Easy (17 page)

“When are you
leaving town?” He flicked his hair from his eyes, avoiding the subject of my
instrument completely.

“Wednesday
morning. You?”

“Same.” He
shifted, on edge, his lower lip caught between his teeth, and then all of a
sudden, he settled and stilled. His eyes met mine, unwavering. “Text me if
you’re done early. Or your plans change. Otherwise, I’ll catch you after
break.” He hitched the shoulder over which his backpack was slung and added,
“Later, Jacqueline,” before turning and blending into the flow of students, his
dark head rising above most of them.

***

“Hold up. So tutor-guy
Landon
and hottie OBBP
Lucas
are the
same guy?
” Maggie’s eyes were so
rounded with shock that I could see white all the way around her light brown
irises.

“What I don’t
understand is why you didn’t call him on that shit
immediately
.” Erin
had her talk-show-participant face on. Any moment, she would call me
girrrrl
and start recounting the ass-kicking she’d be doing if she was in my shoes.
Ever since she’d broken up with Chaz, she was much less tolerant of guys
stepping out of line. Or appearing to.

I huffed a sigh
and wished I’d never told them. “What happened to
gag-him-and-bag him
and
rebound
and
operation bad boy phase?
” The three of us sat on
a comforter on the floor of the dorm room, drinking coffee and eating Oreos,
astronomy texts and notes spread all around us, untouched for the last half
hour as we discussed Landon/Lucas instead of gas giants and celestial
navigation.

“He’s supposed to
be
your
booty call. Not the other way around.” Erin’s voice resonated
with authority.

“Yeah.” Maggie
chimed in. “Why don’t you text him that you want to meet up later?”

I rolled my eyes.
“Because I have an exam at 9:30 in the morning—which we’re supposed to be
studying for right now. And also, I think I need a little distance…”

Erin peered at me.
“Oh
hell
no—you’re getting emotionally involved, aren’t you?”

I lay back with my
hands covering my face. “Ughhhh!”

“By the
way—speaking of booty calls, what’s this I hear about you and Buck? He’s definitely
bad boy material,” Maggie mused. “Did you add him to the OBBP stable without
telling us?”

I gave Erin a
pleading look between my fingers.

“Buck’s full of
shit. You know that, Maggie,” she scoffed.

Maggie nodded. “True…
Plus, I messed around with him freshman year. He wasn’t very good, from what I
recall. Too slobbery.” She shuddered. “What is it with slobbery kissers? Are
they trying to drown us in spit? I mean, Jesus,
swallow
every now and
then.”

Her hand squeezing
my shoulder, Erin laughed, and while I could hear the contrived ring to it,
Maggie didn’t. I knew where Erin’s mind was going. I hadn’t given her many
details, and she’d not asked for any. It was difficult enough to speak about
that night in generalities. The point was what had happened, and what had almost
happened, not the particulars of it.

“So you aren’t
hooking up with him?” Maggie pressed. She was only curious, but it rankled to
have my name joined with Buck’s in any way.

“Like Erin
said—he’s full of shit.” I was curious myself. Morbidly so, perhaps. “Why? Is
he saying something about me?”

She shrugged.
“Trisha said her little sister’s boyfriend said Buck was hassling Kennedy about
it. Those two are like those big goats that butt heads over the girl goats. I
think Buck’s still pissed that he was
legacy
and Kennedy still beat him
out for pledge class president.”

That
was
the complication I couldn’t remember before—the all-important initial conflict
between them. The start of their weird brotherly rivalry. I frowned. “But Kennedy
was legacy, too.”

Maggie licked Oreo
crumbs from her fingers. “Yeah, but Buck was legacy
and
his daddy was
pledge class prez. He thought he had it wrapped up.”

I sat up, becoming
furious as Buck’s motivations became clearer. His reasons for hurting me were
nothing more than goading my ex. “And that translates into the need for Buck to
spread lies that I’m
screwing
him?” Not to mention the fact that he’d
actually assaulted me.

“I didn’t say it
made any
sense
.”

Erin pulled her
notes onto her lap. “Okay ladies, which constellations do we think we’ll have
to plot on the star chart portion of this test?”

