I stand on my tiptoes and kiss him on the bridge of his nose. Then on the mouth. He lets the boot drop.
Success.
Upstairs in his bedroom, he shoves a book and some clothes off his bed and we stretch out along it, hands and lips falling swiftly into ravenous patterns. I think about his fingers gliding up my back and the bed’s occasional creak and his kisses electric along my neck and hardly at all about my chocolate-stained surveys strewn across Kat’s kitchen floor.
I grab the hem of my shirt and yank upward, over my head. Grayson has to dart backward to avoid an elbow to the face, but when I emerge from the fabric, his eyes are not angry, but devouring.
“You are so sexy,” he whispers.
I’m not going to tell Kat about this, about taking my shirt off for Grayson for the first time. She doesn’t deserve to know.
Grayson’s fingers reach out toward my chest, and I look down in a burst of panic. What bra am I wearing? Purple and green stripes with white lace. Thank goodness. If I was wearing some grungy sports bra, this could’ve been embarrassing. And very not sexy. When I get home, I’m throwing out every nonsexy bra I own.
Grayson presses his body against mine, and his fingers feather up and down my shirtless back. It doesn’t feel much different from having his fingers sneak up under my shirt, but I lose myself in his touch anyway. Because I am not a failure.
KAT
I’M NOT SCARED.
Yes, I worry. And yes, I get nervous. And yes, I have panic attacks.
But I’m not scared.
And Syth is definitely not my “whipped boy toy.”
Still, I don’t play LotS for the rest of the weekend. I don’t even play LotS when I sit at the library computers on Monday during lunch period. I just pull out my notebook and pen like I have research to do, then stare at the screen and type random things into Google without clicking on any of the links. Lightning storm. Pickle sandwich. Anxiety disorder.
Here’s the thing: true does not equal right. I could walk up to Granddad and say, “Just so you know, you are old and frail and probably going to die soon.” And even if it was true, it’d still be wrong. It’d still make me a jerk.
Which is why I’m not eating lunch with Meg or any of her jerk-by-extension friends.
The freckle-faced librarian coughs, a fake, pointed “ahem,” and when I look up, she’s glaring at me, though I don’t know why. I’m not playing LotS, and I scarfed my food down in the hallway before coming in. I even put my juice bottle in the recycling bin.
Then the clickclickclickclickclick noise reaches my ear. I set my pen down, and the librarian releases me from her stare of death and returns to her book.
My search results blink out at me from the screen. Wikipedia. WebMD. Answers.com. This is stupid. I close the search and pull up LotS. Sythlight is at school right now and won’t be online anyway. And even if he was, I have no reason to avoid him.
I log on to our server, and of course, it’s empty. I’m the only one on.
As if he’s a monster who feeds on the worries in my brain, the first thing Mr. Carter does in Monday afternoon’s science class is remind us that our next check-in is in two weeks, and that we need to have met our first testing goal by then.
Our goal was twenty tests. Out of thirty. We only have fifteen. Out of thirty. I don’t think I know five more people, and I definitely don’t know fifteen more.
My throat tightens.
One Sesame Street . . . two anaphylactic shock . . .
Thirteen days is not enough time to start a new project. We have no choice but to push forward. Maybe Meg’s come up with a brilliant plan that she hasn’t told me yet. I glance at her. She’s facing forward instead of in her typical sprawling posture of legs in the aisle, one arm on my desk. Her usually relaxed shoulders are rigidly straight. She didn’t look at me when she sat down, hasn’t looked at me this entire class.
Meg’s hand shoots into the air. “Someone,” she says, so pointedly that it’s obvious she means a very specific someone, “is clicking their pen a lot. . . .”
I don’t listen to the rest, just drop my pen on my desk with a thunk as the entire class turns to stare—thirty sets of eyes burning into me. Seven center of attention . . . eight this is all her fault . . .
So Meg isn’t going to be any help, isn’t going to talk to me at all, apparently. However I do this, I’m going to have to do it alone.
