Deception (Dirty Secrets #2) (5 page)

He backs out of my room, but he doesn’t shut the door. I roll my eyes, get up, and slam the door shut. This time I lock it so he can’t barge back in.

“Sorry,” I tell him. “I don’t know what’s up with Trey. He was all for me telling you how I felt a few days ago.”

“It’s different now because we’re actually together,” Jace says. “We just need to give him time to adjust.”

“Right.”

“So when your friends come over in a few minutes, I’ll go hang out with Trey. Maybe we can play some one on one basketball or something,” he tells me. “And tonight, he’ll be too busy trying to hook up with that one chick.”

“Which chick?” I ask.

“Your friend. The blonde cheerleader. Emma, I think.”

“No!” I gasp. “Seriously? He’s trying to hook up with Emma? But her and Mason
just
broke up. She’s still heartbroken.”

Jace shrugs.

“He’s such a hypocrite. He can hook up with
my
friends, but I can’t hook up with his?” I pace back and forth on the floor. “And you were
my
friend before you were his friend. You two didn’t even get along until middle school.”

“Whatever, Mads. He’ll get over it.” Jace stands up and walks over toward me. “I am not going to let him get to me. I’m so happy to
finally
be with you. Just knowing that you feel the same way as I do… it’s incredible.”

I smile at his words and put my arms around his waist. “Me too.”

Jace kisses my forehead. And for one second, I think he’s going to kiss me until I hear somebody knock on my door.

“Ugh,” I groan, and walk over to the door. “Trey, I told you to go—”

I cut off when I open the door. Cassidy, Frannie, Emma, and Hayden are all standing on the other side.

I am
never
going to get to kiss Jace.

6pm

We are getting Daisy back tonight.

Jace leaves my room, and I get questioned by the girls. But I have nothing to tell them, because
nothing
happened. I tell them how Trey kept interrupting up before we could kiss, and it sucks.

“Ugh, I am so glad I don’t have a brother,” Frannie says. “At this rate, you’ll be a virgin when you leave for college.”

“No way,” I say. “I
refuse
to graduate high school with my hymen.”

Frannie bursts out laughing. “Oh, Mads, you have such a way with words.”

“Come on. All of you have already done it. I’m probably the only person in our school who
hasn’t
.” Besides Jace, but I’m not telling them that. They don’t need to know.

I love that Jace is going to be my first and I’m going to be his.

But what if we don’t know what to do? I mean, I obviously know
how
it works, but what if it sucks?

“Does it hurt?” I ask them.

“It does the first time,” Cassidy answers. “But after that it doesn’t.”

“Speak for yourself,” Hayden says. “It hurt me the first five times. I kept wonder
how
women enjoyed sex. Then I dumped the amateur and had sex with a guy who
actually
knew what he was doing.”

“I was lucky,” Frannie says. “The first guy I had sex with was older than me, so he knew exactly what he was doing. It hurt for like a second, but after that it was all pleasure. After that, I hooked up with Robbie. He was a virgin and it
sucked
so bad. Since then I have a rule — no virgins.”

“I think we’re scaring Madi,” Emma says.

“Don’t worry. Jace is hot. I’m sure he’s got experience. And if he doesn’t please you then you just got to show him
how
to please you,” Frannie says.

“I don’t know
what
pleases me.”

All four of them turn to look at me.

“What do you mean you don’t know what pleases you?” Hayden asks.

I shrug. “Well, I’m a virgin in every way. I’ve never even had a guy touch me… you know?”

“You don’t
need
a guy to have an orgasm,” Frannie says.

“I don’t… do
that
… either,” I say, feeling slightly awkward. Masturbation is
not
something I want to talk about with my friends. Or anybody, for that matter. “Can we talk about something else? Please.”

Frannie laughs. “Fine. Sorry, Madi. You know I love you.”

“Cass and I actually have something serious that we need to talk about,” I tell them, looking at Cassidy. “Do you want to start this, or should I?”

“I will,” she says. I can tell she’s scared, but they have to know. We can’t do this on our own, and Daisy is their friend too. They deserve to know the truth.

