Night Sky (16 page)

But from now on, as far as I was concerned, if Garrett was going to mess with Calvin, he was going to have to go through me to do it.

At lunch, I waited in vain for Calvin to say something to me about what had happened after band with Garrett, but he acted as though everything was absolutely normal.

“Question of the day!” he exclaimed, his mouth full of the leftover pizza his mom had packed for him.

I sat atop one of the picnic tables by the quad, my elbows resting on my knees. I didn't say a word. I just chewed my free-range and antibiotic-free turkey on gluten-free bread.

“Okay! Would you rather…have a long, hot make-out session with Mrs. Disapproval, or French kiss Mr. Kaspersky for ten minutes? Lots of tongue.”

Mr. Kaspersky was our school principal, and he had the worst breath in the entire world.

“God, Cal, it always has to be while I'm eating!” I dropped my sandwich on top of my paper lunch bag and made a disgusted face.

Cal smiled, absolutely tickled with himself. “What'll it be?” he said.

I sighed. “Mrs. Disapproval,” I replied.

“I didn't know you swung both ways,” Calvin said gleefully. “That's pretty awesome.”

“I don't!” I said. “Not that there's anything wrong with it, but it's just not my thing. I think Mrs. Disapproval probably has better dental hygiene than Kaspersky, that's all.”

“What do you think about your friend with the steel-toed boots?” Cal said. “You think she's a girlfriend kind of girl?”

“Do you mean, do I think she's gay?” I shook my head. “No. Definitely not. I'm pretty sure she and Milo are a thing.” I paused. “Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering what your thoughts were,” Cal said, and took an enormous bite of pizza.

“Wait a second,” I said, smiling. “You
like
her!”

Calvin scoffed, his mouth full. “Me?” He pointed to his chest and laughed.

“Oh my gosh, you
do
!”

He tried to play it super casual. “She is sexy, but in an extremely scary way,” Calvin replied. “Like a dominatrix. And if you tell her I said that, I'll be forced to kill you.”

“Good luck with that, me being a Greater-Than. Also? She probably wouldn't blink. She's probably used to having guys fall at her feet,” I pointed out.

“You really think she and Milo are…” He pounded his fist into the palm of his hand.

I looked at him with unconcealed disgust. “What is
that
? Is that supposed to be…?”

“Banging,” he said, doing it again.

“Banging,” I repeated. “No, I do not think they are
banging
. I
do
think they make incredibly passionate, steamy, romance-novel-worthy love together, as often as humanly possible.” This was the perfect segue into my admitting that I'd overheard his earlier conversation with Garrett, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

“You got a problem with that?” Calvin asked. “With Dana and Milo?”

And I realized that I was frowning. “No,” I said. “No, of course not. I was just thinking about your question of the day and throwing up in my mouth a little.”

Calvin offered me a very self-satisfied grin. “You're welcome,” he said.

—

School dragged for several more hours. I had so much crap on my mind that my brain actually hurt.

When the final bell rang, I almost fell to my knees and thanked whoever resides in the clouds. I was
that
relieved.

Instead, I waited outside in the front parking area, next to Cal's car.

He wasn't done taking the popquiz Mr. Daniels had so heartlessly surprised us with in history class today. I kicked at an empty soda can on the sidewalk and watched kids shuffle into their cars. The sun was out again today, and as a couple of jocks walked by, I heard them mention something about heading to the beach.

For a moment I wished that my life could be that simple again…just a normal high-school junior, getting through her classes so she could spend the afternoon at the mall, or maybe catch a movie or drive around with her friends.

For me, life had stopped being simple a long time ago. And it didn't show signs of letting up.

I wished… I didn't know
what
I wished, but I suspected it included Milo.

Just then, out of the blue, Dana rounded the corner on her huge-ass motorcycle, as if punctuation to my thoughts.

“Hey!” she called out to me over the roar of the engine, removing her white aviator sunglasses and stacking them on top of her head.

