Student Bodyguard for Hire
Page 8
I took a deep breath, my mind still on the conversation with Ryan. Peyton’s gaze drifted to mine, those blue eyes sparkling as a smile formed. Damn. She wouldn’t smile at me if she knew about the video. Ryan must not have told her about it.
Knowing her a little better now, it was just a guess that she cared what people thought. That meant when she found out about the video, she’d probably cry, which bothered the hell out of me to think about. Peyton Greene had started to mess with my head and she wasn’t even trying. I shouldn’t care about this stupid high school crap but I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t stopped thinking about her all night.
She’d listed thirty-two movie and book inconsistencies during a writing frenzy over sushi, all to keep me from falling on my face today. She’d done all the work, as Ryan had moodily pointed out, and I still hadn’t figured out why.
For my phone number? No. She could have just asked.
So why?
I also didn’t get how she related to the character, Fanny Price. She said she fit in everywhere but didn’t belong anywhere. That wasn’t Peyton Greene at all. People included her in everything. They wanted her around. She made life look easy and fun. I couldn’t recall my life ever being easy, seldom fun, at least since Papá had passed. Watching someone else who had it all—watching Peyton in my seventh period class every day—had been the closest I could get to that perfect life.
By the time I’d collapsed into bed at eleven-thirty last night, I’d decided to read the damn book so I could figure out what she’d meant. Even scanning through the endless descriptive sections, I only had an hour left to sleep when I’d finished, and I still came up at a loss. Fanny had been proper, cautious and scared of everything. Peyton didn’t seem afraid of anything, including me.
I needed to stop thinking about her.
Campbell turned and nodded at me. Damn. I took a deep breath, dreading the two minutes I’d need to summarize this drivel, and worse, the thirty-minute inquisition that would start once I finished the review.
But once I started talking I didn’t stop, having hated the book so much I realized I remembered a great deal of it. Stupid little details I’d noted while reading last night, along with highlights and turning points from Peyton’s notes and her comments in the car. I even felt a little smug as Campbell’s eyes rounded when she didn’t have to prod me through it. For twenty minutes, I gave the class more detail about the characters’ vacuous personalities and pointless aspirations than I’d realized existed.
It was the longest I’d ever talked about anything.
Campbell was quiet a long moment after I’d finished before she closed her mouth and cleared her throat. “That was very …thorough, Mr. Guerra. I’d thought you’d disappoint me today but I must say I’m quite pleased.”
Everyone else had collapsed into a funeral home quiet, but I’d finally wrapped my head around this subject matter and I intended to get through this stupid review if it killed me. Maybe if I passed Campbell’s scrutiny this one time, she’d back the hell off me.
“Tell me your overall impression,” she said.
I’d hated it. Even if zombies had ripped their way through the innards of every character, I couldn’t have appreciated this stupid story. “I couldn’t relate,” I said.
“To the characters or the story?”
“Both.”
“Why?”
I shrugged.
“You’ll need to elaborate,” she said.
This damn day would never end. “If I’m going to take the time to read a book, the characters better have more going on than walking the landscape and discussing redecorating or stupid parts in a play.”
“You feel the story was pointless?”
“What story? Nothing happened.” I needed sleep in the worst way because I hated this story more than I had twenty minutes ago. “The entire book had people talking marriage and money. The characters didn’t have jobs. Not real ones. Maybe Fanny, but they handed her the position. The only way Austen could make the reader care about her was to surround her with self-absorbed, classist assholes.”
A few people laughed before I figured out why. I’d said the word assholes. Christ. I dropped farther into my seat.
Campbell took one look at my disgruntled expression, scowled briefly and let it go. “Well, you are hard on characters, Mr. Guerra, to think Fanny Price had it easy.”
“Like I said, I couldn’t relate to her … struggle, if you want to call it that. Price wasn’t quite the help or family. She didn’t feel she belonged. So what.”
“You can’t relate?”
“Today they call that being a stepchild. More than half this class relates.”
Some students laughed as if I were joking. More murmured agreement.
“He’s right,” said a quiet girl who sat parallel to me but across the room. “Fanny’s extended family pulled her from poverty and essentially gave her a job. By today’s standards, her relations handed her a middle class position. She never had to work her way up. It’s difficult to feel sorry for her.”
A few others made similar comments. Some mumbled the word incest.
“Interesting,” Campbell said, sliding her skinny butt onto her desk. I sensed her peripheral vision on me and wished she’d just tell me what to say. Whenever she did this rapid-fire question thing, she was after something specific. “Nothing resembled your current reality beyond that, Mr. Guerra?”
I refused to blink first. “Only that the world still judges highly or harshly based on money and social status. That much hasn’t changed.”
She hopped off her desk. “Exactly. Austen’s books revolved around money, class and social status. Issues still important today.” Campbell needed little encouragement to keep talking, which meant she wouldn’t call on me again and I could close my eyes. While everyone readied for a lecture, I buried my face behind a hand, letting my eyes burn. Work would kill me if I went in half-asleep. I couldn’t call in sick, even though I felt close to it. The mortgage was due. Maybe Jonas would take one of my sessions and let me crash for an hour.
