by Nicole Casey
“You never did answer me,” Mal said as I finished checking myself out in front of the mirror.
“Probably because I wasn’t listening to you,” I retorted. “What?”
“Are you going home for Christmas?”
I eyed him, grabbing for my knapsack and keys.
“Mal…” I groaned. “We’re not friends. Why do you care?”
Did I see a look of hurt in his face? It didn’t matter—the last two years, every time I’d gone home, his presence had caused friction with my parents.
“Are you dating Malcolm Laurier?” My mom had shrieked one day when she’d overheard me calling him by name and I balked at the words.
“Are you kidding?” I retorted. “Of course not.”
“Good,” Mom replied curtly. “One Laurier in the family is enough, no matter how temporary it might be. I can’t go down this road again.”
“That boy has a bit of a reputation, doesn’t he?” Dad added like I needed another reason not to date Mal. “Bit of a ladies’ man?”
I groaned.
“Dad, first of all, people don’t say ‘ladies’ man’ and haven’t since like the thirties. Secondly, Mal isn’t even a friend, let alone a boyfriend.”
Why did I get shivers when I said that? I probably had meningitis or something.
“He’s been calling you, hasn’t he?” Dad insisted and I wondered when they had started paying such close attention to my social life.
Grayson really did screw up everything for me now. Mom and Dad are going to be on me constantly because of him and Ella. Thanks a lot, Grayson.
I chewed on the insides of my cheeks. I needed to tell Mal to screw off before my parents got on my ass any more than they already were.
“We go to the same school,” I told my parents lamely. I could have told Mal to stop calling but I probably privately liked it. I mean, when did I ever get the attention of the hottest guy in school?
Pure ego, that’s all it was, even though I knew Mal was bad news—and not just because he was related to my wicked sister-in-law.
Things between Gray and Ella were growing worse from what I had heard. The police had been called to their place, a little hovel on the outskirts of Sterling but the details were vague. I doubted my brother had laid a hand on her but who really knew what was happening between closed doors?
I asked Mal about it but bringing up Ella and Gray seemed to be a very sore spot for him so we avoided the topic.
“I’m just asking if you’re going home,” Malcolm muttered defensively, bringing me back to my bedroom. “So I know whether I’m supposed to ignore you or not when I see you around in Sterling.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Mal,” I told him crossly. “I’m not sure why you ever got the impression that you wouldn’t but let’s face it—even if I liked you, which I don’t—I don’t want to listen to my parents go off about your family every time you call and frankly, I feel guilty hiding my calls from them.”
To my annoyance, Malcolm smirked.
“You’re such a goody-goody, Blake. Have you ever done anything against your parents?”
“Of course I have!” I lied. “Anyway, if I’m going to defy them, I’d rather do it for a worthy cause, not putting up with you.”
We eyed one another but there was an unmistakable buzz of amusement flowing from him toward me and it irked me even more.
“What are you smirking at?” I snapped, spinning to leave my bedroom. My face was hot. I didn’t bother to see if he would follow me but I could sense him close behind me.
“So?” he drawled when he caught up with me outside. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
He used the key fob to unlock his Saab and I glared at the car as if it was somehow responsible for my irritation. In some way, it was. It must be nice to have his parents pay for everything when I still had to work part-time at the Flying Pig to purchase my texts.
“Going home for Christmas?”
I sighed heavily and slipped into the passenger seat as he held the door open for me, barely noticing that it was an act of chivalry. I guess I’d gotten used to it over the past couple years. I didn’t think myself special—he did it by rote. To Mal, any female in his car had to be easy prey. He didn’t mean to put on airs for me—he was just thinking with the wrong head as always.
“So what if I am?” I sighed. He wasn’t listening to me at all. “You need to stop calling me.”
He closed the door without responding until he got into the driver’s side.
“You texted me first,” he reminded me but I had no idea what he was talking about.
“What? What does that mean?”
It sounded like a childish, stupid cop out but I was curious to know what he meant.
“That first summer—you texted me first. Looking for Grayson after the cops got called to their place.”
My spine became a steel rod.
“That was your sister being a drama queen,” I told him stiffly and he frowned, backing out of my driveway.
“Your brother has a temper,” he retorted. “The neighbors had every right to call the cops on him.”
“They made it into a bigger thing than it was!” I insisted. “Your sister just turned on the waterworks and they took her side as all idiot men do!”
“Your brother is an asshole!” Mal exploded.
“Your sister is a bitch!”
We glowered in silence for a long moment and didn’t speak again until we parked in front of Trevor’s house. Mal turned off the car and looked at me but I already was reaching for the door handle. It was suddenly suffocating inside the vehicle but before I could move, Mal spoke.
“Blake, this is kind of stupid, don’t you think?”
I stared at him, my fingers still entwined in the handle.
You’re kind of stupid, don’t you think? a childish voice in my head countered but I managed to suppress it.
“What? That your sister is a diva? I agree.”
The corners of his mouth tucked in and he lowered his eyes. I could see he wanted to fight but to my surprise, he managed to keep his composure.