CHAPTER 16
MEG
I WALTZ UP TO GRAYSON’S LOCKER AT THE END OF THE DAY AND TUG AT the red-and-gold-striped scarf his older sister gave him for Christmas.
“Ready for awesomeness?” I ask as I drape the end of it around his neck.
“Awesomeness?” he echoes, like a parrot.
“Yeah, let’s go somewhere. All-day breakfast at Smitty’s or something. Or we could rent skates and go on the ice rink at West Ed Mall. I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“I can’t,” he says, shrugging his backpack on. “I need to practice.”
“All you do is practice lately. Come on, it’s ice-skating! I can be Tessa Virtue and you can be . . . did she have a partner or was she just singles?”
“Meg!” he says, then pauses as if I should know what’s coming next. When I don’t say anything, he sighs. “I have that competition, remember? I need as much range time as I can get.”
Right, competition. Is it this week? Next week? Regionals? Finals? I can’t quite remember, but I know it’s a big deal.
Grayson has already started striding down the hall, and I rush to catch up to him, the anvil on my back slowing me down just a little. I don’t know why I’m taking so many books home. I don’t think I have any homework to do. Well, maybe math. It’s probably in my planner.
“Okay, I’ll come with you,” I say as I draw up next to him and slip my bare hand into his mittened one. “I’ll be your own personal cheerleader. Prepare you for having an audience. There’ll be lots of people at the competition, right?”
He turns to look at me, brown eyes sparkling with hope for just a moment before his caterpillar eyebrows drop and crush the twinkle. “Nah, you’ll just get bored.”
“I won’t,” I protest, feeling suddenly like a three-year-old. “I’ll be your own Jenna Matheson. You know, that girl who wears her cheerleading uniform around school like she’s in Glee?”
He laughs, deep and perfect. “Well, all right then. Let’s go.”
I’ve always pictured Grayson’s archery club as full of boisterous Robin Hoods, but the place is empty and painfully quiet. Aside from the targets on the far wall, it just looks like a boring old community hall, with beige walls and beige floor and beige ceiling. While Grayson fetches his bow from the probably-beige locker room, I study the posters on the bulletin board. There are ads tacked onto ads tacked onto ads, like those layers of rock my teacher was rambling on about in geography. They should come here to date dinosaur remains. Peel back the layers until an advertisement announces, “Dinosaur in need of new home. Rarely bites.” Then rip off one of those slips, call the number, and ask how long ago it was posted.
I tear off one of the slips at random—it’s satisfying, like popping Bubble Wrap—just as Grayson walks up, bow dangling casually from his left hand as if to say, “Yeah, I’m über strong. Deal with it.” He leans over to look at the board. “You’re looking for a . . . ‘tidy, middle-aged male roommate’?”
“You never know.” I shrug and tuck the number into my pocket.
There are no chairs in the range area—I know people shoot standing up, but what if someone wants to watch?—so I grab one from the table at the entrance and drag it across the hall. I lean, standing, against the back of it while Grayson prepares his first shot. His arm muscles bulge as he pulls his hand back to his ear, pauses, then releases.
Kat can hit a speeding wingling between the eyes from miles away, but I’m sure real-life archery is way harder, so I throw up my hands and cheer. My foot hits the chair and sends it skittering forward.
> Grayson whips around and glares at me.
“What?” I drop my hands to my sides. “I thought I was here to be your cheerleader.”
“Yeah . . . just . . . maybe save the cheers for the bull’s-eyes.”
“As you wish,” I say, waving my hand with a flourish and bending at the waist in a dramatic bow. I pull back my runaway chair with a scrape as Grayson turns to stare down his stationary enemy.
It would be wicked if the targets moved, darting about like winglings in LotS. Maybe four at once. They could flash with alternating lights, and if you hit the lit-up one, you’d get bonus points.
“Did you see that?” Grayson is beaming at me. I glance at the bull’s-eye. Two long stalks poke out from the outer rings, one from the padding behind the target, and, at last, one smack-dab in the red center.
“Wooooo!” I throw my hands up. “Good job, bae!”
Grayson’s smile melts off his face. “I knew you’d get bored,” he mumbles.