“Ms. Greene.”
Hearing Campbell say Peyton’s name snapped me back to reality and I blinked my eyes open. Damn. I’d actually started to doze while sitting up, dreaming of sleeping. I dropped my hand to the desk and looked at Peyton. She was one of those students who read everything and always seemed interested. When Campbell asked her to dig deep and summarize Austen’s message, Peyton smiled broadly. “I think it’s about following your heart.”
I sighed through my nose. Peyton was sweet, and precious, and naïve as hell. If I had been her father, or brother, or a friend, I’d have worried myself into a grave by now thinking about her out there in the big bad world.
She turned and grinned at me, not caring that everyone could see. We stared at each other, her in fairytale land, me half-asleep, and I no longer cared if her brother hated me, if her friends resented me, or that someone had slapped a video of us on the internet. I wanted her. More than I’d wanted anything in a long time.
Campbell called on Josie Buchannon sitting several seats behind me as Peyton and I stared at each other.
“We have to talk,” I mouthed.
“After class?” Peyton asked.
I nodded and grinned at how slowly she’d moved her mouth, as if I couldn’t read her lips otherwise.
I waited outside the door after class, and when she spotted me, she gave me that shy smile she seemed to reserve just for me. Students swarmed around us like inmates during a prison riot, pushing us together by the wall.
I’d told Vanna I’d give her a ride home today and had to make this quick. I didn’t need my sister spotting me talking to Peyton and giving me more shit than she already had.
“We have a problem,” I said.
“What?”
Where to start. I pulled three hundred in twenties from my pocket, folded the stack in half, and held it out to her.
Ryan and Cooper approached as she stared at the money
, twisting her mouth. “What’s that for?”
“Three more people wanting protection from bullies.”
“What?” Cooper asked, as if I were talking to him.
“Three people wanting protection,” Peyton repeated as she turned to him with wide eyes. They stared at each other, grins forming, before she turned back to me. “You’re serious?”
“Unfortunately.” I pulled a list from my back pocket. “After the second one, I made a list to keep it straight, in case this went on all day.”
“I can’t believe you agreed to do it,” she said.
“I didn’t.” Her smile disappeared. “No one person could cover this much territory at once. That’s why I had to write it down. I listed the person paying, the assholes giving them crap, and the people I paid to take care of it. Each got a hundred, which leaves three hundred in reserves in case they have to fight. I told them there’s an extra hundred if they do fight, but to be cool about it.” I shrugged. “It was how you originally presented the offer.”
“Me?” she said.
“Yeah. This bodyguard thing was your idea. I figured if they would have approached you instead, you wouldn’t have told them no. I guess I’m hoping you’ll take the money and get me off the hook here. With two jobs, no way do I have time to keep track of something like this.”
Cooper pulled the list from my hand and stared at it. “Peeeyton,” he said. “Do you know what this means?”
She reluctantly grabbed the money I held out to her and turned to Cooper. “Oh my god, I think this is it,” she said, bouncing twice. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Already there,” he said, familiar with her enough to read her mind, apparently, which irked me. “When can you start? Do you work tonight?”
She shook her head. “Not until Sunday morning. I can start right away.”
“Crap, I have to work.”
“When do you get off?”
“Nine.”
“Come by after,” she said. “I’ll get started on the database when I get home. Do you want me to call Jon to come over, too? Maybe help put together the webpage?”
“I doubt he will,” he said.
A tennis match had less back and forth action. They talked so fast I could barely keep up.
“I’ll coerce him with free cookies from the bakery,” she said, folding the money into her pocket. “I’ll even tell him to bring Cindy.”
Cooper looked skeptical. “Jon’s not going to agree to any of this,” he said. “You’re right, though. It can’t hurt to ask.”
I’d intended to ask her what this was, but when she turned to me, I no longer cared. Nothing seemed to matter when she looked at me like that.
“We should go, Peyton,” Ryan said, scowling.
Cooper smacked her brother’s elbow. “Come on. We’ll wait by the car, Peyton,” he said, leaving with a reluctant Ryan in tow.
Decent of him, given what we last said to each other.
“Are you okay?” she asked me.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You didn’t want to do this when it was my brother. Now a few days later you have three more, and here you are, collecting money and making lists. You’re neck deep in my plan. I figured you’d be mad, like you were when I showed up at your house.”
I’d been pissed for several reasons that day. None of which mattered now. I had a bigger problem. I wanted to see her again but I’d never asked anyone out. I couldn’t think how to word it.
Movement caught my eye and I spotted Vanna waving at me from the crossroads of junior and senior halls.
Great.
Peyton noticed me looking over her head and turned to wave at Vanna. My sister the socialite barely lifted a hand to wave back before turning on a fast trek to the other end of the hall.
“That’s my cue,” I said. “I told her I’d give her a ride. She hates the bus.”
Peyton turned to me, frowned, and took a step back. “Okay. I’ll see you Monday?”
“Yeah.” I closed the space she’d put between us, not wanting anyone to hear. “Unless you want to meet me Saturday night.”
“More homework?” Her eyebrows arched. “Or are you asking me out?”
