“Let’s go. It’s freezing out here,” Brooks said, picking up her snowboard along with his skis.
“You don’t have to do that,” Taryn said. “I can haul my own gear.”
“But why should you?” he asked. She opened her mouth to reply, but found she had none. For an instant, she caught a glimpse of, well, how nice it might be to date someone like Brooks. She had never really gone for the whole “treat you like a princess” thing like Lauren did, preferring more of the bad-ass, independent types, but she could admit, there was something kind of appealing about it. However, the thought instantly flew out of her head when she heard her phone buzz with a voicemail from Gabe. No doubt wondering where she was. Her phone must have not worked at the top of the mountain.
She dialed him quickly as she and Brooks trudged through the snow toward the lodge. He picked up after the second ring.
“Taryn, where are you?” he said, though he didn’t sound overly upset.
“I’m so sorry. I know we have dinner plans. I got caught up snowboarding with Brooks.” She accentuated his name ever so slightly.
“Cool. That’s what I figured,” Gabe said, casually. “Just text me when you’re ready to meet up. I’ll swing by your room and we’ll go from there.”
“Oh. Okay,” Taryn replied, slightly deflated. She should be happy he was being understanding. But the fact that it was so easy for Gabe not to care about her prolonged absence nagged at her. “Talk to you later.”
She hung up, slipping the phone back in her pocket.
“So...how do you think all this is going?” Brooks asked, turning to her, breezily.
“All what?” Taryn gave him a quizzical look.
“Your using me to make Gabe jealous.” She was too stunned to even be embarrassed. “How is it going? As a member of the mission, I think I deserve to know.” He flashed her a self-satisfied grin.
“What— I—” she stuttered. “How did you even know that—?”
“You’re not exactly a Sphinx, Taryn.” Now she felt the wave of humiliation rise through her body. Had she been that obvious? And if so…did that mean Gabe was onto her as well? The mere thought made her want to throw up. She could kill Lauren for talking her into this stupid plan.
“Relax, Pippi. I don’t think he knows,” Brooks said, reading her mind again. “He’s more clueless than a Democrat trying to legislate a way out of the national debt.”
She walked in silence next to him as they stepped through the doors to the bottom story of the lodge, feeling the hot embarrassment on her face give way to annoyance.
“How long have you known?”
“Since the moment you suggested we go skiing together.” All the comments he had made to Gabe that Taryn had thought were coincidentally helping her case… He had known. But what reason would Brooks have to go through this charade with her? Just to embarrass her? That would be like a Madison. To do something just to get the upper hand on someone. Which Brooks definitely had now that he knew her mortifying little secret.
“I haven’t quite figured out why you feel the need to make him jealous, but I’m deducing that somehow you’re not getting something you need from him.”
He was infuriatingly correct, but Taryn refused to admit it. Instead, she turned the tables.
“So why did you agree to go with me today then?” she asked indignantly.
Brooks paused slightly and she pressed him again. “If you knew I was only using you to make Gabe jealous, then why did you go with me?”
“Because I wanted to hang out with you,” he responded, matter-of-factly, meeting her eyes steadily. “I’ve wanted to for a while now.” Her jaw dropped but before she could pick it back up again, Brooks deposited her board into the valet rack and was turning toward the staircase.
“See you later,” he said, a sly smile on his face, as he walked away leaving Taryn standing there, the thoughts in her head flurrying quicker than the snowflakes outside.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Friday, 6:02 p.m.
Ellie stepped out of the icy shower and wrapped a white fluffy towel around her. She had spent most of the day holed up in the room, vomiting and swearing she’d stay away from vanilla flavored anything for the next year. Her hangover forced her to miss that morning’s mandatory leadership activity and instead, she’d stayed in bed, watching her mother on television during the Gail Morris Senate hearings, the guilt over the fact that Mike Lim was sitting in the Chairman seat only intensifying her hangover and lessening her desire to leave her room at all. If the photograph of her and Gabe had never leaked out, that seat would have been her mother’s.
But by the time the hearings had wrapped up for the day and Ellie had chugged the bottle of water Brinley had forced on her before leaving to meet Sarah Corliss for dinner, Ellie had started feeling less nauseated. And now, the freezing water formed droplets on her skin, cooling her down even more, refreshing her and making her feel like herself again.
As she slipped into a pair of leggings with a cozy knit sweater, the television networks had moved on from broadcasting the hearings to endlessly rehashing them, with body language experts weighing in how many times Gail Morris blinked during questions about her stance on abortion to Joan Rivers appearing via Skype on Piers Morgan to discuss her fashion choice that day in a segment titled Haute Supreme Court-ure.
The consensus seemed to be that she had done remarkably well under pressure. Gabe’s father had been relentlessly attacking her position on gun control the past few days, prompting the conservative Senator Orrin Hatch to lead Gail through a series of questions about it today. However, her responses were so neutrally cool-headed that Hatch later announced his intention to approve her nomination within the Judiciary Committee, significantly weakening Mills’s campaign.
A knock on the door interrupted the debate on Hardball as to how far Gail Morris would veer from a strict constructionist point of view, and Ellie crossed the room to answer it.
