The Stand-In Boyfriend

by Doherty, Emma

  I straighten up, stepping away from him. Sophie rolls her eyes then moves between us, pushing Brendon back. “Keep your hands to yourself. Not even if you were the last boy on earth.”

  “You cut deep, Sophie Steele.”

  Aaron starts to laugh. “Dude, stop perving on my friend. I’ve been trying to get her to hang all year and you’re gonna scare her off.” He looks at me. “We’re about to start a beer pong tournament, and I’m reigning champ—wanna be my partner?” He looks over at Chase. “We can kick Mitchell’s ass in the first round.”

  My eyes widen slightly. I don’t like to drink too much, I’ve never played beer pong in my life, and I definitely didn’t come here to hang out with this crowd. “Um, well, actually—”

  Chase turns to face me then, looking me fully in the eyes for the first time. “Stephenson’s inside,” he says flatly, like he’s completely bored by my presence. “Last time I saw him he was in the kitchen.”

  My stomach drops. Please tell me Chase Mitchell doesn’t know I’m pining after Jessie. If he knows then everyone else must. I try so hard to keep it a secret and to not make it obvious. I’ll die if everyone knows about my gigantic crush.

  “Yeah, we should go meet up with our buddy,” Sophie answers for me. “He cries if we leave him alone too long.”

  Aaron, Jackson, and Brendon chuckle at her joke and I heave a sigh of relief. Jessie is our friend. Everyone knows that. They know the three of us eat lunch together and hang out all the time and of course we’d meet up with him at a party. That’s what Chase meant, and I need to stop letting my paranoia get the best of me. Sophie gives me a nudge and I step forward to walk through them as she tells Brendon to pick up his jaw off the floor and promises Chase she’ll find him later.

  It takes me forever to find Jessie when we get in the house. I may not attend parties very often, but this definitely seems to be a bigger one than usual. I see kids I hardly ever see in school, and I’m pretty sure the entire senior class is here, not to mention plenty of juniors and sophomores. People have really gone all out, and I shouldn’t have worried about being overdressed—almost every girl I see has made a huge effort tonight. Girls at Grove Valley show up. Even my soccer teammates are way more glam than I would have expected, but I still can’t help but feel self-conscious.

  Despite the magnitude of people dressed to the max, I get a lot more attention than I would have liked. I know it’s just because I never come to these things and I’m dressed up for the first time in forever, but it does seem like way more people want to talk than usual, both boys and girls. When my friends from the team see me, Tia pulls me over and makes me spend fifteen minutes explaining with her why it’s not a good idea for the new girl to set her sights on Brendon for the evening. She explains countless times how he’s a player and will just hook up then leave you, and she says it so passionately and with so much vigor that I have to wonder if she knows this from personal experience. By the time Sophie manages to pull me away, I’m more than ready to see Jessie and hang out with him and Sophie for a bit, to get some semblance of normality.

  Just before we’re about to finally step into the kitchen, someone blocks our path, someone who smells like a meadow and looks like a dream.

  Abigail Baker.

  “Not like you to show up, Livy,” she says, looking me up and down and smiling sweetly. “Strange to see you looking like a girl for a change.” And there it is, one of the subtle digs Abigail is famous for, the ones that ensure I’ve avoided her ever since we were freshmen and she told me her twelve-year-old sister had bigger boobs than me.

  Sophie stiffens at my side. “Looking like the best-looking girl at the party,” she says, instantly defending me, her fierce sense of loyalty overlooking the fact that it’s a total lie. She steps in closer to me. “Everyone’s said so.”

  Abigail looks down her nose. She’s not as tall as me, but she still has a couple of inches on Sophie.

  “Is that so?”

  “Hell yes.” Sophie throws her arm around me. “I mean, can you blame them?”

  Abigail narrows her eyes.

  “Brendon, Chase, and Jackson couldn’t get enough.” I roll my eyes at this. She’s just exaggerating for effect now, but the use of Chase’s name has certainly gotten Abigail’s attention, just like Sophie knew it would.

