Текст книги "This Is So Not Happening"

Автор книги: Kieran Scott

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I said. “I’ve known about it for a while, actually.”

“Oh. Really? So you guys are still …?”

My face burned. “Yeah. We’re still together. We’re fine. Better than ever.”

The hope died off his face and I felt the prickles in my stomach harden into a rock-hard ball. That was maybe overkill, but what was I supposed to do? I didn’t want him to go on thinking that he had a chance with me just because everyone now knew my boyfriend was gonna be a father.

“Oh. Okay.” His expression darkened. Like maybe he was seeing me in a different way suddenly. Like maybe he was judging me for staying with a guy who was obviously a slut player.

He could join the club.

“Anything else?” I said, feeling defensive. I lifted my chin.

“Nope. I guess I’ll just … see you around.”

“Yeah. See ya,” I said softly.

He turned and was gone, walking back to his friends a lot quicker than he’d come. Guess if I ever was looking for a random hook-up in my future, it wasn’t going to be with him. Annie appeared at my side, watching him go.

“It’s too bad you two never smooched for reals,” she said. “Because damn.”

“Why don’t you go out with him, then?” I asked, annoyed. That conversation had left behind an icky, sticky feeling in my gut. I liked Lincoln. And I didn’t like the idea that he might think less of me now.

On the far side of the bonfire, the cheerleaders launched into some elaborate pyramid and the team began to gather together near the dugouts. I saw their coach looking over some notes and realized the show was about to start—the speeches and cheering and actual rallying. I’d never come to a football pep rally when I’d lived in Orchard Hill the first time, and I was kind of curious to see what went on.

“Welcome, everyone, to this year’s Orchard Hill High football pep rally!” the football coach suddenly shouted into the microphone.

As the baseball field filled with cheers, I glimpsed one maroon-and-gold jacket set apart from the rest. It was Will Halloran, running back and cocaptain of the team. He was about twenty yards off from his teammates, at the end of the dugout—an area that was mostly in shadow. He was talking to someone, but I couldn’t see who.

“What’s Will doing over there?” I said, mostly just to change the subject. “Isn’t this his big night?”

As everyone turned to look, he shifted position and we saw that he was in a deep one-on-one with none other than Chloe Appleby. Her baby belly, which I guess she was no longer hiding, stuck out between the open flaps of her camel, leather coat.

My skin sizzled with intrigue. What the hell were Will and Chloe talking about? I’d never seen them speak to each other in my life. I’d noticed him looking at her longingly a couple of times this year, but I figured he was just suffering an unrequited crush. As we stared, Chloe gave a desperate gesture with her hand and Will touched her arm in a way that’s usually reserved for boyfriendly types.

“That’s … interesting,” Celia said.

“Ho. Lee. Crap.” Annie brought her hand to her forehead and turned around. Her eyes were so wide they were like doughnuts.

“What?” I said, my pulse starting to race. If there was one thing I knew about my best friend, it was when she had good gossip to spill.

“Oh my God,” she said, covering her face with both hands now. “Oh my god oh my God oh my God. She couldn’t. She … she wouldn’t.”

“Who couldn’t what?” David said, looking around at the rest of us. “What the hell is she talking about?”

“Oh my God, she can’t possibly be that evil,” Annie said, dragging her fingers down her face and smudging her eyeliner. “Can she possibly be that evil?”

My stomach started to slowly clench into a marble-size ball, and I wasn’t even sure why. I glanced over at the spot where Will and Chloe had disappeared, as if they’d signal the answer to me via flash card.

“Who?” Marshall asked, baffled.

“Annie, what’s going on?” I asked. “What do you know about Chloe and Will?”

“Are they, like, together or something?” Celia asked.

And suddenly, just like that, this snatch of conversation from last summer came back to hit me in the face. I had asked Annie if she knew anything about Jake and Chloe and she’d told me they had been hanging out a lot, but then she added, “The weird thing is, Chloe’s also been hanging out a lot with—”

And then she’d been interrupted when David and Marshall had come bounding through the door like two puppy dogs.

Suddenly my brain went fuzzy. The wind shifted and my senses filled with the acrid, smoky scent of the fire. I reached out and clutched Annie’s forearm, like she was going to anchor me to a sane reality. Because right now, my brain was going to some seriously insane places.

“You don’t think Chloe and Will … over the summer … the other guy …” I couldn’t even form a real thought, let alone a sentence. Had Chloe and Will hooked up? Had Chloe and Will had sex?

