Gettin' Lucky (14 page)

“Elliot, you always said that it was almost impossible to cheat at poker,” I remembered.

“It is,” he agreed. “This is one of the only ways to do it. And, man—he’s doing it well.”

“He’s very good at cheating,” I observed.

“Ugh,” Kelly said, making a face. “What a sleaze. Just a cheater, through and through.”

“Worse that that,” I continued. “Keep in
mind whom he’s cheating
on.
It’s his girlfriend, and one of his best friends. Barf. That guy has, like, no soul whatsoever.”

I guessed that I should have felt relieved or validated or something. I mean, it was kind of gratifying to know that my suspicions had been proven correct. But I felt oddly deflated instead. I’d spent two years with Jesse. I didn’t exactly want to know that he’d been a total heel the entire time. It hardly spoke to my own better judgment.

“I feel like … I feel like I should tell Alana,” I said, surprised to hear the words coming out of my mouth. “I mean, he’s scamming her. She kind of deserves to know.”

Kelly stared at me like I was an alien. “Um, hello? Are we talking about the same Alana here? Alana Mark, the girl who
claimed
to be your best friend and then ran off with your boyfriend?”

“That’s the one,” I agreed glumly.

“And you think she deserves
your
consideration?” Kelly was totally incredulous. Which, come to think of it, I didn’t exactly blame her.

“I … I don’t know,” I said, feeling extremely confused. On the one hand, I despised Alana these days. That was for
sure. But on the other hand, somehow, knowing that Jesse was screwing her over kind of made me feel bad for her. On a totally other hand, did any of this erase the fact that she completely stomped all over my feelings? No way. But still …

There were way too many hands here to consider.

“My head hurts,” I said, grumpy. “Ugh.” I pushed my chair back from the computer and stood up. “I think I need to sleep on this.” I turned to Elliot. “Do you want a ride home?”

“You’re not staying over?” Kelly asked, surprised. It had sort of become a ritual—the staying over, and the hitting of the buffet in the morning for brunch. This friendship was wreaking serious havoc on my eating habits.

I shook my head, trying to work some of the kinks out of my neck in the process. I hadn’t realized how tense I’d been all night, but now, my shoulders had crept somewhere up toward the vicinity of my ears. Awesome. “I think I need to be in my own bed. Besides, Maxine is starting to develop abandonment issues.” It was true. The last couple of days I’d come home from school to
find her water dish overturned in the middle of the kitchen, which I figured was some sort of not-so-subtle message about her feelings on my increased absences.

“Yeah, that’d be great,” Elliot said, pushing his glassed back up from the tip of his nose and shouldering his ever-present messenger bag. I had no idea what he carried in that thing—other than crazy-thick books about stuff like science. Could’ve been top-secret government secrets, could’ve been back issues of
Us Weekly.
The likelihood was that it was neither. But I was way too tired, and too bummed out, to give the matter too much thought this evening.

Yeah, I’d sleep on it. Things always looked better in the morning, after all. Or so I hoped.

As we left the apartment, I crossed my fingers behind my back, just to be safe.

The car ride was deathly quiet. My mind was a minefield of emotions. I was still sort of shaken up just at the mere fact of having spent an evening with Alana and Jesse—no matter how much bravado I piled on, the truth was that it rattled me, big-time, to see
them together. Then there was the whole fuel-to-the-fire thing: Jesse was just a cheat, through and through. Add to that some bizarre and unexpected lingering loyalty toward Alana and I was one very mixed-up chick. Elliot hadn’t said a word since we’d buckled up either, but I was too distracted to really ask him about it.

I clicked my blinker on and made a left turn down off of the Strip and onto the main road that took us to the burbs. Cabs whizzed by on either side of us. Vegas doesn’t know from late, of course. People here behave like it is 10 p.m. on a Saturday night pretty much any old time of the week. For some reason the whole thing struck me as extra-super-surreal this evening. Maybe because I was having such an extra-super-surreal night to begin with.

