Love and Other Theories (11 page)

“Don’t you miss him?” She smiles at me and gives a small thrusting motion with her hips. She laughs as I shake my head at her.

“These days I prefer Nathan.”

“Yes, but Trip was your first. You guys had something special, even if it wasn’t love.”

This stings a little. Only Shelby would condemn you for falling in love, but also use it against you when you didn’t. But this isn’t something we’re supposed to fight about, so I just smile and say, “Nathan’s pretty damn good,” and steal her move, wiggling my eyebrows up and down.

Shelby laughs. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

I playfully push her, keeping my hands on her shoulders and stepping forward as she steps back. I feel my anger dissolving with the little reminder that I’m not selling myself short with Nathan. I know that. Even Shelby must know that.

Melissa and Danica rush up to join us. The boys are still several paces back, bonding over the thing Melissa clarifies is a dead prairie dog. Danica rubs Melissa’s back when she tells us, because prairie dogs are much cuter than rats and it’s therefore more tragic to Melissa when one of them dies.

“Nathan told her it was the circle of life. It was actually really sweet.” Danica changes the subject back to Nathan and I can’t deny I’m glad.

“Do you know your Exit Strategy?” Shelby asks. Both Danica and Melissa match my expression—pure shock.

“It’s a little early to be talking Exit Strategy, don’t you think?” Danica asks.

Shelby turns to me. “You should be ready. You don’t have the luxury of escaping him after graduation.”

Melissa’s voice is quiet, a baby voice, that indicates both shyness and inebriation. “But what if she doesn’t want to escape him?”

The boys finally stop bonding, or whatever they were doing, and come over, ready to go.

“We should start calling him ‘Designated Diggs,’”
Shelby says to me as we walk toward the car. She didn’t come up with this on her own—she got it from a movie, but I don’t remember which one.

“Did you just refer to me as Designated Diggs?” Nathan says, raising an eyebrow. He doesn’t really look mad, though, just amused.

“Dude, don’t piss off the DD,” Patrick says, slinking up next to Shelby in the backseat, like he thinks he might still have a chance with her since she’s letting him crash at her house. He should know better. The rule is, if he gets out of his assigned recliner in the corner of Shelby’s room and tries to touch any of us while we’re all squished in Shelby’s bed, we scream at him and make him sleep in the living room.

We drop Robert off, and when we arrive at Shelby’s everyone crawls out except for me. They’re loud as they walk up the crooked path from the driveway, and Patrick still tries to stand as close to Shelby as possible, sealing his fate of sleeping alone in the living room. I know they’re making jokes about Nathan and me because they all turn to look at us at the same time, laughing as they walk through the front door.

I offer to ride back to the mall with Nathan, so he can drop off Patrick’s car and pick up his own, but it would be out of his way to come back to Shelby’s. And besides, it’s not like Nathan to deny me sleep at one a.m.

We kiss in the car until the bottom of the windshield
starts to fog, both of us gasping as my lips leave his. Because of how much I don’t want to leave him, I have to be the first one to break away.

When I walk into Shelby’s house, Danica and Melissa are sitting on the living room couch in front of the television. Blankets and pillows are piled next to them. They look confused and tired, like they don’t know what to do except stare at the Fashion Network.

“What’s going on . . .” My voice trails off as I glance down the hall and notice that Shelby’s bedroom door is closed. Patrick is nowhere in sight. Never in a million years would I have guessed Shelby would give Patrick what he wanted tonight. Or ever again, for that matter. Shelby always laughs at Patrick, the way he’s so obviously available after Leila asks him to be her boyfriend. He’s boring to Shelby. He’s too easy. It’s not like when we were freshmen and all she wanted was Patrick Smith. She’s had him now, and never really looked back.

For a second I try to make sense of it, but barely for a second. There’s only one reason Shelby would ever hook up with Patrick, and it’s simple. She’s hooking up with Patrick because she wants to. I’m just not sure why she would want to.

