“Did she?” he seemed surprised, but he didn’t elaborate.
“Taryn!” Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Thatcher motioning for her to return, clearly worrying his plan to hook up with Taryn for the night was going awry.
“Do you have to go over there?” Gabe asked. Was he looking for an out?
“Not necessarily,” Taryn said, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. “I might be available if someone wanted to take me up on, say, a game of air hockey…”
Taryn held her breath as Gabe hesitated for a half a second. Finally, he said, “Okay, one game.”
As they walked to their respective sides, Gabe tapped on the air hockey table. “You any good at this?”
“I’m all right,” Taryn replied. She and her younger siblings used to spend hours at the air hockey tables at the arcade on the Santa Monica Pier. “First one to seven wins. Loser takes a shot that the winner picks.”
“In that case, I hope you’re down for some hard-core tequila,” he told her.
Taryn leaned toward him. “I can handle a little tequila. I’m a California girl.”
“We’ll see about that,” he replied with a smile, some of his aloofness finally starting to melt away.
Gabe started the machine up and dropped the puck. Within seconds, Taryn had a goal.
“Lucky shot,” he told her.
“Definitely,” she agreed, before beating him in precisely four minutes. Gabe couldn’t help but chuckle as her last puck slid through the goal.
“Jesus. You didn’t tell me you were an air hockey savant.”
“Didn’t want to intimidate you,” Taryn said flirtily.
“You think it’s fun to just let me embarrass myself like that?” he asked, though Taryn could tell he was kidding.
“Mmmhmm,” Taryn replied, “Now drink up.”
Gabe took the shot of licorice-scented Ouzo Taryn had snagged from Anton’s father’s expansive bar and swigged it down.
“Yeah. That one burned.” Suddenly his expression changed—just for an instant—until he noticed Taryn looking at him and he gave her a hasty smile.
“Care to redeem yourself?” Taryn said, looking at him with her dark brown eyes.
“Maybe in a little bit,” he told her and Taryn could feel her cheeks burning with embarrassment. “I just saw someone I have to say hi to.”
And with that, Gabe slipped away. Two hours later, Taryn was getting ready to leave the party. Gabe had never returned.
Continue the story or go back to the last choice point?
Continue the story
Go back to the last choice
WARNING! You're about to spoil a great story by not making a choice! Page back, then click one of the links to advance the story. Otherwise, the next section may not make any sense to you.
WARNING! Instead of trying to navigate to the previous page, hit the Back button if you have one or use the Table of Contents to go back to previous choice points.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tuesday, 11:08pm.
Ellie was lost somewhere in the basement of the Saratov house. She had been searching for Brinley for the past twenty minutes, ever since Brooks informed her that Brinley had dumped Graham. Maybe that’s why she had been acting so strange today. Ellie was so relieved that she and Brinley had made up as soon as she got to the party, but now felt guilty for being so caught up with her own drama that she hadn’t realized Brinley was having problems with Graham.
Ellie’s phone chirped with a text. It was from Brooks. Found B. In car otw home. She sent Brinley a quick text telling her to call if she wanted her to come over, then started her search for a staircase out of the basement. Hunter was probably wondering where she had disappeared to again.
She turned the corner and found herself at the entrance of an indoor sports court where a few drunk guys were playing basketball and a poor intern was throwing up in the corner. She grimaced, then turned around and headed back the way she came.
She finally found the staircase, which was partially obscured by a gigantic ice luge. A crowd had erupted around it, cheering Narc on as he drank the Kamikaze shot someone poured down from the top.
That’s when she saw Gabe making his way down the stairs.
She could run the other way again and hide in the sport/vomit court or she could talk to Gabe like she had been telling herself earlier she needed to do. They could just hash it all out and then she could move on.
He was still a few steps from the bottom of the staircase when he spotted her over the crowd. They locked eyes, and for a split second, the music drowned out and it was like she and Gabe were the only two people in the house. As he walked toward her, the room slowly came back into focus and Ellie reminded herself to breathe.
