The Art of Lainey

by Paula Stokes

  Chapter 30

  “FORCE HIM TO REVEAL HIMSELF, SO AS TO FIND OUT HIS VULNERABLE SPOTS.”

  —SUN TZU, The Art of War

  “Ohmygod, Kendall!” Flying down the wooden steps, I hurry across the yard and launch myself toward her with open arms. “When did you get home?”

  She embraces me lightly. “Laineykins, I missed you so much.”

  Jason smiles lazily from the next lounge. “I see you found your surprise,” he says. “I’ll be back. I’m going to go turn Dan on his side so he doesn’t choke to death on his own puke.”

  “Nasty.” Kendall waves her brother away and then turns back to me. “I haven’t been home for too long,” she says, maddeningly vague. “I took your advice and quit.”

  “But why?” I ask. “I figured you’d want to stay there as long as possible just to avoid your parents.”

  “Those people were worse than my parents. They had a million rules. It was like model boot camp, I swear.” Kendall makes a gagging sound. “And my mom will be in Chicago for the next few days. It’ll be almost time to go to Costa Rica by the time she’s back.”

  I gave up on going to Costa Rica once Leo stopped pursuing Riley. I pretty much knew I was never going to save enough money. No big deal, though. Things are looking up with Jason, even without a deserted beach. “But what about the prize money?”

  “I wasn’t going to win,” Kendall says. “The producers hated me. I’ll figure out something.” She tosses her hair. “I always do.”

  Her formerly long-flowing locks have been razored into a shaggy bob. It looks good—very high fashion. “I like your hair,” I say, reaching out to touch it.

  She snickers. “Speaking of hair.” She captures my teal streak in between her thumb and first finger and runs her hand down the length of it. “Have you been playing dress-up?”

  “A friend did it for me,” I murmur. Leave it to Kendall to make fun of anything different.

  Jason walks back up. He hands me a cup of beer and plunks down next to me on the lounge.

  “I just remembered something I have to go do,” Kendall says with a wink.

  “If it’s Dan, you’d better hurry,” Jason says. “He’s about to pass out.”

  Kendall gives her brother the finger and then sashays off toward the other end of the pool.

  “Nice dress,” Jay says. His eyes rove over my entire body, lingering on my long, bare legs peeking out beneath my feathered skirt. He’s looking at me the way he used to, and I find that both exciting and terrifying.

  “Thanks.” I set the beer down next to my lounge. I need to keep my emotions under control, and getting all wasted isn’t going to help with that. I channel my inner warlord. Exploit your enemy’s weaknesses. I slide my skirt up ever so slightly, letting another inch of tan skin peek out. “Where’s your girlfriend from Beat?” I ask. “The redhead?”

  “Who knows?” Jason shrugs. “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s just a girl.” His big hands start to fiddle with my overlapping spaghetti straps, pulling them down one at a time over my shoulder.

  His touch feels new and familiar at the same time. She’s just a girl. What does that even mean? They broke up? They’re not exclusive? I want to ask, but I don’t want to ruin the moment. I tell myself it doesn’t matter what happened to her. All that matters is that I’m here and she’s not. Jason finishes pulling down the straps on my left side and moves to the ones on my right.

  “Stop,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “People are staring at us.”

  I scan the area around the pool. Partially Topless Girl is now completely topless and the sophomore boys are snapping pictures with their phones. I should go over there and tell them to knock it off, but the damage is unfortunately already done. She is seriously going to regret drinking tomorrow. The rest of the partygoers outside are paired up on lounges or passed out. Pretty sure no one is even looking at Jay or me.

  “You’re just saying that so I’ll take you upstairs,” Jason says.

  “Uh-uh,” I say. Very convincing, Lainey.

  “Yuh-huh,” he says back. He smiles. A real one, with dimples. He slides one more of my spaghetti straps off my shoulder. “Hey. I’ve got a great idea. You want to go upstairs?”

