“I saw that.” His voice got low.
“Pretty powerful stuff.” I scooted back on the sand. I had some things to figure out.
“Lucky for me.”
“Well, thank you.”
“No, I mean it.” Creep’s voice had turned husky and he leaned in toward me again.
“Oh, no you don’t. We’ll never get off this beach.”
He sat back. “You’re probably right.”
Plus, now I felt more confused than ever. But, I didn’t say that to Creepshow. Instead, I said, “I have a lot to think about. Can you take me home now?”
“Sure.” He jumped to his feet before I could, then reached down and helped me up. He didn’t release my hand right away and when I glanced up at him, questions floated in his eyes. “Did I just make things bad for you? With Shane and the other guy?”
“Not so much. I just need to do some thinking.” I gave Creep a quick hug. “I’m glad we came down here. It was nice.” I paused and then decided to tell him the truth. “More than nice. Perfect.”
Creepshow slipped his arms around me and drew me close. “I’m glad too, Juice. I was worried at first what would happen. Sure didn’t think it would go like this.” He leaned over and kissed the top of my head.
On the drive to my house, it seemed as though nothing and everything had changed. I had concerns it would be awkward, but it couldn’t have felt further from that. There seemed to be a casualness and familiarity there that had never been before, but it felt like it had been waiting for us all along, just killing time until we were ready for it. I knew I was falling for Creepshow.
When we got to my driveway, Creep jumped out of The Gator, then ran around to my side and opened the door. When I got out he moved in close and backed me up against the closed door. I looked up into his dreamy eyes and felt the heat and loss of control surge through me again.
“Can I kiss you again, Juice?” Creepshow asked, his voice low with longing. I could barely manage a nod. He lowered his face and gently his lips matched to mine. This kiss measured up so differently from the one at the beach. Where that one had been wild and untamed and unreasonable, this one came across soft and gentle and tender. He raised his hand and sweetly caressed the side of my face. I felt my own hands reach for the loops on his jeans and pull him in closer. Again, he had to be the one to break the embrace. I began to feel like an uncaged animal.
“Have a good night, Juice. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Creep handed me my books and backpack and ambled around the van back to the driver’s seat. He waved while he backed out of the driveway and drove down my street.
But all I could think was how would I explain this to Sixx?
Chapter Fifteen
I didn’t have to wait long for Sixx. That girl had to have radar or something. The phone rang literally the second I touched the knob to my bedroom door.
“Hello, Sixx. Do you have spies under my bed or something?”
“I have my ways. Now, spill. I want all the deets.”
“A girl never kisses and tells, Sixx.”
I had to hold the phone away from my ear when I said that. “I KNEW IT! I AM NEVER WRONG WHEN IT COMES TO HOT GUYS! AND HE IS HOT, RIGHT? OH BALLS OF CRUD, TELL ME EVERYTHING!”
“Okay, but only if you promise not to scream like that again.” I gave Sixx a watered–down version of my beach scene with Creepshow but she knew us both too well and read between the lines.
“I knew that boy would turn out to be the romantic type. It’s always the silent ones you gotta watch out for, Juice. He’s a great kisser, right? I know. You’re not answering. Okay, let’s get a plan together for the other ones. Got any idea what you’re gonna do with Ghost Boy and Party Dude?”
“No, Sixx, none. And don’t think that I’m not already feeling guilty enough about that without you rubbing my face in it.” I walked around my room, too keyed up to even sit on the bed. “Remember, two weeks ago I was that ponytailed chick with the weird friends that nobody cared much about. All of a sudden, I’m Polly Popular with three boyfriends – did I say three? – and, according to the Jock Prom King, nice legs, thank you very freakin’ much. Just what in the world is going on here?” Exhausted from yelling, I finally did flop on my bed, face down.
I had to wait for Sixx’s response because she was howling with laughter. “I know, right? It’s like a really spooky version of Punk’d with a Twilight Zone twist.” And then she went off on another five minutes of laughter. “It’s just our little Juice blossoming.”