The silence was beginning to verge on awkward. I clicked on the radio, and suddenly the car was suffused with a crazy thumping bass line, The Pussycat Dolls or that track from Madonna’s latest personal reinvention. Not an improvement over the silence. I quickly clicked it off.

I cleared my throat nervously. Elliot rubbed his nose. I wondered why we were
suddenly acting like such spazzes around each other. It’s not like he’d discovered that
his
ex was some sort of pathological cheater.

Not that I even knew who any of Elliot’s exes were. I mean, now that I thought about it, I knew absolutely
nothing
about Elliot’s romantic life. That was sort of weird. Usually, when you first become friends with a guy, your immediate thought is whether or not he has a girlfriend—i.e., how platonic your relationship with him will be. The issue had never come up with Elliot. I guess because I’d been in such hardcore rebound-mode when we’d met that I just wasn’t thinking of
anyone
that way. And then, we were just sort of … in the friend zone.

It’s not like Elliot wasn’t attractive, though he wasn’t exactly my usual type. He was Jesse’s polar opposite, which had its pros and cons. Where Jesse was buff and athletic, Elliot was wiry and quiet. But, like, he totally had a cute face, and those hazel eyes were completely intense. I guess, when I really stopped to think about it, I’d always sort of assumed that if Elliot was going to end up with anyone, it’d be Kelly. They were such good friends, it seemed like the next logical step.

Why
was I even thinking about this, now?

Oh, right—because the alternative was listening to a manufactured pop group “sing” to electronic beats. Not that I’m opposed to pop music, but it was just kind of setting the wrong vibe. I wasn’t feeling very “pop-y” tonight.

I turned left onto Elliot’s street, tapping my fingernails on the steering wheel. I pulled into his driveway and set the car in park, fidgeting a little bit. What was my damage? I turned to him.

“Sorry if I’ve been kind of a drag tonight,” I said. “Even if I suspected that Jesse was cheating all along, it still sort of took me by surprise.” I shook my head. “I wasn’t expecting to feel this freaked out about it.”

Elliot nodded slowly. “I think it’s only natural,” he said quietly. “But the thing is”—he looked thoughtful—“that I really don’t want you to feel bad.”

I rolled my eyes. “Easier said than done.”

Elliot smiled. “I know, but I mean …” He sounded like he was struggling with the words a little bit, which was kind of cute.
“That, like,
specifically,
I don’t want
you
to feel bad.”

Hmm. Now he was just speaking in tongues. I tilted my head toward him. “Huh?”

“I just—” Now Elliot was squirming. What was going on? “BecauseIreallycareaboutyou.”

The words tumbled out of his mouth so quickly that it took me a beat to process them. Elliot cared about me?

Just as I realized what he was getting at, I felt his fingers on my forearm. I looked up, startled. He was gazing at me quite intently.

The thoughts rushed through my mind like one of those electronic billboard banners you see outside of a casino, the one that announces all of the upcoming shows and stuff.
Oh, God—Elliot likes me. I mean,
likes
me, likes me. Like, maybe wants to make out with me. Which—what? Where? When? How?

And then, before I could take my little mind-trip any further, Elliot had fully leaned across the front seat and planted one on me.

Yeah, we were kissing. We were
kissing!

It was awesome. Like, really awesome.

I had totally lucked out.

Kissing Elliot was amazing but also really bizarre. He was nothing like Jesse—much softer, less confident, more gentle. It was nice, but it was also definitely different. And unexpected. And different. And did I mention unexpected?

When we finally came up for air, I noticed that Elliot was flushed. “I’m sorry, Cass,” he stammered. “I, uh, don’t know what came over me. It’s just—I’d been thinking for a while …’

He
had?
For a
while?

Elliot was a friend, a poker tutor, and a classmate. And—oh, God—we had a project due.

