by Carrie Secor
Shane entered his bedroom, then collapsed facedown on his bed, his limbs hanging over the edge of the mattress. He could feel himself starting to drift off to sleep when—
“Hey.”
Shane started and turned his head toward the doorway. His sister stood leaning against the door frame. “Hey,” he said guardedly.
“Can I come in?”
He rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. “When have you ever asked before?”
“Is that a yes?”
Shane gestured around the room. “Be my guest.”
Felicia crossed the threshold and sat in his desk chair. Shane was reminded momentarily of how, only a few short weeks ago, he had sat in that chair and Cadie had been on his bed. And he had hijacked her raspberry lip balm.
“Cadie drove me home today,” Felicia announced.
Shane stared at her. “And?”
She glared at him. “And… we talked. And I think that—I’m kind of okay with you and Cadie dating.”
“You’re kind of okay with me and Cadie dating?” Shane repeated. “Is that a blessing of some sort?”
“Look, this is uncomfortable enough for me as it is so I really don’t want to go into too much detail. I’m just saying, I see that maybe you two actually like each other. And it’s possible that your hooking up had nothing to do with me.”
“Slightly possible.”
“So, I’m not thrilled about it, but if you and Cadie want to date or whatever, I’m not going to stop you. And I’ll try to keep my comments to a minimum, but I’m not promising anything.”
Shane’s pulse had sped up while she was talking, but even as he heard her words, he could see that she was nervous about something. Felicia tucked a loose strand of hair absently behind her ear and folded her hands primly in her lap. For a moment, Shane might have believed he was looking at a Felicia from years and years ago, not at her sixteen-year-old self. For a moment, she looked very young.
Almost like his little sister.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I honestly don’t think I can.”
“What do you mean?”
“If it’s going to upset you that much, I really don’t think that I can do it. I like Cadie, but you’re more important to me. I can’t date Cadie.”
“Shane, I appreciate what you’re doing, but I’m telling you that it’s seriously okay.” Felicia looked at him. “I don’t want to be the one who says that you can’t be together.”
He paused. “Well, thanks. I’ll take that into consideration.”
She stood from his chair and left the room without another word. Shane lay down on his bed again, this time on his back, wondering what was going on with his sister. She was not behaving like her ordinary self. He suspected it might have had something to do with Elliot, but his mind did not want to fully grasp that thought. Before he could think too much about it, he fell into a deep sleep.
It was past midnight on Thursday, but Cadie still lay awake, a legal pad beside her in her bed. More often than not she hand-wrote sections of her novel, then later transcribed them in Microsoft Word on the computer downstairs. For some reason she just seemed to write better with a pen in her hand. She was so enthralled in what she was writing that she thought she could even hear her heart beating.
She stopped writing and listened. It was not her heart beating—it was something tapping against the side of the house. She sat up in bed, nervously peering out the window that overlooked the Dawsons’ driveway.
To her utter disbelief, Shane was standing between the Ford and her dad’s Nissan. She watched in horror as he drew back and threw another pebble toward the house—right toward her parents’ window.
Cadie waved furiously at him, but he did not see her. His eyes were trained on the window next to hers, which he obviously thought belonged to her bedroom. She did not want to risk opening the window and saying something to him, lest her parents overhear. She was hoping they had not woken up already.
Cadie made a quick decision, throwing the covers aside and jumping out of bed. She dashed downstairs as quietly as she could to their family room, where the sliding glass door led to their back patio. A pair of Melody’s flip flops lay abandoned inside the door and Cadie slipped them on. She felt slightly self-conscious slipping out into the night wearing only a pair of tattered yoga pants and a tank top, but she nervously tiptoed to the corner of the house and peered into the driveway, where Shane was rearing back to throw another pebble.
“Shane!” she hissed loudly.
He dropped his handful of pebbles, which made a louder clattering sound than Cadie would have preferred under the circumstances. Shane whirled around to look for her. He saw her, then glanced back at the window, then jogged over to her. “Why didn’t you come to the window?” he whispered.
“I came to my window. You were throwing rocks at my parents’ window.”
He looked confusedly up at her house. “I thought your window was on the left.”
“It is on the left. I mean,” she corrected herself, “from inside the house, my room is to the left of my parents’ room. But when you’re standing in the driveway, it’s the one on the right.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know that?” he asked irritably.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I tried! Your phone is off!”
“Oh, right.” Cadie always shut off her phone before she went to bed. She looked into the driveway again. “Did you drive here?”
“No. The Camaro’s engine is too loud. I rode my bike.”
“Shane, it’s a mile and a half.”
“Cadie, I run farther than that at practice every day.”
“Shane, there are no street lights.”
“Cadie—I lied, I rode Felicia’s bike. She has a light.”
“Shane—Felicia’s bike also has pink ribbons on the handlebars.”
“Cadie, then I guess it’s a good thing there are no street lights and nobody saw me.” He smirked at her.
She rubbed her arms anxiously with her hands.
