The Way to Game the Walk of Shame (23 page)

20

-Evan-

I searched up and down the hall for Taylor, but she was nowhere in sight. Even though it was only sixth period and we had just seen each other at lunch, I missed her. We’d gone from seeing each other every single day to barely seeing each other at all. Now I felt like something was always missing. I didn’t know how I’d gone through my life without Taylor before.

I couldn’t even call her whenever I wanted to, in case her dad was around. He was pretty pissed. I felt bad for Taylor, since I got to escape and she was stuck. After all, I was the one who came over. I had asked her to stay with me a little longer before we fell asleep. It was my fault that she was in trouble in the first place. It was
always
my fault.

After I got my history book from my locker, an arm curved around my torso and someone leaned into my back. Taylor. An automatic grin crossed my face, but I tried to play it cool. Like I hadn’t spent all day thinking about her. “I know you missed me, but this is a surprise. I thought you didn’t care for PDA? Not that I mind.”

The arms tightened. “You know I could never keep my hands off you, whether we’re in public or private.”

I spun around just as Lauren moved in closer. “What are you doing?”

Her pink lips pouted. “I would have thought that you’d know exactly what I’m doing.”

I was surprised to see her. She had called me a few times since the beach party, but I didn’t pick up. Partly because I didn’t want to hear her bitch at me, but also because I was a little pissed about the way she had treated Taylor. I understood how Lauren could be, but Taylor didn’t deserve that.

But I knew I couldn’t avoid Lauren forever.
We were friends.
Are
friends.

She leaned against the locker beside mine and looked down at the ground, only lifting her blue eyes to look up at me. “I broke up with Paul last week.”

“That’s … great.”

A flicker of confusion crossed her face, but she quickly recovered. She edged closer and slid her hand lightly down my arm. “I was expecting a more enthusiastic response than that, but I’ll take it. My parents are out of town at the moment. You could come over to my house.”

I held my hand over hers to make her stop. “Look, I’d love to, but—”

She pouted. “Not even for old times’ sake?”

Before I could even answer, a high-pitched voice interrupted us. “Not even for the winning lotto numbers.”

We both looked up, and Taylor stared at us. Her teeth gnawed on her lower lip, but she raised her chin and glared at Lauren. I couldn’t help feeling a tinge of pride.

Lauren moved back but still didn’t release my arm. “Maybe we’ll play next time, when you get rid of your babysitter.” Catching me off guard, she jerked my wrist until I tilted to the side and gave me a loud kiss on the cheek. She gave Taylor a smirk and strolled off.

Damn it. I stayed frozen in the hunched position. My eyes squeezed shut. I honestly didn’t know what to do or say. Technically I didn’t
do
anything wrong, so I didn’t know why I felt so guilty. Like I was in a shitload of trouble, and I didn’t even know why.

Like a kid who’d just gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar, I slowly peeked up and grimaced. Taylor’s face was burning red, and her jaw was clenched so tight that her lips were practically invisible.

My first instinct was to bolt. Get as far away as I could before she went possessed-Carrie psycho on me. But I couldn’t just leave Taylor when she was mad. Didn’t want to.

Craaap.
My life was so much easier when I didn’t care. “Taylor, I can explain—”

“Forget it.” She turned away and walked so quickly that I had to practically jog to keep up with her. Her sandals smacked on the tile floor with each stomp. I could barely hear her muttering over them. “I should have known that you’d jump back to her. One flutter of her fake lashes and you’d come running. God, what an idiot. Stupid. Obnoxious, two-faced—”

“Hold up. Are you talking about me?” Without waiting for her answer, I caught her elbow and forced her to stop. She continued staring down instead of at me, as if I were a bug on the ground. Probably one she’d squash in a heartbeat. “In case you didn’t notice, I was blowing her off when you showed up, so why am
I
an idiot? And believe me, there was much more than just fluttering lashes that was being offered here.”

