Текст книги "He's So Not Worth It"

Автор книги: Kieran Scott

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

I needed to see Jake.I knew it as soon as Shannen pulled into Gray’s driveway and I saw that my dad’s leased car was still there. I had this vivid flashback to the night we’d come home from Shannen’s party to find my dad on the doorstep and I’d thought, for a split second, that it was Jake. I had so, so wanted it to be Jake. And just like that, I needed to see him. Now. Jake was the one who actually cared about me. Jake was the one who had actually been there for me. I’d shut him out because I was angry and embarrassed and small. Now all I could do was hope that it wasn’t too late.Because Jake . . . Jake was home.“Want me to come in with you?” Shannen asked as we both looked up at the brightly lit house.“No. It’s okay. Go to Connor’s.”“You sure? Because it could get ugly in there,” Shannen said.That’s fine, because I’m not going in there, I thought.“I’m good. Really.” I looked at her as I got out of the car. “Thanks, Shannen.”She sighed and shrugged. “Anytime.”She pulled out slowly, her tires crunching over the pebble driveway, her headlights flashing across the garage doors. I held my breath, waiting for someone to come to the window, having noticed the lights, but no one did. I stared across the driveway at the open garage. Gray’s second car—a late 1990s BMW—was parked inside. My eyes glimpsed the drawer where he kept the emergency set of keys. If I could just get into the garage with no one hearing, I could be out of the driveway before they noticed. I looked down at the rocks beneath my feet. Damn these LBI driveways and their loud pebbly-ness.Tiptoeing wouldn’t work. Probably the best thing to do would be to take long strides. The fewer footfalls, the less noise. I took a deep breath, and started to leap down the driveway.My right foot hit the ground.Crunch!My left foot hit the ground.Crunch!I stretched as far as I could on the next leap.Crunch!One more and my foot hit the concrete floor of the garage. I paused to listen for the sound of the front door squeaking open—for footsteps on the indoor stairs that led directly to the garage from the kitchen. Nothing. I lifted my hands in victory. Freedom was mine. I raced for the keys.“What the hell are you doing?”I spun around, my heart in my throat. Hammond stood at the end of the driveway, an amused smile on his face. He wore a white polo shirt with multicolored pastel stripes, the collar turned up to graze his cheekbones.Where the hell did he get these ideas?“You scared the crap out of me!” I hissed.“What?” he shouted. Of course. He couldn’t hear my whisper over the island wind.“Shhhh!” I brought my finger to my lips.Hammond rolled his eyes and strolled casually across to the garage, making enough noise to wake the neighbors, let alone my parents and Gray.“I may have to kill you,” I said, tugging the keys from the drawer.“What’re you doing?” he asked. Then the smile dropped away. “Are you crying?”“No!” I replied. I wasn’t. Not anymore. I was experiencing that total clearness of vision that came with waking up from a summer-long delusion. “And I’m going home. To see Jake,” I added, knowing that, if he had been trying to kiss me that day at Take a Dip, this might not be the best news. I walked by him and my hands shook as I tried to key the security code into the car’s door. It didn’t unlock.“Oh,” he said. “Okay. I’ll drive.”“What? No. I’m fine.”I put the code in for the second time and tried the door. Nothing. My skin prickled as I tried one more time, Hammond basically breathing down my neck. The code was 5885. Not that difficult. I hit the buttons and tried the handle. It stayed stubbornly closed. I groaned in frustration.“What’s the code?” Hammond asked.“Five eight eight five,” I said begrudgingly.He nudged me aside, pushed the buttons, and opened the door. Then he turned and held out his palm. “I’ll drive.”I hesitated. It was bad enough, me taking Gray’s car without asking, but should I really let Hammond drive it? And did I really want to spend three hours in the car with him, there and back?“Come on, Al. I’m not letting you drive all that way, by yourself, in the dark, when you’re clearly freaking,” he said.I blew out a sigh and dropped the keys in his hand.“Sweet,” Hammond said. “Let’s take this baby out and see what she can do!”He slammed the door and I slumped down in the seat, wondering what I was getting myself into, and just hoping it would be worth it. Just hoping Jake still wanted me back.