I stepped closer to the bike. Kids were looking at Dana, some of them pointing. I wondered if they thought she was a new girl or if they realized she wasn't high school material. Probably the latter.

“Hop on!” She pointed to the back of the bike.

I hesitated, because oh my God. She really expected me to just
hop
on
that thing? She didn't wear a helmet, and I was one of those kids whose mom had made me wear protective headgear with my tricycle. And as much as I hated the fact that my mother's inner bat-crap-crazy alarm sounder could ever be right, statistics really did prove that even a minor accident on a motorcycle could be fatal without a helmet.

Add that math to the fact that it had taken me months to be able to ride in a car without holding on to the grab bar for dear life and…

I started to sweat.

“What are you waiting for, Bubble Gum? We've got work to do! You wanted training? I'm gonna train you. Now.”

“I have to wait for Cal,” I shouted back, trying to sound apologetic instead of relieved that I had a reason
not
to just hop right on. “We had a plan to go over to my house after school, to work on our math homework. I don't want to just, you know, ditch him. He'll be out soon.”

Dana wasn't pleased. Her hoop earrings jingled against her neck as she shook her head. “Five minutes,” she said, and tapped her wrist.

I nodded and relaxed, knowing that Calvin would save me.

Today, Dana was even more leather clad than usual. She was wearing the same tight black leather pants she'd had on that night in the Sav'A'Buck. Her black tank top was low cut, and the bra she was wearing pushed her chest up, resulting in some seriously admirable cleavage. Her red bomber jacket was form fitting and zipped only halfway up.

I glanced down at my plain, white T-shirt and jeans, and conceded I might as well be wearing overalls. I was that unsexy in comparison.

Dana placed her elbows on top of the handlebars of her motorcycle and made an impatient face. I looked around. A group of kids walked by, all of them dressed in black and orange—more jocks. And yes, Garrett was one of them.

“Hey, Skylar,” he said, even as he looked Dana up and down. “Who's your friend? Nice…ride.”

Just the sight of him made me so mad that I wanted to punch him in the face. Instead, I gave him a full-on ignore, turning to Dana and proclaiming, “I don't know what it is about Calvin. He's just so…
hot
. Don't you think?”

If she was surprised, she didn't show it with more than a single blink before she looked from me to Garrett and back. “Calvin,” she said, loudly enough to be heard over the roar from her bike. “Yeah. Wow. I…really wish I'd met him first.”

That stopped Garrett cold, but then Dana put the cherry on top by smiling directly into his stunned eyes and adding, “Move it along, Tic-Tac dick.”

Garrett adjusted the collar of his team jacket and stalked off, his friends in tow.

And not a moment too soon, as Calvin rounded the corner just then.

He wheeled forward slowly, picking up his pace only after Garrett was completely gone. He looked at Dana and then at me.

“'Sup, Wonder Boy?” Dana said, and turned her motorcycle off. The parking lot got a whole lot quieter.

“'Sup,” he said so casually that I wanted to laugh.

“Can I borrow your friend for a few hours?” Dana asked, and nodded toward me.

Calvin looked from Dana's motorcycle to me and back, and without missing a beat said, “Sorry. I'm not letting my girl ride that thing. Lock it up. I'll drive you wherever you're going.”

“We're training,” Dana informed him flatly. “At her request, might I remind you. You can't come with.”

Calvin shrugged. “So, I'll drop you and leave.”

“And pick us up afterward?” Dana scoffed.

“Your wish is my command,” Cal told her evenly.

Dana turned to me. “You really gonna let Boyfriend here dictate—”

“He knows I'd rather go in his car,” I admitted. “It's not what he wants. He just knows it's what I…want.”

I expected Dana to blast me for being a coward, and I raised my chin against the proclamation of
chicken
shit
that was sure to come. But instead she merely nodded and began taking several long chains from her saddlebags. “Let's do it, then,” she said.

—

“Anything going on that I should know about?” Dana asked as Calvin's car pulled away. He'd dropped us down by the beach, near that same deserted stretch of road where I'd spotted Dana watching me run, last Saturday. She turned to look at me, her gaze sharp. “Scooter seemed…subdued.”