Her blazing eyes flickered up, and I automatically backed up a step. I probably could have left that part out. Crap, I think I preferred her to not look at me. “Oh, I heard enough about how you’d love to meet her, but you’re stuck with your boring girlfriend who’s as appealing as a dentist appointment, right? So why don’t you go tell her that you changed your mind? Your babysitter’s busy tonight.” Her rant came out in a stuttered rush.

“Damn it, I never said any of that!” My exasperated breath came out through my clenched teeth like a hiss. Why was she tripping out? Was it her time of the month or something? “You know I don’t think that about you.” I reached for Taylor’s arm. Or at least tried to.

She jerked away from my touch so fast that she bumped into some kids by their lockers. “I just—I don’t know what to think anymore.” Taylor glanced around the crowded hall and ducked her head down again. “Let’s talk about this later. When we’re
alone
.”

Right, because of her precious reputation. Wasn’t that the reason we were in this crap to begin with?

For some reason, this only fueled my anger. I shoved my hand in my hair in frustration. I’m not a stranger to angry women—heck, I was a pro at defusing them—but only if it was my fault. Which it usually was. But not this time. Why was she playing the martyr in the situation? Why did I feel like crap as I defended myself? What did I even
do
wrong?

If anyone was mad around here, it should be me. I was the one turning down sex while Taylor was off going to plays and almost kissing guys in cars. For once, I was the good guy here. I didn’t even call her out on it. I’d been a freaking saint ever since I signed that stupid contract.

I leaned down to mutter in her ear. “Fine, we’ll continue this later.” She stiffened at my closeness but didn’t pull away this time. “But I don’t know why you’re so worked up about this like a jealous girlfriend. We’re not
really
dating, remember?”

Shit, that was definitely the wrong thing to say. I wanted to take the words back, but it was like I couldn’t stop myself. “You said that this was just a business arrangement, or are you just full of crap now?”

21

{Taylor}

Evan’s accusations were like gunshots. Not because they were loud, but because of the intensity of his words. How dare he? As though it had a mind of its own, my hand rose to slap him. He didn’t flinch at all. In fact, I could have sworn he leaned down a bit so it would be easier to hit him.

I stopped and lowered my hand back to my side. “Never mind. You’re right.”

His face looked pained. “Wait, I didn’t mean it like that,” Evan began, his hand stretching out to grab my arm.

For the first time, I barely paid any attention to his touch. Nothing registered in my mind. Not the fact that we were in the middle of the hallway. Not the audience who was straining to hear us. Nothing. I just wanted to get away from him.

“We both knew what we were getting into. And we knew the limits of this
relationship
. I was the one that got things mixed up. Stupid of me.” My voice turned sweet and calm. And indifferent. Like I was ordering a tuna sandwich for lunch. Hold the pickles.

“No, you’re not—”

I shrugged away from him. “But everything’s ended up pretty well. People stopped gossiping about us a long time ago. Maybe we should just end it. I’ve been waiting ages for things to go back to normal.”

“You have?” Now it was his turn to look shocked.

“Of course. I’ll even take you out to dinner to celebrate our breakup. Somewhere nice. But until then, remember our deal. No cheating on each other,” I joked halfheartedly. The lump in my throat grew until I could barely talk anymore. I had to get out of there. I cleared my throat and smiled at him, a wide, beaming smile that hopefully hid the way I was feeling. “I have to go to class, but I’ll see you after school.”

His mouth opened as though he wanted to argue with me. My heart soared when his grip on my arm tightened, only to crash to the ground when he let go. “See you later.”

*   *   *

I didn’t know
why
I was so pissed at Evan. So Lauren was putting the moves on Evan. Big whoop. Like he said, we weren’t anything to each other. A few kisses didn’t mean that we were dating. Nothing had changed.

Except me. Why was I so stupid to think that we could—that he might—

Stupid. STUPID. Stupid.

I needed something to do. Something to distract me. And I knew the perfect solution. With the deadline for the new issue of
New Voices
just days away, Brian would be holed in the media room so he could go over each article and piece himself to make sure it was perfect. Each issue was his baby.

I stared at the wooden media-room door and willed myself to just forget about Evan. At least for a few hours.

