Elena finally spotted Harper down in the basement on the sectional couch, sitting right next to—practically on top of—Oliver Prince. Despite the noise, they both looked up when Elena reached the bottom stair. Harper frantically waved Elena over, but Elena pointed to the soda bar at the other end of the room. She was not going to spend the evening talking to Oliver Prince. Not when she wasn’t getting paid for it.
The Andersons always stocked the best pop in their house—rare kinds their dad found when he was traveling for work, expensive small batch sodas, even the really basic generic cream soda Harper liked from the grocery store. The house was totally dry. No one from school would dare to complain about the lack of alcohol at Harper’s parties. Her mom was killed by a drunk driver—some tourist—back in junior high, only about a year after the Andersons had moved to town. It was during the summer, on a two-lane road just south of town that was always slick when it rained.
After the funeral, Harper’s dad had gotten rid of every drop of alcohol in the house on principle. Elena had sat on the couch between Harper and her brother, Sam, gripping Harper’s hand, and watched it all happen.
Harper’s situation reminded Elena of what she’d talked to Stashiuk4Prez about the other night. Anyone who’d just met Harper would have no idea the tragedy her family had faced. She always put on a strong front. It was only when you got to know her that she’d let you see her emotions.
Elena, however, knew the real Harper. They’d been through a lot together—her mom’s death, and Elena’s grandmother’s. They’d cried when Star and some of the other girls had bullied Elena in eighth grade. They’d laughed and swooned over the romantic comedies they both loved—While You Were Sleeping and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. They fed each other gooey nachos and under-baked chocolate chip cookies. Only Harper knew that Elena’s anxious mind woke her up at two o’clock every morning, and she watched old sitcoms until she fell back asleep. Only Elena knew that Harper wore Obsession perfume because it was her mom’s scent, or that she slept with a ratty old doll every night because she was scared of the dark.
But now Harper was hiding something about the Christmas ski trip with Oliver Prince, Elena wasn’t telling Harper about the troubles at her family’s store, and she hadn’t mentioned her chat relationship with Stashiuk4Prez. Why?
They had been knocked out of synch, and there was a pretty obvious reason why—it all started and ended with the Prince family.
After grabbing a bottle of her favorite pop (Coca-Cola from Mexico, made with real sugar, not gross corn syrup), Elena ducked upstairs to the front room, which was empty, perched in the dark on one of the wing-backed armchairs, and opened her Stash Grab app.
The thumping bass and loud conversations faded into background noise as she clicked on every blue bubble, hunting for one specific name. None of them belonged to Stashiuk4Prez. Either he wasn’t here tonight or he didn’t have his app open. Whatever the reason, it sunk her heart.
Defeated, she dragged herself into the family room off the back of the house where she found Sam Anderson talking to Danny, Star, and Marley. Sam waved when Elena entered the room, and she settled into an empty spot on the couch across from him. At least there were no Princes in this room. At least she was safe here.
“Elena knows what I’m talking about,” he said, gesturing toward her. “Harper is a huge slob.”
She held up her pop bottle in a salute of agreement.
Sam winked at Elena, then addressed his audience. “So, yeah. I couldn’t find my phone anywhere in her room, it’s such a disaster area. And I was like, ‘Harper, can you please get in here and move your underwear? I’ve got Stashes to catch.”
“Did you find it?” asked Marley, leaning forward.
“Finally.” He reached into the pocket of his athletic shorts—Sam always wore athletic shorts, no matter the temperature—and held up his phone. “I hadn’t even left it in her room. It was in the kitchen freezer.” He rolled his eyes. “I had to wait, like, an hour for the thing to thaw out.”
Danny took a sip of his pop, some fancy root beer with an ironic name. “Dude, don’t make excuses.”
“Excuses for what?” asked Sam.
Danny grinned. “Excuses for why you’re losing so bad at Stash Grab.”
