Reckless (19 page)

What was wrong with him? Had he really made a mistake by breaking up with her, or was he just seeing Callie through rose-colored glasses now? Was he destined to be one of those assholes who only wanted the girls he couldn’t have?

Fuck. And then there was Jenny. He needed to talk to Jenny, but he couldn’t even make sense of what he was feeling, so how was he supposed to be able to say something about it? He didn’t want to hurt her … and he didn’t want to lose her, either.

Was that so wrong, to be in love with two girls at the same time? Was it even possible?

“Hey!” Jenny was coming out of one of the dorm rooms, a Waverly mug in each hand. Her face lit up when she saw him. “I’m sorry I took so long—there was some kind of false alarm and we were all hiding.”

Hiding. Right. Like in dark closets. “It’s okay.” He took a mug from her hand. “Thanks.” He sipped it. “Mmm, warm beer.” Served him right—that’s about all he deserved at the moment.

Jenny was so trusting—if he’d been upstairs, supposedly alone, for ten minutes, Callie would want to know what he’d been doing. But it didn’t seem to cross Jenny’s mind that he would have been doing anything suspicious, which made him feel like a total slimebag.

“Could you guys untangle yourselves for, like, three seconds and come play I Never?” Heath Ferro demanded, looking mentally unbalanced wearing a girl’s tank top that said Free Winona in sparkles. The shirt was ten sizes too small for him, which he probably thought was perfect as it gave him a chance to show off the six-pack abs he was always bragging about.

“Only if you put on a shirt first, dude.” Easy shook his head. “I’m not sure how long I can look at that.”

“What happened to the one you were wearing, Heath?” Jenny asked innocently.

Heath smirked. “You mean this one’s not making an
impression
on you?”

Jenny glanced from one to the other, an uncomprehending look on her face. Easy wanted to pound Heath to the floor but decided to take the high road instead. “Fine. We’re coming.”

“I wish we could play a different game,” Jenny said, heading toward the common room. Easy found himself sliding his arm around her shoulders. It just seemed to go there. “Whatever happened to Trivial Pursuit?” she joked.

“Nerd,” Easy said softly, kissing the top of her head. He just wanted to make everything right again—with Jenny and with Callie. How the hell was he supposed to do that when he wanted to kiss them both?

The Twister game in the corner had turned up a notch, with Ryan Reynolds and Alan St. Girard involved, pretzeling up with the girls still playing. Benny Cunningham was on one of the couches next to Lon Baruzza, who was twirling one of her long ponytails around his wrist as she giggled and touched his knee.

“Glad you kids could join us.” Tinsley’s smile curled into its inevitable smirk. Tinsley was in a white T-shirt and a brown miniskirt with suspenders—no one wore suspenders, ever, and so of course she looked unbearably cool. Or not. She looked kind of like Roller Girl from
Boogie Nights
—enough to drive the boys insane. She sat on the arm of a leather couch, her shoes balanced on the coffee table, looking mellower than she had at the Ritz-Bradley party. Good. Maybe that meant she’d be keeping her clothes on, although by the way Julian was practically hanging off her, it looked like he was hoping for an impromptu striptease.

“Everyone got a full mug?” Brandon Buchanan asked. He was sitting in a fat armchair with an unbelievably pretty girl with black-and-blond hair in an unzipped leather jacket and a blue T-shirt that said Free Tibet, a funny contrast to the Winona shirt. Brandon’s hair was all messed up, and in a way that looked unintentional. The girl kept glancing nervously in the direction of Jeremiah and Brett. Brett sat on the floor with a pissy look on her face while Jeremiah sat behind her on the couch and played with her hair. A quiet girl in Easy’s math class—Tara? Kara?—was sitting on the couch between Jeremiah and a small, bird-like blond girl wearing a black minidress that looked like something Tinsley would wear. Wasn’t that the weird saxophone player? Where had all these chicks come from? Math class girl waved at Jenny.

“That’s Kara,” Jenny whispered into Easy’s ear. “She’s really cool.”

Callie appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, looking a little flustered. She purposely didn’t look in Easy and Jenny’s direction as she slid onto the couch next to Benny.

“Where’ve you been?” Tinsley demanded, staring at Callie’s face. Callie just shrugged.

“Regular rules this time,” Jenny spoke up, glancing at Heath, who liked to add rules like you had to make out with him no matter what. “If you’ve done it, you have to drink.”