Giving my best
friend a grateful look for the change of subject, I shoved thoughts of Buck as
far away from my consciousness as I could manage to do.

Chapter 14

After three months away, the house
smelled funny. Like dog… combined with the Chanel cologne Mom always wore, plus
some other undefinable scent that my mind classified as
home
. Even
still, it was foreign. I didn’t quite belong here anymore, and my body knew it.

I lugged my bass
inside, still nestled safely within its wheeled traveling case. With no parents
and no Coco, there was little reason to move it any further than the living
room. I parked it against the wall, where it stood like another piece of
furniture. The lights in the house were timer-set, since Mom and Dad were gone.
I decided to let them go on and off at will, with the exception of the kitchen
lighting and the lamps in my bedroom, which probably wouldn’t come on at all
otherwise.

There was food in
the pantry and freezer, but barely anything in the fridge. My parents had
cleared out all of the perishable stuff before their trip, not knowing I was
coming home tonight, since I never told them. Mom texted me earlier that they
were boarding their plane, adding:
Have fun with Erin. We’ll see you next month.
Having never double-checked my
plans, she’d somehow come to the conclusion that I was going home with my roommate.

I heated a box of organic
vegetarian lasagna for dinner, and transferred a ground turkey patty from the
freezer to the fridge for my Thanksgiving lunch. There was half a package of
tater tots in the freezer, too, and I found an unopened bottle of cranberry
cocktail in the pantry. I moved it to the fridge. Tah-dah! Thanksgiving for
one.

After watching a
couple of sitcom reruns, I switched the television off, scooted the walnut
coffee table from its perfectly-centered spot on the hand-knotted Tibetan rug,
and unpacked my bass. Improvising with a plant stand when I couldn’t find my
music stand, I ran through the beginnings of a prélude piece I’d begun
composing for my year-end solo.

The last thing I
expected to hear while scribbling notes onto staff paper was the doorbell. I’d
never been afraid to be at home alone, but then I’d never been so completely
alone here before. I debated pretending no one was home, but of course whoever
was there had heard me playing, and heard me quit. I lay the bass on its side
and crept to the solid door, standing on my toes to look through the peephole.
Kennedy stood, smiling straight at me, illuminated by the glow of the dual
lights of the veranda. He couldn’t see me, of course, but he’d answered this
door many times and knew the view from the inside almost as well as I did.

I unlocked and
opened the door, but didn’t move from the doorway. “Kennedy? What are you doing
here?”

He glanced behind
me and heard the utter quiet of the house. “Are your parents out?”

I sighed. “They
aren’t here.”

He frowned.
“Aren’t here tonight, or aren’t here over break?”

I’d forgotten how readily
Kennedy could zero in on what
wasn’t
said. That characteristic probably
accounted for most of his debate wins. “They aren’t here at all—but why are
you
here?”

He leaned a
shoulder into the door frame. “I texted first but you didn’t answer.” I
probably hadn’t heard the text alert. Little could be heard over the sound of
my bass, once I began playing. “During dinner, Mom reminded me to make sure I
had you over by 1:00 tomorrow—and yes, that means I never told them we broke
up. I started to tonight, and then I thought this might be a welcome escape
from Evelyn and Trent. Where are they, anyway?”

I ignored his
question. I couldn’t help but notice that he said
we broke up
as though
our breakup was a mutual decision. As though I hadn’t been the blindsided idiot
of the equation.

“You want me to
come to Thanksgiving lunch and pretend we’re all fine, just so you don’t have
to tell your parents we broke up?”

He smiled just
enough to make the dimple appear. “I’m not
that
big of a coward. I can
tell them if you want, and say I’ve invited you to come as a friend. But we
don’t have to disclose anything to them, if you don’t want to. Trust me, they’re
too oblivious to pick up on anything. My little bro’s had a weed habit for over
a year—parties so hard he’d put most of the brotherhood to shame, and they have
no idea.”

“Aren’t you
worried about him?”

He shrugged. “His
grades are still decent. He’s just bored. Besides, he’s not
my
kid.”

“But he’s your
little brother.” I only understood sibling relationships in theory, since I’d
never had one, but I assumed logic would dictate some sense of responsibility. Kennedy
seemed to feel none.