I rolled over. “Well, it’s starting to feel like a cheesy after-school TV show. Except for the part about my friend who’s a ghost!”
Sixx’s uncontrolled laughter finally began to die down. “Then let me ask you, of your three suitors, who’s gonna get the rose, Miss Bachelorette?”
“Clearly, my own lips have a preference for Creepshow. Which is the strangest sentence that I have ever heard come out of my mouth EVER. But it is undeniably true, nonetheless.” I sat up and peeled off my shorts and t-shirt, rummaging around my bed for my pajamas.
“Yeah, seems safe to say our young Creepster is in the lead at the moment. Although. . .” She paused and I tried to picture what she might be doing, but with Sixx it could be anything. “It’s hardly a fair fight since one of your groupies can’t actually kiss you. You know, being supernatural and all.”
“True, that. But he has talents the others don’t.”
“True, that. So, are we still on for the party, then?”
“I can’t see canceling. I made a promise to Shane. Anything going on with Creepshow won’t change that. Creep will have to understand. If he cares for me, he will.”
“You’re right, Juice. And he will. Because he’s so totally into you. You know that.”
“I’m so mixed up right now, I don’t know what I know. I’m going to go eat dinner with my parents, do my homework and go to sleep. Or try to anyway.”
“Good luck with that.”
“Yeah, thanks. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Prom Queen.”
“Ha ha.”
I hung up with Sixx and went to find something to eat.
Later, as I got ready for bed, I still hadn’t made any progress on what to do. I was just too tired to think. I wasn’t exaggerating. I couldn’t be more exhausted. Technically, I had been mentally juggling three guys now but it felt more like I was physically doing it. I knew I would go to sleep dreaming of my boyfriend, I just didn’t know which one it would be.
When my phone broke into the silence again, I jumped, my heart pounding like a jackhammer against the inside of my chest. I looked at the phone like it was a snake, coiled and ready to strike. My parents hated me getting calls at night. But I recognized the caller ID number immediately. It was Mason. OMG, would this day never end? I took a deep breath and answered the call.
“Hi, Mason.” I tried to make my voice sound light and casual, not entirely certain I’d pulled it off.
“Hey, Juice. What’s going on? I’m not calling too late am I? You sound tired.”
“No, no. Not at all. I was just going over my homework. It made me sleepy I guess.”
Mason laughed. I guess he’d bought my lame excuse. “My homework puts me to sleep.”
“Me too.”
“So, I heard there might be some friends of yours coming to the party this weekend.”
“You mean Jett and Sixx?” Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to say Creepshow’s name. I wasn’t sure if Mason noticed the omission, but I could hardly keep from sighing out loud when he went on as if nothing was wrong.
“No, not them. I invited them, remember? I was talking about some other kids from your school. Some football jock named Brian and his girlfriend. Friends of mine know him from football camp and invited them. For some reason your name came up. He said he knew you and my friend told him I invited you to the party, too. Do you know him?”
“Yeah. He’s in my homeroom. And you’d kind of have to be a deaf person not to kn
ow who he is. He’s got, like, a big personality in my school. Him and his girlfriend Cassie are kind of all over the place.”
“We have a couple of those at my school too. But my friend said this jock talked like you guys were already good friends. Like he might be into you or something.”
This made for interesting news and I told Mason so. “I would never in a million years consider myself a ‘friend’ of Brian’s. Mostly, I think I’m in his gang-bustin’ way. And his girlfriend Cassie pretty much hates my guts.”
“Then she really would want to kill you if she heard what this guy thinks about you. I was even starting to be worried I had some competition.” Mason laughed at his own inside joke. Nervously, I laughed with him, too loud at first.
“Oh right, that is funny!” Great, I sounded like a lunatic. I was so not cut out for this!
“I know, right? Anyway, I just called to make sure we were still on for the party. Maybe, I’m just getting insecure or something. But we are still on, aren’t we?”
