Awkwardly Ever After (11 page)

“M
e?” I squeaked. “No. No.
No. No. No!
”

“There's no harm in considering it,” Spencer pointed out reasonably. Too reasonably. It had to be some kind of a setup. A new take on the classic
Carrie
story. Geeky girl goes to prom only to find out that it was one big joke cooked up by the popular kids at her high school. Actually, that wasn't even a new take on it. That straight up was the premise of the movie, minus the bloodshed and supernatural abilities.

Then again, I wouldn't put it past Fake and Bake to grab a bucket of pig's blood.

“Fine, I'll consider it.” I paused briefly and then nodded. “Yep, considered. Rejected. Anything else?”

“You have to admit it makes sense,” Spencer said, slowing the car as we cruised through my residential neighborhood. “There's no way I'd become prom king if I say I'm dating you.”

My expression must have given away how much that stung, because he winced.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean that in a bad way.”

“Is there a
good
way to be told that you could torpedo someone's popularity?” I said skeptically. “I think that's kind of like being forced to hear, ‘I don't want to say I told you so,' when
obviously
if someone really didn't want to say it, they could have just kept their mouth shut.”

Spencer raked one hand through his hair. “Look, I need to get out of this and I would appreciate your help.”

I was getting really sick of hearing people dance around the words “I need a favor.”

I shoved my glasses higher up my nose. “Let me guess, you need to pretend to be in a relationship with someone who would tank your social standing enough to kill any chance of being crowned, but not so much that you would have to hang with the geeks.”

“I've hung out with a geek before. It was fun. She
knew
things. Lots of things. Not all of which you'll find in a textbook.”

Spencer grinned, and even though I thought he was kind of kidding, he also sort of wasn't.

“Thanks for that very generous offer, but—”

“You haven't heard my offer yet.”

“No, but I'm pretty sure I've seen it enacted for chick flicks over a dozen times. You're going to increase my popularity, right? Maybe find someone to give me a makeover? Well, screw you, Spencer. I
like
wearing sweatshirts and jeans!”

“I wasn't going to suggest that.”

I raised an eyebrow in what I thought was a pretty good imitation of his go-to expression.

“Maybe you'll learn to lighten up a little, but that's it. I'm not trying to turn you into Chelsea Halloway.”

“Because that would be impossible. There's only one Chelsea Halloway. Anybody who thinks they can take her place is delusional.”

“Exactly. And since I'm not delusional”—Spencer paused to let me snort in disbelief before he continued—“I wouldn't attempt it.”

“So you want me to pretend to be your girlfriend for a few weeks in exchange for . . . what exactly?”

“Name it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you want party invites? Want me to introduce you to someone special that you've had your eye on but could never quite bring yourself to speak to at school? Money?”

“There is no special someone.” Probably wouldn't be for a long time if my psych books were right about relationships requiring open communication. I had a hard enough time talking to Melanie, Jane, and Sam; considering that they were the three least judgmental girls at Smith High School . . . I was screwed. “And I'm not interested in your money.”

“Okay . . . well, what
do
you want?”

The question froze me. It had been such a long time since I'd allowed myself to ask that, even if the words were only in my head. If I wanted something, I would be disappointed when I didn't get it. And most of the things I wanted only made me feel . . . guilty.

I wanted to be thin. To look in the mirror and think,
Hello, gorgeous, I have a closet full of clothing and none of it is going to make you look fat. What do you want to wear today?
I wanted to be able to walk within a fifteen-foot radius of a Notable without stiffening as I waited for the insults to fly.

Scratch that.

What I wanted was to look at the mirror and not care what anyone else said about me because
I
knew I looked fan-freaking-tastic. To give any jerk who dared to say different the middle finger and a
screw you
smile.

But I wasn't that girl either, and I couldn't exactly confess that what I really wanted was a much stronger backbone. I didn't want Spencer's pity.

Maybe because I actually kind of . . . pitied him.

“Does someone always want something from you, Spencer? Part of being a King, right? Part of the lifestyle. I bet you hear,
Hey, I could use a favor
more often than I do. And I've been hearing it a lot recently.”

Spencer just stared at me in silence. After years of being the biggest geek in class, I was used to getting a look that was somewhere between
Did you actually just say that to me, loser?
and
Wow, weird girl has a point.