“It’s not really on us to argue about Ella and Grayson’s relationship, is it? We’re not there. We don’t know what’s happening behind closed doors and they keep going back to it so they must love each other.”
“Your sister has him wrapped around her little finger!” I exploded. “Of course he keeps going back! He wants to make it work because that’s the kind of guy he is! I wouldn’t expect you to understand that!”
Malcolm’s eyes grew smaller.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
I smiled mirthlessly.
“Really? I need to spell it out for you? You’ve never been in a relationship in your entire life. To you, women are dispensable, replaceable.”
Mal scoffed at me.
“At least I experience life, Blake. I don’t hole myself up and let the world pass me by. At least I’ve been laid!”
My mouth parted but no words came out as I gaped at him in humiliation. My first instinct was to lie and tell him that I had been laid too but I didn’t. Maybe man-whores like Malcolm Laurier could smell a virgin from a mile away. Anyway, it was none of his damned business. We weren’t even friends!
Instead of answering, I reached to open the door and let myself out but I heard Mal sigh behind me.
“Blake…”
I didn’t turn around. He could screw himself or one of his rolodex of insecure sorority girls for all I cared. I was done talking to Malcolm. I had no idea why I’d wasted half of my college career indulging his stupid calls.
“Hey, I’m sorry!” he yelled out but I had already slammed the door and made my way up the steps toward Trevor’s house.
“Finally!” our host announced, looking over my shoulder where Mal was getting out of the car. “Matt’s already here. What took you so long? Did you two finally get it on?”
I glared at him and
pushed my way inside.
“Not likely,” I growled. “I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole.”
“Yeah right,” Trevor chuckled. “I see the way you two look at each other.”
I was stunned by the words but I didn’t say anything, mainly because I didn’t know what to say to that.
We didn’t look at each other like anything. He was a Laurier. I had no interest in falling into the same trap as my brother—especially not with a jerk like Malcolm.
“You’re wrong,” I finally managed to say, kicking off my shoes. “Where’s Matt?”
“Living room.”
I turned toward the living room, deliberately casting my eyes away from both Trevor and Mal. I wanted to put as much distance between me and them as possible. If I could have, I would have turned from the house and left but I cared about my grade too much. As far as I was concerned, they could both screw each other. I was done with Mal—for good. I didn’t care how many times he called me. He and his sister were the devil as far as I was concerned.
I had more important things to worry about.
Like graduation in five months.
6
Mal
Seven and a Half Years Ago
I didn’t see much of Blake after winter break. She didn’t take any of my calls while we were home for Christmas but I had half expected that. I’m not sure why I felt the need to make things right with her when she was the one being unreasonable. Whatever was going on with our siblings really wasn’t our concern, after all. The sense of loyalty I had toward Ella shouldn’t affect my relationships…should it? If anything, I had the right to be angrier than Blake when her brother was the one at fault.
I would be staying at Berkeley to do my master’s in chemical engineering and I’d heard through mutual friends that Blake had received a job offer in Silicon Valley but I didn’t know the specifics. I hoped she’d do well in whatever it was she was doing. I knew she would—she was brilliant. Blake was graduating top of our class and valedictorian. I wanted to call and congratulate her but I’d gotten her message loud and clear—she didn’t want anything to do with me and I had to accept that. It wasn’t like we’d been dating or anything.
Still, it bothered me the way we’d left things between us. I mean, I wouldn’t have called us friends or anything but at least we knew each other better than we had in high school. If things had been different between our families, maybe things might have been different between us too.
Or maybe if she didn’t think of me as such a pig, I mused. It annoyed me more than I wanted to admit that she thought of me like that but I couldn’t really change her mind if she was determined to hate me. Guiltily, I recalled that I had always seen her as a nerd too. We probably never had a chance to know each other—we were too different, even if we had a lot in common.
I started looking at it as a blessing in disguise. I’d managed to keep the fact that I’d been kind of hanging out with her from my parents but I knew it wouldn’t be well-received by my parents any more than it had been by Blake’s.
So, life went on. I held fast to my 4.0 GPA and finished the soccer season. I was graduating Summa Cum Laude as I had expected. I had a future in California now even if I did miss the snow of Colorado.
It was a week before graduation when I found myself at a frat party, half in the bag and talking to a girl whose name completely evaded me.
She was pretty in a trailer park kind way, fleshy blonde hair and too much eye makeup. She didn’t really fit the grove of Berkeley and I guessed she was an invite, not a student but if I’d asked, I didn’t remember her answer. I didn’t care enough about what she had to say, really. I was too busy wondering what she’d look like bent over from behind.
“…and then she said, ‘Well, I’m not going if you’re not, Katie’ and I said…”
Katie. That was her name.
I tuned her out again after that, watching the way her rosebud mouth moved as I raised the red plastic cup to my lips again, relishing the warm feeling of alcohol coursing through my veins.
Then, I thought I was hallucinating, that the beer had been laced with LSD or peyote or some shit because Blake Mavis had walked into the crowded common room. And not only that, she was with a guy. A good-looking guy at that.