Annie nodded, her dark eyes bright with suspicion. “He was the other guy,” she confirmed. “I kept spotting them together everywhere—at the movies, the farm, at Stanzione’s…. But you don’t think she would … I mean, she wouldn’t actually lie about who her baby daddy is, would she?”

I just stared at Annie. Chloe would never. She couldn’t ever. Why? Why would she do something like that? I couldn’t believe it, even though a huge, huge part of me was dying to believe it.

“I mean, after I heard about Jake and Chloe I just figured I was wrong about Will and Chloe, but, I mean …” She gazed off toward the dugout. “Son of a—”

“Wait a minute. Will and Chloe hooked up?” David blurted.

“And now, like, two seconds after everyone finds out she’s pregnant, they’re having emotional tête-à-têtes?” Celia put in.

“Oooh, I love it when you talk French,” Marshall said, nuzzling her from behind. Then, suddenly, his head popped up. “I bet he thinks he might be the father! I bet that’s what they’re talking about!”

My mind was reeling. It was like the entire bonfire was trying to swallow me whole. The light, the heat, the ash, the laughter, the screaming, the music, the drums. I couldn’t think straight. Couldn’t see.

“Okay, everyone, just calm down,” I said, splaying my fingers. “We just jumped to about a million conclusions.” I turned and walked toward the chain link fence around the field. Moving away from the fire helped, and leaning my weight on the fence helped even more. “What do we actually know? Do we actually know Chloe and Will were a thing?”

Annie bit her lip. “We’re ninety-nine point nine percent sure. At least I was then. And I am now.”

I swallowed hard. “Then we don’t actually know anything,” I said, looking at each of them. “Maybe they were just hanging out. Maybe they were just friends. Maybe she came here to, like, talk about a bio project or something.”

“But what if—” Annie began.

I shook my head, clutching the cold links of the fence behind me. “I can’t believe Chloe would do that. I mean, why would she do that?”

“I believe it,” Annie muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. “If you were queen of the Cresties, who would you rather get knocked up by? Jake or Will?”

I tasted bile in the back of my throat. Because she was right. If Chloe had to be in this awful situation, it would be a lot more livable with a fellow Crestie and Country Club member like Jake by her side than with a blue-collar worker like Will. It was disgusting, but it was just how Orchard Hill had always functioned. But Chloe was a good person. I’d known her my whole life. Compared with the rest of the Cresties, she’d always been the most human, the most kind, the most down-to-earth. I couldn’t imagine her screwing with people’s lives this way. But if there was even a chance …

“We gotta find out,” David said, his jaw set. “I mean, if the baby isn’t Jake’s—”

“He needs to know,” I finished. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. “Okay, okay. Here’s what we’re going to do,” I said, pacing away from them, then back again. “I’ll tell him about Chloe and Will, and then he can ask her about it. Because technically, this is between them, right?” There was a prolonged moment of stoic silence. “Everyone good with that plan?”

My friends just stared at me. My throat filled with nervous desperation.

“You guys can’t tell anyone,” I said. “You can’t. I swear, if I hear this around school before I get a chance to deal with it, I will disown each and every one of you.”

We looked around the circle solemnly, each of us meeting everyone else’s gaze. My friends looked so sure that our hastily woven story was true, my heart pounded an excited beat. Because for a split second I let myself believe it too. I let myself imagine what life might be like if Jake wasn’t actually the baby’s father.

Everything would go back to normal for us. All the strain and jealousy and tension? Gone.

“Do we have a deal?” I asked pointedly. I put my hand in the middle of the circle, like I was one of the Three Musketeers or something.

“Deal,” Marshall said, putting his hand atop mine.

Celia groaned reluctantly. I knew that sharing gossip this huge about two of the most popular Cresties would totally improve her status. Right now she was seeing that possibility slip away. But she put her hand on top of Marshall’s.

“Deal.”

“Deal,” David said, adding his hand.

Annie took a deep breath. She looked up at the sky, blew out a cloud of steam, and shuddered in her Doc Martens. Then, finally, she slapped her hand down so hard on top of David’s that he winced.

“I just want you people to know this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. And you’re looking at a girl whose appendix burst on the same night her pet hamster died,” she said. Then she looked me in the eye and I just knew that whatever happened next, she was with me. “Deal.”

december

Can you even believe that Ally Ryan and Jake Graydon are still together?

           I know! Shouldn’t he, like, be going out with the mother of his baby?

Do you think he and Chloe did the deed while he was with Ally?

