Overriding Operation Red

Chapter 3 - Danny

“The most important thing you must remember is that you cannot utter a word about Operation Red to anyone,” Peyton stressed, carefully watching me, as if expecting me to hang on to every word she said.

 “So the first rule of Operation Red is…you do not talk about Operation Red.” I nodded firmly at her, only to be glared at in return. What? What did I do? On top of paying attention to her, I was actually contributing to the discussion! She should’ve been thrilled.  

 Aiden guffawed from the corner, and we both turned simultaneously and glared daggers at him. He shrunk considerably, and then dropped his gaze back to his phone, which he’d been typing away at furiously for the past half an hour while I was stuck here listening to Peyton lecture me.

 “If that’s easier to understand, yes,” she finally relented.

 “It is, actually,” I replied without skipping a beat. Peyton rolled her eyes and began to continue where she’d left off. It wasn’t too difficult to absorb considering I already knew the gist of it. Operation Red wasn’t actually as cool or as serious as it sounded.

 How do I put this…you know how for every prom or social event, there would always be a few girls without dates? And obviously, these girls weren’t exactly pleased about it. That’s where my sister came in. She groomed, trained and presented an exclusive group of guys that these dateless girls could have their pick from for a day. Of course, they’d to pay in return. She couldn’t exactly go around advertising it on billboards since, aside from the budget concerns, it would also pose as an embarrassment to the customers, so she kept the business hushed up.

 At first, all the customers were the girls that were stranded at the bottom of the high school food chain. But their friends hadn’t been able to believe their eyes when they saw the customers’ dates, and, girls being girls, word had travelled fast. Now, everyone who didn’t have the time or patience for dating just for the sake of dating shopped at Operation Red—from the head cheerleaders to the school presidents to the drama club geeks.

 I drummed my fingers on the table in front of me and nodded every now and then, but I was finding it increasingly impossible to genuinely pay attention. Maybe it was because I’d been starving for the past two hours, or because I was stuck here taking Girls and Their Stupidity 101, or because my mind kept wandering back to last night…

 No, I’d to focus. Peyton’s voice came back to me faintly in spurts.

 “Your assignments…you’re not…the rule…fired…”

 I tried to concentrate, I really did, but her voice couldn’t hold a torch to the glossy black eyes that kept flooding my mind. Her eyes had been striking. And her lips...I didn’t even know where to start. She’d looked so simple, so nonchalant in her casual tee shirt and jeans, and yet so alluring with the silver mask she’d had on. Okay, I’ll be honest; I wouldn’t have given her a second look if it hadn’t been for Aiden casually flirting with her first. Something about his aloof confidence and the unexplainable need to upstage him (even though she hadn’t exactly been a thrilled recipient of his bordering-on-sexual-harassment show of affection to begin with) had made me talk to her.

 We discovered that, despite being polar opposites, we’d an alarming amount of things in common. And whenever I thought I made a clever quip, she’d laugh and shoot it down in a way I’d never seen any girl do. It was refreshing to actually hold a two-way conversation for once.

 As my sister continued to drone on and on in her no-nonsense monotonous voice that seemed bent on repelling attention, the memory of last night came back to me more vividly than before. I could almost see myself back at Annie’s, rows and rows of bright colours washing over me.