Hickville Confessions: A Hickville High Novel (27 page)

Thank you for joining the Quinn sisters as they settle into small town life. I hope you enjoyed Ryan’s story. I thought you might like to read about another one of Hickville High’s own. Here’s an excerpt of Hickville Horseplay.

Hickville Horseplay

by Mary Karlik

Book 4 in the Hickville High series

Had fun last night, babe. Let’s do it again. Smooches.

Not exactly what you want to see on your boyfriend’s Facebook status. The words captioned a picture of my boyfriend—make that
ex
-boyfriend—Josh Richards making out with Brandy Owens. It wasn’t just that she was sitting in his lap, facing him, with her legs wrapped around his waist. It was what his hands were doing all over her body.

I couldn’t get the image out of my mind—not a good thing when you’re on horseback and about to face a line of complicated jumps.

I pushed Maggie, my horse, forward, but my timing was off and that threw her off. She clipped the pole with her back feet, knocking it off the standard. Dad started yelling before we landed. Nothing new. He made an
X
with the poles and I took her over them again. An easy exercise for both of us, which was good since my brain was not on my training session.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t confronted Josh. I’d given him a chance to beg for forgiveness. It didn’t happen, not even a little bit. He said
I
was controlling. What was a girl to do? I did what any self-respecting Queen Bee would do—I threw his letter jacket at him, called him a few names, and stormed off. We were Josh Richards and Penny Wilson, Spring Creek High’s most adorable couple. It’s what I always did when we fought. And he always came after me.

Except this time he didn’t. And then things got bad.

All sorts of pictures and rumors surfaced about various girls he’d been with―you’d think he was in politics. It was horrible, mostly because I still loved him. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help it. It was one of those times when a girl needs her mom, only my mom died two years ago. I got into such a funk I spent a whole weekend eating Oreos and peanut butter. If our housekeeper, Gabby, hadn’t forced me to take a shower, I might actually have managed to eat myself into oblivion.

I tried talking to my best friend, Megan, but let’s face it, the ditz in that girl runs deep. She was too interested in her nail color to listen. So I resorted to my backup friend, Holly. She’s one of those people who’s always around, but you don’t really think about asking her to do things with you unless it’s convenient, or everybody else is busy. You know the type. Everybody has one.

Holly listened to me cry night after night, and even slept over a couple of times. Day after day, I’d look at the way my red, swollen eyes distorted my face and vowed not to waste another tear on Josh Richards.

Like that was going to work.

*

“I’m telling you, Holly. I’m officially over Josh. I have cried my last tear.”

“For real this time?” She cocked her head and I’m sure that if the wind hadn’t chosen that moment to blow her mass of platinum curls across her perfect, pimple-free face, I would have seen skepticism etched there. I couldn’t blame her, though; I’d made this declaration on a daily basis for eight weeks.

“I burned his pictures.”

Holly filed behind me as we cut between a black Ford Focus and a blue Hoopdi. “Holy crap, the world is coming to an end.”

“Very funny.” I brushed my nondescript brown hair from my pimple-on-the-chin and freckles-on-the-nose face. “I starting thinking about what he did and what he said and I just got pissed.”

“He cheated on you.”

“He said I was controlling.”

“And he cheated on you.”

“He accused me of planning every minute of our time together.”

“What an ass,
who cheated on you!
”

“And yeah, he cheated on me. That
ass
cheated on me with Brandy Slut-o-the-Month Owens!” I thought I’d managed to get past the anger last night during a tough training session with my horse, but it came back with a vengeance. At that moment I felt hatred—my eyes burned with it and my muscles drank it up, tensing in anticipation of a fight. I scanned the parking lot, searched the courtyard for signs of Josh. “Where is he? I want to rip him a new one.”

Holly pulled on the shoulder of my sweater, dragging both of us to a stop in the middle of the parking lot. “Whoa—slow down, horsey girl. If you do, you’ll look like a total freak. Everybody knows he cheated on you with Brandy, so right now,
he’s
coming off as the jerk. If you confront him in front of his friends you’ll just look like the bitch who deserved it.”

I took a deep breath and calmed myself. “You’re right. I can’t believe I wasted tears on that ass, not to mention dating him for the past eighteen months.”

“Ah well, we all have our psychotic moments.” Holly dropped her backpack on the blacktop and placed her hands on my shoulders. “Okay, you need to make an oath.”

“For what?”

“To prove that you’re really moving on this time. Raise your right hand.”

“What? You’re crazy.”

“Raise it and repeat after me.”

The bell signaled five minutes to get to class. I was never late for class. “Later. We need to go.”

“We’ll cut through Freshmanville. Do it.”

I juggled my books into one arm and managed to raise my right hand.

“I, Penny Wilson…”

I echoed. “I, Penny Wilson…”

“…am totally and completely over Josh Richards.”