“Y
our car’s making a funny noise. Should I check under your hood?” Trip smiles gleefully as he steps off his front porch to greet me Sunday afternoon. I made the decision to come after Shelby implied on Saturday night that I might not go because of Nathan.

Trip’s in the blue flannel I’ve seen him in a hundred times. His jeans are dirty along the bottom. His hair flops as he comes toward me. The last time we saw each other, Thanksgiving weekend, he was too busy reuniting with his old friends and boasting about college parties, football games, and sorority girls to spend much time with me. We made out in my driveway for about five minutes,
but that was it. He spent Christmas at his mom’s house, four hours away, so I didn’t see him at all over winter break, even though I heard he made a two-day stop at his father’s house.

I shrug. “If you want.” My car sounds the way it always sounds. It’s just been a while since Trip’s heard it.

His eyebrows twitch, and I can tell by that one gesture that he was hoping I would flirt back.

My lips are begging to smile. It’s the pride thing again. Smiling is a knee-jerk reaction to seeing Trip Chapman, to having someone like Trip Chapman come toward you as if you’re the only person he’s ever wanted to see, so I can’t help that. But that’s all it is.

“What’s up?” I ask him casually. As if it’s just another day and it hasn’t been almost three months since I’ve seen him—since I’ve kissed him. I take a deep breath. I never expected Trip to call after he left for college. I never expected him to see him again like this—even though State is only an hour away.

He blows past the moment and opens his arms to hug me. I allow myself to curl up into him.

“So, here you are.” Trip always speaks slowly, but he never sounds stupid. After you spend some time around him, you realize that the delay actually serves as anticipation for whatever amazingly perfect statement is going to come out of his mouth next. Trip always, without fail, says exactly what you want to hear at the exact moment
you want to hear it. Even if you yourself don’t know what you want to be told, Trip will tell you. Right now he says, “It’s been too long, Housing. I don’t know why I waited so long. . . .”

I don’t say anything; I let go of him.

“You used to be over here all the time last summer. Remember?”

I nod. It was
only
eight months ago. Even though I had a curfew and he had a summer job at the auto-body shop, we still managed to see each other every day. We never clarified what exactly we meant to each other, or if either of us was allowed to see other people. Bottom line: I was having fun. And I think he was too. When Trip left for State, he said, “See you later,” but we both knew he probably wouldn’t. I didn’t even cry. There was a moment when my chest tightened and my mouth got dry, but I didn’t cry. I slept for about two days straight after he left. That’s it. I’d known exactly what to expect.

“Talk some sense into him, will ya, Aubrey?” Trip’s father, Earl, is on the front porch. He kicks the wooden chair next to his with his foot, gesturing for me to sit. I’ve always liked Earl. There are three beer cans sitting on the ground beside him and he’s nursing his fourth. There is one beer next to Trip’s chair, still full and getting frosty with the cold.

“Are you thirsty, honey?” Earl asks as Trip picks up his beer and Earl notices I’m the only one without a can.

“No beer for me, thanks.” I smile. Earl always offers, even though I’m four years shy of the legal drinking age, because it’s the polite thing to do. Earl is young for a dad and he looks it, with his thick head of sandy hair and his handlebar mustache. People around town always refer to Earl, Zane, and Trip as the Chapman Boys.
Boys
. It’s very accurate. Shelby used to call the Chapman house the frat house.

“Dad, Aubrey’s cold. Look at her, she’s shivering. I’m taking her inside.” He grabs my hand and leads me through the front door.

“Have a nice chat,” Earl calls to us.

“Oh, we
will
,” Trip says back, but he smiles in a way that says we won’t be talking at all.

I let go of Trip’s hand once we’re inside.
“So?”

