Shut Out

by Kody Keplinger

  “How?”

  “I’ve decided to take over,” he said. “The same way you’re leading the girls, I’m going to lead the boys.”

  I blinked, stunned. Stunned and… hurt? Somehow, despite the weirdness between us, I’d thought Cash was on my side with this whole thing. He’d given me that play to read, after all, like it might help me. Besides, he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who cared so much about getting laid. Not like Randy. Cash didn’t even date.

  “Why?”

  “I have my reasons.” He grinned and stepped closer again. “I’m the perfect choice, though, don’t you think? Because like you, I can be focused without getting distracted.”

  “I can’t believe this.”

  “Believe it.” Then he took a step toward me, closer than he’d been before, close enough that he could have bent down and kissed me. For a second I thought he was going to. He was so close that our knees almost touched, and I could smell his cologne, feel his breath near my ear as his head lowered just a little. One of his hands was moving toward my hip when he said, “Because now that we’re organized, this will be over before you can say ‘Surrender.’ ”

  I hadn’t even had time to take another breath when his hand reached behind me and removed a copy of the Children’s Bible. “Someone up front is looking for this,” Cash said, backing away from me. “See you later, Lissa.” He winked, turned, and walked off.

  chapter twenty-­one

  I was making dinner on Wednesday night—just over three weeks since the start of the strike—when I finally heard from Randy.

  I’d seen him in the cafeteria and passed him in the hallway, but every time he got close, Chloe would yank me into the girls’ bathroom out of sight or I’d duck into a classroom on my own, not sure whether I wanted him to apologize or just leave me alone for good. The fact was, I did miss him. We’d been together for more than a year, so it was kind of impossible not to. And I noticed that after that first day in the cafeteria, The Blonde never seemed to be with him. I wondered if he’d dropped her. Or if she’d dropped him.

  I’d half expected and half hoped Randy would show up to apologize the day after Homecoming, but after the weekend passed, I assumed it wouldn’t happen. So I wasn’t prepared for him to show up at my house that night.

  I’d just checked on the roast when the doorbell rang. I’d started to take off my oven mitts to go answer when Dad called, “I’ll get it!”

  I heard his wheels roll across the carpet and, a second later, the door creaked open.

  The silence didn’t get my attention at first—I figured it was just someone trying to sell something—and I went on setting the table. But then Dad’s voice, low and tired, caught my ear.

  “Randy. Can I help you?”

  “Hey, Mr. Daniels.” His voice sounded so upbeat. So relaxed and normal. It put a spear through my chest to hear him so happy when he’d left me so miserable. “Is Lissa around?”

  Dad sighed. “She is, but I don’t think she should see you.”

  “Listen, sir,” Randy said a little more seriously. “I just need to—”

  “I know what happened at Homecoming, Randy,” Dad said. “She told me. And I think it’s best if you go.”

  “But—Okay. Can you just…”

  One, two, three, four…

  Randy let out a long breath. “Can you just tell her that I’m sorry? I know I screwed up, but I love her.”

  “Sure thing.”

  A second later the door closed. I put a plate down at Logan’s usual seat and turned toward the living room. Dad was sitting in the doorway, watching me. “I guess you heard the message.”

  “I did. Thanks.”

  “You didn’t want to see him, did you? I should have asked.”

  “No. It’s fine.”

  “Do you miss him?” Dad asked.

  I walked over to the silverware drawer and took out the knives and forks we’d need that night. “Yes,” I admitted. “I miss the way he could make me laugh and his stupid grin and how sweet he could be. I just don’t know if that’s enough to forgive him.”

  “Yeah.” Dad sighed. “I understand that. I miss him a little, too. But seeing him just now and remembering how upset you were this weekend… Even if you two worked things out, I don’t know that I could ever look at him the same again.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about that,” I told him, walking back to the table and putting on the finishing touches. “I’m joining a convent after high school. No more boys.”

  “Don’t tease me that way,” Dad said. “I might actually start to believe you.”

  “I mean it.”