“…am totally and completely over Josh Richards.”

Holly smiled and gave me a hug. I did feel better. Holly sort of hung on the fringes of our group and she had a way of seeing things differently. Like when my mom got sick. Holly just seemed to know when I needed to be with someone and when I needed to be left alone. I never asked her—she just knew.

We eased our way into school through the freshman hall. Ninth graders loitered by their lockers, hanging on the fringes of high school society. The nerd herd gathered around the computer lab gawking at the up-and-coming fashionistas primping and preening as they vied for their future places as upperclassmen.

As we edged past them, I could almost see the wheels turning in Holly’s brain. “Let’s see, you dated loser-boy for what, a year and a half? We need to get you back in circulation.”

“Ha ha. I think not.”

“Come on. The best way to prove to J-boy and the rest of the school that you’ve moved on is to get back to dating.”

“The best way to prove to Josh and the rest of the school that I’ve moved on is to
move on
. I don’t want to date anybody right now. I’m sick of the games.”

“You can’t be serious. It’s all about the games.”

“Not for me. No games. No guys. No dating. Period.”

We rounded the corner to the main corridor and my shoulders tightened, sending ripples to my suddenly queasy stomach.

There they were.

Josh, who didn’t have the decency to break up with me before hooking up with the biggest slut in Spring Creek, Texas, and Brandy, said hookup. Josh and Brandy. Together. Or should I say Brosh? She was plastered so close to him they looked like they had morphed into one big blob of Abercrombie and Fitch, with their perfect blond hair, perfect bronzed skin, and perfect white teeth.

I had made my declaration and was over him. Completely.

Except tears welled anyway. I would not cry. Crying equaled total humiliation and I just couldn’t give
Brosh
the satisfaction.

As they neared us, it was like they moved in slow motion and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Brandy did a little head-flick-hair-flying thingy. A definite
he’s mine
signal. My mares make the same move when I walk them past the stallion pasture.

“Penny!” She actually stopped and called out to me. Josh tightened his hold on slut-girl but didn’t look me in the face. The wuss.

I stopped and I’m sure my mouth hung open. I stood there looking like a total moron with teary eyes. I probably had drool hanging off my chin. “What?” I managed to say.

“You left this in Josh’s pocket.” She pulled her hand from his coat pocket and handed me a tube of lip gloss.

I looked at it and in a flash of brilliance said, “This isn’t mine. It must be some other girl’s.”

I did my own head-flick-hair-flying thingy—only when I slung my hair, a hank of it got stuck in my super-shiny lip gloss and I spent several uncool seconds spitting it out.

By lunch, however, I was completely over the lip gloss drama. Our cafeteria was arranged in long rows of rectangular tables. The jocks sat on one end and the girls next to them in descending order of popularity. Before I’d been dumped, I sat with Melanie and her boyfriend on the high end. Since dumpage, I’ve been pushed to the opposite end of the table, teetering precariously close to a whole new social stratum.

I sat next to Holly on the low end and tried not to look at Brandy laughing, flirting, and being one with the jocks. It was stunning to realize how fast they’d replaced me. I had been to every football game my show schedule would allow, plus most of the practices, and I knew the jocks better than their girlfriends. Watching them, it was if I’d never been allowed into their inner sanctum at all.

Holly must have noticed my misery, because she banged the saltshaker on the table and cleared her throat. “Okay, Penny needs an intervention. She took the official
I’m on the market
oath today. After eighteen months of jerkdom, she needs dating help.”

I wanted to bang my head on the table. “Uh, no. I’m finished with relationships for a while.”

Emily rolled her eyes in Holly’s direction and ran a hand through her nearly black pixie-cut hair. She was four foot nothing and weighed zilch. “Look, the last thing you need is to get tied down. Date around, have fun—”

“—get a reputation.” I sighed and studied my plate. “I just want to chill for a while. My show season is coming up and I need to concentrate on training my horse. I am
not
going to be disqualified in the Annie this year.”

The Annie is a charity horse show to raise money for cancer research, and it was named in memory of my mom. I’ve sucked since it began four years ago. I just couldn’t let that happen again this year.

I looked up from my grilled-cheese sandwich and saw a cowboy heading toward our table from the other side of the cafeteria. Our group didn’t exactly hang with the rodeo crowd. This was definitely going to be one of those days.

I knew he was coming to talk to me and I had some ’splaining to do.

Following a career as a nursing instructor, Mary earned an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania.

A native Texan, Mary loves horses, dogs, cats, and small town diners. Although she has recently relocated in northern New Mexico, her heart remains in the Lone Star state.

AVAILABLE NOW:

Welcome to Hickville High

Hickville Confessions

COMING SOON:

Hickville Horseplay

Hickville Redemption