The Truth About Boys: A Stolen Kiss Novel

by Shana Norris

  The Stolen Kiss Collection

  Shana Norris

  The Boyfriend Thief

  The Secrets Between You and Me

  The Truth About Boys

  One Week: A Boyfriend Thief Short Story

  THE TRUTH ABOUT BOYS

  Text © 2016 Shana Norris

  Cover photograph © 2016 Patrycja Rusin

  Author photo © Shana Norris

  Cover design © 2016 Paper Lantern Lit

  Cover design by Isabela Montalvo

  Interior design by McLin Publishing

  eBook files by Pronoun

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without the permission of the publisher. To do so constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for brief passages for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at marketing@paperlanternlit.com

  Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Paper Lantern Lit, LLC

  The Studio

  Brooklyn, New York

  www.paperlanternlit.com

  First e-book edition: February 2016

  ISBN 978-1-518-303807

  To Karen and April, my two BFFs growing up, who helped me figure out a few truths about boys and life.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Read a special excerpt of The Secrets Between You and Me

  Praise for the Boyfriend Thief

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Check out all The Studio eBooks

  Chapter 1

  The party was missing only one thing: music.

  I hit the button and turned on my mic. “All right, Haley, are you ready to party?” I yelled, my voice flooding the cavernous Shriner’s Club. The gaggle of girls on the middle of the dance floor screamed, while the smaller—and definitely more awkward—group of boys glued to the edge of the dance floor just kind of nodded in my direction.

  With one tap of my finger, Taylor Swift’s head-bopping beat pounded through the speakers. The girls started to dance around, their hair flinging around their faces as they sang along at the top of their lungs to “Shake It Off.” I even caught one of the boys mouthing the words.

  “Busted,” I called over the mic, pointing at him. He turned redder than the plastic tablecloth on the drinks table. “Let it out! It’s Haley’s birthday!”

  The boy shrugged and started to dance.

  I smiled wide at the scene in front of me. The Shriner’s Club usually felt pretty stuffy, with deer heads and pictures of old guys in red felt hats mounted on the walls, but Haley and her parents had turned it into the perfect spot for a thirteen-year-old girl’s dream birthday party. Colorful lights flashed over the gray concrete floor and brightly wrapped gifts were stacked on long tables. Someone had even put a cheesy polka-dotted birthday hat on one of the deer heads.

  My DJ booth wasn’t the most sophisticated thing in the world—the rented speakers were pretty scuffed up, and the soundboard had more than a few Garcia Bear stickers on it—but it did the job. Considering that Haley’s party was my fifteenth successful gig since I’d started Mega Watts Mobile DJ Service before senior year was over, I’d say my DJ booth was doing the job really well. Though competition wasn’t exactly fierce, considering I’m the only teen girl to own a DJ service in Asheville.

  I got to make awkward boys dance to Taylor Swift. What could be better than that?

  I spotted my friend, Hannah Cohen, by the cake table, standing on her tiptoes to kiss her treelike boyfriend, Jude Westmore. Next to them, Hannah’s aunt, Lydia Montgomery, rolled her eyes, but even from a distance I could see that the corners of her mouth were curled in a smile, her eyes sparkling.

  I was so eager to talk to Hannah, I felt flutters in my stomach—well, maybe they were actually bubbles from all the soda I’d been pounding since I’d gotten there, but still. As Hannah herself would phrase it, I was positively dying to see her. After making sure that my next two songs were queued up, I pressed myself out from behind my DJ booth and skirted right through the bobbing girls to see my friend.

  “Hey, Kate,” Hannah greeted me with a big hug, squeezing me until I squeezed her back just as hard. It’d been almost a year since I’d seen her in person, but we’d been Facetiming practically every night since she left her Aunt Lydia’s at the end of last summer to go back home to Willowbrook for her senior year. Between my day shift at Mountain Dairy and my nighttime DJ gigs—plus Hannah splitting her time between Aunt Lydia and Jude, who would be leaving town soon for his next station at an army base in Texas—getting together had been nearly impossible.

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m so happy to see you guys here tonight!”

  “If I didn’t come, I’d never hear the end of it from Vicki,” Lydia said, rolling her eyes. Lydia and the birthday girl’s mom were good friends, and Lydia had recommended me for the DJ gig. “I figured I’d stop in for a bit, have some cake, drop off my gift, and then get back home to some peace and quiet.”

  I pretended to be offended, crossing my arms over my chest and pouting. “What? Are you saying you don’t like my playlist?”

  Lydia patted my shoulder. “It’s not you, Kate. You’re doing a great job. It’s just me and my old fogey taste.”

  We laughed. Jude curled his arm around Lydia’s shoulder, giving her one of those awkward side-hugs. I reached between them and served myself a square of cake topped with a thick layer of pink and white frosting. I savored the rush of sugar as it tickled its way down my throat.

  “So you guys are leaving tomorrow?” I asked, looking between Hannah and Jude.

  Hannah nodded, then wiped a bit of frosting off my face with her manicured hand. “Jude is headed for Texas, and I have some things I need to do back home before the semester begins.”