“It happens,” he said at last with a shrug, but I seriously doubted he was as calm about it as he let on.

“Is there anyone in your life who doesn't have an endgame?” I mused before answering my own question. “Logan. Okay, so you have one person. No girls, though, right?”

“Oh, I have plenty of girls.” Spencer smirked.

I reached blindly for the door handle. “You want to keep acting like a pompous jerk, you can do that all by yourself. If you want to make a deal—”

“I'll keep my mouth shut,” Spencer finished for me. “What were you going to say?”

“That you don't have any girl friends. And in case you didn't catch it; I'm putting a big old period between ‘girl' and ‘friend.' Not a girl who is
pretending
to be your friend because she's hoping it will turn into something more. A friend who also happens to be a girl. Do you have any of those, Spencer?”

“I . . . uh . . .”

“I didn't think so.”

“So let me get this straight: You're offering to be my
friend?
”

It was the strangest moment of my life. Stranger than being invited by Melanie to watch a movie with some Notables. Stranger even than letting the King of the Notables give me a lift home.

I hadn't intended to psychoanalyze him, but now that I had . . . I couldn't back out.

Or maybe I could have, but I didn't want to do it. And not just because I was curious to see if I was right; if all the assumptions I'd been making about life as a Notable were accurate. It sounded like buried somewhere beneath his frat-boy facade was someone who actually needed some help.

I've never been able to ignore other people, maybe because I'd been on the receiving end of being shunted aside too many times to count.

“Here's the deal.” The words came tumbling out of my mouth before I could overthink them. “I'll become the first—hell, the
only
female friend you may ever have, and I won't have any ulterior motive for doing it. But whether or not you want to lie to everyone else at that hellhole we call high school, you do
not
get to lie to me. Try that on for size, hotshot.”

I didn't give him a chance to respond. Instead, I bolted from the car before Spencer could take me up on the offer I couldn't believe I had extended.

And I didn't slow down until I had reached my bedroom, flopped on my bed, and muffled my shriek into a pillow.

Because that's what I do whenever it becomes clear that I'm out of my
freaking
mind!

I
had no intention of seeing Spencer King ever again.

There was no reason for me to see him because: 1) he would never take me up on my offer, and 2) it was no longer even on the table. Maybe I could have detailed a longer list of reasons why pretending to date Spencer was such an epically bad idea if Melanie had picked up her fracking phone, but I'd been able to come up with enough of them on my own to realize I was in way over my head.

So . . . new plan. Avoidance was my watchword.

But I couldn't help wondering if maybe Spencer was interested in the offer, even though the more I thought about it the less sense it made. How could I be friends with someone I didn't even like? Friendship requires trust. Admiration. Esteem.
Something.

Most of the time I spent around Spencer I wondered if he was a Cylon infiltrating high school so that he could see what life was like for the humans. That would explain the perfect golden boy looks and the way he seemed to skate over every problem that sprang up in his path.

Okay, so he had a pretty solid sense of humor when he wasn't acting like a total jerk. He didn't take himself too seriously, and since I could never seem to turn my brain off, I envied his ability to just hang out. There was no way Spencer King would remain awake at night recalling every uncomfortable social interaction he'd had over the course of the day and then systematically berating himself for each and every screwup.

He probably never gave any of his social faux pas a second thought.

That seemed a whole lot healthier than the complicated tangle of emotions I inevitably fought at two in the morning.

So maybe it wasn't entirely impossible for me to respect Spencer King, just incredibly unlikely.

Then again, it wasn't as unlikely as a Notable asking me to fake a relationship to tank his chances at prom king, and
that
had already happened. I rubbed my forehead wearily. As far as I was concerned, there wasn't enough sleep or coffee in the world to make any of this seem normal.

That's why instead of asking Melanie how it had gone with Dylan the day before, I couldn't even let her get beyond, “I owe you an apology.”

Although that was partly because I saw Fake headed right toward me and I was flooded with a sense of foreboding. Yesterday she had pretty much ignored me. The day before I hadn't even been on her radar. But if Spencer actually took me up on that harebrained offer of friendship . . . every mean girl at Smith High School would be out for blood.

Specifically,
my
blood.