  I hesitate. Everything still feels a little off, but it’s probably because I’m the only one who’s sober. Or maybe because I haven’t been alone with Jason in over a month. I’m just nervous. Seize opportunities. Seize opportunities. Seize opportunities. It’s weird. I wouldn’t have imagined I would need to psych myself up for this moment. It’s about as opportune as they can get.

  Jason takes my silence as a yes. “Drink your drink. I’m going to fish a couple beer bottles out of the pool and tell those guys to stop taking pictures of that drunk chick. Be right back.”

  Ignoring the beer, I watch Jason make rounds and clean up for a few minutes. Then I get up from the lounge. By now, the sophomore boys have scattered and the pool is empty. Jay motions to me. He leads me into the house, through the crush of tangled bodies, some dancing, some standing around, some smoking.

  We wind our way up the spiral staircase and then down the long hallway that leads to his room. I feel almost like I’m watching the scene unfold from outside my body. My fingers are interlocked with his as he pulls me toward a moment that’s going to change everything. We are ten steps away. Five steps. I can’t decide. But then I do. I should turn back. I should leave.

  But the girl behind Jason keeps walking.

  The door opens with a squeak. His room is dark except for a hazy circle of light cast by a halogen lamp in the corner, but I can see plenty. There’s the same queen-sized bed, the same broken frame supported by a couple of old school books that Jason was probably supposed to turn in years ago. The collection of soccer trophies still sits on the upper shelves of his dresser, coated in a layer of dust. Baseball caps hang on a wooden coatrack he made in woodshop, only he has more hats than hooks so the caps are layered two or three deep, some of them having fallen to the floor below.

  Dusty trophies. Baseball hats. These are things I would normally not notice, but for some reason I can’t tear my eyes away from Jay’s fitted Cardinals cap, from the stitches that are coming loose on the left side of the logo.

  I remember him fiddling with those stitches a few months ago. Last semester: time of the state championships, the Hazelton Forest commercial. Last semester was perfect and it’s all preserved right here. There’s even a picture of us from prom still wedged in the frame of his dresser mirror.

  Jason presses me up against the wall and kisses me. “I thought you would never forgive me,” he mumbles into my hair.

  His breath reeks of alcohol, but his kisses do all the same things they have always done to me. Tremors. Warmth. My eyes fall shut. I reach out with my mind and try to grab hold of last semester.

  He tugs on my teal streak. “You really are trying to become a different person this summer, aren’t you?”

  My eyes flick back open. I don’t bother telling him it’s fake. Let him sweat it. “I like my streak,” I say. “It fits me.”

  “No it doesn’t.” Jason grins at me—another dimpled smile. “People don’t change, Lainey. You are who you are. We both are.”

  I slide out from between him and the wall. “Maybe I’m just now figuring out who I am.”

  “Yeah, right.” Jason sits on the edge of his bed and pats the spot next to him. I sit. The dim light reveals his bloodshot eyes. I wonder if he will remember any of this when he wakes up tomorrow. He leans in to kiss me again, and once more I reach out desperately for the past. I go through memory after memory, looking for reassurance that nothing has changed, but it’s like flipping through a book of stories I’ve outgrown.

  Everything has changed.

  Micah’s face flashes before me. His lips on mine. I push him away, into the darkness. There’s not enough room in my head right now for anyone but Jason and me.

  Jays lays me back on the bed. H
is hands stroke the fabric of my dress as his beard stubble scrapes across my face, almost abrasive enough to draw blood. I clench my jaw. He pulls back, lifts up, looks down at me. The lamp back-lights the curl of his hair, his broad shoulders. Everything that meant so much to me now feels like nothing but outlines and shadows.

  “What?” he asks.

  “What happened to Alexandra?” What I really mean is: what happened to us? I roll out from under him so we’re lying side by side.

  Jay looks over at me, brushes a lock of hair back from my face. “Nothing happened to her.”

  “Do you know she was seeing someone else?” I ask. “I saw her not too long ago with this guy at a restaurant.” Almost the truth.

  Jason sighs. “I think she was seeing lots of guys. Who cares? We were never really together.”

  So much for the use of spies. So much for the right moment. “She’s just some girl that you screwed for sport?”