  “I knew you’d fall in love with Asheville, Hannah,” I mumbled through a mouthful of cake. Jude playfully elbowed Hannah’s side and waggled his eyebrows at her while she pretended to push him away.

  Right—Hannah fell in love with a little more than just Asheville. Jude never let her forget it.

  “Your Grandpa tells me you’re going to Greensboro, Kate?” Lydia asked, pointedly widening her eyes as Jude bent down to kiss Hannah on the tip of her nose.

  “Yep!” I said breathlessly. “Hannah and I will only be a few hours away from each oth—”

  “How is your grandfather doing?” Lydia interrupted, her forehead creasing in concern.

  The cake turned to lead in my stomach. I
pushed what was left of it around on my plate, trying to avoid the concern on Lydia’s face. Pop had been battling some lung issues for the last few years, which didn’t seem to be getting any better.

  “He’s okay,” I said. “Still as stubborn as usual.” Eager to change the subject, I nodded to Jude, who snapped up straight in mock salute. “The army look suits you, Westmore.”

  Jude’s cheeks reddened in the dim light. “Thanks, Watts.” He ran a hand over his clean-shaven head. It was still strange to see him without the “shaggy-loner” hair he had when he first met Hannah, but he did look much more distinguished and mature like this. “It does suit me. Plus, Hannah likes it.”

  “Except for the fact that it reminds me you’ll be in Texas,” Hannah said, pasting a frown on her face.

  “That’s what they make Skype for,” Lydia piped up. “Consider yourselves lucky. We didn’t have that when I was your age. We had to suffer through the separation.”

  “Too bad for you old fogeys,” I teased.

  I turned back to Hannah, who was looking up at Jude. Their hands clasped tightly, it was like they were both in another world—or like they weren’t aware that the world was happening around them. I couldn’t help but smile. Hannah was so different from the girl I’d met when she first came to Asheville last summer. “New Hannah,” as she called herself, was more laid back and definitely, definitely happier. Even Jude was a completely changed person from the quiet loner he’d become after his brother passed away.

  I couldn’t wait to see what the future might bring for them.

  A heavy clunk told me that the song was changing. But instead of Demi Lovato’s “Cool for the Summer,” all I heard was a bunch of weird electro noises—metallic screeches, alien beeps, loud static. It sounded like a robot being tortured.

  “What is that?” I said, dumping my pink paper plate in Jude’s hands before spinning around to push my way through the crowd back toward my DJ booth.

  When I shoved past the last gangly middle-schooler in front of me, I spotted a lanky, spiky-haired blonde guy in a gray plaid shirt bent over my soundboard, his fingers pushing at buttons and sliding volume controls up and down.

  Oh, no. He was not touching my equipment.

  “You have two seconds to get your hands off my equipment before I break them,” I snapped. But instead of actually waiting two seconds, I pushed behind my booth and knocked the guy out of my way with my hip. I jabbed at the soundboard with one hand, and I pulled the cord out of his phone—which he’d hooked up to my laptop—with my other hand. Then I quickly restarted my playlist before the teenyboppers on the floor could say we had ruined their whip and nae nae.

  “Your music sucks,” the guy told me, pushing his black-rimmed glasses farther up his nose. He still stood behind the booth with me, his body so close to mine I could feel the warmth of his skin in the already hot room. “Taylor Swift? Really?”

  “It’s a birthday party for a thirteen-year-old girl,” I retorted, sneering at him. “A good DJ knows her audience. And thirteen-year-old girls want to hear Taylor Swift. Plus, pretty much everyone agrees that she’s a great songwriter.”

  The guy reached past me and swiped at the keyboard on my laptop, stopping my music once again. “Well, the rest of the audience wants to hear something else at least once tonight.” He clicked on another song in my playlist. “What’s this? ‘Summer Rush’? Who’s that by?”

  I smacked his hand away and blocked it with my elbow before he could do anymore damage. “Summer Rush” was one of the songs I’d remixed myself, but I wasn’t about to let him know that.

  “Is this your birthday party?” I demanded. “Because you’re definitely acting like a teenage girl. And you are about to get seriously hurt if you touch my music one more time.”

  He laughed and crossed his arms, his sleeves riding up to reveal a wrist full of brown leather and braided twine bracelets. “You don’t look like you could hurt a flea.”

  “I’ll—I’ll call security,” I stammered. He let out one quick, loud laugh before rolling his eyes at me.

  “Oh, you mean that kid over there?” he asked, nodding his head to one of boys by the dessert table. It looked like he and his friends were taking turns flinging forkfuls of cake into the punch bowl. “I’m literally shaking.”

  I shot Flannel-Boy my hardest glare. Who did this guy think he was? I’d had my share of know-it-alls ever since I’d started Mega Watts Mobile DJ—people who got too close to the equipment, or a tipsy dad who just wanted to ask a million questions about how everything worked. But this guy was beyond curious. He was invasive. My number one rule was that no one else touched my equipment. I couldn’t afford to replace the soundboard and speakers if anything happened to them.

