A dancing Christina Aguilera accidentally elbowed Massie in the kidney. She elbowed back. Twice.
“Just like that? You’re over him? After everything you made me—”
“What’s the big deal?” Skye threw her arms in the air and clapped to the beat of the song.
Everyone joined in.
“Haven’t you ever changed your mind about a guy before?” Skye squatted until she was practically sitting, then speed-thrusted her pelvis. “Oh, sorry, I forgot.” Skye stood and spun. “I forgot. You’re not ready for a serious relationship.”
Massie stood over her, fighting the urge to introduce her next thrust to the heel of her Christian Louboutin platforms. “Do I still get the key to the room?”
“Of course.” Skye spun. “A deal’s a deal. Every alpha knows that.”
“Great!” Massie beamed, and secretly tapped her thigh, congratulating herself on a job well done. The Pretty Committee had been granted full ESP access for the eighth grade. They could now add “boy experts” to their résumés, right after fashion consultants, socialites, tastemakers, and fabulous friends.
But the good news wasn’t enough to keep Massie from wanting to punch Skye’s in her big fat Angelina lips. She resisted the urge, however, and stormed off the dance floor instead.
How could she have let the alpha use and abuse her like an LBR? Was it payback for all the times she had used and abused others? Impossible. Everyone she manipulated deserved it.
And there was nothing Massie had done to deserve what she had endured over the last two weeks. Nuh-thing. Skye needed to be medicated. It was as simple as that.
After a quick survey of the dance floor, to make sure no one was laughing at her, Massie straightened her bent angel wings, took three cleansing breaths, and made her way back to Chris, who was sitting on one of the bottom steps, squished to the side to let people pass. There was something about Skye not being into him anymore that made him seem slightly passé, like shrugs or peasant skirts.
“Did you ask her?” Chris looked up and ran his hand through his highlighted tips, which suddenly seemed awkward and inappropriate for Romeo—or any boy, for that matter.
“Ask her what?” Massie could hear the agitation in her voice, not that she cared. She needed more time to think, to process what had just happened. To heal.
“Did you ask her if she wanted to try my playlist?”
“Oh.” Massie caught another glimpse of Derrington; he was surrounded by even more eighth-grade girls, wiggling his butt and making them giggle. She remembered how she used to laugh at his signature butt-shake and suddenly started to miss him. After all, he was a male alpha, a star goalie, ah-dorably adorable, and a www.awesomelip-kisser.com. If she really thought about it, how bad could his “issue” possibly be? Everyone knew Massie Block was as close to perfect as God would allow a human being to be. Sure, Chris had a driver’s license and navy-blue eyes, but so what? Those qualities never even made CosmoGIRLS!’s Top Ten.
“Well, what did she say?”
“About what?”
“My playlist?”
“Oh, uh, she said maybe later.”
“Great.” Chris flashed a satisfied grin.
“Great.” Massie rolled her eyes, knowing exactly why Juliet had killed herself.
CURRENT STATE OF THE UNION
IN OUT
David & Victoria Romeo & Juliet
Feeling stupid Playing Cupid
Dune Gloom
WESTCHESTER, NY
THE HAMILTON HOME
Saturday, May 1st
7:42 P.M.
It was the perfect place for a make-out.
A vanilla Archipelago Botanicals candle flickered in its votive below the mirrored medicine cabinet, casting a warm fireplace-like glow throughout the cozy bathroom. Two hunter-green bath mats covered the tiled floor and felt like squishy moss beds under Claire’s bare feet. And Cam agreed. It did feel like moss.
If it hadn’t been for the toilet and the row of electric toothbrushes to the right of the sink, it would have been easy for Claire to imagine them standing in the Garden of Eden, the only two people on earth.
But in her current mind-set, Claire wanted to wrap Eve’s rubber snake around Adam’s Drakkar Noir–soaked neck and yank. Not even his ridiculous-in-a-cute-way costume could distract her from the pain she had been living with for the past week. But she would do her best to try. At least until she could get back in the bomb shelter and get the rest of the story. Until then, she vowed to act cool and carefree and—
“I know why you’ve been acting so weird lately.” Cam stuck his index finger under the dripping faucet. He watched the drops gather, then spill into the porcelain sink.