“Hey,” she said, smiling when she saw Weston on the other side, wearing corduroy pants with a tight-fitting cream thermal and gray knit beanie. He showed no sign of being as close to hung over as Ellie had been all day. “I was just thinking of you. Your mom did really well today.”
“She’s tough,” Weston agreed as he stepped into the room. “And these guys were nothing compared to the hell I give her sometimes.” He flashed a mischievous grin that made Ellie giggle.
“It’s kind of crazy when you think about it. If she gets this, your mom will have control over some huge decisions.” In general, Ellie tried to avoid a lot of the drama surrounding the D.C. political game, but every now and then the enormity of power that her friends’ parents wielded would hit her. Weston’s mom would be one of nine people deciding whether student newspapers could print whatever they wanted, or if illegal immigrants had rights or fourteen-year-olds could legally be tried as adults. And when you thought about it like that, it was kind of awe-inducing.
“Yeah,” Weston replied. “I’ll be able to get out of anything now.”
Ellie’s smile faded. That wasn’t exactly what she meant. But maybe that was just his idea of a joke. Or his way of deflecting attention from it all.
“Anyway, did you get my text?” he asked. “Are you going to come up to my room later tonight?”
“I don’t know if I can handle a party anytime soon,” she said, holding up the liter Evian bottle she was gripping like a security blanket, scared if she stopped sipping from it, her hangover would return with a vengeance.
“It’s not like a party party,” Weston replied. “It’s a few friends, hanging out. Low key.”
“I was just thinking of going to sleep…”
“Come on, isn’t that what you did all day? You have to stop by for a little bit,” Weston urged. “I told everyone you were coming.”
Ellie bit her lip. She hated letting people down, which was exactly how Weston was making her feel right now. “Okay, fine. I’ll be there. Just for a little bit.”
***
Brinley traipsed through the snow next to Shane, who was leading the way toward their destination, which he had insisted on keeping a surprise. He’d wanted to pick her up at the hotel for their quasi-date since it was apparently off the beaten path, but that was hardly an option. If anyone from D.C. saw Brinley leaving the hotel with a townie, her approval ratings would sink lower than Rick Perry’s after the GOP primary debate. So she had made an excuse to meet up in town first, and even when she saw him looking hotter than yesterday in his gray parka and black ski pants, she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being incredibly reckless with her reputation. Here she was, the girl who famously only dated guys whose parents were powerful enough to warrant private security detail and now she was on a date with a guy whose dad probably worked security at the local mall.
“This is it,” he said as they came to the bottom of a small hill.
She looked up and her anxiety took a backseat as her heart gave a flutter that even the Adderall couldn’t have induced. There was a large frozen pond in the middle of two snowy embankments, one of which was partially covered with a plaid crimson blanket, a bottle of Pinot and two glasses resting on top of it.
Maybe this wasn’t the worst idea after all. The setting looked straight out of one of the dream dates on The Bachelor that whatever generically good-looking guy the producers plucked out of obscurity from some Midwestern town tried to pass off as his own idea of spontaneous romance (not that she would ever admit to anyone she was obsessed with such a crude and nouveau reality show). Shane slyly pulled out two pairs of ice skates from his bag and she decided she wouldn’t mind if they skipped right to the hour-long hookup session that inevitably occurred after the bachelor and his desperado date slurped down a half a bottle of cheap Chardonnay.
“I hope you ice skate,” he said, his eyes gleaming in the dim light.
“Not professionally, but I can manage,” Brinley replied, unable to downplay the smile that had crept up on her face. Graham had never done anything so classically romantic like this for her.
She took off her shoes and Shane squatted down next to her, sweetly lacing up the ice skates on her small feet. It was a shame she had to remove the tall, red-soled riding boots that went perfectly with her tight, black wool pants, but he probably couldn’t spot Louboutins over a pair of pleather Steve Madden knock-offs anyway.
He put on his own pair and led her out to the middle of the pond, holding her hand as they started skating. She had to give him points for boldness. And his rough, manly hands sure beat Kyle Price’s metrosexual manicured ones.
“So?” he said, his feet expertly swishing across the ice as he led Brinley in a wide circle. She wondered if he played ice hockey, something she had always dismissed as violently nouveau and unpatriotically Canadian, though the thought of Shane playing it was oddly appealing.
She raised an eyebrow. “So what?”
“So you’ve never been to this spot, right?”
“I can’t say I have,” she answered, looking up at him. He was distractingly hot.
“Hopefully this makes up for whatever boring day in Stowe you had.”
It more than made up for it. “I spent most of it nursing my hung over best friend back to the land of the living. I hope I don’t smell like the Vanilla Stoli that was seeping from her pores.”
He bent down toward her, his lips so close to her neck that it sent chills down her spine. “Not that I can detect.”
“How was your day?” she asked quickly, breaking free from him and pirouetting in the middle of the ice. She needed to get a hold of herself. A vacation fling was one thing, but a Madison having a vacation fling with a townie? She had lied to Ellie and Brooks and said she was having dinner with Sarah Corliss, convincing herself this wouldn’t lead to anything anyway. But now that she was here, she wasn’t feeling quite so sure of that. It was strange how effortlessly calm and relaxed she was around him. Almost as relaxed as she’d been at the end of her stay at Sagebrush and the polar opposite of how she felt around everyone else on this ski trip.
