Georgetown Academy, Season One

by Schwartz, Alyssa Embree

  “You know, you really are amazing,” Hunter said, a serious expression prickling his features. She reddened underneath his gaze. “You played fair the whole time.”

  Evan shrugged. “What else was I supposed to do? There wasn’t really another way to play it I guess.”

  Hunter sat down on the arm of the sofa and sighed. “There was, though. When I talked to Ellie at the Dedication Party, I wasn’t just filling her in on the whole story. I was trying to get her to go to the cops about Taryn since I promised you I wouldn’t do it.”

  Evan flashed her eyes up at him in surprise. It wasn’t like Hunter to exploit a loophole. Or to lie about it for that matter either.

  “I was going to tell you this morning,” he said, suddenly studying the wall behind her. “But you were already so upset and I didn’t know what you would do.”

  “What I would do?” Evan asked, confused.

  For once, the self-assurance that defined Hunter escaped him as he fumbled with his words for a second. “I thought you, uh, might want to break things off with me. I mean, you never caved and did anything shady. But I did.”

  He looked back to her, searching her eyes. But all Evan could feel was relief. True, he’d gone behind her back, but his intentions were so pure it was easy to forgive him. Especially when she considered he had actually been scared she was going to break up with him. For the first time, she realized he must like her as much as she liked him. Her insecurities about dating Hunter probably wouldn’t dissolve overnight, but she could already feel herself starting to let go of some of them.

  “You were just looking out for me,” she said. “I get it.” She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him and his arms encircled her waist as he kissed her back. It was like they had fought a battle together, and if this kiss was any indication, now that they were on the other side of it, they were even closer.

  They separated for a moment and he gave her a crooked smile. “Was your dad at least glad the airbags in my car worked?”

  “Why don’t you bring that up with him on our next date?” she asked with a smile.

  He kissed her again then said, “I guess we’ll need to rethink you driving my car from now on.”

  “I was really good until I started thinking about baby UGGs,” she said, laughing. “But I understand if my privileges are revoked.”

  He put his hand on her cheek and leaned into her, sending a jolt down her spine. “You should probably consider yourself lucky. Most guys never let their girlfriends drive their cars.”

  He pulled her in tighter and kissed her. It was hard to believe the spectrum of emotions she had experienced since this morning. It had started off so horrendously, but now she didn’t even care. Because Hunter McKnight had just referred to her as his girlfriend.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Monday, 10:54 p.m.

  Taryn brushed her teeth, already in her Only Hearts organic cotton pajamas from one of her favorite Montana Avenue shops back home. It had been a long day and her bed was beckoning her.

  After being bolstered by a conversation with Brooks at the Dedication Party, Taryn had debated all day whether she should come clean to her parents after school about the pot candies. He’d made it seem like Taryn could weather any negative situation by the sheer power of her personality. Though part of her believed him, another part still was worried about the impact it would have on her dad’s chances for V.P. But she was also worried about the impact on her sanity if she didn’t come forward.

  Her guilt finally overflowed when she ran into Evan at school that day. Taryn had been so paralyzed by shame the second she saw Evan that the words were almost all a blur to her. But the devastated look on Evan’s face finally pushed Taryn over the edge she’d been tiptoeing toward all day.

  As soon as she walked in the door, Taryn had confessed everything about the pot candies to her parents and asked her dad to help her make it right. Without consulting a single aide or advisor, he’d walked her into the police station himself where she told two officers the entire story. Though there was a small chance she’d receive a fine for having the weed, she felt infinitely better after. And because she was a minor, her statement would remain under seal, which meant the president wouldn’t ever know about it, thus saving her the guilt over ruining things for her father.

  Or at least that was how it was supposed to have gone.

  Just a few hours ago, someone at the police station had slipped the story to the media, making it the top story in that evening’s news. Thomas Madison called her father immediately after, frustrated he hadn’t been consulted on the matter and explaining that more leaks sprung from the MPD than the Titanic.