Claire tried her hardest to breathe at a steady I’m-so-not-panicking pace. But her exposed stomach, which inflated and deflated faster than a blowfish with hiccups, betrayed her.
“You do?” Claire felt dizzy. She lowered herself to sit on the toilet seat but stopped halfway and stood back up. With all that was going on, the last thing she needed was for Cam to see how she looked going to the bathroom.
“I do.”
Cam turned to her. His steady gaze, the gaze that usually made her insides warm, stopped her cold.
And then there was a knock on the door.
“Just a minute,” Claire called politely, and then faced him again, trying to ignore her thumping heart. “Continue.”
“Well, the summer’s coming and…” He paused.
OMG! He was going to tell her about Nikki. How does one act shocked? Gasp? Widen eyes? Cover mouth? Clutch heart? Faint? What????
Claire tugged on an empty towel ring, as if it might open a trap door in the wall and give her a place to hide.
“The summer’s coming and…” He paused again in the same place, like a scratched CD. Only this time he reached for her hand. “And you’re pushing me away to protect yourself from the pain of being separated.”
“Is that what your stupid, sensitive ESP class taught you? Because it’s wrong! Not only is it wrong, but it’s egotistical and conceited and… double wrong!” Claire wanted to scream. But she didn’t. Instead, she stared into his green eye (she favored it slightly over his blue one) and willed her tears to go back to wherever they hung when they were off duty.
“So I got you something special.” He leaned into the bathtub and pulled out a tan Pottery Barn bag.
“How did that get in here?”
“Since the bracelet I got you is at the bottom of the wave pool”—Cam grinned, letting her know he wasn’t holding any grudges—“here’s something to remind you of me while I’m gone.”
He handed her the gift.
She reached for it slowly, never taking her questioning eyes off his beaming face. Another one from Nikki?
Claire grabbed it and the rubber snake slid off her neck and plopped to the floor.
“Ahhhh!” The sudden thud made her scream. Then she giggled. Then Cam laughed.
His laugh reminded her of when they were happy. Then she remembered why she was sad. And she stopped giggling.
“Are you going to open the present or what?”
“What is it?” She pulled out a heavy rectangular object wrapped in red tissue paper.
“Is everything all right in there?” Skye’s mother called from the other side of the door, her tone a mix of concern and suspicion.
“Yup,” Claire called back cheerfully.
“It’s that picture of us sharing that gummy worm like Lady and the Tramp, remember?” Cam beamed. “I blew it up and got it framed. I got one for myself, too. I’m going to take it to camp and put it right next to my—”
Claire stuffed the photo back in the bag without even looking at it. The mere mention of the word camp made her—
There was a loud bang on the door. “Come on, I gotta go!”
“Well, go upstairs!” Claire kicked back.
“Buy some Pepto, loser.” The guy made a fart sound, smacked the door, then stomped off.<
br />
“You’re gonna have a picture of us at camp?” asked Claire, her insides quaking. An unstoppable emotional force, more powerful than her will to stay calm, was building deep within her.
Cam nodded slowly, suspecting he might have done something wrong—he just had no idea what.
“Won’t Ni-kki mind?” Her face contorted like she’d just eaten a bag full of his re-gifted sours.
“Nikki?” Cam’s eyes darkened. “How do you know about Nikki?”
Hearing him say her name out loud made Claire feel nauseated. Not a fleeting queasiness, more like a make-room-I’m-about-to-barf-the-California-roll-I-ate-before-theparty nauseated. She knew she was supposed to regret her outburst, but at the same time, it was a huge relief to come clean. And maybe now she could finally find out who the heck Nikki the camp tramp actually was.
Cam moved to the door and checked that it was locked, making it clear she wasn’t going anywhere until he had answers.
“Did Derrington say something?”
Claire shook her head no.