“I can’t believe you made me watch that crap,” I said. But smiled.Chloe held the glass door for the people behind us—a mother and daughter—which was who made up most of the audience for the awful movie we’d just seen. Every girl walking out was snorting and sniffling. I didn’t get it. The whole thing was about a love triangle, and at the end, one guy ends up killing the other and the girl ends up alone. What’s the point of that?I’d spent half the movie wondering if Ally would have ever made me waste my time on something like this, and the other half trying not to check out Chloe from the corner of my eye.“Are you kidding me? It was so romantic!” Chloe protested. She tugged a tissue out of her little bag, which was on the crook of her arm.“Romantic? Murder is romantic now?”We moved a little farther out onto the sidewalk so the rest of the crowd could get out. I spotted one other guy, a dude in a Valley baseball T-shirt with a weeper on his arm. We exchanged a look. I feel ya, man.“But he did it for her!” Chloe said, turning her palms up.“Great. So now he gets twenty to life and she gets to have conjugal visits with a psychopath. Sweet.”Chloe whacked me with the back of her hand, but I could tell she was trying not to laugh. I took a breath and looked up and down Orchard Avenue. It felt kind of good to be out. Like I’d just been released from a twenty-to-life sentence. The air was warm, but clear. A rare nonhumid night. At the restaurant across the street couples ate at the outdoor tables. All around us, people talked and lingered. It was like no one wanted to go home.“You want to get some ice cream or something?” Chloe asked.It was like she read my mind. She lifted her light brown hair over her shoulder, and I watched the way it fell softly back down against her skin. I had this urge to touch it, but didn’t.“Sure.”We turned and walked up the street together toward Scoops.