Cassidy starts out telling them the whole story from the beginning — seeing Dee the night she disappeared, the threatening texts, and even the text that I got at school on Thursday. She tells them how we are going to find Daisy
this weekend
. Or at least we hope we are.

Everybody had the same concerns as I did originally. They wanted to go to the police immediately, but Cassidy and I talk them out of it. We tell them we are going tomorrow, but we just can’t chance it. What if this person really is going to kill Daisy if we tell? What if they kill Cassidy? I just
can’t
tell… not yet.

Eventually, they agree.

We are getting Daisy back tonight. We have to.

Luke’s party.

Two Truths and a Lie.

I walk into Luke’s house holding Jace’s hand. By now, everybody knows about our relationship, but people still turn to look at us. I like that they look at us. We are good together. Finally, it is my turn to be happy.

“Do you want something to drink?” Jace asks.

“I don’t know if I should drink anything. I should probably have a clear head for when…
everything
goes down.”

“You’re right.”

“Plus, I want to kiss you tonight, and I definitely do
not
want to be drunk when we have our first kiss,” I tell him.

He grins. “Mads, you’re seriously the most amazing girl I’ve ever met.”

“I know,” I joke, flipping my hair back.

“Do you want a Dr. Pepper?” he asks.

I nod. Jace knows the way to my heart is through Dr. Pepper. He walks off toward the kitchen, where all the drinks are, and I stand there waiting for him. I’m not alone for long. Carter approaches me.

“Hey, Cinderella,” he says. “What’s up?”

“Hey, Carter. Not much, just waiting for Jace to bring me a drink,” I answer.

“So you and Jace are a couple now?”

“Yeah.”

“I bet a lot of guys are disappointed that you’re off the market,” he says.

Oh my God, really? He’s going to talk to me like I’m some produce on the shelf at a supermarket?
 

“I saw Lexie earlier,” he says when I don’t respond. “I think she was looking for you.”

“I’m sure I’ll see her around at some point.”

I see Jace walking back toward me with a drink in hand. Thank God.

“I’ll see you later,” I tell Carter and then meet Jace half way. I take the drink from him. “Thank you.”

“Was Carter hitting on you?” he asks.

I roll my eyes. “He is so annoying.”

“You’re just too nice to everybody.”

“I like being nice. It means that I’m
not
like Daisy. When we first became friends, I was so worried that she would rub off on me somehow,” I admit. “I’m glad she didn’t.”

“Why are you friends with her?” he asks. “It doesn’t even make sense. Especially after… well, everything. You seriously have no idea how many times Trey had to talk me out of beating the shit out of her.”

“She isn’t worth the effort,” I say and then feel guilty. She’s missing. Some psycho has her tied up somewhere, and here I am talking bad about her. “I shouldn’t have said that. She is worth the effort tonight.”

“Even if something bad happened to her doesn’t mean you have to be her friend anymore,” he says. “It’s okay to move your separate ways.”

“Can I tell you something?” I ask.

He nods.

I pull him toward the corner of the room and lean close. “Before Daisy went missing, everybody was going to kick her out of our group. Fran and Cass basically begged me to, and I was actually considering it.”

“It’s about time,” he says, cupping my face with his hand. “You don’t deserve the way she treated you.”

“I know.”

“Why did you put up with it?” he asks.

“I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t care. Everybody knew the rumors she spread weren’t true, and I knew that she was lying most of the time when she said bad stuff about me,” I answer. “I wanted to be friends with Fran, Cass, Hayden, and Emma. It was worth putting up with her for them. Plus, I just didn’t want the drama that would come with
not
being her friend. Can you imagine how bad she would make it for me?”

“You’re probably right about that one.”

“Is it bad that I don’t miss her?” I ask him. “I mean, I’m worried about her. I don’t want her to die. But I don’t miss her at all. Life is… better with her gone.”

“That does
not
make you a bad person. And if it does, it makes everybody at school a bad person, because I’m pretty sure ninety percent of our school is
glad
she’s gone,” he says.

I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, and I panic as I pull it out.

Blocked ID:
Want to find Daisy? Let’s play a game — 2 truths and a lie. Meet your friends in the basement… Oh, and if you really want to get her back you will need a stronger drink than Dr. Pepper. I’m thinking tequila. This should be fun.

I turn my phone to Jace, and he pales.