I couldn’t tell him the reason we were was only because of Shane, and I could NOT tell him about my new relationship with Creepshow, if you could even call it that, but I reassured him we were all still going to be there. “We sure are. Me and Sixx are coming with our friends so I’ll meet you at the party. Thanks for the directions.” I still couldn’t say Creep’s name. I felt like a slimeball for doing this to Mason, but a part of me wanted to protect Creepshow from the increasing whirlpool of drama surrounding me. I just didn’t want to drag him into the drink with me. I said my goodbyes to Mason, feeling lower than ever.
I tried to go to sleep and found I couldn’t. So much was running through my brain. Three weeks ago I just didn’t have these problems. Three weeks ago no ghosts had introduced themselves to me. In fact, no guys of any shape at all, dead or alive, had even looked at me twice. What was different?
I got out of bed and snapped on the light, then padded into the bathroom and closed the door to check my reflection in the mirror mounted on the other side.
Okay, I know you never do this because supposedly you don’t care what you look like, but recent events are cause for drastic action.
So, for the first time ever, I looked at myself, really looked at myself, in the wicked, unforgiving full-length mirror. And what stared back surprised me because it wasn’t all that disappointing.
The girl staring back at me maybe wasn’t so much a girl anymore. For one thing, she was a lot taller than I remembered. Standing before the mirror in a white tank top and boyshort panties, I realized I was all legs. I mean, seriously, my legs were like a mile long. But I could see the muscles in my calves, built up from bike riding to and from the beach. I rotated around and examined my whole body in that mirror, looking at myself this way and that, and I decided okay, maybe the body wasn’t that bad. It might be time to rethink the whole grunge-is-so-cool-and-easy-to-hide-my-shapeless-body outfit choices. Maybe I might bag the baggy jeans and hoodies look. Sixx would probably drop dead from a heart attack, but I thought I might try wearing a skirt to school on purpose. I knew I might find one in the back of my closet.
But what about the hair? Hesitantly, I took down my ever-present ponytails. Shaking my head, I was surprised to see my hair fell in soft waves, not the rat’s nest I’d been anticipating. I ran my fingers through my hair to see if that was a fluke and was genuinely surprised when the strands fell back down in the same casual style. I’d been wearing those ponytails so long, I’d forgotten what my hair actually looked like without them.
Now, for the moneymaker. I stalked over to my nightstand and dug around in the top drawer until I found what I needed: my hand mirror with the magnifying side on the back. Sitting cross-legged on my bed I held the mirror up to my face and examined it. After all the time I had spent in the sun I expected to find dried-out, leather-like skin. Again, I found myself pretty surprised. Instead of the sun-dried tomato look I’d expected, gazing from the mirror was a girl with sun-blushed skin that had never been weighted down by makeup.
I put the mirror away, snapped off all the lights and crawled back into bed. My new discoveries had given me a lot to think about. Creepshow had known me a long time. When did he start looking at me differently? And Sixx had been trying to “remake” me forever. Had she known this brave new girl waited patiently under the other one all along? And what about Mason? Which one was he attracted to? Just thinking about it gave me a headache. Finally though, when I closed my eyes this time, I did fall asleep. I dreamed of a boyfriend, all right. But this time, it came as no surprise to me, he didn’t have a face.
Chapter Sixteen
I woke up the next morning feeling excited. Which was pretty cheesy when I realized it was still a school day, not the first day of summer vacation or Christmas morning or anything, but I had the same kind of feeling. I had tripped over some major revelations the night before and looked long and hard at myself, maybe for the first time.
In light of all that soul-searching, I took care getting dressed. When I finished, I felt pretty proud of the end result. I knew for sure Sixx would love it. I found that miniskirt in the back of my closet and matched it with a pair of white socks that went up to my thighs, a white blouse and some red and black suspenders. I threw on an oversized cardigan and tied the ends in a knot. I had on my black Converse sneakers, so I still felt like myself. A dolled up, sexier version of myself. I grabbed my backpack and headed out.
Because I skipped going to the beach and took so much time getting ready, I was the last one to get to our spot on the wall. I felt a little nervous to get everyone’s reaction.
