by Sarah Price
The moment of truth. Nervously, I lick my upper lip. My throat feels parched and I wonder if I timed my request wrong. She doesn’t seem to be in a good mood. “Um, it’s in ... uh ... Massachusetts.”
“Massachusetts?” She raises her eyebrows. “That’s like four ... five hours away!”
“Please! I’ll pay for the gas.”
“What’s going on in Massachusetts?” she asks suspiciously.
Oh, dear. She’s going to go crazy if she hears that it’s Aiden Quinn. I’ve been working so hard to keep it on the DL and not look like the stalker fangirl that I reluctantly admit to being. “Rodeo Rage.” Better to answer as vaguely as possible.
“Rodeo Rage?” Another weird face. “I never heard of it.”
“It’s a rodeo ...”
She rolls her eyes. “So I gathered.”
“... but geared to the younger crowd.”
“Don’t tell me this has anything to do with that kid you’re stalking.”
How does she do that? How can she read minds? “I’m not stalking him!” I can see, however, that she does not believe me one bit.
“No. Absolutely not.” She shakes her head. “I’m not driving four hours away for you to continue with this obsession!”
“But he’s coming to the East Coast! And there are a bunch of other guys on the tour. They do a meet-and-greet thing before the rodeo. You can actually meet them!”
She presses her lips together, clearly not interested or amused.
“Please please please? I’ll buy your ticket. It’s important to me.”
Brooke sighs. I can see that I’m starting to wear her down. “When is this so-called ‘Rodeo Rage’ taking place?” She says Rodeo Rage with her fingers making those annoying little quotation marks in the air. She probably thinks it’s one of those events for little kids that, at twenty, she’s far too cool to attend.
“In two weeks.” She rolls her eyes, so I add, “There’ll be lots of older young cowboys there.”
Ah! Now I have her interest. She loves cowboys. Chances are she’ll find someone to flirt with and score a phone number or two. Even if they never meet up again, with Brooke, it’s always about the quest. I realize that she may have just taken the bait.
“If you pay for the ticket and gas, I’ll do it,” she says with a tone of voice that sounds like she’s being tortured. “I’ll take you to this silly event.”
“Deal!” I reach out and we shake hands.
Things are starting to look up. Two weeks from tomorrow night, Aiden Quinn will be in my territory, and if all goes well, I’ll get to meet him and win his heart. Of course, I still have a lot of work to do. Acquiring a ride was just part one of my plan. Now I need to figure out how to get tickets as well as cash for gas.
And for that, I need look no further than the backyard where Alex is still kicking the ball to Tuffer. Getting his help to buy the tickets is going to be difficult, and I dread the thought of what I will have to do in return. Last time I asked him to do me a favor, only after I promised to be his slave for the day did he agree to help me out. And I’m prepared to make Alex’s bed, rub his feet, and do his chores for a week, if that’s what it’s going to take to get these tickets. But, in the end, it will all be worth it to finally meet Aiden.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Partner in Crime
I feel like such a stalker. I’m standing at the window, peeking through the curtains at my brother.
He’s outside on the front lawn, toying around with a remote-controlled race car. Our driveway is really long and we never have traffic since we live on a dead-end street, the perfect spot to play with his race car. Unless, of course, our crazy neighbor or her even crazier daughter are outside.
Anyway, I’m stalking my brother for a very good reason. Normally, I try to stay out of his way, but I can’t. Not today. I have to ask Alex now or I’ll miss out on the opportunity. Just last night, the ticket portal posted that the meet-and-greet tickets were almost sold out. And the thought of settling for general admission? I shudder.
Gathering up my strength, I take a deep breath and open the front door, slipping through before Pica escapes. She likes to run away, pausing to look back and flip me the paw, before she races down the street. We’ve tried everything: invisible fencing, wireless transmitters, you name it. This dog has some moves, too. She might be small, but I think she’s immune to all of those systems. Mom says she’s going to get hit by a car one day if she keeps escaping. But I’m onto her ninja escape moves, so I shut the door just as she’s making the dash. There will be no escape today.