Sam threw a pillow at him. “I’m not losing that bad.” He rested his arms behind his head. “It’s a fun game, though, isn’t it? Like, the game itself is great, but it’s also cool talking to people anonymously who could be your neighbor or your teacher or, hell, Craig, but you have no idea. It’s amazing. Like in the movies. I started trash talking with some girl—”
When he said it, Elena was right in the middle of a huge gulp of pop. It went straight up her nose and sent her into a wild coughing, sneezing fit. Did he—her best friend’s brother, a student at North Pole High—just say that he he’d been trash talking with some girl? Was it possible? It couldn’t be possible.
Before he could finish his story, Sam jumped up and helped Elena to her feet. “You okay?” he asked, patting her on the back.
She pulled away from him slightly, off balance and confused and unsure of how to feel in this moment. Sam was chatting with some girl. Stashiuk4Prez was chatting with some girl. Was it just a coincidence? Obviously, she and Stashiuk4Prez couldn’t have been the only two contestants who’d struck up a conversation over the past few weeks.
Elena gazed into Sam’s big brown eyes. He brushed a curly lock of brown hair out of his face and smiled down at her. Though he always wore his omnipresent faded T-shirts and mesh basketball shorts, they worked on him. Sam was Sam. He was effortless, funny, and sweet. And he was always very nice to her. What if he were Stashiuk4Prez? Would that be so bad? Elena smiled up at him. “I’m okay,” she said with what she hoped was a hint of meaning behind it.
“Good,” Sam said, unceremoniously letting her go and flopping back down on the couch, his story abandoned. He launched into more trash talk with Danny. “At least I don’t need my girlfriend to answer questions for me.”
“Because, dude,” said Danny, “you don’t have a girlfriend.”
Elena resumed her place on the couch, but kept watching Sam, observing him in a new light. She tried to imagine herself with Sam—hugging him, kissing him. It felt weird, and not, like, sexy, tingly weird. It felt brother-and-sister weird. But maybe that was because she’d never given the idea any consideration before. He’d always just been Sam, her friend’s older brother. She’d never considered him to be Sam, boyfriend material. She stared at his lips. They were plump and supple, like they’d be fine to kiss. Elena caught herself licking her own lips, and nearly bit her tongue off when someone plopped down on the couch next to her.
Wincing in pain, she turned and met the deep, brown eyes of that trash heap in human form, Oliver Prince.
“What do you want?” What was Oliver doing staring at her like that? It was rude. She hadn’t had to tutor him in three days and her life had never been better—no stubborn quips about the uselessness of learning a dead language (even though, hello, she’d helped him score a 96 percent on his Roman kings quiz), no yelling, no awkward silences.
“Can I talk to you a minute?” He nodded toward the other room. “Please,” he said. “One minute.”
“No,” she said, focusing on Sam again.
“Please,” he repeated.
She turned toward him. Oliver was frowning at her like he was about to deliver some life-altering, terrible news, like he was a doctor who knew Elena had three months to live. She didn’t want to hear whatever this was, but she knew she had to listen. “Okay,” she said. “But only because you said please. I want to encourage the modicum of polite behavior you’ve exhibited tonight.”
Sneaking one last peek at Sam’s mouth, which was now taunting Danny about his jump shot, Elena heaved herself off the overstuffed couch and followed Oliver into the dark dining room. He flipped on the lights, which sent star forward, Kevin Snow, and his flavor of the week, Katie Murphy this time,
scrambling out of the room, fiddling with their clothes, making sure all their bits were covered. Elena groaned. She knew that life. She’d been Kevin’s flavor of the week once. She shuddered. What if he were Stashiuk4Prez? That would be…not ideal.
Elena folded her arms and focused on Oliver. “Your minute starts now.”
Oliver ran his fingers through his stupid-gorgeous russet hair. He didn’t deserve that hair. He waited until the two of them were for sure alone, then he said, leaning toward her slightly, his voice softer than she was used to, “Do you…happen to know why our parents hate each other?”
“Uh, duh.” She shrugged. What the hell? This was why he’d pulled her away? So she could stand here and listen to this foolishness instead of gathering clues about whether or not Sam and Stashiuk4Prez were the same person? “The feud,” Elena said. “Obviously. Your grandfather bilked my grandfather out of, like, a year’s worth of profits.”