“I’ll start,” Heath Ferro exclaimed, taking a last good-luck chug from his mug. “I’ve never … made out in the horse stables.”

Jackass,
Easy thought. Heath was clearly trying to embarrass Easy, and Callie, and Jenny. Why did he have to be such a prick? Thankfully, Easy wasn’t the only one who found the stables romantic—along with himself and Callie and Jenny, Lon Baruzza and the skinny blond girl took swigs of their beer too. Neither Jenny nor Callie even glanced in Easy’s direction.

“Surprised you haven’t been there, Pony,” Benny Cunningham teased Heath. “You’ve been everywhere else.”

“I don’t get off on the smell of horse shit, I guess,” Heath grumbled.

“I’ll go,” Jenny said. Everyone’s eyes turned to her, and Easy couldn’t help thinking how completely adorable she looked with her hair pulled back like that. “I’ve never had someone throw a beer in my face. Tonight.”

Everyone seemed kind of puzzled until Heath lifted his mug and took a giant slurp and everyone burst out laughing. Easy would have liked to have been there for that.

“So that explains the outfit, at least.” Tinsley laughed. “Who did it?”

“You don’t get to ask questions in this game, Carmichael. Stick to the rules.” Heath glowered into his beer.

“I’ll go next,” the bird girl spoke up eagerly after the laughter subsided. “Um … I’ve never had sex before.”

Holy shit. Way to ignore the subtleties of the game and drop the bomb right away. That was one of those questions that people always kind of hinted at, not really wanting to ask.

The room seemed to fall silent as everyone stared at each other, daring someone to move first.

“Duh!” Heath said, raising his mug to his lips and taking another giant swig. Lon Baruzza followed, with Benny smiling at him appreciatively as she took a sip too. Tinsley rocked back with a laugh. Guess Benny C. wasn’t as prudish as she liked to pretend. Then, almost at the same moment, Jeremiah and leather jacket girl met each other’s eyes across the room and raised their mugs quickly, as if hoping no one would notice. But both their faces were completely red, and Tinsley, along with everyone else, immediately assumed they had done it with each other. No one moved. Tinsley looked at Brett, who kept her head down as she fiddled with the strap of her shoe.

“Back up a minute.” Heath raised his hands and tried to make noise like a truck backing up. “Tinsley Carmichael, Miss I’ve Been Everywhere and Done Everything, are you trying to say that you are as pure and untouched as virgin snow?”

“Why is that so surprising, Heath? Just because I wouldn’t sleep with you?” Tinsley shot back at him, her cheeks red.

Heath pretended to pull an arrow out of his heart.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Callie glanced from Brett to Tinsley, looking more than pissed, holding her palms up in “what the fuck” manner. “You guys are
both
virgins? What happened to being honest with your roommates?”

Tinsley rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, as if she couldn’t believe what a big deal everyone was turning this into.

“I could think of half a dozen times you’ve implied that you were less than
virginal
,” Callie pointed out, focusing on Tinsley, all riled up now for some reason. She hated being lied to, even about something that wasn’t really any of her business. “What about Mr. Dalton? Chiedo from South Africa?”

A bunch of other girls jumped in to point out all the other times Tinsley hadn’t exactly told the truth. Easy couldn’t really give a shit about Tinsley, though—and he wasn’t exactly surprised. She’d lie about anything if it was to her benefit and he’d never believed a word out of her mouth. But he did watch Brett with interest. She’d always implied that she wasn’t exactly innocent, but he’d thought her tough attitude was a maybe just a cover-up for some kind of complex.

Although now Brett wasn’t coming up with anything. Her hands were shaking as Jeremiah whispered frantically in her ear and tried to calm her down. Apparently Jeremiah’s revelation had come as a surprise to her too. And what was the deal between him and Free Tibet?

Tinsley’s irritation had reached its peak. She stood up abruptly and practically shouted at Callie, “I never said I had
sex
, okay? Get over it.”

That pissed Easy off. “What about …” he started to ask, thinking of the time Tinsley had spent the night at some Columbia grad student’s apartment and bragged about it all over campus the next day.

“What about we play the game?” Tinsley fiddled with her suspenders and straightened her skirt. “I’ll go,” she said quickly, before anyone could say anything else. “I never took my
ex
-girlfriend out to dinner with my dad instead of my
current
girlfriend.”