Alex sees me at once and tips his head at me, as if he’s super cool or something.
Be nice, I remind myself. Be nice to him or no tickets.
“Hey,” I say as I casually saunter up to him. “Whatcha doing?”
“Playing baseball, duh!” he says sarcastically as he continues to maneuver his toy car.
Oh, he makes me so mad! Him and his wise-guy sarcasm! He’s not making this any easier. It’s all that I can do to bite my tongue and not snap back at him. Instead, I force a smile. “Oh, yeah, ha ha. The race car.”
He directs the car up the driveway and toward us, stopping it just by the walkway. “What do you want?” he asks in an annoyed matter-of-fact tone. My act is not fooling him at all. I should have known!
“What?” I feign innocence.
“You obviously want something. What is it?” He puts his hand on his hip and stares at me.
I shut my eyes and say a quick prayer. It’s now or never.
“Out with it, Cat.” Now he sounds really annoyed.
He makes me so nervous that I just blurt out, “I need to borrow two hundred dollars!”
His eyes grow wide and he takes a step backward, holding up his hands as if to stop me from saying another word. “Dude!”
“Please? Please please please? Just two hundred dollars?”
He looks at me as if I’m crazy. “Just two hundred? What am I? A bank?”
He starts to turn away from me and I cringe. How could I blow this one opportunity? Why didn’t I role-play on FaceTime with Jamie or Cassie? Why had I thought he would just hand me a wad of money? I definitely didn’t think this through.
Springing into action, I lunge after him and grab his arm. “Come on, Alex. Marcus doesn’t pay me. He pays you. I know you have it.”
“And why would I give it to you?” he says as he jerks his arm free from my grip.
“Loan, not give, but loan,” I stress.
“Ha!” He actually snorts when he says this. “As if you could pay me back. You just admitted that Marcus doesn’t pay you!”
I want to smack my forehead with my hand. Why did I remind him of that unnecessary fact? Think, Cat! Think! “I’ll take out the garbage for a month!”
Another snort. “Try a year.”
“Okay!”
He stops walking and turns around, facing me. “We both know that would never happen, Cat. You hate the cold and at the first sign of rain, you’ll be crying to Mom. I’m not giving you any money.”
“Loaning me!” I remind him at the top of my voice.
He glares at me for a second before asking, “What’s so important, anyway?” Now he’s curious. I can tell by the way that he tilts his head and squints his eyes. This actually might work in my benefit.
“Nothing,” I say with a little shrug of my shoulder. “Besides, you aren’t going to loan me the money anyway. Why should you care?”
If there is one thing Alex cannot stand, it’s being left out of a secret. Beneath that tough football guy exterior is an inquisitive little mouse. If I can just reel him in ... come to Cat, little mouse, I think.
“Tell me.”
“Nope.”
He seems to contemplate his options. He can leave it be or pursue the matter. With the former, he learns nothing. With the latter, he might have to part with some precious do-re-mi. I can see the neurons firing up as he balances the two choices.
; “Tell me and maybe I can help you get the money,” he finally says. “And you won’t have to pay me back.”
Oooo. I didn’t see that one coming. Well played, Alex. Well played indeed.
“How?”
Now it’s his turn to play coy. “Never mind. It’s not important if you aren’t going to tell me.”
I exhale. Loudly. I’m done with this cat-and-mouse game. It’s mentally exhausting keeping up with who has the ball and is dribbling down the court toward which basket. “Fine!” I exclaim and he perks up right away. “The Rodeo Rage Tour.”
“What the heck is that?”
Another sigh, only not as loud. “Aiden Quinn. He’s going to be in a rodeo in Topsfield, Massachusetts, and I need the money for tickets and gas to get there. Brooke is taking me and my friends.”
He whistles. “Wow. Mom would never pay for that.” I actually sense an undertone of compassion from him that takes me by surprise. Then he returns to his normal annoyingly selfish self. “You’re officially out of luck.”