“That’s not the way I heard, it,” he said, narrowing his eyes, “but whatever. Is that the extent of it?”
She shrugged again, shaking her head, thinking about her mom’s reaction to Trip Prince in Santabucks. Her eyes had haunted Elena for days. “Yeah, that’s it. What else would it be?”
There were heavy, clomping footsteps behind them, and Oliver ducked down, using Elena’s body to shield him from the door. She spun around to see what all the noise was about and saw Harper’s diaphanous blue skirt trailing past the doorway.
“You’d better be nice to her,” Elena said.
“I am nice to her.” Oliver frowned, but he didn’t move. He kept using Elena’s body as a barrier between himself and Harper in the kitchen.
“You’re using me as a human shield,” Elena said.
Oliver peered over Elena’s shoulder into the kitchen. “Because the last thing I want is anyone to see me talking to you when I’m not being forced to do so.”
“You’re the one who dragged me in here.” He was still watching the kitchen, making sure they were alone. “What happened between you two?” Elena bit her cheek and tapped her toe on the floor. If this guy hurt Harper…
“Between me and Harper? Nothing.” Oliver’s eyes snapped to Elena’s.
“Nothing?” Elena said. “She’s been acting weird ever since the trip over Christmas break. I’ve never seen her go gaga over anyone like she’s gone over you.”
He snorted. The corner of each eye crinkled in an annoyingly adorable way. She pinched her arm. Stop thinking those things.
“What?” Elena asked, focusing on his chin in order to avoid those eyes.
“Well, it’s not me she’s gaga over, is it?” He kept smiling at Elena like the two of them were in on this big secret together.
“What?” Elena said. “What are you even talking about?”
Oliver stared at her. “The trip…the hookup.”
“Yeah,” Elena said. “She hooked up with you.”
Oliver’s mouth dropped open.
“Right?” Elena asked, her heart speeding up.
Oliver didn’t say anything.
“Right?” A flush crept up her neck. She knew Harper had been hiding something from her, but what was it? And why?
“I think you need to talk to your friend.” Oliver frowned. “It’s not my place to say anything.”
“What is she not telling me?”
“Again.” Oliver nodded toward the door to the kitchen. “Talk to her.”
“I’ll do that, person who just moved here and has no idea about anything.” God, these Princes were such know-it-alls, so full of themselves. First his dad had traipsed into town and ruined her family’s business, now Oliver was telling Elena that he knew more about her own best friend than she did. Elena spun on her heel and stepped toward the door.
But Oliver reached for her arm before she could get very far. Elena brushed him away immediately, though her skin tingled from his touch. He backed away, hands raised, like he hadn’t meant to do that.
“What. The. Hell?” she asked, staring pointedly at his rogue hand.
“I found a picture, in Prince’s,” he whispered from halfway across the room. “Of your mom and my dad. That’s what I wanted to tell you. They had their arms around each other, like they knew each other…well.”
Ice spread through her body as she clutched the spot on her arm where Oliver’s fingers had just grazed her. “What?” Elena asked.
Like tossing a Frisbee, he flung her the photograph, which fluttered to the floor between them. Elena picked it up. There they were, his dad and her mom, but twenty years younger, with their arms around each other. Elena blinked a few times, taking it all in, her heart pounding. “Whatever,” she said. “So what?”
“So what?” he asked. “Your mom is staring at my dad like she adores him.”
“No,” said Elena, tossing the photo onto the dining room table. She wasn’t going to make a fool of herself hurling it back at him. “Your dad has his arm around her shoulders and she’s obviously sending out an SOS with her eyes.” Oliver was right. This meant something. Elena had heard for years about the Princes and their vindictiveness, but she’d always understood the feud to be business-related. Her mom ogling Trip Prince like she wanted to lick him was not business. But Elena was not about to discuss it with Oliver freaking Prince.
“What do you think—?” Oliver started to say, as he put the picture back in his pocket.