“An apology?!” I choked. “Oh, you owe me a whole lot more than that! You talked me into going to Mackenzie's house only to ditch me with
Spencer King!
”

But it didn't look like Melanie was picking up on the gravity of the situation. Why would she, though? The only reason Melanie wasn't already sitting at the Notable table with the rest of the absurdly attractive people there was because she cared about
me.
But the girl was still total Notable queen material.

Melanie could fly through unfriendly airspace whenever she pleased, but I would be shot down the second I came within range.

It was almost funny that I was just thinking about getting shot down when I spotted Spencer walking right toward me with the same relaxed, loping stride that revealed an innate sense of coordination I certainly hadn't gotten as a kid.

So naturally, I panicked.

“Cover for me!” I blurted out to Melanie as I booked it in the opposite direction. Maybe if I didn't actually speak to Spencer, he wouldn't try to hold me to my word. He would let the whole thing drop and I wouldn't have to look like I couldn't hack hanging out with the Notables.

Even though, let's be real: I couldn't hack it.

Not even slightly.

Unfortunately, running away from Spencer meant that I was moving toward Fake—and she didn't look happy to see me. Probably because I hadn't been able to keep my big mouth shut the day before and had accidentally made her look bad in front of Spencer.

Although to be fair, I thought she had made herself look bad.

Then again, in my experience, popular girls don't exactly want to admit their own missteps because it proves they are just as fallible as everyone else and shatters the myth they've spent a great amount of time and energy constructing. So it's a whole lot easier to persecute the geek as an example for anyone else who might be tempted to speak up. But of course our guidance counselors will be the first to assure incoming students that
nothing
bad ever happens in high school.

I searched for a way out and came up empty. Diving into the girl's bathroom might keep Spencer temporarily at bay, but it wouldn't help with the Notable problem that was flouncing confidently toward me.

Never underestimate a flounce. Ruffles can be incredibly misleading.

My glasses began slipping down the bridge of my nose, probably because of the perspiration that began to sheen my face. I could tell I was glowing red, although I had no intention of verifying that by looking at myself under the harsh glare of the bathroom lights. I'd learned long ago that if I wanted to feel even slightly good about myself, it was best to avoid the florescent bulbs that must have been created to highlight every wayward hair, blackhead, and pimple.

I had trouble imagining even Chelsea Halloway glancing at herself in those mirrors and leaving unscathed.

But the real reason I couldn't use it for my escape was because bathrooms are notorious for being the place where the worst possible stuff goes down in high school. Bathrooms, locker rooms, and cafeterias. The places where everyone is supposed to be able to peacefully coexist are the ones most fraught with danger.

Even if that danger is being on the receiving end of a pitying glance that lingers too long on a round stomach and jiggly thighs, before catching the tail end of a cutting remark.

“I'm amazed she can even fit her ass in a pair of pants, aren't you? I feel sorry for the denim.”

“If I ever start wearing baggy sweatshirts like that, please burn them for me. She looks like she's a couple of imaginary friends away from a mental institution.”

My face heated further as a wave of memories washed over me. I fought for each and every breath as the distance shortened between me and Steffani Larson, and I saw her carefully eyelinered and mascaraed eyes narrow and her perfectly lip-glossed lips open to speak.

It was about to get nasty.

And there was nothing I could do to stop it. It had played out too many times before for me to imagine that this time something would magically change. Steffani would mock me, I would freeze, people around us would laugh nervously to break the tension and hope that whatever happened, Steffani would never take them on that way.

Then I would do my best not to cry for the rest of the day.

Maybe I wasn't cut out to be the badass heroine who could fly back with a snarky quip, but at least I'd become skilled at postponing the waterworks.

I liked to think that counted for something.

Still, it was better to let Steffani say whatever it was that she had planned than to let it simmer. Once she got the bile out of her system, I would be relatively safe . . . until she needed an outlet for whatever the hell problems life was throwing at her. I was her stress relief.

But even intellectually identifying that this was just her way of working out her issues didn't make it any easier to keep my head up in the hallways.

Not when some small part of me wondered if everyone else could be right.

“I don't want to be rude,” Steffani announced the instant I came within earshot. Even if I hadn't had hundreds of run-ins with her before, I still would have known that her words didn't bode well. Saying, “I don't want to be rude” or “no offense,” is just a weak tactic used by petty people to distance themselves from the way they hurt people with their language.

