#scandal (5 page)

No attachments. No betrayals. No regrets. No—

“Are you
kidding
me?” Cole’s voice shatters everything.

Marceau and I unlock. Cole is wide-eyed and blurry, his hair untamed.

“Did I do the wrong thing?” Marceau whispers. His arms stiffen around my shoulders.

45

Before I can answer, Cole turns on us and dodges back into the house.

“I do not understand,” Marceau says. “He said he is not your boyfriend.”

I force a smile. “It’s just a misunderstanding. Be right back.”

“Lucy! Darling!” Griffin rises from Paul’s lap and captures me in a tipsy embrace.

“Have you seen Cole?” I ask.

Her eyebrows shoot up. “What’s going on?”

“We just . . . I need to talk to him.”

“Baby, come back!” Paul paws at her dress. “My lap is cold.”

“So much for the grace of the elves, you rotten scoun-drel.” Griff smacks his hand and rocks forward on her toes. Behind her overkissed lips, her breath is warm and sharp. “If something happened with Cole, you better tell me—”

“Or what, Griffin?” I snap.

She pulls back, unsteady on her feet. “I just think—”

“Don’t think. Go back to your make-out marathon with Legolas and stop worrying about me and Cole.” I grab her shoulders and steer her into Paul’s lap, ignoring the hurt on her face. The time for apologizing is 46

tomorrow, when we’re both sober. Right now I have to find Cole.

I march through the kitchen and almost crash into Olivia, who seems to be making a career of being where she shouldn’t. Her arms are loaded with Mike’s Hard Lemonades, and she giggles at our near collision.

“Sorry!” she says. The tips of her ears are pink beneath her pixie cut, and her blue eyes look frightened. Something tells me this is her first unsupervised party. “Ohmygod, Lucy! Are you okay?”

“Do you know where Cole is?” I ask.

“Upstairs,” Olivia says. “He seems, like, out of it. Oh, do you think he broke up with Ellie? Maybe?” Hope drips from the end of her question, and I let the silence hang between us, waiting for her to make the implied threat real.
I saw you kissing him. I’ll tell everyone.

Ellie will hate you.

She looks at me over the bottles, blinking and confused, not so threatening after all. Before she can take another breath, I rush past. Marceau is still outside and Griff’s probably never speaking to me again and Cole’s upset and there’s a horse on the deck and sparkly fairy wings all over the place and the entire night is reaching postapocalyptic proportions of mythical madness.

47

If I were online right now, I’d lay a flamethrower to this whole shit.

But reality calls.

I gather my chiffon and trudge up the stairs. Cole’s in the hallway, dragging a vampire and a zombie out of the bathroom by the arms.

So much for reality.

“It’s a bathtub,” Cole snaps. “Not a motel.”

“Chill. I got this, bro.” Vampire loops his arm around zombie girl, who’s clinging to a plastic baby bottle that says LIQUID BRAINZ—inauthentic on about five different levels—and together they stumble down the stairs.

Cole drags a hand through his hair and turns to face me. His eyes are glassy and red, and I can’t tell if it’s from the beer or the creature-wrangling or something else entirely.

“I assume you’re not here to help with make-out patrol,” he says. “Unless you’re waiting for the room? Where’s your boyfriend?”

“I just . . . You seemed pissed, and I didn’t want . . .” Blood simmers beneath my skin, but I can’t stay mad. I can’t stay anything.

That kiss wrecked me.

“What happened out there?” I finally manage.

Across from the bathroom, he clicks open another 48

door and nods for me to follow, all the hard edges of him replaced with something soft, something scared. “I’ve been trying to get this out all night.”

After what happened on the deck, his bedroom feels like a crime scene in waiting. The sight of his pillows sends a warning through my head.

Danger! Danger! Danger!

“I need to tell you something,” he whispers, and his earlier words echo.
What’s the worst that could happen?

Everything presses in. Ellie’s last-minute favor, the dance, the kiss, Marceau, Miss Demeanor, Griff, Prince Freckles, Olivia, John’s midnight swim, my throbbing feet, the syrupy drinks. My head spins, and suddenly I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to smell Cole’s outdoorsy scent and look at his soft lips and pretend the kiss didn’t happen.

I don’t want to hear his voice, to feel his hand on my shoulders as he tells me about the stars.

“Take me home?” I ask. “I can’t stay here.” Cole presses his forehead against the doorframe. The sound of his defeated sigh loosens something forbidden in me.

Four years.

I step closer.

Four years.

I reach for his fingers, brush them with mine. Fear.

Guilt. Hope. Shame. All of the above.

49

He pulls me through the doorway, both of us stumbling. He closes the door behind him, leans up against it.

Everything in me trembles.

“Cole . . .” My breath is as shaky as my knees. “What are—”

“Ellie and I broke up.”

50

THIS BED AIN’T BIG ENOUGH F OR THE

THREE OF US

T
hings haven’t been good with us,” Cole explains.

We’re standing in his room in the moonlight, door bolted, so much for the
danger danger
stuff. “Not for a long time.”

“No way. Ellie would’ve told me.” I close my eyes and the floor tilts. “If my best friend’s relationship was falling apart, I’d definitely know.”

Wouldn’t I
?

Ellie didn’t ask about Cole in her texts tonight, didn’t mention how cute he looked in the tux, but I assumed she was texting him directly, sending him the usual puppy-eyed love notes.