But Elena’s phone buzzed and her hand instinctively went to her purse. Behind her, in the kitchen, more phones buzzed and pinged. “I guess there’s a Stash here.” She shrugged, dropping her arms to her sides. She itched to take out her phone, to go after the Stash, but she knew she couldn’t. Not in the presence of this doofus.
“You want to go get it?” asked Oliver.
Elena reeled back in feigned outrage. “I’m not playing that asinine game.” She glanced at Oliver who was staring—What was it? Wistfully?—at the crowd of North Pole teenagers darting through the Anderson household. “Are we done here?”
“We’re done.”
“Good.”
Clutching her purse to her side, she casually stepped into the kitchen, careful to avoid being stampeded by the entire varsity offensive line. People all around her dashed about, phones in the air. Sam and Danny were pulling their boots on, about to head outside. A crowd had already gathered in the yard. They trudged through the snow on the deck, tramped through the eight inches piled up in the grass, and skidded over Harper’s little sister’s makeshift ice rink as they ran toward the lake at the edge of the Andersons’ property. Marley Ho fell face first into a drift, and Kevin Snow helped her up.
And Elena stood at the window and watched, because stupid Oliver Prince was right behind her and she didn’t want to tip her hand.
“They’re having fun,” he said.
“Whatever.” Elena folded her arms. She longed to be with them. A dull ache formed in her gut as she mentally popped bubbles in her head, wondering if any of them belonged to Stashiuk4Prez. But instead she was standing with her face pressed up against the glass, stuck in another inane conversation with her mortal enemy.
She turned slightly to face Oliver, to see what he was up to. He had his phone in his hand, but the screen was black. “You have to be loving this.”
He turned to her, brow furrowed.
“Everybody playing your game, having fun.” She gestured toward the crowd gathering on the pier at the edge of the Andersons’ property. “You did this.”
He sighed. His eyes were focused on Danny’s brother, Brian, as he frolicked across the snowdrifts in the yard of the abandoned house next door. “I can’t really enjoy it, though, can I?”
“You still did it. Nobody’d be outside killing themselves right now if not for you.” She watched Danny Garland crawl onto the ice next to the pier.
“There was a glitch,” he said. “The Stash in Prince’s wasn’t working, and I couldn’t get on the computer to fix it. I couldn’t do anything about it. When I texted Regina to
let her know, she was like, ‘It’s handled.’ I’m worthless.” Still staring outside, he bit his lip.
“You’re not worthless,” she said. “You’re bringing your grades up and, you know, you’ll get your computer back soon. And stuff.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” He turned to her, his eyes wide. “Thanks. For that.”
“I heard,” she said, clearing her throat and ending the moment of bizarre civility with Oliver Prince, “that your little game here has sparked some online romance.”
Oliver’s mouth dropped open. “I hadn’t heard anything.”
Elena said, “Sam said that he’d been chatting with some girl…”
Oliver laughed maniacally, relief painted on his face. “Is that what he said?”
“What’s so funny? He met a girl through your game.”
He paused his chortle long enough to tell her, “You didn’t let him get to the punchline. He assumed he’d been chatting with a girl, but it turned out to be Mags from the diner.” Oliver’s eyes danced as he gazed down at Elena. She hated that he was laughing at her, like she was a fool or a child or something. She hated even more that he looked cute while doing it. “He did get some free burgers out of it.”
“Oh.” Elena watched Sam as he jumped up and down on the pier, nearly falling into the icy water, having answered the question right. In all likelihood, he wasn’t Stashiuk4Prez. A sense of calm washed over her, relief, which startled her. Elena had been expecting sadness.
…
On Sunday, the day after her party, Harper showed up at the Princes’ house right around lunch. Oliver, who was in the middle of doing homework after a grueling hour of tutoring with Elena at Santabucks, was the one who answered the door.
“Regina’s not here,” he said. She had been asleep when he left earlier that morning. He’d put a Post-It on her forehead, saying, “Nice Stash on the pier last night. Huge success.”
“That’s fine,” Harper said. “What are you doing?”
Oliver cocked a wary eyebrow at her. “Homework?”
Any Boy but You (North Pole, Minnesota) Page 7