“Oh balls of CRUD, Juice! Is that you in there?” Sixx jumped off the wall and met me nearly halfway across the quad. I knew she would see me before anyone else. She grabbed both my hands and assessed my handiwork. “Not bad, Juicy Lucy. You look like the belle of the ball next to these surf rats.”
She waved her hands and indicated Jett, Creepshow, and surprisingly, Shane, all lounging at our spot on the wall. They were dressed in the unspoken “surf rat” uniform of t-shirt, boardshorts, and deck shoes. They heard her and started to protest. In unison. That is, until they saw me. My makeover effectively rendered them speechless.
Sixx loved that it did. “Awesome! Last time you boys were this quiet, we were watching your favorite surfer flick, Step Into Liquid, for about the millionth time and you acted like you’d seen God.” She clapped her hands together. “It’s okay. You can come out of the trance now. It’s just Juice under all that fabulousness.”
“Knock it off, Sixx.” Secretly, though, I found myself completely loving the reaction of the guys. I put my hand over my mouth to muffle a giggle.
“Wow, Juice. You look great.” Of course, Shane would be the first to comment. He’d proven himself to be the most well-spoken of this newly-formed trio.
“Yeah,” added Jett, peering over the top of his sunglasses. “Pretty sweet.”
“Thanks, guys. But it’s still me. Same old Juice. Just different packaging.”
“Liked the old package too,” muttered Creepshow. I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly.
“What, Creep?”
“I said, I kind of liked the old package. But, you do look pretty.” Creep looked at me for only a second, but that quick glance was all I needed. It told me what he couldn’t say in front of everyone else. And what he didn’t say was exactly what I wanted to hear. I looked at Creepshow and gave him a shy smile.
A high-pitched whining sound stopped our conversation. I immediately recognized Cassie Carmichael’s voice. Heaven help me, I did not know if I could deal with that mean, skinny cheerio this early in the morning. Sixx made it crystal clear she wasn’t about to.
“Okay, Cassie. I do not have time for any of your homemade drama this morning. So, let’s just get the abbreviated version of whatever you have on your teeny tiny little brain, okay?”
Cassie had worked herself into such a lather about whatever she planned to say, she missed Sixx’s
comments. She took one look at me and launched, teeth sharpened and claws out.
“Excuse us, Project Runway! What the heck is all this about?” She pointed one of her long and lacquered talons up and down in my direction and a couple of the tagalongs behind her tittered on cue. “Are you trying to prove something? I haven’t seen an outfit like that since the Miss Baby Gap contest at the mall.”
I expected Sixx to jump in and say something. Or maybe Shane since he had been the one that deflated Cassie last time she went off on me. Even Jett saying something wouldn’t be out of the question. What did happen turned out to be the real shocker.
But it was Creepshow who came to my rescue and defended me against the queen of mean. And he did it in true Creepshow fashion.
“Hey, Cassie? Why do you need to be so mean? I think Juice looks beautiful today. Course, I think she looks beautiful every day.” He looked from Cassie to me and back to Cassie. “You know, it takes far less energy to be nice than it does to be mean. You should, like, try it. It might make those lines on your face go away.” He sounded so earnest and sincere, I could see Sixx could hardly keep from laughing. I looked over at Jett and Shane and they were busting up too.
“That’s my boy,” said Jett, clapping Creep on the back.
Cassie looked horrified. She grabbed one of her friends and snapped, “Compact! Now!” The girl hurriedly fished a mirrored compact out of her purse and handed it to Cassie, who snatched it and stalked away, minions trailing after her, as she intently examined her face in the mirror. I watched for a few minutes, wishing she’d run into a lamppost or something.
“Hey, Creep. You sure hit her where it hurts.” Said Shane.
I stared. He had pretty effectively diffused the Cassie bomb.
“No kidding, Creep. That was some fairly inspired fast-talking.” Jett sounded off, too, clapping Creep on the back. “I can’t remember the last time someone made her actually speechless. Awesome, dude!”
“Yeah, pretty chivalrous too, Sir Creeps-a-lot.” Sixx just had to get her two cents worth in. “And not a bad compliment for our fair maiden, either.”
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