“Who’s following who now?” Gabe asked, having to yell over the music. His black T-shirt made his eyes appear the same color. She tried not to lose herself in them.
“I think we should talk,” she shouted back. She wanted to keep all the emotion out of her voice, but it was difficult considering she was practically screaming at him.
“Whatever you want. Can we go somewhere else, though?”
Ellie didn’t exactly want to have this conversation while competing with Carly Rae Jepsen, but she didn’t trust herself to be in a room alone with Gabe either. After a mini-internal debate, she decided it was more important that this conversation wasn’t held in public. She nodded.
They made their way in silence through an entirely different wing of the basement until they came across a closed door. When Gabe opened it, Ellie was expecting to find another gym or maybe an indoor pool, but instead, it was an ornate room filled with bottle after bottle of top-shelf vodka from around the world. She shivered as they entered and Gabe shut the door behind them. The room was freezing; clearly, the temperature had been set for the vodka and not for the thin piece of fabric Helmut Lang had woven into a tank top.
“Here,” Gabe said as he handed her his jacket. She didn’t want to take it. Putting it on was like proving she needed him. And she didn’t want to need him.
“I’m fine,” she responded.
Gabe glanced down at the goose bumps quickly enveloping both her arms. “Right. Okay.” His eyes bore through her, right to her core, leaving her only with a flutter in her stomach as soon as he looked away.
He walked over to the shelves and studied the bottles of vodka as if he was looking at an exhibit at the Smithsonian. “Man, gotta love the Russians,” he said, taking one off the shelf. He cracked it open and took a swig. Like he didn’t have a care in the world. “Want some?” Ellie wavered, then grabbed the bottle from him. The vodka was either going to be liquid courage or a liquid sweater. She’d take either one at this point. She took a gulp, handed it back, then walked across the room. She wanted to put some distance between them. When she turned back to him, he was giving her an intense look, but every look Gabe gave her was intense.
“So…” she said, not sure where to even start.
“So I never told my dad that your dad was having an affair with that waitress who went on Brian Williams,” Gabe said, his eyes unwavering.
And there it was. Out in the open. Gabe talking about his father, Senator Mills, the man who was intent on taking down her mother. She felt the vodka creeping back up into her throat. She had provoked this hornet’s nest and now she was going to have to face it head on.
What made everything even worse was Ellie had been the one who told Gabe about the waitress and her father in the first place.
It was the last time they were together and a few nights before their parents had solidified themselves as political enemies. She and Gabe had met a month earlier through Evan and their attraction had been so instant Ellie wanted to kiss him before he even spoke. It was deeper than that, though. He made her feel like another person. A person who sometimes scared her. But at the same time, he made everything about her feel more alive. Even her heart beat faster when she was around him.
That last night together
, lying in his arms on the quiet, secluded beach in Dewey, the salty air clinging to their clothes, she had confided in him about her parents’ rocky marriage, something she rarely even talked to Evan about. She had made the sidelong comment that she was lucky her dad was such a good guy because there were always women throwing themselves at him. Like the pretty, twenty-something waitress from their local Italian restaurant who was not subtle about her crush on Ellie’s dad. He’d said nothing as he stroked her hair, taking it all in. When the story about the affair broke a few days later, Ellie instantly knew Gabe was behind it—no one else even had a clue about the waitress’s existence.
“You really want me to believe you never told your dad?” she said to him now. “Then explain to me how he knew about her? Was it just a lucky guess?” She felt her cheeks slowly coloring, but she couldn’t stop now. “And I didn’t even say anything about an affair! All I said was it annoyed me that she flirted with my dad.”
“Ellie, I know. My dad was pissed that your mom leaked his emails—”
“She only did that because out of the blue he made her look like an idiot in front of the entire Senate!” She had rehearsed this conversation over and over, but somehow she was already losing control over it.