  Abigail turns to face her fully, all but dismissing me. “Nice skirt, Sophie,” she tells her. “It’s a little obvious for my taste, but you really pull it off.”

  Sophie narrows her eyes. “Stop being a jealous douche and go away.”

  Abigail’s mouth falls open, all pretense of nicety gone, and she steps in even closer to Sophie. “Stay away from Chase. I know what you’re doing.”

  Sophie starts laughing at this and raises her eyebrows tauntingly. There really is no love lost between these two. They may have mutual friends, but Sophie refuses to worship Abigail like the rest of the school, and Abigail doesn’t like it—not at all. “Worried, are we?”

  I’ve had enough of this and I need to find Jessie—the sole reason I’m here. “Let’s go,” I tell Sophie, tugging on her hand, and she eventually lets me pulls her away. “Did you have to wind her up like that?” I ask.

  Sophie just smirks. “She was being a bitch. I can’t believe she’s still jealous of you.” I shake my head. Sophie thinks the reason Abigail is always a bitch to me is because she’s jealous. It makes no sense, but I’ve never been able to change her mind on it, so there’s no point in trying now. Sophie suddenly nudges me in the side, nodding her head in the opposite direction, and that’s when I finally spot him—all five foot eleven of him, drinking a beer, talking to one of the guys he knows from debate team and looking like all I’ve ever wanted.

  I suddenly feel shy, but I try to ignore the butterflies and follow Sophie as she struts over to him. He looks up as she approaches and grins before he looks past her and sees me. His eyes widen so much it’s almost comical, and he goes to open his mouth to say something but the words seem stuck in his throat.

  I kinda stand there awkwardly, waiting for him to snap out of it while Sophie hunts around for a couple of drinks for us.

  “Hey,” he eventually manages to choke out. “You look…” The sentence hangs in midair.

  “Hot?” Sophie supplies, turning back to us and handing me a drink, something that smells so strong I know I’ll only take a couple of sips of it. “Beautiful?” she continues. “Like she’s so far out of your league you’re lucky she’s even talking to you?”

  “Soph,” I hiss. She’s taking it a bit far.

  Jessie just laughs. “You look awesome,” he tells me. “Really, really awesome.”

  I can’t hold back my smile. “Thanks.”

  His friend tells him he’s going to go enter the beer pong tournament and asks if he wants to join. Jessie hesitates, looks back at me for a second, then tells his friend to go ahead and he’ll see him later. The feeling it gives me is better than scoring a goal. He’s picked me over a beer pong tournament with this guy and Aaron and all the others he’s always eager to be around. He’d rather spend time with me.

  “Well, I have to go make Mark insanely jealous while simultaneously making Chase Mitchell fall in love with me,” Sophie announces, backing away from us. She waits until Jessie has turned away before sending me an encouraging smile and a thumbs-up then disappears into the crowd, leaving the two of us alone.

  “You really do look great, you know,” Jessie tells me again, surprise in his voice and maybe a hint of confusion.

  It’s happening—he’s finally starting to see me in a different way. “So do you.”

  Our eyes meet and the butterflies in my stomach have never been so intense. He grins and looks down at the cup in my hand. “Want me to get you a drink that won’t give you alcohol poisoning?”

  The next hour passes in a whirl and I swear it feels like he’s seeing me for the first time. I try not to get carried away, but I am not imagining the fact that our eyes are linger
ing on each other’s more than ever, he’s standing closer to me than is strictly necessary, and he’s finding excuses to touch me—resting his hand on my arm for a second more than is needed and being extra attentive about everything. It’s like it’s just the two of us in the room, like no one else exists, and when people do come talk to us, try to join our conversation, we quietly dismiss them, preferring to just stick to the two of us.

  “Chapman!” I jump at my name being said in such close proximity and turn to find Aaron standing to my right. Jessie instinctively takes a step away from me and I immediately miss his warmth. If Aaron notices that we’re completely engrossed in each other, he doesn’t let on. When he speaks again, his breath reveals that he’s probably not being the most observant right now. It doesn’t smell like he’s winning at beer pong. “I need you.”

  “I think you might need some water, Aaron,” I tell him.