“Are they trying to get me drunk?” I ask.

“You can’t do this, Mads. Let’s just call the cops right now,” he says.

“No, I can’t. I promised. I will do this. I have to.” I grab his hand and we walk down to the basement. There are quite a few people down there, so I have no way of knowing
who
sent the message. A few minutes later, Cassidy, Frannie, Emma, and Hayden all walk down. They all have the same pale, scared expression as me.

“Who wants to play Two Truths and a Lie?” Frannie asks.

Quite a few people want to, so we all sit down in a big circle. Cassidy grabs a bottle of tequila and fills our cups.

“How do we play?” Lexie asks, sitting down in the circle.

“You say three things about yourself. Two truths and one lie. If people can guess the lie, you have to take a drink. If the person guessing guesses wrong, they have to take a drink,” I answer. “Really, there are no winners in this game. The object is basically to get wasted.”

Lexie giggles. “Oh, okay. It sounds fun.”

“I’ll go first,” Emma says. “My first kiss was with Cassidy when I was twelve. When I was fifteen, I got caught by the police with weed but he let me go after I gave him a blow job. And last summer, I had an abortion.”

I don’t know the answer to this, which makes me feel like an awful friend.

Well, I do know that her first kiss was with Cassidy. But I don’t know about the other two.

“The abortion is a lie,” Hayden says.

“Dang it!” Emma says, then tips up her cup.

“Me next!” Cassidy says. “My real mom tried to kill me when I was six months old. During the summer I got raped at a party. And when I was twelve, I spent a year in juvie for attempted murder.”

“Juvie is a lie,” Frannie says.

Cassidy glares at her. “Dude, you’re my sister. It’s not even fair for you to guess.”

“Doesn’t matter. Now everybody knows. Drink up.”

She takes a drink of tequila and nearly spews it out of her mouth. “That. Is. Disgusting.”

Cassidy got raped at a party? How did I not know this? And about her mom… wow. That is crazy.

My phone vibrates and I read the text as the next person goes.

Blocked ID:
You go next. Here’s what you should say… Your dad didn’t really die in a car accident, he committed suicide. Your little sister, Hailee, is only your half sister and is the result of your mom cheating on your dad. And you went cliff-diving on your seventeenth birthday. I’m sure you know which one is the lie.

Oh my God.

How does this person
know
this stuff?

I don’t know if the text is true. Daisy told me a long time ago about Hailee and my dad. I didn’t want to believe her at the time, but I’ve
always
wondered if it was true. So either Daisy is playing us all, or this person knows a
lot
of personal stuff about me.

“Me next,” I say, taking a deep breath. “My father didn’t really die in a car accident. He committed suicide. My little sister is the result of my mom cheating on my dad. And on my seventeenth birthday, I went cliff diving.”

“Cliff diving is a lie,” Frannie says. “We went to the beach for your birthday. But that other stuff… is it really true?”

I get up from the circle. “You know what, this game is stupid.” I toss my full drink into the trash and run up the stairs.

As I get to the top of the stairs, I feel a pair of strong arms go around me. I know without looking that it’s Jace.

“Are you okay?” he whispers in my ear.

I shake my head, because I’m
so not
okay. I turn around and look at him. “Jace, that was true. What I said about my dad and Hailee… it’s the truth.”

“How do you know?” he asks.

“I put two and two together. My dad and mom
both
had blue eyes, Hailee has green eyes. And she looks nothing like Trey, me, or my dad. Also, when we go to visit my grandma in California, Hailee
never
goes. It’s because she’s not
really
her grandchild,” I tell him. “I’ve known for a while now, I just didn’t want to admit it. And with my dad… I overheard my mom talking to Ben about it a couple years ago. She knew the chief of police, and he made a false report so that my mom could still collect his insurance money. I never told Trey, Hailee, or
anybody
. I didn’t want them to know. It would hurt them both. I can’t do that to them. But now they’re going to know. Nobody is going to keep that a secret. I have to tell Trey before anybody else does.”

“Trey is probably already drunk,” Jace tells me. “Just wait until tomorrow to talk to him, okay?”

“Okay,” I say, because Jace is right. I shouldn’t ruin his fun tonight.