  “Basically,” he admits. “We started talking during one of my first ride-alongs about how she and her boyfriend had broken up because he wanted to get engaged and she wasn’t ready. She said she needed more time to play and have fun.”

  “How fortunate for her that you came along,” I say bitterly.

  He sits up. “I hate that I hurt you, Lainey. I thought about my parents having kids so young and my mom being a royal bitch to my dad and it all made sense, you know? Keeping things casual.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I got scared and I messed up. I guess I just needed to escape from my life.”

  I push myself up off the bed and pace back and forth. “Oh, like a little vacation.” I rake my fingers through the feathers of my skirt. One of them flutters to the thick carpet. “I didn’t realize being with me was such a job.”

  “You know, a lot of guys would have just cheated on you,” he says. “Don’t I at least get points for not doing that?”

  My eyes turn to slits. “You dumped me at my parents’ coffee shop, in front of everyone. No, you don’t get points.”

  Jason sighs again. “You’re right. I’m an ass. I felt like if I didn’t end it, it was only a matter of time before I would cheat on you. I didn’t want to be that guy so I just snapped. I was selfish. I was stupid. But I’m trying to tell you I’m sorry. I want you back.”

  Like the rest of the Chase clan, Jason isn’t used to apologizing. I know this is hard from him, that he wouldn’t be saying all of this to me if he didn’t really care about me. But it pisses me off that he thinks he can just invite me to a party and I’ll come running back to him. “What about the next time you need a vacation? What then?”

  “There won’t be a next time, I promise.”

  “How can you promise something like that?” I whisper.

  “Because look at us. I got scared and pushed you away and we ended up right where we started. We belong together. Could it be more obvious?”

  We belong together. For so long I believed those words. All I wanted was to hear that Jason felt the same way. And now he’s saying all the right things but he’s acting like the randomness of the universe reunited us. No. Not true. I waged a freaking ancient Chinese war to get him back.

  And it worked.

  And I should feel vindicated. Triumphant.

  But I don’t.

  Because something is different.

  Something is missing.

  “Why?” I ask. “Why do you think we belong together?”

  Jason’s lips quirk into a smile. He thinks he’s got me. He has no idea that I am empty, a hollow girl in feathers, preparing to fly away.

  “You know.” His grin deepens. “We’re both hot. We’re both cool. The whole soccer thing—we hang with the same crowd of peeps.” He winks. “We have chemistry.”

  “Seriously? That’s enough for you? Isn’t that a little . . . shallow?”

  “It is what it is,” he says. “So we’re shallow. So what? It’s not like I’m only into your looks. You’re fun to be around. I want to spend senior year with you. You and my sister. The three of us could get up to all kinds of craziness.”

  “Yeah, “I say. “I wanted that too. But now I want more.”

  “What? Like a promise ring?” Jason’s shoulders slump slightly as he realizes that I’m pulling away. “We’re too young for that shit.”

  I shake my head. “It’s not about rings or promises. It’s about . . . something that actually matters.”

  “I don’t get it.” He rubs his eyes.

  “I know you don’t.” I bend down and give him a kiss on the cheek. “And that’s why I can’t do this right now. I’m going to take off.”

  His jaw tightens. “Fine. Go think about it if you have to. You’ll be back. I know you will.”

  That’s probably the exact same thing his mom said to him when he moved out of this house. Here’s hoping they’re both wrong.

  Wordlessly, I head for the bedroom door. I hurry back downstairs even though I know Jason is not going to come after me. Chases do not follow or beg. Excessive pride is coded into their DNA.

  The party is still in full swing. I twist my way between the hordes of sweaty, dancing bodies. Someone knocks into me from behind, spilling what feels like half a beer down the back of me. Super. The perfect end to a perfect night. I think I hear Kendall calling my name as I make it to the front door, but I don’t turn back. The night wind streams my hair out behind me as I head down the block to where I parked. I slide into the car, punch the door lock, and sit there for a few moments, waiting for tears that never fall.