I swallowed. “I’m asking you out.”
Her eyes widened as if she’d expected me to say something else. “Sure.” She smiled. “What time?”
I guess I’d expected some kind of hard-to-get game. Not her gorgeous smile and eager nod. “Really? Just like that?”
“Sam,” she said sternly—sternly for Peyton, anyway. “I owe you for sushi last night, and for tolerating my brother’s bad mood, and for him inviting the entire gang.”
Her quick yes had lost its luster. “You want to go out because you think you owe me? What’s this owing thing with you, anyway?”
“All I’m saying is I want to buy you dinner this time. That’s all.”
Papá would have killed me had I ever let a girl pay. “You don’t owe me. I can’t do dinner anyway. I work until seven. We could do a movie though. Wipe this Mansfield Park nightmare off the books?”
“Or,” she said, reaching out and brushing her hand across my flannel pocket, her fingertips soft and lingering, “we’ll do both. Maybe you’ll at least let me buy you coffee.”
“You’d better get over this. I’m not letting you pay.” Vanna caught my attention again, stretching dramatically and yawning. She dropped to the floor and sprawled flat against the tile, looking like a hobo sleeping on the sidewalk.
Peyton turned to Vanna, her mouth twisting sideways as if stifling a grin.
“She’s not known for … subtlety,” I said.
Those dimples appeared as she turned and took a small step forward, definitely in my space. Her sweet perfume drifted around me and she gave my shirt a quick yank. “So you’re one of those guys.”
“What guys?”
“The old fashioned type like my granddad, who won’t let girls pay. You open doors, too, don’t you? A gentleman.”
My mamá would have smacked me on the head if I hadn’t. “Let’s say I’ve never typed myself. I don’t exactly go on a lot of dates.” As in, ever.
Clutching her books tighter, she rotated her upper body back and forth, that restless energy ready to burst. “I feel special. I don’t think many guys would admit that.”
I grinned, too tired to pretend I asked girls out every day. “I don’t think it’s that much of a mystery.”
She halted, eyes searching mine. “What time did you say? Eight?”
I nodded. “No brother this time.”
Dimples now. “Agreed.”
“And I’ll pick you up.”
Hesitation replaced her smile. “Um, it might be better if I met you. If you stop by the house, you’d have to meet my parents. I wouldn’t want to put you through that. Seriously. My dad can be… critical.”
If her parents were anything like her brother, I could easily picture how it would go. They wouldn’t see me. Just another goddamn Mexicano living off the government. Never mind I was born in Oregon, as were Vanna and my parents, Spanish was my second language, and no one in my family had ever lived off the government. Not unless one considered a state death benefit living.
I wondered what Papá would have said in the same situation. “If it’s important to you, I’m okay with meeting your parents.”
Her hesitant expression slowly turned into a broadening smile. Sweet. I’d made serious points. Now if only I could keep my hands off her until I scored a third date.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Peyton
Ryan rolled onto his side, staring at me from the foot of my bed. “Did I say Fight-or-Flight already?”
“Yes,” Cindy said from her cross-legged position on the floor. “And if you ask me, it doesn’t encapsulate the project. It’s not as if you can escape these jerks. They’re everywhere. In class. The parking lot. Next door.”
“Maybe we should start a list,” Jon said next to her, sprawling on his
back and crossing his legs at the ankles.
I’d been leaning against my headboard and using my laptop as a leg warmer for over an hour. Between four people, we should have been able to think of a decent website name by now. Programming and logic made sense to me. Marketing, not so much. I wished Adam would get here. I wanted to run everything past him before making any final decisions.
“Earth to Peyton.” Ryan waved at me.
I looked from my Bleach anime screen saver. “I suck at this, you guys. Why don’t I figure out a name later. I don’t want to keep you here all night.”
“You can’t have a website without a name,” Cindy said. “It’s the first thing you have to decide.”
I’d already completed half the database, but mentioning that to Cindy meant risking getting on her bad side tonight. I wasn’t up for it.
“I realize I’m repeatin’ myself,” Jon said, scooting away from Cindy to avoid her punches, “but you’re going to take some serious heat. You’ll get an A for the Projects class because, well, this idea totally rocks. But this is gonna hit the fan big time.”
“Who would have a problem with keeping teenagers safe, other than the bullies threatening them?”
“You might be surprised,” he said.
“Here’s one,” Cindy said, an eyebrow arching. “How about Student Body for Hire?”
Ryan whipped around to look at her.
“Cindy—” Jon said, but she reached over and smacked his shoulder before he could say more.
“I’m serious,” she said. “I mean, I know it’s a bit soon, but you have to admit the play on words makes sense. Student body because you’re asking students to play bodyguard to other students. And student body because the website is for the entire student body to use, whether they be the guard or guarded. I think it’s kinda catchy, don’t you?”
“It’s too wordy,” I said. “No one will remember it.” I tapped my laptop to pull it out of sleep mode.
“But it makes sense, right?” she said. “Everyone is searching for that phrase now. Well, something like it.” She giggled. “It’s free advertising. Every time someone searches for the video, they’ll pull up a link to your website.”