No way was I telling her what I'd overheard. I shook my head as I shrugged. “We've got a math test coming up—”

“Don't BS a BSer,” she interrupted. “If you don't want to tell me, don't, but don't
math
test
me. Frankly, I think your loyalty to him is admirable, and vice versa. You're lucky to have found him, as annoying as he can sometimes be.”

I sighed and admitted, “There
is
something going on, but it's private and…”

“You're not comfortable talking about it with an almost-stranger,” Dana finished for me. “That's good, Bubble Gum. You're impeccable with your word. So how about I tell you what I've seen and what I think is going on, and you can either nod yes or no. Because maybe I can help.” She didn't wait for me to respond, she just plunged ahead.

“Jock Itch, with the dark hair and the skeevy
I
am
God's gift
smile, has decided that you're his next girlfriend, which—understandably—is pissing Scooter off. You were naive enough to fall for some stupid line about helping you look for Sasha, but it wasn't until you were at the beach with him last Saturday that you realized he was trying to shoplift. You being you, you told Boyfriend what happened, and he probably got in JI's face, which resulted in Itchy showing his true ugly colors by saying something nasty back to Calvin—again probably dick related.”

My mouth had dropped open, and I closed it. But then I opened it again to say, “Calvin's not my boyfriend. It's just…it's never been like that. He doesn't like me that way.”

Dana actually looked surprised as I followed her through the hole in the fence and down the soft sand toward the water.

“Garrett—Jock Itch—has definitely been using me as some kind of pawn, though,” I continued. “At first I thought he just wanted to be in the loop as far as what was going on with Sasha—you know, the curiosity factor. But after today…” I took a deep breath. “I'm pretty sure he and Calvin have been at war for a while. I'm a little freaked because, well, Cal never told me anything about it.”

Dana nodded. “Yeah, he wouldn't.” She glanced at me. “How long has he been in that chair?”

“Since he was really little. I don't know exactly, nine maybe?”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

“If that was me, I don't think I could be anything but grim,” Dana admitted, but then she exhaled and rewound a bit. “Wow, I was so sure you were a romantic unit. You guys are…really tight.” And then she went and ruined what might've otherwise been a real bonding moment by adding, “I guess you
are
as shallow as you look.”

I was tired of her condemnation and I got into her face. “How does being friends with Calvin make me shallow?”

“Tell me you wouldn't be all over him if he could walk,” she countered.

That got me mad. “How dare you?” I said. “Has it occurred to you that
he's
the one who's not into me? Because news flash! He's not.”

“Look at you. You're Little Miss Perfect. You honestly expect me to believe—”

I cut her off, stepping in even closer to her. I was much taller than she was, but she was stronger. If she wanted to, she could break me in half like a twig. But I didn't care about that as I said, “Yeah. I do. I expect you to believe me, to trust me—because I am currently spending a crapload of time trusting
you
. It can't just go one way.”

There we stood, face to face, gazes locked, both with our hands on our hips.

Dana blinked first. She laughed. “You've got pretty big balls for a cream-puff debutante. I like it. It's good. But I still think you could wrap Scooter around your little finger if you
really
wanted to.” She turned and pushed through the unpacked sand, heading closer to the water.

Shaking my head, I followed her again. “So what exactly are we doing here?” I asked.

“I told you already,” she said. “We're training, like you wanted.”

“We're not dressed to run.”

“Yeah, we're not running—I'm not a runner,” she said. “And even if I were, there's no way I could keep up with you. I don't have that particular gift.”

“You seem to be able to disappear pretty quickly, from what I've seen.”

“Oh, I didn't say that I can't move fast when I need to,” she said, grinning a little bit.

“So…what else
can
you do?” I was extremely curious, and I have to admit I was still feeling a bit belligerent. “I mean, besides the not-telepathy mind-control thing.”

Dana picked up a piece of driftwood and tossed it from her left hand to her right and back again. “Well, for one, I have 20/2 vision.”