“He wouldn’t
listen to anything I have to say.”

“How do you know?”
I pressed.

He sighed. “I
don’t know. Maybe because he never has. C’mon. Come tomorrow. I’ll pick you up
right before 1:00. It’ll be better than… whatever frozen thing you’d planned to
microwave?”

I rolled my eyes
and he chuckled.

“I still don’t
understand why you didn’t tell them. It’s been over a month.”

He shrugged again.
“I don’t know. Maybe because I know how much my family loves you.”
That
was bullshit. I raised an eyebrow and he laughed. “Okay, well they were used to
you—used to
us
. I guess you told your parents?”

I curled my toes
into the cold marble floor, the chill from outside seeping into the entryway.
“I told Mom. I assume she told Dad. They seemed vaguely annoyed, though I don’t
know if the annoyance was directed at you for dumping me or me for not managing
to hold onto you.” I wanted to pinch myself for the dejected words that made it
sound as though I was pining for him.

In actuality, Mom
and I had revisited the quarrel we had when I first told her my college plans.
She hadn’t approved, claiming that smart girls forge their own educational
paths; they don’t follow their high school boyfriends to college. “But do what
you like. You always have,” she’d said, stalking from my room. We’d not
discussed it again until Kennedy broke up with me.

“I guess it
doesn’t do any good now to point out that I was right about him,” she’d sighed
over the phone. “And your ill-advised decision to follow him there.”

Whenever I
appeared to have won an argument, Mom would say something like, “Even broken
clocks are right twice a day.” I’d tossed this bit of wisdom back in her face,
and just like she had when I announced my college plans, she’d heaved a sigh
like I was hopelessly clueless and dropped the subject. Little did she know
that in that moment, I agreed with her completely, for once. Following my
boyfriend to State was possibly the most dimwitted thing I’d ever done.

Kennedy stood with
his thumbs hooked through his belt loops, looking contrite. “I assume you don’t
have plans to have Thanksgiving supper with Dahlia’s family, or Jillian’s, or
you’d have already said so.”

Preferring to wait
until the holiday festivities were over, I’d not yet called my high school friends
to let them know I was home. Jillian had flunked out of LSU at the end of
freshman year, after which she’d moved home to train for management at Forever
21 and get engaged to some guy who managed a mall jewelry store. Dahlia was in
the second year of her nursing program in Oklahoma. We’d all grown apart since
graduation. It was odd, how unconnected I felt to each of them now, when we’d
been joined at the hip for four years of high school.

Now Dahlia had her
nursing undergrad crowd in a neighboring state, and Jillian had a blue stripe
in her hair, a full-time job and a fiancé. Both were shocked when Kennedy and I
broke up. They were among the first to text and call, commiserating—or trying
to, even though we hadn’t been close in over a year. I hoped we could hang out
and hopefully
not
discuss Kennedy ad nauseum.

“I don’t have
plans with anyone. I thought it would be nice to be home
alone
.” I
emphasized the last word, staring up at him.

“You can’t be here
all by yourself on Thanksgiving.”

I hated the pity
underlying his assumption, and I glared up at him. “Yes, I can.”

The dark green of
his eyes scanned over my face. “Yes, you can,” he agreed. “But there’s no
reason for you to. We can be friends, right? You’ll always be important to me.
You know that.”

I so didn’t know
that. But if I said no, if I insisted on staying at my parents’ house alone and
eating a microwaved turkey patty for Thanksgiving, it would look like I
couldn’t get over him. Like I was so damaged that I couldn’t be around him.

“Fine,” I said, almost instantly regretting it.

***

“So are you and my dickwad brother
back together, or what?” Carter asked, under his breath.

If he wasn’t so
big, Carter would have been a carbon copy of his older brother—same green eyes
and mop of dirty blond hair. But where Kennedy was tall and lean, Carter had sprouted
to an equal height, but with the girth and muscle of a running back. Having
known him since he was a wiry fourteen-year-old—when Kennedy still towered over
him—his transformation was mind-boggling. I remembered him as a quiet, scowling
boy, eclipsed by his older brother. He was clearly done with that phase.