No duh! But I try to keep my cool. I want to work on that glimmer of compassion, try to extract more of it. He is, after all, the master of getting what he wants, and no one can figure out how he does it.
“So will you give me the two hundred dollars?” I ask with as much sweetness as I can muster.
“I thought you said loan?” he points out.
I toss the obligatory eye roll at him.
“No,” he says. “I won’t. But I know a way you can get it.”
Oh, geez. Here we go. Another one of Alex Lansing’s famous schemes. This will end up with someone getting grounded or sent to the ER. I can see it coming down the tracks like a supersonic train. But if it means that I get to meet Aiden, I’m in. “How?”
He glances around again as if making certain no one is around. Brooke’s car is in the driveway, but Marcus left before any of us woke up, and Mom is nowhere to be seen. Satisfied, he looks at me and crooks his finger. “Come with me, oh young one. Let me share the secret of life with you.”
The secret of life, eh? Now I’m not only excited about getting the tickets, I’m excited that Alex’s going to teach me something cool. He’s actually being nice to me for once. I can hardly believe it.
We jump over the low bushes that border our walkway and head inside the house. The dogs start barking, as usual, and then running around our feet. Argh! I begin to trip and fall, but Alex grabs my arm and shoos them away. They always act like we’ve been gone for months instead of minutes. I can’t stand them. Except for my Pica, who’s my favorite.
He heads upstairs and opens the door to his room. When he slips inside, I hesitate. While Marcus has a lot of “I only have one rule and it is ...,” Alex, on the other hand, really has only one rule and that is: do not enter his man cave! In fact, the last time I broke the rule was over two years ago. And that was on a double-dog dare from Jamie, resulting in me getting punched in the arm, which really hurt. And then, as if that wasn’t punishment enough for entering his room, he broke the head off of my favorite Breyer horse rider doll, too.
I cried for three days, but I never stepped foot into this room again, until now.
“Come on,” he says, motioning for me to follow him.
“Is this a trick?” I ask, still hesitant to step over the threshold. “You aren’t going to poison Pica or hurt me, are you?”
He responds by reaching out, grabbing my arm, and yanking me into his room. I can’t help myself; I squeak as he slams the door behind me. Trapped, I think. Like a feral cat in a Have-a-Heart cage.
“Relax, you goof,” he says, half chuckling as he assumes his position in what I call the commander chair. His black fake-leather chair literally has butt imprints in it from all the time he spends playing League of Legends. If he’s not on that, he’s on Call of Duty. I never understood why he was allowed to have a TV in his room but neither Brooke nor I were.
However, as he swings into action and begins pounding away on his keyboard, and the computer screen displays on the flat-screen television, I’m rather impressed and slightly thankful that he has this privilege. I didn’t even know you could do that!
“Now don’t you go ratting me out,” he says in a low voice.
He’s trusting me with something secret? Wow.
“Okay, so what is the name of this thing you want to go to?”
I’m so startled with his cooperation that I have to actually think about it for a minute. What? Who? When? “Oh ... uh ... Rodeo Rage Tour. They’re in Topsfield next weekend.”
He gives me a blank look.
“Topsfield as in Topsfield, Massachusetts. It’s a meet-and- greet thing before the rodeo.”
“What’s that?” he asks, returning his attention to his computer and pounding away at the keyboard.
I shrug my shoulders, even though he can’t see me because I’m looking over his shoulder. “I dunno.” He gives me a look like I’m an idiot so I quickly add, “But a whole bunch of these cool social media cowboy guys are going to be there.” I pause. “And Aiden Quinn will be there.”
He makes a noise deep in his throat. I’m not certain if he’s gagging or suppressing a laugh.
Click, click, click. He’s on the Internet and searching through various websites. He’s so fast that I can’t even follow him. There are multiple windows open on the screen, and he seems capable of jumping back and forth. I, on the other hand, have no idea what the heck is going on. I’m good on social media, a rock star on YouTube, but this? He’s light years ahead of me.