He doesn’t answer me as we walk into the living room, where Zane is snoring loudly on the plaid couch while a basketball game blares on the television. I forgot how much I love it here, despite this being a frat house. It’s buried in the woods along the outskirts of town, like a hunting cabin, and inside there are dark green rugs and all the lampshades are red plaid. Even with beer cans hanging out next to the usual clutter of old dishes and magazines, and throw pillows on the floor next to stray socks, it’s still one of the coziest places I’ve ever been. The giant cedar table sitting crooked in the dining room always makes the house smell like the outdoors: rich and
warm. There’s a fire going in the wood-burning stove, too. I melt into the scene and wonder if maybe I really have missed Trip.

Trip walks slowly down the hall, looking back a few times to see if I’m following him. I am, of course, even though it’s hard to rip myself away from the comfort of the living room. I flash back to last year: sitting on that plaid couch with Trip and Zane and Earl and Shelby, laughing at sitcoms, screaming at the television during football games, playing cards huddled around the coffee table; the nights when it was just Trip and me, making out, messing around, and listening above the crackling of the fire for signs that we were going to be interrupted.

Trip’s room is comfortable too, even in its messy state. The plaid comforter hangs off the bed, because everything here is plaid and nothing stays where it’s supposed to. The top of his dresser is cluttered with change and magazines and receipts, and the drawers hang open with clothes flowing out. It smells like Trip does on the weekends, like pizza and beer.

Trip smiles but stays quiet. The anticipation of waiting for him to speak becomes too much. I give him a light push on the chest.

He leans in my direction. “To tell you the truth, talking is the last thing I feel like doing right now.” His eyes are soft and inviting. He’s doing this on purpose, and it is such a Trip Chapman thing to do that I can’t help but
smirk. Distracting me by being sexy, distracting himself with sex.

I put my hands on my hips and the gesture disappoints him. He sits on his bed and slumps over. Naturally I join him, sitting next to him with my shoulder pressed up against his. His eyes stay glued to the floor.

Trip takes a deep breath. “I’m on academic probation this semester. If I don’t get my grades up, I’m out.” He’s talking to the floor. “It’s not a big deal, but . . . let’s just say I’m already off to a lousy start.”

“So what happened? You don’t like college?”

“Oh, I like college.” He gives me a smile that says I can’t even imagine how much fun he’s been having. “It’s the classes that aren’t my favorite.”

I pinch the skin in between my eyes, then stop immediately when I realize it’s the same thing my mom does when she’s annoyed and disappointed and deep in thought for an appropriate punishment. “I don’t . . . I don’t know that I can help you.”

He rolls his eyes and smiles. “Look at you, Housing. You’re going to a good school next year. You obviously take this learning stuff seriously. You would never be stupid enough to fail.”

I’m irritated right now, mainly because he referred to Barron as a “good” school. Barron is a great school. “Don’t say you’re stupid.”

The way he’s smiling, though, I know he doesn’t
actually think he’s stupid. Careless, maybe. “Old enough to know better, too young to care,” Earl used to say to Zane and Trip anytime they did something reckless. He said it a lot.

“Study with me. Maybe even teach me how. You know, like, techniques or whatever. I could use some help writing essays, too.”

“You know how to study.” My voice fades as I stare at his face. He’s wearing a sly smile. He’s waiting for it to hit me that he graduated high school not because he finished his homework and studied hard, but because he got girls to do his homework and study for him. By
study
, of course, I mean
provide him with the answers
.

Girls were always waiting patiently, hoping to do things for him. They were everywhere. After football practice by his car, at his locker between classes. Even at his house, sipping beer with Earl and anticipating the moment when Trip or Zane would grace them with a wink, a smile, a kiss—and they would do anything for it.

Shelby and I used to laugh at these girls as we sat on Trip’s couch, where we were more than welcome because Trip and Zane had invited us to hang out—not because we were doing their homework and waiting for them to give us something in return.

He smiles at me again, daring me to tell him no
again
. When Trip Chapman smiles at you, there are fireworks, and I can still hear them. But it’s different now. The
noises might be just as loud, but it’s not as colorful, not as bright, not as enchanting. And without all that, fireworks are just explosions. They’re just a racket.

“I need your help, Aubrey,” Trip asks. “Will you help me?”