He nodded at her house. “Go inside and grab a sweatshirt. I’ll wait,” he said, correctly interpreting her gesture as a sign that she was cold.
Cadie looked up at him. For a second she might have believed everything in the last week had not happened, and they were still standing in Amanda’s darkened bathroom. He was looking at her the same way. Then reality came crashing back over her, and she remembered that they had not even spoken to each other in days—and probably should not be speaking to each other now.
Cadie made another quick decision, perhaps against her better judgment. She glanced back at the house, then tapped him on the arm. “Come on,” she said, heading toward the sliding glass door.
Shane did not move. “I’m not going in there,” he responded. “Your dad’s bigger than me.”
“He’s asleep.”
“Maybe he was before, but I just spent twenty minutes throwing rocks at his window.”
“Melody and I set off bottle rockets on the Fourth of July and he slept through that. And he was sleeping in the hammock right next to us.”
Shane reluctantly followed her through the sliding glass door into the house. Cadie had a sense of déjà-vu as the two of them crept stealthily downstairs; she had done this with Tom on more than one occasion.
“So… I guess I never asked you what you were actually doing here,” Cadie said when they reached the den. She switched on the lamp that was next to the doorway; the room did not have an overhead light. “And what was so important that it couldn’t wait until daylight.”
“I fell asleep right after practice for a couple hours. Then I couldn’t sleep when it was actually time to sleep.” He sat on the couch. “And I wanted to talk to you.”
Cadie stayed standing by the lamp. “Okay… about what?”
“I know you talked to Felicia yesterday,” Shane said. “I talked to her too. She told me that she was okay with the two of us dating.�
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Cadie looked at her feet. “Yeah, she told me the same thing.”
“And I told her that I could never do anything to upset her, so there’s no way that we would start dating.”
She felt as if she had been stabbed with something very, very sharp. “I told her the same thing,” she said coolly.
“So I just wanted to come here and tell you that,” he said smoothly. “You know, that we can’t see each other. Because of Felicia.”
“So you came here to—what? Break up with me?” Cadie folded her arms across her chest.
“Of course not. Just to make sure we’re on the same page.”
“We are definitely on the same page,” Cadie agreed.
“Good.” Shane stood. “I guess I’ll just leave you to it, then.” He started to walk toward the door but stopped when he reached Cadie, who was still standing beside the lamp. “So, we’re not going to start dating.”
Cadie nodded without looking at him. “It looks that way.”
“That’s too bad, because—I brought you this.” From the back of his jeans, he extracted a folded blue shirt. Cadie knew without seeing the front that it would be identical to the one that Stacy wore every week to support Will.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “If you came here to tell me that we couldn’t see each other, why did you bring me the girlfriend shirt?”
“To be honest, I was hoping you’d disagree with me,” he admitted. He held the shirt out to her. “Here.”
She took a step back. “You rode your bike here with that thing in your pants. I’m not touching it. That’s disgusting.”
He tossed it at her head. She let out a little shriek and sidestepped the shirt to avoid letting it touch her face. Shane had pulled her to him and kissed her before the shirt even touched the floor.
They made out for awhile, standing silhouetted against the dim lamp light. Cadie was not sure how much time had passed when she finally pulled away. “You should go,” she said, a little breathlessly. “You can’t stay here.”
“I know,” he murmured.
They heard a soft rumbling sound in the distance and broke apart. As they listened, they could hear rain drops pattering against the tiny window on the other side of the den.
Shane’s shoulders sagged visibly. “Great.”
They climbed the stairs silently and Cadie stood just inside as Shane slipped back out through the sliding glass door into the night. It was raining harder now, rain drops leaving fat spots on the cement patio.
“I have a rain coat if you want it,” Cadie offered. “It’s purple.”
“That’s okay, I’m riding home on a bike with pink ribbons. I don’t think I can take any more testosterone for the evening.” He pointed at her. “You’ll wear the shirt tomorrow?”
“You mean your nasty pants shirt? I doubt it.”
“That’s why God invented Febreze.” He ran off to the side of the house to retrieve Felicia’s bike before Cadie could think of a retort. Lightning flashed in the distance.
Twenty-one
The rain did not let up through the next day. There was talk that the football game might be postponed—or, worse yet, cancelled—if the weather did not cooperate, but it was only talk. When school let out that afternoon, the game, and the rain, were both still on.
The treacherous weather had made attending the game that evening a less than delightful experience. The band had performed pre-game, but the rain had started to collect on the astro-turf, and Mr. Bell had made the last minute decision that they would not march the show; instead, they had played standing in a half-circle on the track. The band members had practically drowned, not only in the downpour but in the massive rain coats they wore to protect their uniforms.
The cheerleaders had abandoned their cute skirts in favor of wind pants underneath clear plastic rain jackets. Their pom-poms had been cast aside in a pile on the track, covered by a spare rain jacket for protection. Most of the girls had not let the weather deter their peppiness, but Susan looked about as cheerful as she might if someone had tied a drowned rat to her head. Cadie thought that her sopping wet hair also lent to the appearance of literally having a drowned rat tied to her head.