“It wasn’t out of the blue. The Senate Majority Leader threatened to pull his support for my dad’s campaign if he went through with the bill. My dad was going to tell your mom afterward, but then she released those emails so he went on the offensive.”
“And you just told him everything I ever said to you until he found something he could use to embarrass my mom?”
“No,” he replied, an unfamiliar twinge of anger in his voice. “I told him your parents’ marriage was solid. I used the waitress as an example to say your dad could cheat if he wanted, but he didn’t. Exactly like you said. I was as surprised as you were when the story came out. I didn’t talk to my dad for a month. If you want to know the truth, we’re still not on great terms.”
Her body trembled like the aftershock of an earthquake. She had spent more than two years hating him and hating herself for what happened, convinced the only reason he had dated her was to surreptitiously get information for his dad. Her heart had been broken so completely she thought it would never heal. Ellie still couldn’t pass Rock Creek Park, the site of their first kiss, without her stomach dropping. Now he was telling her everything she had thought about him wasn’t true at all. If she could believe him, that is. Gabe walked toward her and she was completely immobilized.
“Just take this,” he said, quietly, as he put his jacket over her shoulders. The heat radiating from his hands felt like it could singe her.
“So why didn’t you tell me that before?” she asked, her voice quiet and out of breath.
“You didn’t return any of my calls and then you texted me to leave you alone.”
“What did you expect me to do? I thought you used me. And then your dad lost the primary two weeks later and you guys just up and moved to Arizona, leaving the whole mess in your wake.” And leaving Ellie racked with guilt. At the time, she didn’t tell her parents about her involvement with Gabe and she still never had, internalizing her shame for the past two years instead.
“I’m sorry your parents got divorced,” he said quietly, for the first time not meeting her eye when he spoke. She swallowed. “It wasn’t completely your dad’s fault. It was more like the last straw,” she said honestly. Her father had felt like a second-class citizen in the Walker family for a long time. With an impressive engineering background and an interest in green energy, he had desperately wanted to move to Palo Alto for years, but Marilyn’s career made that impossible. Now he was there doing exactly what he wanted to do and thriving. Ellie was happy for him, but the Skype calls and four visits a year had put a strain on their relationship.
Gabe’s eyes focused again on hers. She tried not to meet his gaze, but that was like standing on the ledge of a skyscraper and telling yourself not to look down. She had been so convinced he had used her. Now that she knew he didn’t, she wasn’t sure if it was better or worse.
“Is that you sort of forgiving me? Because let’s just be honest for a second. If anyone should be pissed here, it’s me,” he said, his tone softened and his hypnotic voice echoing through her in the small room.
“Are you serious?” She looked at him indignantly.
“I mean, it’s pretty insulting you thought I was using you to help my dad,” he answered, unblinking. “But it’s been a long time. I think I’m willing to forgive you.”
Gabe gave her a wry smile and the anger slowly started to burn off her in such a way she could almost see the smoke escaping through her fingertips.
“You can’t really blame me. It’s not like I’d known you for that long,” she said, trying somehow not to veer off course.
“Come on, Elle. I don’t care how long it was. You know me better than anyone else.”
She wanted to believe him. He watched her carefully and it made her shiver again. We’re standing in a freezer, she told herself. Of course I’m shivering. But she knew that’s not why she had goose bumps.
“None of this matters. If anything, the entire situation is ten times worse now. Your dad still has it out for my mom.”
“Who cares? What do their issues have to do with us?”
Ellie looked away.
“You were the only reason I wanted to come back,” he said, his voice low and resolute.
She stood flattened against the freezing wall, but with every step he took closer to her, the room somehow became warmer. His eyes slowly peeled off the layers of her hesitation, leaving her standing before him, raw and exposed. Finally, their faces were within inches of each other.