  Now, a news feeding frenzy had erupted. Though she hadn’t turned on her computer since the story initially leaked, she knew if she opened her Internet browser, she’d see a Yahoo! Headlines story with her name on it. If she watched the local news, she’d hear the anchors commenting on it. And as curious as she was, she couldn’t muster the energy to put herself through that ringer right now.

  She gave herself one long look in the mirror, still doubting if she’d done the right thing by confessing before shutting the light off and scurrying into the cozy confines of her bed. But just as she was settling under her multi-colored comforter, she heard a gentle tap on her door.

  “Knock, knock,” her dad said as he entered, his usually radiant tan skin looking dry and pale.

  “Dad,” Taryn said, sitting up, “are you okay?”

  “A little stressed. Maybe you could ask Lauren to send me some of those pot candies, too,” he deadpanned.

  “Ha ha,” Taryn mustered. It was typical of her dad to make jokes and play down the gravity of a situation, but Taryn knew the reality. She very well may have impacted the president’s decision and cost her dad the V.P. position.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” she said now, hugging her knees to her chest, the words feeling woefully inadequate. “I know when you took me to the police station you were hoping it wouldn’t come out like this.”

  “Things don’t always go according to our plans, Tare-bear.”

  He settled into Taryn’s ergonomic desk chair, swiveling it to face her.

  “You were still pretty young then, but do you remember in my first governor’s race when that guy captured the video of me helping that woman and her children?”

  Taryn nodded, though she remembered it more from the stories she heard much later than when it actually happened. Her father had been driving home on the freeway, when he saw a car emitting smoke, stalled in the fast lane. He’d pulled behind it, gotten out, and helped the hysterical woman quickly unlatch her children from their car seats and bring them to safety. Five minutes later, the engine exploded, blowing off half the car.

  But the crazy part was that someone driving by had slowed down to videotape the incident, selling it to the local news and turning her father from a viable candidate in the governor’s race into the biggest sensation to sweep California politics since Ronald Reagan.

  “Obviously, I didn’t help that woman because I thought it would get me elected. That video was just a stroke of luck for me. When I won the race, everyone said ‘it was meant to be.’ When I got elected to Congress so easily, barely a single serious candidate willing to run against me, we all said it again.”

  Taryn remembered that well. So many pundits had commented on the charmed path her father was on, the air of luck and good fortune that surrounded him fueling his meteoric rise as much as his well-known charisma.

  “Well, if you believe that, you have to believe it on the other side, too,” her dad said, leaning back as far as the chair would take him. “Even when it’s not positive.”

  “So, you’re saying it was meant to be that the police leaked the story about me?” she asked skeptically.

  “Maybe it means I’m not supposed to be V.P. right now. Maybe there’s a different path I’m supposed to take. And so this leak is, in essence, helping right the course for me.”

  Fate. It wa
s something Taryn inherently believed in as well, and his words immediately comforted her.

  “I guess it’s like what that Tibetan monk who Mom made us take that meditation class from told us,” Taryn said. “If something is supposed to happen, it will.”

  Her father nodded. “And if it’s really meant to be, then a small media dust-up won’t get in the way of that.”

  Taryn leaned back against her pillow, a large weight already lifted from her chest because her dad seemed like he really believed what he was telling her as opposed to just trying to make her feel better.

  Suddenly, her cell phone buzzed on her nightstand with an incoming call from Brooks. Despite everything else, a small smile formed on her lips. She couldn’t help it. Ever since he’d asked her out last night—followed by a kiss that made every single previous one she’d ever had seem childish—a giddy feeling overtook her every time she thought of him.

  “I take it that’s Brooks?” her father asked with a smile of his own. Her dad had easily put two and two together the previous evening when Brooks and Taryn re-entered the Statuary Hall together, the faint markings of Viva Glam lipstick evident on Brooks’s otherwise perfectly starched collar, and joked about it the whole way home.