All at once, the ramifications of kissing Elliot hit me full-on. Like, if there were serious feelings involved, and we were kissing, but we weren’t going to be boyfriend-girlfriend, things could get majorly awkward. I had just gotten to know him and Kelly. I wasn’t emotionally stable enough to make a whole new set of friends for the second time in one school year. And an Aries and a Libra? Could. Just. Not. Happen.

Like, how much of a while? And how had I missed it so completely?

“Don’t apologize,” I interrupted. “It was nice.”

“Yeah?” he said, his eyes sparkling hopefully.

“Yeah …,” I began carefully.

“But.”

“Yeah … but.” How to say this? There was no way to deliver the news that wouldn’t sound at least semi-awful. “I’m kind of a mess right now. I mean, I love being friends with you, but I just don’t know if I’m ready to date.” An Aries. It was the truth.

For a split second, all of Elliot’s features crumbled, almost like his face was going to melt right off. He looked totally devastated. But he gathered himself together gamely.

“I get it,” he said, obviously struggling mightily to sound upbeat. “Honestly.” He fiddled with the zipper on his messenger bag. “I like being friends with you, too.” He kind of made a face like he couldn’t believe what he had just said.

“Good,” I replied. “So that’s what we’ll—”

I stopped. He was already out of the car and halfway up his front walk, messenger bag slapping against his leg as he walked. His eyes were cast downward.

I rolled down the passenger-side window and opened my mouth to call out to him. But what would I say?

I rolled the window back up.

I watched Elliot go into his house, then I kicked the car back into reverse. I hit the radio and drove off to the sounds of America’s Top Forty.

Somehow, it seemed appropriate. I mean, whatever.

As it turned out, I was apparently the only member of our little clique who hadn’t known about Elliot’s feelings for me. Kelly was stunned when I confessed as much to her.

“How could you have missed it?” she asked. I had cornered her in school Monday morning just next to her locker. She pulled out a notebook and slammed the door shut. We made our way down the hall toward Albon’s class. I was terrified at the prospect of having to face Elliot today. Sunday had passed with me in a continuous confused state of silence, staring blankly at his handle on IM but not daring to contact him. I mean, what was there even to say?

“You’re kidding, right? I mean, were
there, like, signs that I was supposed to pick up on?”

Kelly fixed her peepers on me. It was quite intimidating, as they were heavily rimmed in what may or may not have been grease paint. “Okay, Exhibit A: He tutored you in poker.”

“Because I begged him to,” I said.

“That’s not why he did it,” she replied. “But whatever. Exhibit B: He was all about trying to calm you down last week, when you were freaking out about playing poker with Alana and Jesse.”

“Because he’s human, and I was, like, having a comprehensive nervous breakdown. I mean, that’s just, um,
manners.”

Kelly gave me a “whatever” kind of look and continued. “And finally, there’s the way that he gets all sorts of quiet and awkward when you’re around.”

My eyes bugged out of my skull, and I stopped in my tracks. “You can’t be serious,” I protested.

“I swear. On Fellini.”

Okay, she
was
serious.

“But Kelly,” I pointed out, “Elliot is
always
quiet and awkward. That’s just, like, his personality.”

She shook her head. “It’s different, the way he is with you.”

I sighed. “Honestly? I never really thought about it. I mean, he’s an Aries—it would never work with us.”

“Horrors!” Kelly said, clapping one hand to her cheek in exaggeration. “Well,
clearly,
your love can never be.”

I hip-checked her playfully. “I know you don’t buy that stuff, but it’s real to me. And, anyway, I always assumed that eventually
you
and Elliot would get together.”

Now it was Kelly’s turn to come to a screeching halt. “Are you out of your mind?” she demanded.

“Why is it so crazy?” I asked. “Obviously you guys are totally good friends.”

“Exactly,” Kelly said. “I’ve known Elliot since we were five years old. We were in kindergarten class together. He still remembers how I accidentally peed in my pants on the first day. You do not date the guy who has seen you pee in your pants. Ask him about it—he’ll give you all the gory details.”