“I slept for most of it. Your friends were a little exhausting last night. I didn’t know not having immediate access to vanilla almond milk and gluten-free pretzels could cause such an uproar.”
Brinley laughed in spite of herself. “I’m glad I didn’t call down for goose feather pillows like I was tempted to.”
“Yeah, well it definitely doesn’t make me want to run out and visit D.C. anytime soon.”
Her eyes widened. “You’ve never been?”
“Nope. How is it?”
“Amazing.” She suddenly conjured up an image of her mother’s wish list boyfriend binder and her stomach turned. “And suffocating at the same time.”
“I think most places are like that,” he said as they swiftly maneuvered their skates around the corner of the pond.
“Georgetown Academy isn’t like most places. There’s more politics there than the actual Senate. Except there’s no oversight committee to pretend to regulate the drama.”
He smirked. “Something tells me you always manage to land on your feet just fine.”
“Not always.” Brinley would be loath to admit to anyone else, but talking to Shane was so much easier, so much less exhausting than with everyone from D.C. She wasn’t consumed by the overwhelming need to impress him with her social status because it genuinely didn’t matter to him. And it didn’t take her long to deduce that’s what made her like him even more.
An hour and a glass of Pinot later, Brinley was curled up next to Shane, not sure whether she was warm from the small lantern he had brought or the intense heat radiating off his body. As she took a sip of her wine, she was surprised to find the flavors of the Pinot so smooth and dry from a bottle that couldn’t have cost more than twenty dollars. Shane moved the flickering lantern a little closer, illuminating both their faces in the darkness.
“Where did you find this thing?” she asked, happily warming her hands in front of it.
“Camping necessity. It’s one of the only things I pack when I go.” She scrunched up her nose in disdain and he laughed. “I take it you’ve never been camping.”
“I like to be within a mile radius of hot water at all times.”
“So do your parents work for the government?”
She flushed, caught off guard that someone didn’t know who they were. “My dad is one of the top political strategists in D.C.”
“You going to follow in his footsteps?”
“I don’t think so,” Brinley answered shortly. She had avoided thinking about her father since they’d arrived in Stowe, but now that Shane had brought him up, she realized her feelings about his betrayal were almost as raw as they’d been when she left Sagebrush.
“Why not?”
His innocent interest made her want to divulge the entire story about the photograph down to every last gory detail. But her family loyalty stopped her just short of letting it all tumble out. “He did something shady a few weeks ago that ended up hurting my best friend in the process. But she doesn’t even know it was my dad’s fault.”
“What did he say when you called him out on it?” he asked, looking at her curiously.
“I didn’t. I mean, I can’t. It’s his job.” She sighed, thinking of all the hurt Ellie endured when the photo leaked out. And all the pain it caused Marilyn Walker both personally and professionally.
“Come on, it can’t be that black and white.”
“Trust me, it is. I need to figure out a way to accept it and move on,” she said matter-of-factly.
He pushed a piece of hair off her face and she got light-headed like she’d just completed three days of a juice fast. “I wouldn’t worry. These kinds of things have a way of working themselves out, you know?”
Maybe that kind of simplistic notion was successful on the mountain in Stowe, but it wouldn’t fly in D.C. For
some reason, though, she did feel a little better. Usually a conversation like this would be accompanied by a desire for Adderall, but there wasn’t any of that annoying pressure with Shane and she didn’t feel any jittery sort of ache for it.
“What about you? What do you want to do if you’re not planning on running a ski school?” she asked, remembering what he said to her yesterday in the elevator.
“Hotel management. Cornell has a great program. That’s where I want to transfer. After doing this for a year, I definitely have my own ideas of how a place like this could run more smoothly.”
“Cornell’s a great school. Technically Ivy League,” she commented, impressed.
“Technically?”
“All the Ivy League schools were formed before the American Revolution. Cornell is the one exception. It was created right after the Civil War.”
He arched an eyebrow. “I’ll make sure not to mention that in my admissions essay.”
Brinley smiled and took a sip of her wine. When she looked up, his eyes were locked on her. Without a word, he took her glass and set it down next to his. Her pulse accelerated as he put both of his warm hands on her face, pulled it into his and kissed her. She instantly forgot all her qualms about being on a date with a townie. In fact, she forgot about pretty much everything as they shared a long kiss that could teach those bachelors and bachelorettes a thing or two.
Brinley entered the lobby of the hotel, hoping no one could detect her post make-out glow. Shane had driven them back to the hotel and they had made out among the dozens of economy cars in the employee parking lot for at least twenty minutes right up until nine o’clock on the dot when he had to go back inside to work the night shift.
She’d made a covert plan to see Shane tomorrow, too, wanting one more night of her vacation fling. Now she needed to think of another excuse as to where she could be going by herself.
She glided across the lobby toward the elevator, giddy and light on her feet, but she suddenly bristled when she saw Evan jump up from her seat by the fire, heading her way.
Georgetown Academy, Season One Page 32