  “Whatever,” I said quietly. “You shouldn’t be back here. This is expensive equipment.”

  He rolled his green eyes again. A bright, brilliant green, like the summer treetops all along the mountains outside. “Think I’ll break something?”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” I said, turning away from him to adjust the sound for the girls still dancing. Hannah shot me a look from across the room. I felt myself blush—Hannah or our best friend Ashton would accuse me of being harsh. “It’s just … you just never know,” I said. A red-haired girl swished her skirt at a boy on the edge of the dance floor. “These things get damaged easily. Or stolen.”

  I glanced back at him, and I saw that his easygoing expression had clouded over. His jaw twitched and he tugged at the collar of his plaid button-up, which hung unbuttoned over a wrinkly green Porky’s Last Stand Barbecue T-shirt.

  “I’m not a thief,” he muttered.

  “I didn’t—” I said, cutting myself off. I didn’t need to explain myself to this random guy. “Just do me a favor and stay away from the equipment.”

  “Fine.” He ducked under the table, over the wires and cables, and emerged on the other side, suddenly smirking at me. “Who would have thought a DJ could be so uptight?”

  My mouth dropped open. “You don’t even know me.”

  His smile grew so wide, it looked like it was going to be swallowed by his dimples. “I know your type. Uptight, goody-goody. Apple of your daddy’s eye.”

  His words stung hot prickles all over my body. I barely even knew my dad. He was a one-night stand my mom had had at seventeen and then there I was, nine months later.

  “Yo, Rory!” a voice called over the music. I barely noticed that a guy had walked up to the booth. He smoothed his blonde hair down then motioned for Flannel-Boy to follow him. “We’re heading home,” he called, turning toward a pretty woman wearing a blue sundress at his side.

  “Good,” I spat. “Go away before you break something. I don’t need juvenile delinquents messing up the equipment.”

  “Fine,” Flannel-Boy said. He took a step back. “I deleted your Rebecca Black stuff, by the way. Consider it a favor.”

  My blood boiled, but he was already walking away. No one talked bad about my music. Music was my life. I could play guitar and piano, and I spent hours in my room remixing popular music into new melodies of my own creation. I was going to college for four years just to study music.

  “What are you even doing here then?” I shouted at him, ignoring the surprised looks of the people standing near my booth. “If you hate the music so much?”

  He looked back at me long enough to say, “Crashed the wrong party, apparently.”

  Chapter 2

  The light was on in the den when I pulled into the driveway after the party. I glanced at the glowing clock on my dashboard. It was 12:07 a.m. Too late for him to stay up, but of course he would wait up for me. Ever since I’d started DJing late nights, he always waited up for me to make sure I got back home in one piece. I tried to tell him that I wasn’t going to get attacked by groups of teenage girls—I shouldn’t have ever shown him the YouTube video of Justin Bieber fangirls.

  I opened and shut the door quietly behind me. Pop’s head peeked over the top of t
he old worn recliner in front of the TV, which was on, the volume muted. Even without seeing it, I knew that the newspaper was in his lap, open to the crossword puzzle. I took my shoes off in the doorway and padded over to him.

  “How did it go?” Pop asked, looking up at me over his thick reading glasses.

  I kissed the top of his head, smoothing back the wispy graying hairs. Flannel Boy’s comment exploded in my mind again with a whole new rage. How dare he.

  “Fine,” I said, stifling my anger. Pop didn’t need to know about any of my DJ drama. He already worried over me too much, even though I would be leaving for college in two months. “A little boring. It was a thirteen-year-old’s party, after all.”

  Pop gestured toward the kitchen, which was visible through the den doorway. There was a plate of eggplant parmesan, complete with a napkin, fork, and knife on the kitchen table.

  “We saved you some dinner,” he said. His face crinkled into a smile.

  Okay, so maybe I was a little spoiled.

  “So where’s my cake?” Pop asked, narrowing his eyes at me.

  “I don’t think you should be eating cake,” I said in a stern voice, doing my best Mimi impression. “Your health isn’t exactly top notch, you know.”

  Pop’s forehead crinkled into a deep scowl, and he wagged a finger at me. “Don’t forget who the parent is here. I only let you do this DJ business for the cake. Now fork it over.”

  I laughed. Dad jokes. I pulled the carefully plastic-wrapped paper plate from my worn messenger bag. “Here you go, dear old Dad,” I teased him, producing the pink and white sugary confection. It was never a secret that my real parents couldn’t handle raising me. Pop and my grandmother—my Mimi—did double parenting duty as my legal parents. Their daughter, Andrea, had given me up for adoption as soon as she’d had me.

  Pop’s blue eyes, which I had inherited, widened in delight. “You are an angel, Katie-bug.”

  I plopped down on the edge of the couch and shrugged off my bag. A spring poked into my butt. Just like most of the furnishings in their little house nestled in one of the valleys of Asheville, the couch was older than me. We’d never been rolling in extra money, so our furniture was getting beyond worn out. Ashton had called the state of our furniture “indubitably artistic.”