“Then how?”
She still couldn’t speak.
“You read my journal, didn’t you?”
His voice was scarily calm.
“What?”
“You did. Admit it. At Slice of Heaven. When you took it into the bathroom. I was right. You read it.”
Claire hated that he thought he was right to have suspected her. Because she hadn’t really read his journal, at least not the way Cam thought she had. But she didn’t bother correcting him. The more she thought about it, it was better to be a journal-reader than what she really was—a surveillance junkie, addicted to a spy camera in a blacked-out bomb shelter.
“Okay, fine, I read it in your journal.” Claire looked down at her leaf green–painted toenails for effect. “Now can we please talk about it? Who is she? Do you love—”
“How could you do that to me? I trusted you.” Cam tossed the beige Pottery Barn bag in the bathtub. The glass frame shattered.
The sudden noise and harsh gesture made Claire jump.
“Well, I trusted you, and you’ve been two-timing me.”
Cam glared at her, searing her wide blue eyes with his anger. Claire felt a pinch in her throat. This whole thing seemed so unfair. She was the one who’d stood up to the girls in the bomb shelter and told them not to spy. And here she was, the only one paying for it. And the price was high. Higher than she ever could have imagined. This slight moral lapse was costing her true love.
“Is that what you think?”
She nodded, hot tears pouring down her cheeks.
“That’s the trouble with snooping. You never get the whole story. And you know what? Now you never will.” Cam pushed past her and unlocked the bathroom door.
“Wait!” Claire sob-begged as she reached for his arm.
But he was too fast. Ignoring her and the angry comments from the people waiting in line outside the door, Cam stormed off without another word.
Claire chased after him, wondering how they’d gone from being the perfect couple to this?
“Hey,” someone shouted. “You forgot your snake!”
But Claire didn’t care. All she wanted to do was find Cam and make everything okay again.
She finally caught up with him in Skye’s spacious yellow-and-white country-style kitchen. The oval maple table was covered in leftover chicken wings and Hershey’s Kisses, which Plovert and Kemp were helping themselves to.
An eighth-grade K-Fed, who was wearing a FedEx T-shirt, was describing Skye’s bathroom to three of his buddies. They were whispering around a barrel filled with ice and cans of Red Bull but decided to leave when Cam barged in.
“I’m outta here,” he announced, reaching for his leather jacket, which had been draped over one of the breakfast chairs.
“You seem bummed.” Plovert popped an almond Kiss in his mouth. “I’ll go with you.”
“Me too,” said Kemp, standing over the wings platter.
“S’cool guys,” Cam tried smiling, to show Claire how good he could be at ignoring her. “Stay and have fun.”
“But we don’t wanna stay.” Plovert looked over his shoulder. “Dylan is raiding the pantry as we speak, looking for ginger ale. She says the bubbles are great for burp contests.”
“We can’t take all the eating and burping and fart jokes anymore.” Kemp waved the air. “It’s like hanging out with Shrek.”
“Cam,” Claire said from the doorway, tired of feeling invisible, “can we just talk?”
He kept his back to her.
“Ugh!” Claire pretended to storm off by pounding her bare feet on the floor and then crouched behind the cooking island in the center of the kitchen and tried to steady her breathing.
“Can we get a ride?” Plovert whispered, his voice barely audible above the take-it-off chants and bouts of laughter wafting up from the basement.
Cam nodded.
“Me too?” Griffin crawled out from under the round breakfast table.
“How long have you been under there?” asked Kemp, pulling off his Bruce Willis bald wig and fluffing his shaggy curls.
“Twenty minutes,” he whispered. “I’m hiding from Kristen. She keeps trying to make me talk about chick flicks like The Notebook. It’s like she wants to bring out my sensitive side or something.”
The boys burst out in hysterics.
“Did you tell her you don’t have one?” Cam slapped his back.
“I told her I’m into the macabre and dark arts but for some reason, she’s not buying it.” Griffin pulled a fake Chucky scar off his cheek and flicked it onto a plate of brownies.