  He looks at me like I’m crazy before shaking his head and dismissing my words. “I’m losing at beer pong,” he announces.

  I nod as he staggers slightly, bumping into me a bit.

  “I need my chem partner to help me out.”

  What? No. Absolutely not. “I can’t.”

  “I need you, Chapman.”

  “I don’t know how to play.”

  He scoffs. “You’re good at everything.”

  I shake my head and try not to look irritated. “I’m in the middle of a conversation with Jessie.”

  “Jessie doesn’t care, do you?” Aaron asks, turning to face him. “We’ll only be two minutes max.”

  Jessie blinks in surprise before slowly shaking his head.

  “See?” Aaron declares triumphantly, already throwing his arm around me. “We have to go now—everyone’s waiting for us. I told them I need to switch Jackson out ’cause I can’t lose another game.”

  I look back over my shoulder in surprise at Jessie, unsure how I’ve suddenly been pulled away from him. “Wait, stop.”

  Jessie just shrugs. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll wait here for you.”

  “Yeah?” I ask, warmth filling me.

  He smiles back at me. “Yeah. I’ll be right here.”

  Two minutes turns into thirty. Aaron is bad at beer pong, but I’m even worse. We lose immediately, and right away Brendon and a new girl I’ve never seen before demand another match. Aaron tries to be a gentleman, offering to down all the drinks on behalf of us both, but after two more, it’s obvious he won’t be able to handle much more and I end up having to drink anyway. My attempt to back out of the game early doesn’t happen. There’s a huge crowd watching us and when I try to get Sophie to swap in with me from her place next to Chase, she just raises an eyebrow and I know I’m stuck. I’m briefly distracted when I see Abigail approach Chase and whisper something in his ear, trying to tug him away from the group, but he just brushes her off. Everyone tries to act like they don’t see it but most of us do, expecting another scene from the Abigail and Chase show, but it does look like he really meant it when he said it’s over. I see Jessie walk past the back of the group to go to the bathroom and I’m so distracted watching him that I miss another cup and we have to drink again. Finally Brendon puts us out of our misery and I must look so upset at having to drink more stale beer that Jackson does me a favor and drinks them for me.

  I edge away before I’m roped into doing anything else and head back to kitchen, back to the only person I actually want to talk to.

  He’s not there.

  I glance back toward the bathroom, thinking he’s been a while but maybe there was a line, but I don’t see him. I shrug, grab a glass of water, and decide to wait for him, figuring he won’t be long. After ten minutes, I’m starting to feel like an idiot. It’s obvious he got bored and wandered away. He’s probably talking to the guys from JV or his debate team, and I should just go find him.

  First I check the outside patio and the back garden, which people have started to spill out onto, and then I head toward Aaron’s pool where there are some people swimming despite the cool temperature of the evening. It doesn’t take long to realize he’s not out there, and I turn and head back into the party.

  I go back to the kitchen, hoping he’s returned, but I’m out of luck. I head through the game room and hunt around in there. It’s nearly impossible to do it quickly. It’s so crowded I have to constantly maneuver around people, and every time I see someone I recognize, it feels like they want me to stop and chat. Eventually when I pass into the TV room, I spot Sophie talking to Mark and Jackson. She grins when she sees me but when she takes a look at my face, her brow furrows and she steps away from the guys.

  “What’s wrong? Everything going okay with you and Jessie?”

  “I don’t know where he is.” My eyes flash around the room, but he’s not in here either. Where the hell did he go? He wouldn’t just leave would he?

  “I’m sure he’s around. He must have gotten stuck talking to someone.”

  I shake my head. For some reason, I have a bad feeling about this, but I don’t know why. I mean, yeah, I was gone for half an hour so of course he’s not just going to stand there on his own and wait for me, but there were a lot of people in the kitchen—he could have just joined them, and he said he’d wait for me. We had a connection, didn’t we? He wouldn’t just walk away. “Have you seen him?”

  Sophie shakes her head. Her eyes narrow in concern and she takes a step closer to me. Anyone else would laugh and tell me I’m being stupid, but Sophie knows me too well for that. She knows I’m getting anxious and panicky. “Should I come look for him with you?”