  “Answer it.” He gave her a kiss on the forehead before adding, “And, sweetie, I’m proud of you.”

  Taryn beamed, pulling her dad in for a quick hug, before watching him exit the room and finally answering the phone.

  “Hey,” she said tentatively. She hadn’t spoken to Brooks since the story broke and didn’t know what he was going to say about it. Though he’d been the one to initially inspire her to tell the truth with their conversation at the party, he’d done so unknowingly. She’d never fully confessed the details of the mistaken jacket drama to him.

  “If I knew you were going to the police to admit to a crime, I might’ve skipped the pep talk the other night,” he said wryly and Taryn could almost see the half-smirk on his face. At least he wasn’t upset.

  “And you thought it was just wardrobe issues I was upset about.” She paused for a second. “How mad is your dad?”

  “This is the least of what he’s had to handle with clients. It’s better than your dad waking up in bed with an NRA lobbyist. And the president has bigger things to worry about. Like the unemployment rate.”

  “I guess,” Taryn replied. “Like my dad said, either he’s meant to be vice president or not.”

  “That’s certainly an interesting perspective,” Brooks said, traces of amusement in his voice. “I take it you’re feeling better now that you’ve confessed?”

  “Yeah. I mean, the part about me being front-page news isn’t so great. I’m scared to even open my laptop and see what they’re saying about me. But whatever it is, I deserve it.” After all, she could’ve thrown out the pot candies instead of holding onto them. And she could’ve turned herself in earlier before letting Evan take the blame. Anything the media wanted to throw her way was fair game and she’d have to deal with it.

  “When you said I could bounce back from anything, I bet you didn’t mean this,” she added, reminding him of the advice he’d given her the other night.

  “Listen, no matter what anyone says right now, if it made you feel better, then it was worth it,” he said. “And who knows? Maybe the tides will turn again.”

  Taryn awoke eight hours later to the sound of her cell phone. She groggily looked at it, confused as to why her alarm was going off a precious half-hour before it was supposed to, when she saw Brooks’s photo on the screen and realized he was calling her.

  “Morning,” she answered sleepily. If dating Brooks meant a personal wake-up call from him each morning, she’d take it.

  “Go check the Post,” he said. “Emily Dorsett’s column.”

  “She’s back from maternity leave?” Taryn asked, remembering she’d been gone when Taryn tried calling her weeks ago for a different story.

  “Oh, yes,” was all he said before hanging up.

  Her parents weren’t even awake yet, so Taryn threw on her knee-length chocolate brown wool sweater over her pajamas and dashed outside to grab the paper.

  She rustled through the pages until she finally saw it. There, on the bottom right corner of the local section was Taryn’s photo—next to a headline that read The Bold & the Beautiful.

  Two hours later and now dressed in dark jeans with her slouchy brown vegan boots and a cozy cream sweater with hints of gold thread knitted within it, Taryn was making her way back outside to the driveway. But this time it was to meet Brooks who stood outside the back door of his family’s town car. Apparently, the perks of dating Brooks also included chauffeured curbside pick-up. Taryn could definitely get used to that.

  He wore a black cashmere sweater and a Burberry scarf tied neatly at his neck, his thick dark hair billowing in the wind. His preppy look used to merely amuse her, but now Taryn counted it among one of the hottest things about him.

  “Hey,” she said, suddenly feeling shy.

  “Did you see all the coverage?” he asked, his eyes flashing with excitement.

  Emily Dorsett’s column, which had extolled the virtue of Taryn coming forward with the truth despite potential political consequences, had already spurred a one-eighty by the media. Hundreds of news sites and bloggers had echoed these sentiments, calling the previous coverage of Taryn unfair. Seventeen Magazine already called her dad’s office inquiring about getting quotes for a feature they were planning on the “Bravery of Taryn Reyes,” and the chief political correspondent for ABC had remarked on Good Morning America that if the president chose Alan Reyes for V.P., he’d have someone who was okay with making the right, tough ethical calls when need be.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Do I have you to thank for this?”