No way. She definitely would have broken up with him if he cheated on her.

Not necessarily. He’s Jake Graydon.

                   So?

So? With that face? Everything’s forgivable.

           Nah. Ally Ryan isn’t like that. She has, like, integrity and stuff.

If she has integrity, shouldn’t she break up with him so he can be with the girl he impregnated?

Okay. This is making my head hurt.

           Tell me about it. When did other people’s relationships get so complex?

ally

“Where have you been?”

I scurried to the end of the counter at Jump, Java, and Wail! on Sunday night, grabbed Jake by the apron with both hands, and kissed him. Someone nearby went “Aw!” One of Jake’s coworkers muttered, “Get a room.”

Jake leaned back, blushing. “Philadelphia, remember? I just got back a couple of hours ago. Also, your dad’s in the office, so maybe chill with the PDA.”

“Noted,” I said. I lowered my voice as I slid onto the last stool. “So? Did you lose your phone? Fry your laptop? Forget how to work a landline? I left you, like, a million messages.”

Jake’s blush deepened. He wiped his hands on a clean towel and looked around, as if any of the middle-aged couples huddled around tables were interested in us. Sunday night was not usually a big night for our age group at Jump. Which was probably why it was always packed with adults.

“I know,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. It was just a crazy weekend.”

I made a surprised, choked sound. “Crazy enough to not respond to a text that said ‘You might not be the father’?” I whispered.

I saw Jake’s jaw working as he stood up straight. He glanced over at his coworker as he untied his apron. “Chase, I’m taking my fifteen.”

“Got it, bro,” the guy replied, not looking up from his iPhone. So much for my dad’s strict rule about not texting while on shift.

Jake came around the end of the counter and tugged me toward the back of the shop, where we sat down at the most secluded table there was—the one cornered by the door to my dad’s office and the emergency exit. The one no one from school ever came near. Jake sat down and blew out a sigh. He was acting beyond weird. Shouldn’t he be excited? Angry? At least moderately annoyed or intrigued? I tugged off my scarf and hat and sat across from him.

“I already know about Will Halloran,” he said. “I know he and Chloe went out this summer.”

Someone had left a glass canister of cinnamon on the table and he started to fiddle with it, sliding it back and forth from hand to hand across the pebbled marble. I felt like he’d just whipped my chair out from under me.

“What?” I whispered, leaning into the table. “And you didn’t tell me?”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

I felt like reality had just reversed itself. “How could it not matter? How do you know Will’s not the father?”

“Because. Chloe never slept with Will,” Jake replied, holding the canister with both hands now. He scratched at some crust on the side with his thumbnail.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Because she told me,” he replied.

My jaw dropped. “And you believed her? Just like that?”

From the corner of my eye, I saw my dad emerge from the back room. He looked like he was about to say hi, then noticed how serious we looked and thought better of it. He moved to the other side of the shop.

“Do you really think Chloe would lie about something like that?” Jake snapped defensively.

I sat back. For a long moment I couldn’t locate my voice. Was he seriously defending Chloe’s honor to me right now? When I was trying to help him? When I was trying to throw him a lifeline? I couldn’t believe that he didn’t grasp the seriousness of the situation.

“Well, let’s see, I never thought she was the kind of person who’d fool around with two guys at one time, but apparently I was wrong about that,” I said finally. “And I didn’t think you were the kind of person who’d have sex with someone else when you were supposed to be in love with me, either.”

“We were broken up!” Jake snapped angrily. “God! I thought we were done with this.”

“Yeah, well, I guess not,” I said, pushing my chair back. I wanted to storm out, but I couldn’t. I needed more from him. I needed him to say that he’d talk to Chloe. That he cared enough about knowing the truth. That he cared more about being with me than hurting her feelings. “Don’t you think you should just ask her again?” I said. “See what she says? This is a huge deal, Jake. For you and for Will.”

“I know it’s a huge deal, Ally!” he whisper-shouted angrily. “Do you think you know better than me what a huge fucking deal this is? I’ve seen the baby. I’ve seen it roll over and kick and suck its thumb. There’s a baby out there that’s mine and sometimes all I can think about is that I never even get to name him or talk to him or see him play soccer. I’m dealing with that. Maybe you’re the one who’s not.”

Suddenly I saw something in his eyes that stopped me cold. It was fear. Just the tiniest flicker, but it was there. He was scared of asking about Will again. He was scared he might find out he wasn’t the father.

Jake wanted the baby to be his.

And I was going to be sick.