  Chapter 31

  “ENERGY MAY BE LIKENED TO THE BENDING OF A CROSSBOW; DECISION, TO THE RELEASING OF A TRIGGER.”

  —SUN TZU, The Art of War

  I need to talk to someone, and that someone is Bianca. I peel into the Denali parking lot, practically bringing the car up onto two wheels as I turn the corner.

  As I hurry across the pavement, I adjust the overlapping straps on my shoulders, trying to cover up my bra. Plunging through the front door, I expect to see Bee’s kind eyes looking back at me from behind the counter.

  But it’s Ebony.

  “Nice dress, Lainey.” She rolls her tongue ring across her lower lip. “How are things on the corner?”

  “Where’s Bee?” I ask, skipping past a smart-ass comment about how I almost didn’t recognize Ebony without her ass glued to her usual booth.

  “She called in.”

  There’s some kind of Tibetan chanting playing over the loudspeakers instead of the usual pop music. That means my dad is here. Crap. I didn’t even see his car in the parking lot. I need to leave before he smells the beer soaking into the back of my dress and grounds me for a million years.

  Too late. He appears from the prep area, probably because he heard my voice. I step back a couple of feet and do another quick rearrangement of my straps and hem, trying to make sure everything is covered. Two teal feathers fall to the hardwood floor.

  Leaning on the counter, he peers at me over the tops of his glasses. “Post-traumatic dress disorder?”

  “Funny, Dad.” I say. “What’s wrong with Bianca?”

  “Not sure. She’s sick. She said something about maybe eating some bad chili.”“Oh.” I back slowly toward the door. “I just wanted to talk to her. I guess I’ll catch up with her tomorrow.”

  My dad slips his glasses off and polishes them on his shirt. “Did you go to the fireworks?”

  “Nah. I went to a party at Kendall’s.”

  “Ah,” he says, slipping his glasses back on. “So she’s back in town? Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow if you’re asleep before I get home.”

  “Yeah, she’s back. Sure, Dad.”

  I escape into the warm air and make it halfway across the dusty parking lot before I notice the Beast parked next to my car. What’s Micah doing here? He’s supposed to be at the Bottlegrate concert.

  Instead, he’s leaning up against my car smoking a cigarette. “Back from Jason’s already?” he asks. “It’s not even eleven. Must h
ave been a lame party.”

  “Sort of lame.” I point at his lit cigarette. “Thought you were going to quit.”

  “Still trying,” he says. “Maybe by the end of summer. I’ll put it out if you want.”

  “It’s okay.” A warm breeze cuts across the parking lot, ruffling the feathers of my skirt. “How was the concert?”

  “Awesome.” He inhales deeply and exhales over his shoulder.

  “And the fireworks?”

  “Very cool.”

  “Did you end up meeting Amber?” I’m not sure I want to know, but it would be weird not to ask.

  “Yeah, we ended up going together,” he says.

  “So then why are you here?”

  He blows another cloud of smoke away from me. “Because it’s the only place around where I can get decent food this late?” He gestures toward the front door with his head. “You hungry?”

  I’m about as far from hungry as a person can get. “No thanks. I was looking for Bee, but apparently she called in sick, so—”

  Micah’s eyes go dark with worry. “Is she okay?”

  “Food poisoning, but it doesn’t sound serious.” One of my hairs sticks to my lip gloss. I can feel it tickling my mouth as I talk.

  Micah dislodges the offending hair with a quick swipe of his index finger, and then looks me over slowly.

  “What are you staring at?” I try not to fidget. The wind tugs another feather loose from my skirt. At this rate I’ll be half naked by the time I get home.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  I cross my arms over my chest. “Yeah, why?”

  “Well, for one, you reek of booze. Are you sure you should be driving?”

  I feel the back of my dress. It’s still damp. “Some idiot spilled a beer on me. I haven’t had a sip all night.”

  “Interesting.” Micah rubs at the scar on his temple. Behind him, a flash of gold punctures the dark sky, followed by a sharp popping sound. Fireworks. He turns around to look. “What else happened?”