“Why did I have to take Orchard Avenue?” Hammond moaned, revving the engine at the corner of Walnut, like a warning to the dozen pedestrians in the crosswalk. We caught derisive looks from a middle-aged couple strolling by and I looked away. “It’s Friday night. What was I thinking?”“That some of the guys from school might see you in Gray’s classic ride?” I said.“Oh,” Hammond said with a grin, waggling his eyebrows at me. “Right.”There was an opening, finally, and he lurched ahead. He was right about Friday nights in Orchard Hill, of course. There were benefits and drawbacks to living in a town with more than fifty restaurants, a theater, and a ton of shops that stayed open late on the weekend. The benefit was, everything you wanted was within walking distance. The drawback was everyone else in Bergen County had to drive to get there.“So, did you call Jake to tell him you were coming?” Hammond asked.I looked down at my lap. “Not exactly.”He started to make the turn at the top of the Avenue, but then slammed on his brakes. My chest pressed against my seat belt and then it flung me back against the seat.“Hammond!”“What the fuck is this?” he said through his teeth.I looked up, my heart pounding. Walking across Orchard on the other side of the intersection was Jake. He looked amazing. Tan and tall and filling out that light blue T-shirt like it had been sewn just for him. I had this odd feeling in the center of my chest, like I hadn’t seen him in years, instead of weeks. He was walking with someone, and when I saw who it was, I stopped breathing.It was Chloe. Chloe with date-hair in a date-dress carrying a date-purse. And was it just me, or had their hands just grazed?“Drive,” I said.“What? They’ll see us.”“Just make the turn. Go! Before someone honks at you!” I felt like I was going to hurl. “Go!”Hammond cursed under his breath and hit the gas. He almost ran over a Lhasa apso and its owner, but swerved at the last second. I raised an apologetic hand and Hammond gunned it to the corner, weaving into an open spot right in front of the double-arched doors to the church.“That wasn’t—I mean, they can’t—they’re not—”I stared up at the stained glass window stories above my head. Mary with a halo on and her arms outstretched. “I don’t know.”“She’s just doing this to get back at me,” Hammond said. He slammed the wheel with the heels of both hands. “Fuck!”“Hammond! Shh!” I glanced out at the church again.“What?” His face looked like something that had just come out of a meat grinder. “You think God’s gonna come down and thunderbolt me?”I looked at him and, suddenly, I started laughing.Hammond didn’t move for a long moment, but I couldn’t stop. All this disgust and tension and confusion had built up so suddenly at the sight of Jake and Chloe together, that it had nowhere to go except out my mouth. I held my stomach and laughed until tears came out the corners of my eyes.“What? What’s so funny?”But then he choked, and he started laughing too.“Thunderbolt you? Really?” I said through halting gasps. “Is that what he does?”“Dude. Shut up!” Hammond said. His laughter was less belly-full than mine. And ended sooner. “We might have just seen our exes on a date.”I let out my last laugh with a wheeze. Was this the dirt Annie had been talking about all those weeks ago? Did she want to tell me that Jake and Chloe were together? But he’d come down the shore after that. Was he seeing her then, when he’d stood on the deck and tried to get me to take him back?Cold stones crowded my chest. I put my elbow on the windowsill and rested my mouth against my knuckles. “I guess I should have called ahead.”“So what do we do?” Hammond asked. “Drive back?”I groaned and leaned my head back. “And sit in this car for another two or three hours? I can’t.” I felt heavy, suddenly. Like my body was spreading out across the seat and onto the floor and into all the gritty crevices of the car, getting pinned there by its own gravity. “Can you drive me back to my house?”“Sure.”There were no more surprises on our way back to the Orchard View Condominiums. When I opened the front door, the hot, stale air was almost suffocating. I went directly to the air conditioner and flicked it on, then picked up the phone to dial my mother. I had turned off my cell before we’d gotten on the parkway, but I knew by now they had to have realized what I’d done, and I knew that I was in for it.“Hey, Mom,” I said.“Ally. Where the hell are you?” she said, her voice controlled but angry.“I’m in Orchard Hill with Hammond.”“You took Gray’s car back to Orchard Hill?” she shrieked.“I’m sorry, okay?” I said. “I just couldn’t stay there for another second.”“So you thought the best way to deal with those feelings was to steal Gray’s car and not tell anyone you weren’t coming home.”I closed my eyes. After everything that had happened today—the fight with her and my dad, the scene with Cooper, seeing Jake and Chloe together—I felt like screaming and throwing things and crying until the sun came up. I felt like I could explode. But I took a deep breath and held it together. I had to figure out what I could say to end this conversation as quickly as possible.“I know,” I said. “I’ve been a jerk lately. I get it, okay? But I just . . . Mom, everything sucks right now and I’m really tired and so’s Hammond. Is it okay with you if I stay here tonight and he drives me back in the morning? You can give me whatever punishment you want to give me then.”Hammond was walking around the living room, looking at the photos in the frames, checking out our TV. I realized with a start that he’d never been here before. At least, not inside.“Oh, I’ll give it to you right now. You’re grounded for the rest of the summer,” she said. “No, scratch that. You’ll be allowed to go out, but only to functions I’ll be attending. How does that sound?”In other words, she was going to force me to hang out with the Cresties. As punishments went, it was genius.“Fine,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Whatever you say.”“Good,” she said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”“Mom? Can I go now? I’m really tired.”“All right. We’ll talk more tomorrow.” There was a long pause and I could hear her trying to get her breathing under control. “Ally . . . are you okay?”My eyes welled with tears and I bit them back, holding one arm across my stomach and clutching my T-shirt at my waist. “Yeah, Mom. I’m fine.”“Okay. Call me when you’re going to leave there tomorrow so I know when to expect you,” she said.“I will.”“Good night, Ally,” she said, her voice tense. “Night.”I took a deep breath as I hung up the phone, squelching the last of the tears. When I turned around, Hammond was looking right at me and I felt this sudden and unexpected thump of anticipation. Which made no sense. It wasn’t like we were going to do anything. Even if he tried, I wasn’t about to let him. I mean, he was Hammond. And he was clearly in love with Chloe. And I had just been dissed by two guys in one day—a new personal record.Still, it was weird, wasn’t it? My mother hadn’t even asked me where Hammond planned on staying. That’s how much she trusted me. Even after everything.“So . . . you can drive back if you want to,” I said. “I could maybe figure out some other ride. . . .” Though how, I had no idea.Hammond pulled out his phone, hit a speed-dial button, and brought it to his ear. He didn’t take his eyes off me until it connected. Then he turned toward the wall.“Hey, Dad. I’m gonna stay at home tonight. Yeah. Yeah. I will. Cool. Bye.”Just like that. And then he was facing me again. The air conditioner flipped to a new cycle, groaning as it spurted cold air into the room.“What do you want to do?” I asked.He looked around at the couch, the chair, the TV. “X-Men movie marathon? I know you’ve got ’em around here somewhere.”I smiled. What could be better after a day like this than total immersion in a fictional world? “Perfect. Popcorn?”“That works.”Hammond powered on the TV and dropped onto the couch with the entitlement of someone who’d lived here his entire life. I located the popcorn and started the microwave, still smiling. But then, I remembered why I was here, and not at Jake’s. Glancing over my shoulder at Hammond, who already had on ESPN, I fished my phone from my bag and texted Annie.Am in OH. Can u meet up tmrw? 10ish?The response came almost instantly.Will be @ work. Stop by!OKThe microwave beeped and Hammond looked up, his arm laid out across the back of the couch. I thought of Jake. Of Jake and Chloe’s hands touching. Was it wrong for me to feel like this—like me and Hammond being here—was a kind of revenge? Was he thinking the same thing?“We doing this or what?” he asked.I grabbed the popcorn out of the microwave, tossed him the bag, and sat down on the opposite end of the couch. This was going to be a long night.