  “You don’t.”

  I shook my head and sank down into one of the chairs. “The roast will be done in about half an hour,” I said. “Hopefully it’s good.”

  “It will be.”

  I smiled, and Dad rolled back into the living room, understanding without my saying it that I needed to be alone for a minute.

  It hadn’t felt as good as I’d hoped to hear Randy’s apology. I wasn’t quite tempted to run back into his embrace, the way I’d feared I would be. Instead, I just kept imagining him kissing The Blonde and wondering, for the thousandth time, why I hadn’t been good enough. Why I was only worth keeping if I’d sleep with him. He hadn’t just broken my heart—he’d humiliated me in front of our friends.

  I loved Randy. I knew that. But I could never trust him again.

  So, sitting in my kitchen, I made myself a promise: No matter what happened, I would never take Randy back again. Not a second time. Not ever. This time, as hard as it was to accept, our relationship was really over.

  By Thursday night, I’d decided that I officially hated the entire male population. As if Randy, Cash, and the boys at school tormenting me about my sex life weren’t enough, I also had to deal with my brother, who, it was clear, truly enjoyed torturing me.

  I was already having a bad night. It started when Jenna announced that she was clocking out early—which sounds like a good thing, right? Wrong.

  “That means you two have to close up together,” she told Cash and me as she grabbed her jacket off the back of her chair at the front desk. “Finish shelving the returned books, turn off all the lights, be sure to power down the computer. And lock the doors, for God’s sake.”

  “Jenna, I’ve locked up before,” I told her. “I know what to do.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me and flipped her red hair over her shoulder. “Just don’t get distracted,” she said, tossing a not-so-subtle glance at Cash, who was standing a few feet behind me. She lowered her voice when she turned back to me and added, “I’ve seen the way you look at him, and let me just tell you, workplace romances, while incredibly hot, never work out.”

  Had Jenna just called my non-relationship with Cash “incredibly hot”? Ew, ew, ew.

  “There’s nothing going on between—”

  “Whatever you say,” she said, waving me away. But even before Jenna cut me off, I knew it was sort of a lie. Clearly there was something up between Cash and me; I just wasn’t sure what. “Just do your job. I’ve got to go, and I don’t want to clean up after you tomorrow.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Cash said, coming up beside me. I felt heat rise in my cheeks, wondering how much of my conversation with Jenna he’d heard. “You have nothing to worry about.”

  “We’ll see about that.” She grabbed her purse and, without a good-bye, walked out of the library.

  And I was left alone with Cash.

  But that wasn’t the end of it. After my shift was over I called Logan, who was already running late to pick me up.

  He answered after four rings.

  “Shit, Lissa, I forgot.”

  “Hello to you, too, dearest brother.”

  “Can you get another ride?” Logan asked.

  “Why? Where are you?”

  “I’ve got a date tonight,” he said. “I’m driving to meet her right now. I’m sorry, Lissa. I totally forgot
it was a Thursday.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I asked, hoping it was just a coincidence that Jenna had left early tonight. “Logan, come on.”

  “Sorry, Lissa. Call someone to come get you,” he said. “I’ll make it up to you later. Gotta go. ’Bye.”

  Click.

  “Damn it,” I muttered, shoving my cell phone in the back pocket of my jeans.

  “Hey,” Cash said, brushing past me (deliberately, I was sure) on his way to the exit. “Everything okay? Do you need a ride?”

  I sighed, knowing I didn’t have much of a choice. “Yeah, I do. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all.” He reached up and flipped the light switch by the door, plunging us into darkness. I gasped, startled by my sudden blindness, and Cash said, “Sorry. Should I turn it back on?”

  “No, it’s fine,” I said. I was only a few yards from the door. I’d have to be a real klutz not to be able to successfully close that space in the dark.

  I took a few fumbling steps toward Cash and the exit, but right before I made it to the door, my sandal snagged on a wrinkle in the rug, sending me stumbling forward. Naturally, I fell right into Cash’s arms. God, he was good. This was clearly arranged to make me crazy. Now that he was leading the boys’ side, distracting me would obviously be his goal. And he knew just how to do it, too.