“I’m not! You look badass,” I tell him, but he’s already turned his back on me again.
I wonder if something like that rotating light show of an archery contest actually exists. That would be epic. I pull out my phone to look it up. As always, the browser opens on LumberLegs’s YouTube channel. There’s a new video I haven’t seen yet, so I mark it to watch later.
I glance up just in time to see an arrow slam into the middle red, just at its edge.
“Wooooo!” I cheer again, and this time, Grayson grins at me, running his hand through his wavy hair before reaching for another arrow.
LumberLegs has an email address on his info tab. I’m sure that wasn’t there before. I click on it, wait for my email to open, swipe my finger across the tiny keyboard.
Dear LumberLegs,
I am your biggest fan. You probably think it’s that girl who calls herself Mrs. LumberLegs, but it’s not, it’s me.
Just thought you might enjoy a hello from your biggest fan.
HELLO!
Ta-ta for now
With love from your biggest fan,
Meg
P.S. By biggest I mean #1, not fattest. I’m not fat. But also not anorexic or a stick or anything. Just regular size, with curves and stuff. Like someone who exercises lots but still eats cookies. Because cookies are an important food group. obvs.
I tap send, then open my messages to text Kat.
Guess what! Legs has—
I stop and delete the text. Right. Kat and I aren’t talking, and I don’t know how to stop not talking. Last time, Kat showed up with video games. Maybe she’ll do that again this time.
Another arrow plunges into the red with a thunk. I whoop, and Grayson grins at me for like the umpteenth time. At least I’ve got this girlfriend thing down. I put my phone to sleep and wedge it back into my pocket.
KAT
“I GOT YOUR EMAIL,” SUNIL SAYS TO ME AS SOON AS OUR ANCIENT CIV teacher releases us to finish our group essay, which is due next class. “Your section looks great. I loved the joke about the plow.”
Heat rises up my neck and into my cheeks. Maybe getting assigned to this group wasn’t such a bad thing. “You don’t think it was too corny?”
He chuckles and shakes his head. “No, it was funny. Did you get a chance to look over mine?”
I nod. “It was good,” I say, relieved that I don’t have to lie. Actually, it was beautiful. I couldn’t even find a typo to complain about. Eric’s, on the other hand—good substance, but awful execution. So many misuses of its and it’s that I gave up on cringing. I’m not sure how to broach the subject, though. Eric keeps nodding his head so optimistically along with us, eyes wide as a basset hound’s. How do I tell him his writing’s crap?
“Okay,” Sunil says, “so I’ll just do a good edit of Eric’s section tonight, then combine them all together.”
“Oh, I did that.” I grab the paper—complete with my fully revised version of Eric’s section—out of my binder and set it down in front of Sunil.
He flips quickly through the first few pages—his section and mine—then slows to read Eric’s, nodding as he goes. “Good. Good. This is great.” When he gets to the end, he holds it out to Eric. “Want to see?”
My chest constricts. Eric’s section is barely recognizable as his, though all his research is still there. I just . . . gave it a makeover. A really intensive makeover.
But Eric just flips through the thing once, too quickly to actually read anything, then hands it back to Sunil. “Looks good.”
“Let’s hand it in now, then,” Sunil says, then gets to his feet and strides over to the teacher’s desk and back again, empty-handed, before I can even stop him. I was going to give it one more edit.
If I don’t, though, that gives me one more hour to spend on our science project. One more hour to figure out how not to flunk out of grade ten science. How not to flunk out of life.
“Do you guys—” At my words, Sunil and Eric break off their gesticulating about some game—hockey, probably—and turn to look at me, expectantly. Not exactly killer stares, but still, my mouth becomes a desert, arid and hot and empty.
One sandy dunes . . . two blazing sun . . .
“I mean—” The words come out as a rasp. I swallow, breathe, try again. “Do you guys play LotS at all?”
“Sometimes,” Eric says.
Sunil shrugs. “I’ve seen my brother play. Do you?”