  Brooks shrugged. “My father and I may have helped the Post see the other side of the story.” Then he quickly added, “But we would’ve never been able to sell it if it wasn’t true and if people didn’t want to like you.”

  She had a feeling it was still a pretty damn hard sell, fate and likeability aside. And yet, in less than twenty-four hours, Brooks had managed to help not only save her reputation, but also her father’s chances at V.P. It was nothing short of amazing.

  “Thank you,” she said. She quickly leaned in and pressed her lips to his. For a split-second, he seemed taken aback and Taryn doubted her impulsive move. But then he leaned into her, kissing her like he had the other night.

  “Not a bad way to start a morning,” he mused after they’d pulled away, a smile on his lips as he walked her to the car door.

  Not at all.

  ***

  Four freaking times. That was the number of instances Brinley had seen Taryn and Brooks making out at school today, and now as she headed toward her locker after last period, the count was officially up to five. There they were by the senior locker area, their faces glued to each other like one of them was a human oxygen tank. Her brother used to be a much bigger fan of classy hand holding in the hallway, but this must be what happens when you date someone who wears nail art. Was Brinley really going to have to get used to traces of Taylor Swift perfume clinging to her brother from now on? The thought incited her gag reflexes, but judging by today, this was her fate. Until she figured out a way to break them up, of course.

  She reached her locker and opened the door just the right amount so she could block the view of them from her periphery. What made the situation more frustrating was Brooks had been right about Taryn all along, a point he made several times at breakfast that morning. It wasn’t Brinley’s fault that she had assumed Taryn needed to make herself more suitable for the role of a vice president’s daughter. If anyone else did the things Taryn did in public, they’d be skewered by the press. But Taryn had proved once again she was an anomaly. When Brinley saw the coverage last night about Taryn’s admission to the police, she was sure Alan Reyes (and her father) could kiss their V.P. win good-bye. But then, the tides had turned the same way
they had at the Follow the Stars gala a few weeks ago. Taryn was suddenly a martyr and the press was praising her for doing something idiotic. If Brinley heard anyone refer to Taryn as “gutsy” one more time, she was going to have to start getting her news from Rihanna’s Twitter feed like everybody else.

  And to think of all the time Brinley had wasted over the past few days. She had barely been able to enjoy the Dedication Party because, at her mother’s insistence, she was forced to spend most of it futzing over Taryn to ensure she didn’t make a colossal mistake. Little did she or her mother know, that in Taryn’s case, the bigger the screw-up, the better it worked out for her. Although Brinley was fairly sure her father and Brooks had something to do with putting such a positive public spin on the marijuana incident.

  But at least there was a silver lining to Taryn’s martyrdom. Not only was Alan Reyes back in the veep race, but the momentum seemed to be swinging in his favor. She breathed a happy sigh of relief that she’d still be able to get a reservation at Rasika on a Saturday night.

  Brinley shut her locker door and walked as fast as possible down the hallway, thankful when Taryn and Brooks were officially out of her line of sight. Perhaps it would be worth it to take some sort of initiative to Hunter about banning PDA from the school hallways. Although Hunter and Evan had been all over each other today, so like anyone else involved in government, Hunter would probably shoot down her proposal to suit his own agenda.

  She begrudgingly admitted to herself maybe she wouldn’t feel like the PDA police if her own love life wasn’t such a jumbled mess. Yes, she’d had that amazing Skype call with Shane before the party, but then she got there and was immediately reminded why Patrick was more of a natural fit for her. She had spent half the evening tallying up the pros and cons of each of them, but in the end, they were as neck-and-neck in the race as Alan and Marilyn were for V.P. She wasn’t sure if she only liked Patrick because he would get the Madison stamp of approval or if she only liked Shane because he wouldn’t. She had never been the indecisive type and it definitely didn’t suit her. She was feeling so edgy that she’d be downing five cups of coffee a day if she didn’t figure this out soon.