  “You okay?” he asked, his lips only a few inches above my left ear, sending a chill down my spine.

  “You’re doing this on purpose!” I snapped. I don’t think I really meant to say it out loud, but as always, the words just seemed to spill out when I was around Cash.

  “Doing what on purpose?”

  Torturing me.

  Teasing me.

  Trying to trick me into ending the strike.

  “Nothing,” I said stiffly, shrugging out of his arms and scrambling away. I found the door and pushed it open. “Lock up from the inside and go out the employee exit. I’ll meet you at your car.” I paused and cleared my throat before adding, “Um, please?”

  “All right.” I could just make out the green of his eyes, and for a moment I considered moving back to him, letting his arms wrap around me again, and acting on a few impulses I could only excuse in the dark.

  But I didn’t. Instead, I hurried out the door and went to wait in front of Cash’s car.

  A few minutes later he walked out the side door and crossed the parking lot to meet me. He smiled as he unlocked the car and opened the passenger’s-side door for me. “Here you go,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, sliding in. This was all Logan’s fault, and Cash was just being a jerk, toying with me this way. I hated boys. All of them.

  I was more determined than ever to lead the girls to victory over the rivalry and the guys who broke our hearts and messed with our heads. We had to win.

  That night, after dinner, I went upstairs to do my homework. I was halfway through my physics assignment when I caught sight of the copy of Lysistrata Cash had lent me, lying on my nightstand, untouched.

  I hurried through the rest of my work without double-checking my answers the way I usually did—when was I going to use physics in real life, anyway? I wanted to major in English, not build roller coasters—and reached for the book. Cash had said there was a battle of the sexes involved. I needed to know which side won.

  chapter twenty-­two

  The third slumber party was held that Saturday night at Kelsey’s house. A few girls made excuses not to come because, well, they couldn’t stand Kelsey and didn’t want to be anywhere near her “fortress of evil.” But I managed to convince Chloe not to bail, and we headed over together at around eight.

  By that point, I wasn’t getting nearly so anxious about the slumber parties. I’d gotten to know all the girls pretty well, and I was even getting used to the crowded bedrooms. That night, I was actually looking forward to the sleepover.

  Turns out, Kelsey probably should have been throwing the slumber parties all along. Her place was huge. Especially her bedroom. It was as big as my living room and featured a giant wall-to-wall window looking out over her backyard, where there was an Olympic-size swimming pool and a swing set—the latter, I’m guessing, belonged to Kelsey’s little brothers.

  “Rich bitch,” Chloe muttered when we walked into the room.

  “Be nice,” I hissed. Part of me wanted to tell her what Kelsey had told me in my kitchen—that she only hated Chloe because she was jealous. But Kelsey wouldn’t want her to know that, so I kept my mouth shut. Maybe they’d be happier hating each other, anyway. It kept both of them from getting bored.

  We took our places on a small love seat across from Kelsey’s bed. Kelsey had just run down to let in a few more girls, but we’d arrived a little early, so hardly anyone was there yet.

  “Why does anyone need a bedroom this big?” Chloe asked. “Seriously.”

  “I don’t know, but I’m not complaining. We won’t be so crammed in tonight. Please be nice, okay? I really don’t want her to kick you out, and you know she’ll be on the lookout for any excuse to do it.”

  Chloe sighed dramatically. “Fine. I’ll be on my best behavior.”

  “Thank you.”

  Just then, Kelsey walked back into the room with Ellen, Susan, Mary, and a few of the soccer players’ girlfriends. “Take a seat wherever you’re comfortable,” Kelsey said. “Just don’t make a mess.”

  “She treats us like we’re five,” Chloe growled.

  “I do the same thing,” I reminded her in a whisper. “And you don’t complain.”

  “Yeah, but I like you. That’s the difference.”

  I nudged her foot with mine and she fell silent.