“I have to go,” I said, standing, trying not to cry in front of him.

“Ally, wait. I’m sorry,” Jake said.

“Forget it,” I said.

I shoved through the door and onto the wintry sidewalk, the bell jangling jauntily above my head. I’d gotten about five steps along the salted sidewalk when my dad came after me.

“Ally! Wait up!”

I whirled around, took one look at my father in his brown apron and T-shirt, his breath making fog clouds in the frigid air, his eyes concerned, and I burst into tears.

“What is it?” he asked, hugging me to him. “What just happened?”

For the splittest of seconds I considered not telling him. He loved Jake. And he was Jake’s boss. I didn’t want to take their good relationship away from them. But then, screw that. He was my dad first.

“Chloe’s pregnant,” I sputtered into his chest. “And Jake might be the father.”

“What?” my father croaked, stepping back so I could look at him. “I’ll kill him. I’ll kill the little—”

“We were broken up when it happened, Dad,” I said, sniffling. Always protecting Jake. Even when my heart was breaking. “You don’t have to kill anyone.”

My father shifted and brought his fist to his mouth for a second. It looked like it was taking all his self-control to keep from running back inside and flinging himself at Jake, Ultimate Fighter style.

“Are you okay?” he asked finally.

“No,” I replied, a fresh wave of tears choking me.

My dad looked at the light traffic on Orchard Avenue. The sky was pitch-black in the way only a winter sky could be, and only a few crazy people had braved the cold. He hooked his arm around my neck. “Come on.”

“Where’re we going?” I asked.

“To my place.”

My dad lived in an apartment across the street from Jump, right above the town apothecary where the rich moms bought all their magic youth-making potions.

“But aren’t you working?” I asked as we crossed the street.

“I don’t think I should be anywhere near Jake Graydon right now, and you are in desperate need of a warm blanket and a junk fest.” He hugged me a bit closer to his side and I tilted my head against his shoulder. One thing I had always loved about my dad? He always knew exactly what I needed.

I wished, not for the first time, that we were both going home to my mom, instead of home to his place. That we could all curl up on the couch together, eat crap, and watch bad movies like we used to. That we could be a family again. But I had to take what I could get.

And now, at least, everyone knew. Mom, Dad, friends. At least that awfulness was over. I just wished I knew where I stood with Jake. I glanced over my shoulder at the window-walls of Jump, Java, and Wail! but I couldn’t see him at the counter or anywhere, and for this one weird, out-of-body moment, I felt like he was just gone. Like I was never going to see him again.

ally

Monday afternoon I was the first person dressed and on the court for basketball practice. I stood at the free throw line with the ball rack next to me, shooting one after the other after the other. Every time, the ball slammed against the backboard and ricocheted off in another direction. And every time, I saw someone else’s face.

Jake.

Chloe.

Will.

Hammond.

Lincoln.

Apparently I was pissed at the world.

But mostly, I was pissed at Jake. And myself. And I was tired. Tired of feeling like second-runner-up to Chloe. Tired of trying to convince myself it was okay. And after that conversation I’d had with Jake, after finding out that he basically didn’t care about a way out, didn’t care about getting us back to being us, I was starting to think that breaking up with him was the only option. It was the only way to save my self-esteem.

I took a shot, and the ball sailed clear over the net, the backboard, everything.

“Ugh!”

I let another ball fly. It hit the backboard hard and boomeranged right toward my face. Luckily I got my arms up in time. Shannen came jogging over, plucking up a few of my errant basketballs. Her dark hair was slicked into a ponytail, her bangs held back by a two-strand headband, and she wore a white Orchard Hill basketball T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to expose her cut shoulders. She unloaded the balls onto the rack and smirked.

“If you need someone to rearrange your face, your boyfriend’s father’s a plastic surgeon. I’m sure he’ll give you a reduced rate,” she said wryly.

I grabbed a ball and set up for the shot. “Yeah, well, I’m not sure how much longer he’s going to be my boyfriend.” Somehow, saying it out loud made me feel both nauseous and free at the same time. I let the ball fly over her head. She reached up and blocked it down into her other hand.

“What?”

I tipped my head back and trudged over to the bleachers. The rest of the team was trickling out from the locker room and starting to warm up. I dropped down onto the bottom bench and Shannen perched next to me, draping her arms over the basketball in her lap, her wrists crossed over each other.

“If I tell you this, you cannot tell anyone,” I said. “Swear on your mother’s life.”