And to top it all off, the team had lost, 27-17. It was their first loss of the season. As Cadie approached the front door of Adam’s house, where the festivities for the evening were to take place, she expected to walk into an extremely dejected and moderately damp atmosphere.
On the contrary, there was very little difference between the ambiance at this party and the two she had attended previously. Actually, she found it to be a little more friendly and welcoming, since more people greeted her when she walked through the door. Her hair was wet and her bangs were matted to her forehead as she followed the hallway to the kitchen, where she found Shane by the keg. His hair was completely dry, though it was sticking straight out of his head, as if he had stuck his head under an automatic hand dryer in the guys’ locker room after the game. Cadie suspected this was exactly what he had done.
He gave her the once-over as she approached. “Your hair is crazy,” he pointed out unnecessarily.
“Look who’s talking,” she responded.
They kissed. Shane smacked his lips together a few times after they drew apart. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Orange?” he guessed.
“Yeah. I can’t find my raspberry one.”
“So, guess who decided to come to this party,” Shane said, taking her by the hand and leading her into the living room off the kitchen.
“Who?”
They entered the living room. Felicia and Elliot were standing by the fireplace. They waved in greeting as Shane and Cadie crossed the room toward them. Out of the corner of her eye, Cadie saw Lauren Andrews staring at Felicia and Elliot with an expression on her face that might have been jealousy.
“What are you guys doing here?” Cadie asked. “You didn’t even come to the game.”
“I can’t believe you went to that game,” Felicia shot back. “I’m all for trying on the supportive sister hat, but I have my limits.”
“Since when have you worn a supportive sister hat?” Shane asked incredulously.
“Since today,” Felicia answered moodily.
“Well, I kind of had to go to the game. I was wearing the supportive girlfriend hat,” Cadie pointed out.
“It’s a shirt, isn’t it?” Elliot replied.
“And technically,” Cadie continued, “Melody was at the game too, so I was also obligated to wear the supportive sister hat. I kind of had my foot in both camps.”
“But technically, your sister performed pre-game, so after you’d done your supportive sister duty, you wouldn’t need to be in that camp anymore.”
“Okay, there are too many metaphors in this room,” Shane cut in.
“For real,” Elliot agreed. “I need to get the hell out of here.”
“Quarter,” Felicia announced.
“Are you seriously still doing that?” Elliot asked.
“It’s still vulgar. So yes.”
“I don’t think you want people charging you every time you do something they think is vulgar. Otherwise you and I would both have a bunch of irate conservatives knocking down our doors demanding a lot more than a quarter.”
Everyone was saved from a response when Will and Stacy approached them. “Hey, man,” Will said to Shane as Stacy hugged Cadie and kissed her on the cheek, “we’re setting up a poker game in the dining room, without Zack and Ryan, of course. Are you in?”
Shane glanced at Cadie, then shrugged. “Why not?”
As the six of them headed toward the dining room, Cadie caught sight of Melody coming through the front door with Lucas. She raised her arm at them and beckoned them to come over, while the others made their way into the dining room. “I didn’t think you guys would be here tonight,” she commented. Cadie noticed that Melody had a giant grin on her face. “What are you so happy about?”
“I talked to Susan,” Melody annou
nced.
Cadie raised her eyebrows. “You’re that happy because of a conversation with Susan?”
“She apologized. And she told me that she and Andy didn’t have sex.”
“You shouldn’t care about that, remember?” Cadie glanced pointedly at Lucas.
Melody tapped Lucas a few times on the arm with the back of her hand. “Tell Cadie why that makes me so happy.”
Lucas looked at Cadie. “Susan said that Andy couldn’t get it up.”
Cadie laughed, then composed herself. “Susan could have just made that up to save face,” she reasoned.
“She certainly could have. But that won’t stop me from telling everyone about it.”
Cadie shook her head and clucked her tongue. “I don’t know, Melody. He’s had kind of a rough week.”
“We figure this might actually help him out,” Lucas spoke up. “Better to have ED than VD, isn’t it?”
Shane poked his head through the doorway from the dining room. His hair arrived about thirty seconds before his face did. “Cadie, are you coming? I might need your help.”
“Excuse me, who said I was helping you?” she shot back, walking over. “I’d like the opportunity to win some cash without having to share it with you.”
“You’ll never beat Will,” Shane answered. “You said yourself he was too hard to read.”
“Maybe I was just telling you that,” Cadie said smoothly, crossing the threshold into the dining room.
“I might even play,” Elliot said, sitting down at the large dining table next to Adam, who was beside Tyson. Felicia stayed standing in the corner next to an ornate wooden china cabinet. “I think I can at least weasel some money out of Shane.”
Shane threw up his hands helplessly. “Why is everybody ganging up on me?”
“Well, I know that you can’t lie to save your life.”
“How would you even know that?” Shane retorted. “We’ve never played poker together.”
“Watch this,” Elliot said to Cadie. She turned back to Shane. “Shane, have you ever nicknamed your penis?”