She wasn’t sure if she threw her arms around his neck first or if he grabbed her waist and pulled her into him, but suddenly, they were up against the wall, kissing with such intensity the vodka bottles could have overheated. She was practically floating as he pulled her in even closer, his hands on her face, her neck, around her body, kissing her with the same urgency she was feeling.
Ellie suddenly heard a strange sound in the deep recesses of her brain. “What was that?” she asked, breathlessly, but unable to move her eyes or mouth more than an inch away from his.
“Nothing,” he answered, his lips back on hers, giving her chills as he ran his hands through her hair. Every time he touched her, it was like her whole body sprung to life, and if he took his hands away, she feared he would take a part of her with him. Just as they had been before, they were completely consumed by each other and made everything else in Ellie’s life instantly melt away in the face of it.
Maybe she just needed to make out with him this one last time and then she could move on.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Wednesday, 10:39am.
“Can anyone tell me which party Andrew Jackson belonged to when he ran for president?” Mr. Walsh asked.
Evan knew the answer, but she was too distracted to raise her hand. She was sitting so close to Hunter, their elbows were practically touching. Before class started, Evan had impulsively moved into the empty chair next to him where Ellie typically sat, making an excuse about having to ask him a question about student government for an article she was writing. And then Ellie had never shown up and so, Evan casually remained in the seat long after he had answered it, simultaneously dying of happiness at her close proximity to Hunter and worrying incessantly that everyone else in the class thought it was weird she was sitting there.
Kevin Pike, whose mother was head of the Republican National Committee, called out, “Andrew Jackson was a Democrat. That’s why the deficit spiraled out of control during his presidency. Boo-ya!” He gave the guy sitting next to him a high five.
“Okay, that’s not exactly true—” Mr. Walsh began, but as usual, he got steamrolled. He never learned you couldn’t ask questions like this in a G.A. history class.
“I find that interesting,” interjected Fiona Hutchison, whose grandfathe
r had advised three democratic presidents, “because actually Jackson was able to reduce the federal deficit to the lowest it ever was. Probably because he wasn’t afraid to tax the richest two percent.”
And now she’s just repeating campaign slogans. Evan didn’t mind if people had different opinions than her, as long as they could back them up. You would think at a school like Georgetown Academy, everyone would have really strong, thought-out positions, but most of the time, the students just parroted their parents’ talking points as their own.
“Getting back to Mr. Walsh’s original question,” Hunter began from his seat next to her and Evan immediately brightened. She was still reeling over their amazing conversation last night at the rookie party. Though she had initially been nervous when she realized Hunter had seen Luke kissing her, it ended up having the opposite effect of making him want to talk to her more. And Luke got his moment being seen making out with a girl, so everybody won.
“Jackson was a member of the Democratic-Republican party,” Hunter was saying, “Which, actually, wasn’t akin to either modern-day party.” Evan loved that whenever Hunter spoke in class, he always tried to say something that would cut the tension and unite the other students.
“He’s right,” Evan chimed in, aware of Hunter’s deep blue eyes focusing on her. “The tenets of the Democratic-Republican party had elements that both modern day parties would never agree with these days.”
“All right, thank you everyone for your input,” Mr. Walsh said wearily, “Let’s get into the details of his presidential bid in 1824—”
“Was that before or after he pulled a Sarah Palin and quit as a senator in the middle of his term?” asked Fiona, her eyes flashing.
A loud “oooohhhhh” went around the classroom.
“To become a judge! A lot of people would say that’s a step up!” said Hillary Watson, whose mother was, naturally, a circuit judge, one who had happened to use her judicial power to get Hillary out of some deep trouble when she was caught stealing a cocktail ring from Van Cleef & Arpels last year. “I seriously think there’s a prejudice going on in this classroom that senators are somehow better than judges. And I, for one, will not sit in a class where that message is condoned.” The last part was said with a pointed look to Mr. Walsh who was already in the midst of taking the two Excedrin he usually popped in the middle of class.
Georgetown Academy 1 and 2 Page 9