“I swear,” Shannen said, wide-eyed. “I mean, I know I don’t have the best track record with secrets, but I’m working on it with my therapist,” she added with a smirk.

I took in a sharp breath. She was referencing the very public way in which she’d spilled my father’s big secret last spring. But that was different and we’d both been trying to put it behind us ever since. Besides, there was no video of this particular secret in action.

God, I hoped there wasn’t.

“Look, I get it if you don’t want to tell me,” Shannen said, starting to get up. “But if you want someone to talk to—”

“Wait.”

I did want someone to talk to. Someone with a new perspective. Annie and I had spent half the weekend talking it over and over and over, and her solution was to tweet about the whole mess with thinly veiled pseudonyms (her suggestions: Carly, Bill, and Jack) and see how Chloe reacted. Not exactly subtle. My mother was an option, of course, but I just couldn’t break it to her that this whole thing had gotten even more nasty and sordid than it already was. Shannen and Chloe had been friends forever. Maybe she’d have something useful to say.

Shannen sat her butt down again and waited. I took a deep breath and held it.

“Chloe and Will Halloran had a thing this summer. Like, a serious thing,” I whispered, turning my face toward hers so far I touched my chin to my shoulder.

“Oh my God.” Shannen looked out across the gym, where sneakers squeaked and balls pounded the boards. “Huh. He’s hot.”

“Okay, kind of missing the point here,” I said.

Shannen’s head snapped around. “Wait. You don’t think he’s the father?”

“I don’t know what to think,” I told her, pulling my knees up under my chin. I fiddled with the laces on one of my sneakers. “She told Jake that she never had sex with Will, and he believes her, but …”

“Ally. You have to do something,” Shannen said loudly.

“Shhhh!”

I looked up at the court, but no one was paying any attention to us. Most of our teammates were either gossiping or drilling layups. Coach walked in from the lobby and flipped through her clipboard, her silver whistle dangling low around her neck. Practice was about to start.

“It’s not up to me,” I whispered, my pulse racing. “Jake doesn’t want to hear it and I don’t know…. I have to believe that if Chloe thought Will might be the father, she would have said something. She couldn’t do this to Jake.”

“You think Chloe’s going to admit to her parents that their pristine little girl isn’t only a nonvirgin, but she’s also had sex with more than one guy?” Shannen whispered incredulously. “Are you kidding me? She’d kill herself first. Someone has to talk to her.”

“Well, I can’t do it,” I said. “Jake would freak.”

“Then I’ll do it,” Shannen said, getting up.

I jumped from my seat. “No! You just promised me you wouldn’t say anything.”

Shannen’s jaw set. “Well then, I’ll do something.”

There was another objection on the tip of my tongue, but I hesitated. “Like what?”

Slowly, wickedly, Shannen’s lips twisted into a smirk. She began dribbling the ball at a very even, deliberate rhythm. Her eyes went a bit blank, distant, like she was already imagining the possibilities. Finally she focused on me and smiled.

“Oh, you know me,” she said. “I always think of something.”

Coach blew the whistle to call us to attention, and Shannen turned her back to me. I reached out a hand to stop her but quickly snatched it back.

I’d already awakened Shannen’s inner beast, and it wasn’t like I could change that. Now Shannen was going to do what Shannen was going to do. This whole mess was out of my control. And I was kind of curious to see what might happen next.

jake

Ally was amazing on the basketball court. She was so focused. And she was so … graceful. That’s the only word I can think of for it. Even when she was slamming into defenders, sweating everywhere, and shouting at her teammates, she was just graceful. It was like she was born to be out there.

I sat near the top of the bleachers with Connor, Josh, and the Idiot Twins at her Wednesday night game, and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Even though the Idiot Twins were wearing huge, curly maroon wigs and had their faces painted and kept trying to start the wave, all I could see was Ally.

I had texted her that I was coming tonight. She hadn’t replied. She hadn’t talked to me since the fight we’d had on Sunday. Shannen had told me to give her space, but I couldn’t do it anymore. We’d had enough space. That was the problem. She’d even said it herself. I just hadn’t heard her.

Over the past few days I’d realized what she’d meant that night at Chloe’s party. How she felt like she hadn’t really seen me in a while. Over the summer, when I was with her, some part of my body was always touching some part of hers. Either I was holding her hand on the street or had my leg hooked over hers on the couch or had her head resting on my shoulder. We were always talking about all kinds of stuff—our crazy families, how school could be totally lame and kind of fun at the same time, how weird it was that in a year we would be living somewhere else. Everything. And we laughed. A lot. We were always laughing about something.