Easy’s stomach dropped. Everyone glanced around, totally confused and thinking that maybe stress had caused Tinsley to actually go insane. She was staring straight at Easy, her violet eyes flashing with anger. What did she have to be angry about, that bitch? He glared back at her.

“Why aren’t you drinking, Easy?” she asked nastily. “You know the rules.”

If she weren’t a girl, he would have thrown his drink in her face at that moment. But it wouldn’t have mattered—she’d already accomplished what she’d intended. Namely, her scandal was no longer in the spotlight, and his was.

Heath chuckled, a deep “Ho ho ho,” like it was the funniest thing in the world.

Jenny’s face slowly drained of color. She stood up to face him. “Is that … is that true?”

Easy could feel everyone watching him, and not all of their looks were kind. Not that he cared right now what anyone else thought. He just wanted to stop Jenny from hating him. “Well … uh … not really … but sort of …” Not his most eloquent response, but it didn’t really matter as Jenny quickly backed away and ran out of the room.

The room buzzed with noise, and Easy pressed his hands to his head as if he could have any hope of blocking it out. Kara, the girl Jenny had waved to, jumped up from her seat and ran out after Jenny, not too fast to avoid giving Easy a nasty look on her way out. Brett stood up and rushed out of the room, with Jeremiah chasing after her.

Looked like the party was over.

Callie stood up, her voice brimming with fury. “Why would you do that?” she demanded, walking over to Tinsley and standing directly in front of her.

“Well … you can all talk about my secrets. Why shouldn’t everyone know about
his?
” She shot Easy a glare.

Callie shook her head, her little blond pigtails flapping. “You are a total bitch.”

Tinsley seemed at a loss for words for the first time in her life. Her mouth trembled a little, not like she was going to cry, but like she was trying to narrow in on the absolute perfect scathing comeback. But after a few seconds, she just tossed her hair and stalked out of the room.

About fucking time,
Easy thought. Too bad she couldn’t keep her mouth shut for the rest of her life.

After storming out of the party, the last place Brett wanted to be was her bedroom, where, an hour ago, she’d been on the verge of having sex for the very first time with the boyfriend she loved. She’d thought everything was perfect—but now it was clear that it had all been fake. She and Jeremiah couldn’t make the grand, symbolic gesture of giving their virginity to each other because he’d already lost it—to that
other
girl. And it wasn’t like it was something that had happened a long time ago. No, when she and Jeremiah were dating before, he was definitely a virgin. They break up, get back together two weeks later, and suddenly he’s not a virgin anymore? What the fuck? The thought of going back to her room, to her Iron & Wine and her sandalwood incense and her drawn shades, made her ill. Not like stomping up the stairs to the roof was any better—she still felt ill. What she really wanted to do was run out the front door of Dumbarton, hop in a car, and drive somewhere fast, but she couldn’t leave Dumbarton, so the roof was as far away as she could get.

She flung open the metal door and stepped out into the dark, cool night air. Her arms were immediately covered with goose bumps, but she didn’t notice. It was a beautiful night, which just pissed Brett off even more. Each one of the ten billion stars in the sky seemed to be shining happily down on her, and she wanted to kill all of them.

The door flew open. Jeremiah, practically panting, stepped toward her, but Brett backed away. She hoped his body was in even more pain now after running up three flights of stairs. “How could you? How could you … do that … and not say anything to me?” she shouted, not caring who heard.

“Brett, please. Calm down, okay?”

“I told you I was a
virgin.
I told you I was ready to do it. Were you
ever
going to tell me the truth?”

“Yes! Of course.” Jeremiah shoved his hands into the pockets of his dark jeans, his face looking like his dog had just died.
Good,
Brett thought meanly.
He deserves to feel bad.
“It just wasn’t … the right time.”

“So when would be the right time?” Brett couldn’t keep the venom out of her voice. She just felt so betrayed. Jeremiah was supposed to be one of the
good guys
. He was one of the anti—Eric Daltons, the kind of guy who
doesn’t
sleep around or ditch you for the next hot thing that walks into the room. He wasn’t supposed to do this to her. “After we’d done it? Because if Brandon and …” Brett could not bring herself to say Elizabeth’s name. “If Brandon and
Bitchface
hadn’t interrupted when they did …”