  I shake my head, glancing behind her at Mark and Jackson, who have been joined by more of their crowd. “No, no. You’re right, he’s probably back in the kitchen by now and I just missed him.” I force a smile then back out of the room. I turn back in the direction I came from, intent on returning to the kitchen and even trying subtly to do some of those breathing exercises the child psychologist I saw in middle school told me to do when I start to get anxious. I walk past the huge spiral staircase in Aaron’s hall.

  I pause, my heartbeat hammering my chest, and I don’t know what makes me do it but I step up onto the first step, and then the next, and the next, until I’m heading upstairs with my eyes locked ahead of me. I know what goes on in the upstairs bedrooms at these parties. Every Monday morning, the Grove Valley High rumor mill is in full swing talking about who hooked up with who.

  But Jessie was waiting for me!

  Jessie was looking at me like I was special, like he was finally seeing me differently and something was definitely happening, but that doesn’t stop the sickening feeling in my gut. Despite the fact that my heart is pounding and I can feel my hands shaking, I know I need to rule this out.

  I get to the top and look down the hall just as a girl in my trig class emerges from the first bedroom on the right with a boy I don’t recognize. She smiles sheepishly as she passes me, the cocky grin on the guy’s face making it clear what they’ve been up to. I force myself to smile, ignoring the dead weight in my stomach as I take a couple of steps farther along the hallway.

  I suddenly feel stupid. What the hell am I going to do now that I’m up here? I’m certainly not going to go knocking on any doors just to check if Jessie is behind one of them. The thought alone makes me blush bright red. He’s probably downstairs in a corner talking about his latest video game obsession and I’m stalking the halls of Aaron’s mansion. I almost laugh out loud at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. I decide to try to find a bathroom now that I’m up here, hoping it’s obvious from the outside that it’s a bathroom and not a bedroom, and continue walking, assuming the bathroom will be at the end of a hallway. I take a right at the end (seriously, that’s how big Aaron’s house is—the hallway leads onto another), and that’s when I stop dead.

  That’s when I feel my heart crack in two.

  That’s when I find Jessie.

  With Courtney. Making out against the wall.

&nbs
p; Somehow I manage to not say a word as I watch them kissing…as I watch his hand under her top, groping at her body…as she makes these ridiculous noises like she’s in some sort of adult film, dropping her hands to his belt buckle and starting to undo it.

  I feel like I’m going to throw up.

  I start to back away, tears already in my eyes, and I swear, I swear Courtney looks my way for a split second and a smirk covers her face when she sees me standing here. Then Jessie reaches for the handle of the door she’s leaning up against and they both tumble into the room, slamming the door behind them.

  I am so stupid. I am so, so fucking stupid. My body starts shaking and fresh tears roll down my face. How could I think tonight was going to be it? How could I be dumb enough to think Jessie might actually like me back? I swipe away at the tears, heartbroken that he’s just dismissed me after what felt like a new beginning, but at the same time angry at myself. I should have known. I should have known better than to think I might actually get what I want, and I can’t cover up the sob that escapes from my throat.

  “Uh…” I jump out of my skin at the voice behind me. “Are you okay?”

  I whirl around to see Chase Mitchell standing there, looking the most awkward I’ve ever seen anyone look. I turn my back to him and swipe at my face, trying to get rid of the tears, which won’t stop falling.

  “Yeah,” I reply. “I’m fine.” It’d be more believable if my voice wasn’t cracking as I speak. I wait to hear his footsteps back away, sure the sight of a crying girl is enough to make him run for the hills, but instead he steps around me while I stare at my feet.

  “Livy.” I shake my head frantically. I can’t look up. I can’t face anyone right now, not when it feels like I’ve just had my heart ripped in two. “Livy,” he says again softly, and something about his voice, the way there’s no mocking lilt and the concern in his tone make me look up at him. He’s standing by the door opposite the one Courtney and Jessie are in, and he pushes it open. “Come in here. It’s Aaron’s room—no one will see you in here. It’s been locked so there’s no one inside.”