“Yeah. And I just—I’m doing—for science, you know the science fair project? We’re—I’m doing LotS. I mean, speed runs. We’re testing speeds. In LotS. After eating sugar, I mean. To see if you’re faster, you know, after eating sugar. Anyway, test subjects. We still need some test subjects.” I force the words out before they disappear wherever my saliva went, but I can’t get them right.
Somehow, Sunil seems to understand me anyway. “That’s cool. Way better than my power source testing. Can we do them at school? My house is out in the boonies.”
The librarian hasn’t complained about me playing LotS for fun, so surely she’d be okay with us playing it for science. “Yeah. I mean, I think so.”
“Sweet,” Sunil says. “Lunch today, then? Where should we meet you?”
And just like that, somehow, I have two more subjects.
I just need three more. In ten days.
And then ten more, plus all the analysis and write-ups and poster-board design in the following month. Maybe let’s not think about that.
MEG
Dear Lumberlegs,
Did you know that archers are supposed to engrave their initials on their arrows? They should add that into LotS. I wonder if there’s a machine here at the club that does it. My bf just used a Sharpie.
I saw your video last week where you tried to gather all the ingredients to make a hellspawn cake, and I swear I almost peed myself laughing when you died to that shadowbeast. Thanks for the laugh! I needed it!
Love your biggest fan,
Meg
Dear LumberLegs,
Did you know that the world’s first UFO landing pad was built just outside Edmonton (that’s Alberta, Canada, if you don’t know)? I just learned that and was going to tell my friend, because she’d think it was amazing, but then I remembered she’s not talking to me, so I’m telling you instead. Pretty cool, eh?
That is all.
Love,
Meg
Legs,
I almost forgot to tell you that I bought tickets for LotSCON! I’m so excited to see you there! Of course, my mom noticed I used her credit card and tried to make me return them, but they’re nonrefundable, so all she could do was make me clean the toilets for a month. And pay her back, of course, but I was planning to do that anyways. She thinks it’s ridiculous I bought them, since LotSCON is across the country, but I think she’s forgotten planes exist. I’m going to wait until she’s in a better mood before I remind her.
I can’t wait to tell my friend I bought us tickets. I can’t tell her now because we’re fighting. But that�
�ll sort itself out soon. I hope.
Anyways, looking forward to seeing you!
SO EXCITED!
Meg
KAT
“ROMAN!”
I duck out into the hallway in front of him, cutting him off with my ninja-like swiftness.
“Kat, hey! You’re not dead!”
“Dead? No, I—did Meg say I was dead?”
“What? No. I’m joking. You just haven’t been around at lunch for a while. I was starting to wonder if you switched schools or something.”
Well, at least I know Meg hasn’t been bad-mouthing me to everyone at lunchtime. Or if she has, Roman hasn’t been listening.
I shake my head. “No, just busy with my science project.”
Meg’s imaginary protest shrieks in my head. “Your science project! When did it stop being our science project?”
There are so many ways I could answer that, but I’m too busy talking with actual Roman to argue with imaginary Meg. “I need more subjects,” I say. “Meg hasn’t tested you yet, has she?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think so. Unless she stole my saliva or urine or something.”
I laugh—one quiet, airy burst. Asking Roman is a lot easier than asking Sunil and Eric. Maybe because I’m practiced at it now. Or maybe just because I actually know Roman. My heart isn’t even pounding. I press my fingers to my wrist to make sure it’s still beating at all. It is. “It’s not a DNA test or anything. We just need you to do some LotS speed runs.”
“Oh, phew,” he says with mock relief. “That’s easy. When do you need me?”
“Tomorrow at lunch. Does that work?”
He shrugs. “I don’t see why not.”
“Great. Meet me at the library at the start of lunch tomorrow, then. Don’t eat anything before you come.”
He nods, and I turn to leave, then spin back toward him. “Can you bring your girlfriend, too? And her friend Tanisha?”
He’s already several steps away, but he gives me a thumbs-up in reply. Then, just before I slip around the corner into ninja mode, he calls out, almost as an afterthought, “Hey, Kat, I’m glad you’re not dead.”
Kat and Meg Conquer the World Page 17