooner shut myself into one of the dressing rooms and unloaded my booty (no pun intended) when someone knocked on the door. “Is everything all right in there?”

I know the salesgirl was just trying to be helpful, but what did she think could have possibly gone wrong in the past five seconds?

“Everything’s fitting? You don’t need any other sizes? A consultation?”

Consultation? I thought. It was underwear, not rocket science.

Or was it? A little alarm bell went off in the back of my brain. What if “consultation” was code for “information transfer” or something?

“Actually…I could use a consultation. Hold on just a second, let me…”

I didn’t get to finish the sentence before the salesgirl flung open the door and barged into the room. Before I could manage a single word, she’d whipped out a tape measure and was halfway to wrapping it around my chest.

I’d like to clarify for a moment that I do not have personal space issues. I interact with others normally on a day-to-day basis, and I’m not one of those people who gets huffy when someone stands a little too close, but she was actually touching my boobs, and call me crazy, but that wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time.

“Thirty-two inches.” She surveyed my breasts through my shirt. “And an A by the looks of it.” She gave me a sympathetic look. It was like someone had died.

“Is that…bad?” I asked, thinking of my failed flirtation with Abercrombie boy.

“No, no, of course not.” She was somewhat less than convincing.

“So, is the consultation over?” I asked. For a split second, I’d thought that maybe this was part of the mission, that the girl measuring my breasts was a fellow operative, out to do whatever secret agents did (I was still a little vague on that point), but clearly, my sixth sense, the spy sense, was completely deficient.

“Let me just grab you a few things real quick,” the girl said brightly, as if I hadn’t asked her a question at all.

“Thirty-two A…”

I couldn’t tell whether that last part was a musing or whether she was actually addressing me by my cup size. I didn’t have any time to ponder the question, though, because she was back in record time with a half-dozen bras. For one horrifying moment, I thought she was going to demand to stay in the dressing room with me while I tried things on, but she demurely stepped back, allowing me to close the door.

“Found anything yet?” Tara called over the door.

“Dead girl,” I called back, matching my tone to hers.

“You’re a dead girl.”

I eschewed the underwear Tara had forced into my hands in favor of the bras the salesgirl had given me. I slipped off my own sports bra and reached blindly for a test subject. My hands closed around a flesh-colored bra, and I put it on, fastened it, and turned to the mirror. I moved back and forth, and the bra wiggled and jumped as I did.