On the way home, with the top down, I felt very alert. For the first time, I noticed how hard the stick shift felt in my grip. How the air felt twenty degrees cooler when I was zipping through it. How the wind tugged at my hair, making my scalp tingle, even though it was cut short. As I turned up Chloe’s driveway, she took out a tube of something and touched up her lips.That was when I knew for sure, she wanted me to kiss her. And now, I was all kinds of alert.I’d kissed dozens of girls. Maybe hundreds. Seriously. That was what I used to do. It was, like, my number one pastime. Before Ally. On weekends, I’d always hook up, usually with more than one girl. Before Ally.Since Ally, I hadn’t kissed anyone. Was it a good idea to start with her former best friend who’d just broken up with my best friend?Probably not.I stopped the car. Stared out the windshield. Chloe didn’t move.“You didn’t have to drive up my driveway. It’s about a thirty-second walk from your house.”“I know.”I glanced over. My eyes went to her bare knee. Bad move.“Well . . . thanks,” Chloe said. “I had fun.”“Me too.”My hand clasped the stick shift and the wheel. I refused to move them.“Okay, well. I should probably go,” I said.She didn’t say anything for a minute. “Yeah. Me too.”Then she got out of the car and it was over. Except for my . . . alertness.She walked in front of my headlights and her dress was so sheer I could practically see through it. Or possibly that was my imagination. She did that twiddling thing with her fingers, then jogged to the door. Her skirt bounced behind her.I blew out a breath. I hadn’t inhaled in, like, five minutes. Then I backed out of the driveway so fast I’m lucky I didn’t take out the stone planters. I was in my driveway, up the stairs, and in my room with the door closed before Chloe had probably closed the front door.I needed to do something. Jog or swim or kick a soccer ball. Something. My eyes fell on my books. I was supposed to take another practice test tomorrow. I pulled out my chair, sat down, and opened the math study guide. My brain was completely clear.I was about to have the most intense study session of my life.

I woke up sitting up straight in my bed. It wasn’t until I heard the tires squealing that I realized I’d been startled awake. I jumped out of bed and was at the window in half a second—just in time to see Will Halloran flying out of Chloe’s driveway and down Vista View in his father’s truck. His brake lights illuminated for a split second at the bottom of the hill, then the engine roared, and he was gone.Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the lights in Chloe’s bedroom window go out. I looked at the digital clock on my iDock. It was 2:16 a.m.What. The fuck?I snagged a T-shirt off my desk chair and pulled it on. The first sneaker slipped on no problem, but I was still hopping with my toes jammed into the other and my finger hooked around the back of it, when I made my way out the door of my room. I rushed downstairs on my tiptoes and out into the warm night air.This is a bad idea. This is a bad idea.But I didn’t stop. I jogged across the street, fueled by pure adrenaline. My eyes were still foggy, since I’d been asleep two minutes ago, but the rest of me was completely awake. I slowed to a fast walk up Chloe’s driveway. As I rounded the bend, the security lights over the front door flashed on. I lifted my hand to shield my eyes and tripped sideways into the bushes.Ow.I looked up at Chloe’s new deck thing, which overlooked Mrs. Appleby’s English Garden she was always ragging on about. There was a trellis up the side.This is a bad idea. A bad idea.Crouching, I crept across the stone patio. I tried the trellis, giving it a couple of tugs. It held. It took a little grunting and groaning and a couple of splinters, but then I was up. And banging on the glass door.This is a bad idea. A very bad idea.Chloe shoved the curtain aside and her jaw dropped. She opened the door so fast it blew her hair back. She was wearing the tiniest nightgown I’d ever seen outside the Internet. And she’d been crying.“Jake! What the hell are you doing? My parents are home!” she whispered.“What the fuck, Chloe? I just saw Will Halloran peeling out of here like he was being chased.” I walked into her room. It was as neat as a catalog. Every little pink and purple thing in its place. Except for the bed. The bed was a wreck. My stomach clenched. “Are you fooling around with that guy?”She exhaled a laugh. “Not anymore.”I blinked. What the hell did that mean?“Why do you even care, Jake?” She walked over to her bathroom and lifted a robe down from a hook. She went to put it on, but then stopped. Instead, she hooked it over her arms and walked toward me. “You’re not . . . I mean, you’re not jealous, are you?”My chest was heaving up and down, and not from the run. I couldn’t answer her. Because I realized, just like that, that I was.Which made no sense. Because I liked Ally. I was in love with Ally.But shit, I really wanted to kiss Chloe.And Ally was out there kissing loser surf posers. Telling me I wasn’t good enough for her, not answering my texts. So why the hell was I even hesitating?Chloe dropped the robe on the floor. That nightgown showed almost everything, and she knew it. She reached for my hand. I let her take it.This is a bad idea. A really, really, really bad idea.But when she stood on her toes to kiss me, I let her do that, too.