I couldn’t remember what that felt like anymore. And I think I’d realized that too late.

As I watched her score a three, and the Idiot Twins went berserk, I suddenly felt heart-numbingly sad. Because she was going to break up with me. I could feel it. I knew that when I found her tonight, she was going to say something to end it. Unless I said something to stop her first.

As the final buzzer sounded, I stood up, determined. I’d already lost everything else. I couldn’t lose Ally, too.

Ally and the rest of the team slapped hands with the other players. Then everyone gathered around the coach. I made my way along the wall under the backboard and toward the exit that went right to the girls’ locker room. I was standing there when the team started to go through, my heart pounding a mile a minute. Shannen shot me a weird look but kept moving. Then Ally was there. Right in front of me. I couldn’t breathe.

“Nice game,” I said.

She tucked a stray hair behind her ear and looked away. “Thanks.”

“I need to talk to you,” I said.

“Can this wait? Until I’ve, like, showered?” she asked quietly. My heart sunk. She was definitely, definitely going to break up with me.

“No. It can’t,” I said.

She crossed her arms over her chest. Behind her the gym was emptying out. Her coach gave me this scolding look as she went by, but at least she went by.

“Jake—”

“I have something I have to say,” I told her. I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans.

“Okay, fine,” she said, lifting her chin. “What?”

I licked my lips. My pulse pounded in my ears. My mind was a total blank. The guys were hovering by the door to the lobby, waiting for me. My collar itched. The lights in the gym had never been so bright.

“What is it, Jake?”

Then I did the only thing I could think to do. I grabbed her by the waistband of her maroon-and-gold shorts, pulled her to me, and kissed her like I’d never kissed anyone before. I held her sweaty ponytail against the back of her neck and just kissed her and kissed her and kissed her. When she finally pulled back, I didn’t let her pull too far. I held on to her as hard as I could.

“I know I suck,” I whispered, looking her in the eye, feeling desperate. “I know I don’t deserve you. Just don’t leave me. Please? I’ll be better, okay? Just don’t leave me.”

Part of me couldn’t believe I’d just said anything that pathetic. Now she knew how much she mattered. And I looked like some kind of whipped asshole with no life.

But honestly? I didn’t care. I was just kind of glad no one else had heard me.

There was a long, long, long pause. Then Ally buried her face in my sweater and put her arms around me.

“I won’t,” she said. The fist around my heart finally released. “I won’t.”

jake

“Dudes. This is not a good idea.”

I stood in the middle of Dr. Nathanson’s study, watching my friends be their usual jackass selves. It was the holiday Sunday night dinner, and Ally’s mom was hosting. For whatever reason, the Idiot Twins had decided it would be cool to build one of those wineglass pyramid things on top of the glass coffee table so they could make a champagne waterfall. Of course, we had no wineglasses or champagne, since our parents were right down the hall, so they’d spent the last half hour smuggling glasses in from wherever they were kept, two at a time, under their dinner jackets. Ally had no idea what was going on, because she’d disappeared a while ago too—probably helping her mom with something. But I knew she was going to freak when she got back, so I figured it was my duty to stop them. I’d spent the last three weeks being the perfect boyfriend, but if I stood by and watched my friends destroy thousands of dollars of crystal and furniture, I’d be toast.

“Dude. Stop being such a buzz kill,” Todd said. He misplaced a glass and it tumbled sideways. I made a grab for it, but it fell right back into his hands.

“Oh. Oops,” he said. Then he and his brother doubled over laughing.

“If you guys break anything, you’re so dead,” I said through my teeth.

“What? Mini-Nate is right there. If she had a problem, she’d say something.”

Trevor used the stem end of a glass to point at Quinn. She was standing by the fireplace, which was decorated with about two tons of evergreen branches, flirting with Hammond. The girl looked completely gone over the deep end as she blinked away at the assface I used to call my best friend. I don’t think she knew there was anyone else in the room. Chloe and Faith stood a few feet away, shooting them obnoxious looks, which I didn’t get. Chloe didn’t like Hammond anymore, right? So what was the big deal if he went after some sophomore?

Girls. Sometimes they made zero sense.

“What are you guys doing?!”

I froze. Ally had just walked up behind me. The Idiot Twins froze too. I turned around, grabbed Ally’s hand, and pulled her toward the door at the other end of the room. She was wearing a dark red strapless dress and strappy shoes with a red flower on them and had never looked hotter.