With an unsteady hand, I pushed the door open. Brian’s lanky body hunched over pieces of paper that were spread out on the table. The skinny tie that he wore with his white button-down shirt was loosened until it was nearly untied. His shirttail poked out of his dark-wash jeans.

The first thing that I noticed—besides how tired he looked—was that he needed a haircut. Badly. His black hair repeatedly fell into his eyes, and he absentmindedly batted it out of the way. He alternated between chewing on his thumb and his lower lip as he moved the pieces around. His dark eyes squinted as he tried to visualize the order they should go in.

I shut the door with a bang. He looked up and smiled, the familiar smile that had tugged at my heart since the first time I met him. “You’re late. Did Higgens keep your class back talking about his wonderful son again?”

Brian didn’t take physics. He had lucked out and was placed in the honors microbiology class upon his parents’ request. But he’d heard me complain about Mr. Higgens a thousand times. “No, I just had stuff to do.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t blame you for ducking out on me. Every month I ask myself why I put myself through this torture.” He scratched at his neck and shook his head. “But now that you’re here, do you mind looking over this article? I don’t know if it should go before or after the pep-rally recap.”

“Yeah, sure.” I sat on a desk a few feet away. My feet tapped against the metal rungs.

Brian handed me the articles, but he didn’t let go when I grabbed them. Instead, he gave me a funny look. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

Still scrutinizing me, Brian leaned back against the table, not even caring that several pieces of paper were sliding off the edge. He crossed his arms. “Come on, tell me what’s wrong.”

I squirmed under his intense gaze. “I just have something on my mind, that’s all.”

“Something or someone?”

Trust Brian to always know exactly what I was thinking, unlike a certain surfer. “Someone.” It was kind of weird to talk about this with Brian. Not only because we’d never talked about relationships before—or my lack of relationships—but also because the other night in his car, when we had almost kissed, was still fresh in my mind.

Or at least I thought we almost had. It certainly felt like we were about to, but the next day, Brian had acted like nothing was wrong. He was so normal that I almost thought that I had imagined that entire evening.

“I guess Evan’s giving you some trouble, huh? What happened?”

My foot kicked the desk a bit as I stared at the ground. “We just had a fight. He said some things. I said some things. Maybe it was my fault. I was kind of harsh.”

Brian laughed. “That’s just who you are, though. Blunt, hard-core, heart-crushingly honest.”

“Gee, thanks a lot. You make me sound like some type of wrecking ball.”

“The good kind.” He kicked his long legs against the metal rungs of my desk, letting the low, hollow ringing vibrate through the room for a minute or two. “So, do you think you’ll work it out?”

“I don’t know.” An image of Lauren snuggled against Evan flashed through my mind, and I let out an involuntary sigh. I slid off the desk and knelt down to pick up the papers scattered on the ground. “I have a feeling we won’t be together much longer.”

“Good.” To my surprise, he reached down for my hand and pulled me upright. “Because I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something. About us…” His voice trailed off, and it was his turn to stare at the floor.

“Us?”

Brian let out a deep breath and massaged the back of his neck with his other hand. “You know that I’ve always admired you despite how crazy you are. And I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to say this, but … I like you.” He shook his head. His eyes were bright as he tightened his grip on me. “Like really like you. I always have.”

“Huh? You have?” I cringed at myself. Oh god, that had to be the worst response to a confession ever. EVER. “I—when?”

“Since my first day of school, when you came up to me to find out my IQ score. Even after you snapped at me when you found out my score was five points higher than yours.” There were crinkles in the corners of his eyes as he laughed. His hand rested in the nook between his neck and shoulders. “I never had a chance.”

The papers in my hand crumpled. “Brian … I…” I didn’t know what to say. What could I say?

If this were a romance novel, this would be the scene when I could declare my love, too, and fall into his arms to live happily ever after. I mean, this was Brian.
Brian.
The guy who brought over my homework assignments when I was out with the flu for nearly a week. The one who stayed up late helping me cram for my physics exam even though he didn’t take physics. And he was
still
good at it. The one who fit into all of my plans
perfectly
. The logical choice. Maybe the right choice.