“She’s almost as gullible as Dr. Loni.” Plovert stuffed his Ashton Kutcher shades in his side pocket.
“Seriously, dude.” Kemp snickered. “If he knew you fake-read romance novels to get an A in his class, he’d have an emotional breakdown.”
“Well, let’s hope he never finds out.” Griffin opened the fridge, took a swig of Coke from the bottle, then jammed it back in. “It’s the only class I’m not failing.” He burped.
Claire’s heart thumped along to the beat of “Glamorous,” by Fergie, which was blasting downstairs. She wanted to grab Dylan and Kristen and tell them what she’d just heard before they humiliated themselves even more. But she was trapped, once again, with the burden of illegally obtained information, not to mention secretly crouched behind a cooking island.
All of a sudden, Massie appeared in the wood-paneled doorway, looking desperate and relieved at the same time, like she’d been running after a school bus and just made it. She noticed Claire immediately and gasp-giggled. Quickly, Claire lifted a finger to her lips, silently begging her not to give her away.
Massie zipped her lip and threw the invisible key over her crumpled angel wings. Then, probably to avoid temptation, she helped herself to a seat at the table and re-glossed.
“Dude, eighth-grade chicks are awesome!” Derrington hurried in. “You guys have to come downstairs and hang. “They’re totally easygoing. No head games. No random mood swings. No inside jokes. They’re so much more ma—”
He stopped speaking when Kemp tilted his head toward Massie.
“So much more what?” Massie asked, pushing away the plate of wings like someone who had had enough. “So much more what?” She stood and placed her hands on her hips.
“Tell her, D.” Kemp snickered.
“Yeah, tell her,” echoed Plovert.
Derrington ran a hand through his bushy blond hair and blurted, “Mature, okay? They’re so much more mature. There.” He wiggled his butt. “I said it.”
Claire silent-gasped, wishing she could see the expression on Massie’s face.
“Um, excuse me.” Massie cleared her throat, her voice steady and remarkably calm. “Are you a confused woman?”
“What? No, why?”
“Sorry, you look exactly like someone I know named Miss Taken.” Massie tossed her hair.
The boys burst out laughing
while Claire quickly covered her mouth and giggled into her clammy palm.
“You are the most immature guy I’ve ever met. You wiggle your butt to express your feelings, you wear shorts in the winter, you—”
“Whatever.” Derrington swiveled his head to check out an eighth-grade Barbie doll who was returning a Bic pen and a pink sticky pad to the right of the cordless phone. Once she was gone, he turned back to Massie. “Go back to that girl, I mean guy with the highlights. I’m into older women now.”
“Great.” Massie tried to sound relieved. “I hope they like—”
“Are you okay?” Alicia burst into the kitchen. Josh was right behind her. “I saw you take off and run upstairs and I was worried something—”
“I’m fine times ten.” Massie turned her back to the boys. “Never better.”
“You coming?” Cam asked Josh.
“Depends,” Josh said, releasing another Ralph Lauren baby powder puff into the tension-filled atmosphere. “Where’s everyone going?”
“Away from these girls.” Griffin shuddered. “I’ve never been more scared in my entire life.”
Josh looked at Alicia with his blue contacts and smiled. “I think I’ll stay and hang out for a while.”
“Opposite of cool.” Alicia stepped away from Josh and draped her arm over Massie’s shoulder.
“Why?” Josh blanched.
“Puh-lease, I don’t want to be the only one with a date.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry.” She smiled a smile that was just for him. “I’ll e-mail you as soon as I get home.”
“’Kay.” He snickered.
“’Kay.” She giggled.
“Let’s go.” Cam led the angry boys out of the kitchen. “By the way,” he called from the front door, “I see you behind that island, Claire. Are you ever gonna grow up and stop sneaking around?”
Claire’s spine stiffened. Her cheeks flushed. She wanted to move back to Orlando. She had gone too far. There would be no turning him around now. And she hated herself more than she’d ever thought possible.
Sealed with a Diss Page 17