“Hmm.”
That noise doesn’t sound like a good one. “What, Alex?”
“Well, most of the tickets are sold out.”
For a split second, I just know I’m going to have a heart attack. “What? Are you kidding me?”
He points to a small window on the screen. I can’t read it. “VIP tickets: sold out. Meet-and-greet tickets: sold out. General-admission tickets ...” He pauses and I can tell that he’s scanning something. I’m completely lost and ready to cry. This simply cannot be happening to me.
Swiveling around in the chair, Alex leans back and stares at me. He’s resting his elbows on the arms of the chair and staring daggers at me, his two pointer fingers pressed together like a church steeple and resting on his chin. He’s making me uncomfortable because he doesn’t say another word.
“Break it to me,” I whisper, fighting the tears. I’m so close to meeting Aiden Quinn. My emotions are all over the place: panic, pain, heartache, disappointment, and sadness. The sadness is so deep, I can feel it in my stomach, like a dead weight pulling me down.
“How much do you want to go to this thing?”
Did he seriously just ask me that? I blink at him, a completely stunned look on my face. “You’re kidding, right?”
He lifts an eyebrow, still studying me. “Just answer me.”
“Uh…duh! Just about as much as anything in the world.” I’m trying not to sound sassy, but his question really throws me off track. “Why? What’s the damage going to be?”
“You’re going to get into trouble, but it won’t be until after the event.”
This is starting to sound a bit sketchy. “How much trouble?”
He lifts his shoulder nonchalantly. “Could be a lot. Grounded for a while. Definitely no cell phone.”
I gasp.
“But!” He lifts one finger to stop me from panicking further. “That’s only if you get caught. There is a slight chance, very minute, that you might get away with it.”
All right. Now we’re talking.
“And even if you do get caught, it’s a small price to pay to meet your dream guy, isn’t it?” he argues.
Good point! I either play it safe and don’t meet Aiden, or I throw caution to the wind in order to meet my soul mate. The choice is easy. I swallow and nod my head. If I’m committed to this relationship with Aiden, then I have to see it through. “Okay. I’m in. What’s the plan?”
Alex seems pleased with
my response and swivels the chair back toward his computer. “Didn’t know you had it in you.” He sounds impressed.
More clicking of keys and he enlarges one window so that I can see it better. “Here. Four electronic tickets to Rodeo Rage in Topsfield, Massachusetts. They get delivered to email. We create a fake email account and buy them on Mom’s credit card.”
Mom’s credit card! Holy Hannah! How in the world does he have that information! But I know better than to ask. That could shut down the entire operation. So, instead, I ask the next obvious question. “Why the fake email account?”
The look he gives me over his shoulder makes me feel completely stupid. “Duh! So it can’t be traced to you. Or me either, for that matter.”
Oh. Good point. Marcus guards their credit cards like a hawk, so I cannot imagine how he thinks we … er, I mean I … will get away with this. But he looks fairly confident, and I immediately realize that he knows what he’s doing, probably because he’s done this before. Interesting information to store in the back of my noggin.
“The ticket prices are three hundred dollars each,” he says.
“What?” I practically scream at him. Now I know he’s lying. Probably trying to trick me or something crafty like that. “No way! There must be some mistake. They’re only fifty dollars!”
I hear him sigh and see him shake his head. “Cat, they’re three hundred dollars each.”
Suddenly, I’m worried that he really is setting me up to take a major grenade. What on earth is he talking about? Three hundred dollars each is twelve hundred dollars for something that should cost two hundred. “That’s not right. For general admission?”
“Yes, for general admission. Do you want them or not?”
“I ... I ...” I don’t know what to say.
There comes a moment in life when you have to make a decision. How moral is it to basically steal money from your mother in order to meet your idol? Your future husband? Stealing is stealing and I know that’s wrong. But this is Aiden Quinn we’re talking about. This might be my one and only chance to meet him. The chance to charm him with my humor and wit. To prove that #3,134 is a real fangirl, not like the thousands who came after me.