  Ten minutes later the rest of the girls had arrived, and Kelsey was playing hostess, passing around a plate of mini-cupcakes and retrieving extra pillows for people to sit on. It was a side of her I’d never seen, and it amused me. I think Chloe was getting a kick out of it, too, because she kept glancing at me and giggling between cupcakes.

  “So let’s get started,” Kelsey said after the cupcakes had been passed around. She sat on her bed and crossed her legs. “What’s on the agenda for tonight?”

  “Dude, it’s a slumber party, not a student council meeting,” Chloe said.

  “But we usually do have something planned to talk about,” Susan argued, stretching out on her stomach on the floor. “The first week it was funny stories about making the boys miserable. Last week it was Lissa’s virginity.”

  “That sounds so awkward when you say it out loud,” Ellen joked.

  “We could tell funny stories again.”

  “Yeah, that could be fun.”

  I nodded at the suggestions tossed out by a few of the girls. This time, though, I wouldn’t be sharing. Catching your boyfriend cheating on you at Homecoming isn’t that funny, really.

  Apparently Mary was thinking the same thing, because she asked, “Does anyone have stories, though? I don’t, really.”

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  “Not me.”

  Chloe and I exchanged a “the ship is sinking” look, and across the room, I could see a crestfallen expression on Kelsey’s face. She must have had high hopes for the first slumber party she hosted. I felt bad, but I didn’t know what to do. I started feeling nervous, that out-of-control feeling I got when I didn’t have a plan or a routine to follow, and I had the sudden urge to declare a game of hide-and-seek, the way I had at Ellen’s twelfth birthday party when things had started going wrong. Somehow, I didn’t think that would work this time.

  “Hey,” someone said from across the room, “why are the boys outside?”

  “What?”

  Everyone scrambled across the room to look out the window, saving me the effort of finding something for us to do. I leaned against the sill, wedged between Chloe and Ellen, and looked down at Kelsey’s swimming pool, where a group of boys huddled, as if making a plan before a football play.

  “What are they doing?” Kelsey asked.

  No one
had a chance to hypothesize before we got our answer. The huddle broke and one by one the boys approached the edge of the pool. We were only on the second floor, so I could make out the faces of the boys—especially when they started looking up at Kelsey’s window, where I was sure they could see all of us gawking down at them.

  The group was a mix of football and soccer players. I could see Shane, and Susan’s boyfriend, Luther, from where I stood. A second later I identified Kelsey’s boyfriend, Terry, and then there was Adam. I counted seventeen boys total, including the boyfriends of each of the girls attending the slumber party. No Randy in sight, though.

  But, in the back of the group, grinning up at me, was Cash.

  “Oh, no,” I murmured.

  “What the hell is going on?” Chloe asked.

  I thought I knew, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how to answer.

  On the ground, Cash gave a signal, and the guys all lined up by the pool. In unison, they stripped off their shirts and tossed them onto the grass. An audible sigh—like the ones you hear on a sitcom that is “filmed in front of a live studio audience”—filled the room. It was almost funny, really. Such a strong reaction to a bunch of shirtless boys.

  Not that I was judging. I mean, these were some of the most athletic boys in school, which meant they had some of the best bodies. It was like a museum of muscled arms and six-pack abs on Kelsey’s lawn. And, naturally, I caught myself staring at Cash. It was the first time I’d seen him shirtless, and even from a distance—wow.

  This was not going to help that whole sexual-tension issue at work.

  He gave another signal and the boys slid out of their jeans. I felt myself blush and almost looked away before realizing they were all wearing swimming trunks beneath their clothes.

  “Oh my God,” I heard Kelsey whisper. “We’ve got to get them out of here. If my parents see this…” But she didn’t move away from the window.

  Stripped down to their trunks, the boys began jumping into Kelsey’s pool. It was nearing the end of September, but the weather was still nice enough to allow for good swimming conditions. The boys bobbed and splashed around the pool, looking up every few minutes, occasionally waving or calling out to us to come join them.