Sure enough, the zinger lagged behind by only a millisecond.

“But do you
always
wear sweatshirts? Is that some kind of cult thing? Or wait . . . do you have, like, religious objections to looking like a girl?”

I should've channeled my inner badass and blasted her.

“I don't want to be rude, but do you have, like, an objection to being a decent human being? Is that too hard for you?”

The words refused to come. They were lodged behind an enormous ball of emotion in my throat, one that left me wondering if it was possible to gag on an insult.

I stood frozen in the hallway as I watched it happen. There was nothing cute about my deer-in-headlights moment. The whole scene reminded me of the time my parents had driven us to Ashland, Oregon, to see some Shakespeare plays, and Bambi's cousin had rammed into the car at top speed. We weren't even moving at the time—just waiting at a freaking stop light.

That's what it felt like to see Steffani act all doe-eyed and innocent while she wreaked senseless havoc.

Only there was no repair service I could call to fix this kind of social situation. Melanie was nowhere in sight, and none of these bystanders had any intention of stepping forward. They were probably preoccupied trying to figure out how many points the Notable would score with that direct hit.

I felt someone walk up behind me and my already stiff body jolted forward. The only thing worse than being left dealing with Fake on my own was having some other Notable jerk join in the fun.

Someone like Alex Thompson would have no trouble picking up where Steffani Larson had left off.

I flinched when I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. Even with a layer of sweatshirt between me and the outside world, the touch felt too intrusive, too intimate.

The last thing I could handle was
anyone
trying to get close.

But the instinctive jolt didn't do anything to shake off the strange hand, and I couldn't bring myself to find out who the offending digits belonged to in case that would only make this whole situation worse. I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut and chant, “None of this is real,” until the bell rang and everyone split for class.

“Hey, I was hoping to catch you.”

That undeniably wry voice held a strain of laughter underneath, and I found my stomach unclenching slightly as I looked up into Spencer's gorgeous green eyes. Okay, so they were a little out of focus because once again my glasses had slipped down my nose. But even when his face was blurry, it still looked unreasonably good. All chiseled and defined in a way that nobody should actually look if they aren't secretly twenty-four-year-old actors pretending to be high school students on a network TV show.

“You were?” I asked stupidly, as I tried to find some subtle way not to lose my glasses. I probably should have purchased contacts and been done with it, but I kind of liked readjusting my frames. There was something comforting about it.

“Yep.” Spencer leaned in closer, and even though I knew that his presence was
not
going to make this situation any better, I couldn't seem to get that message through to my racing pulse. I shifted so that my body fit against his side. His eyes widened momentarily, as if he hadn't expected me to respond in any way other than a hissed insult; then his mouth curved into a smile. “I had a great time with you yesterday, especially when we were alone. We're still on for tonight, right? I have hockey practice, but I'm all yours after that.”

I didn't miss what he was implying with the emphasis on
I'm all yours
—and neither did anyone else.

Steffani looked shell-shocked. Her shiny bottom lip stuck out in an unflattering pout that made her look like a bigmouthed guppy bobbing around in a fish tank.

“You're hanging out with
her?
”

Spencer barely acknowledged Fake's existence with a quick glance before he refocused on me. It was strange being the center of such intensity. I hadn't noticed it before, but he always radiated energy; even when he was driving his car, there was an undeniable air of power and competency that surrounded him.

The fact that it was a really great car didn't hurt matters either.

“I don't know. Am I hanging out with you, Belle?” The way Spencer lingered on the nickname made it sound way too sexy to ever be applied to me.

“Um . . .”

I could feel the eyes of everyone in the hallway upon me and my hands began shaking even harder now. “Yes?”

Spencer nodded as if my agreement hadn't really been in question, as his hand trailed lightly across my back until his whole arm was slung across my shoulder. Such a small, casual gesture that Melanie made on a regular basis was now electrifying.

It felt like my skin was too tight to contain my racing heartbeat.

“But . . . what would you even do with her?” Steffani sounded appalled, and my stomach clenched again.

“Oh, there's plenty of things we can do.” Spencer's voice contained a hint of something downright wicked as he squeezed my shoulder lightly and began walking—with me still pressed against his side—down the hallway. He raised his voice so that everyone lurking in the hallway would be sure to overhear. “The real question is what should we do
first.
”