“What the fuck?” I mumbled. Katie looked at me, nodding.
“I know, right? I said the same thing,” she confided and I realized that she was still going on her story about God only knows. She had mistaken my exclamation as interest in her tale.
“Excuse me,” I said, rising from the sofa, cutting her off in mid-sentence. Her brow furrowed.
“Where are you going?” Katie demanded, trying to follow my eyes.
“I gotta piss,” I lied, heading away from her. I was a little drunk, yes but I needed to get closer to Blake and make sure I wasn’t seeing things. I had never seen her at a party in the last four years, never mind a frat party. And with a man? I had to be imagining things.
Yet as I drew closer, I saw her date take her arm and whisper something in her ear. She adjusted her glasses nervously and nodded, offering him a tentative smile. I watched him walk away before ambling toward her.
I blame the alcohol for what happened next. It was easier than accepting that a weird sense of jealousy had overtaken me.
“Well. This is the last place I would expect Pollyanna,” I slurred at her. “Actually living a little before you graduate?”
She looked at me and exhaled but she didn’t seem surprised to see me there.
“What do you want, Malcolm?”
“Oh. It’s Malcolm now. We’re that far gone, are we?”
There was a combination of surprise and disgust on her face.
“What do you mean, ‘we’? There is no ‘we’.”
I was humiliated, mostly because she said it so loudly and with so much conviction. Thankfully, the din made it impossible for anyone around us to hear the conversation. The beer pong at a nearby table drowned out any excess words flittering through the room. I regretted approaching her and I instantly turned around, wishing I could go back two minutes to think about my actions before I’d acted on them. I should have just taken Katie upstairs and ignored Blake altogether.
As if it was that easy.
“Sorry I bothered you, Blake.”
As I moved back to where Katie was glaring at me from the couch, Blake called out to me.
“Congrats on your master’s.”
I paused and peered at her over my shoulder. A fission of pleasure snaked down my spine.
“You heard?” I asked with surprise.
She shrugged, looking down.
“Maybe. In passing, someone may have said something.” She was lying. I could tell because she couldn’t make eye contact. I knew her tells. She’d asked about me. I pivoted back to look at her.
“Thanks. I heard you’re valedictorian.” I hesitated before adding, “I asked about you.”
She jerked her head up and looked at me sheepishly.
“Thanks.”
“You earned it. I’ve never met anyone who worked harder than you, Blake.”
Her date reappeared, two cups in his hand and he gave me a curious look.
“Hey,” he said, handing Blake a drink. She took it and guzzled it back.
“Hey,” I replied. “Malcolm Laurier.”
The guy’s eyes brightened.
“Oh sure! You’re on the soccer team with my cousin Brett.”
“Right. Brett. Good guy.”
Brett was a douchebag. I wondered if that trait ran in the family because I instantly didn’t like this guy.
“Ryan Henderson.”
We nodded at each other.
“Anyway,” I said, suddenly uncomfortable. “I just wanted to say ‘hi’. Enjoy the party.”
“Mal…”
My eyes locked with Blake’s and she smile lopsidedly.
“Hm?”
“See you at graduation?”
I nodded.
“It should be fun. The entire fam will be down.”
A slight shadow crossed her face but she maintained her smile.
“Mine too. Maybe we should take bets on who snaps first.”
I cringed at the idea that the Montagues and Capulets might go at it during the most important day of our lives to date. Of course it hadn’t stopped them at Ella’s wedding. Why should a little thing like a graduation hold them back?
“I’ll handle mine if you handle yours,” I suggested, only half-kidding. I’d need to have a discussion with my side to ensure they didn’t make it ugly although I had to wonder where Grayson and Ella would sit.
I was getting a headache thinking about it.
“You have the better end of the deal. Your parents are saner than mine,” Blake told me but I wasn’t sure that was true.
“I guess you two know each other then?” Ryan asked, interjecting. He didn’t seem to like being kept out of the loop. Blake turned to him apologetically.
“We’re from the same town.”
“And my sister is married to her brother.”
Ryan’s face relaxed slightly.
“Oh! So you’re family.”
“NO!” we shouted in unison, both of us apparently creeped out by the idea that we were related, even by law. I was glad the idea troubled Blake as much as it did me.
“I should go,” I said, nodding toward Katie.
“Of course,” Blake chimed. “You wouldn’t want to keep your latest squeeze waiting.”
“She’s not a squeeze!” I shot back before I could stop myself but there was an amused twinkle in her eye which told me she knew exactly what she was doing to rouse my annoyance. She was good at it, after all. She’d been at it for years. We may never have been friends but we certainly knew how to push each other’s buttons like only friends could.
“Oh. My mistake.” There was a lilt to her tone which made me think that she was trying to start a fight with me on purpose but of course that was ridiculous. She was on a date. Blake Mavis was on a date. In a frat house.
Did she know I was going to be here tonight? Is this a show for me?
I was going to switch to water. I wasn’t thinking clearly if I thought Blake gave a rat’s ass about my opinion on any matter.