I squeeze the dress in my fists. She was so excited the 51

day she found it; she dragged me and Griff to this vintage store in LoDo to see it. If only she hadn’t gotten—

“She’s not actually sick.” I open my eyes at the realization. The room stops moving, but Cole’s rubbing his jaw, his nonanswer all the confirmation I need.

“I can’t do this,” I say. “Please take me home.” Even before he shakes his head, I know it’s impossible.

We’ve been drinking, and anyway, his car isn’t here. He’ll have to borrow John’s and take me in the morning.

Resigned, I flop on his bed, springs moaning and creaking, something scratchy poking my thighs. I reach under the fountain of chiffon and yank out a pair of fairy wings.

Perfect. I just ass-pancaked my fairy godmother.

Cole sits next to me, but I can’t look at him. I need to stay sharp, clearheaded. Looking at him only makes me replay that kiss. It was hard enough when I just imagined it, but now that I’ve had the real thing, I’ll never get him out of my head. And if it’s true about him and Ellie breaking up—

No. No, no, no, no,
no.

“Why did you kiss Marceau?” Cole’s voice is laced with betrayal. “You said you didn’t like him.”

“Why do you care? I don’t have a boyfriend. I can kiss anyone I . . .” Guilt makes my words evaporate. When 52

I speak again, it’s a whisper. “Ellie’s your girlfriend—at least, she was. My best friend. We cheated on her.” The confession floats and curls between us like smoke, and my gaze drifts out the window to avoid it. The moon has shed its hazy coat; a white crescent shimmers above the ponderosa pines. Cassiopeia is hidden, and if she can see us from her perch in the sky, she isn’t saying a word.

“Look,” he says. “I’m not trying to justify it, okay?

Things with me and Ellie are over. I don’t know what she told you, but it’s true. Why do you think she bailed tonight?”

The floor wrenches sideways again, and I put my hand on the dresser to steady myself. The walls are too close, the air thick with an earthy tang. There’s a baseball hat on the dresser, orange and dingy, a peeling pot leaf decal that’s basically scratch-and-sniff.

“Looks like 420 stopped by,” I say absently.

“Luce, look at me. Please.”

His voice cracks. I want to look, but I can’t. Is he telling the truth? Whose idea was it that I go in Ellie’s place tonight? That I wear her dress and corsage?

Why didn’t I just say no to her for once? I could be home slaying zombies, lips unkissed. Rules unbroken, lines uncrossed.

Friendships intact.

53

“She’ll never talk to me again,” I whisper.

“It’s not your fault. It was my mistake.” My head jerks up.

“Oh . . .
kay
,” he says. “Not a mistake? I mean, it
wasn’t
.

I just—”

“No. I mean yes. You’re right. We were caught up in the moment.”

“And a little drunk.”

“And a little drunk.”
Yes, yes
. I nod, but my stomach twists with guilt. And disappointment. Which triggers more guilt. A whole ocean of it now, prickly hot waves crashing between my shoulders. I stand again and pace the floor, excuses blowing away in the storm.

I can’t keep this from her
.

A fresh wave sears my skin, but that’s the truth. Maybe Cole made the first move, but I didn’t stop him. Not until after I kissed him back. Even now, moments ago outside his bedroom door, I wanted . . .

On top of the dresser there’s a crack. I slide my thumbnail into it and run it up and down, avoiding 420’s hat, imagining I’m carving a trench. Soon I’ll reach the clothes inside. Then the floor. The party below. The earth. The molten hot thing in the middle that keeps it all spinning.

“Is that why you invited me to the party?” I say, acutely aware of the bed behind us. “Rebound girl?” 54

Outside, clouds skirt back over the moon, darkening the room. Cole touches the red bow at my back, his voice a pale whisper to match the sky. “Not even close.”

“T-shirts are in the top drawer,” Cole says. His parents asked him to keep everyone out of the other bedrooms, so we decided to crash together in here. Far from ideal, but there’s nowhere else to go. I’m spent, and I can’t face anyone downstairs. Definitely not Marceau. Especially not Griffin.

She’ll know.

“I’ll be back,” he says. “Just need to make sure no one’s driving.”

“Tell Griff I’m . . . just tell her I’m passing out and we’ll talk tomorrow. And please apologize to Marceau.” Cole’s jaw twitches.

“I totally ditched him,” I say. “Just . . . tell him I have a headache.”

His eyes soften. “Do you want Tylenol?”

“I don’t
have
a headache, Cole.” He sighs and unlocks the door.

“Wait, I can’t.”
Breathe, Lucy.
I offer him my back. “I need help with the sash and zipper.”

The floorboards groan as Cole takes three steps toward me. The air shifts, campfire and apples and beer, and then 55

there’s a tug at my waist as he works out the bow Mom so expertly tied. I wind the red sash around my hands to keep from fidgeting. To keep from touching him.

Knuckles brush between my shoulders as he grips fabric with one hand, zipper with the other.

“There’s a hook at the top,” I say. “You have to undo it first.”

He’s slow and delicate, like he’s afraid to do the wrong thing, to touch me. The tiny metal hook releases. The zipper opens, tooth by tooth by tooth, my back exposed to the chill in a long, narrow
V
, and I give in to a gentle shiver.

“Sorry,” he whispers. One hand is still on the dress, fingers just beneath my left shoulder, breath tickling my neck, agonizingly close. He swallows. Twice. His other hand drifts to the curve of my hip, and Griffin’s words haunt me.

It’s not like anyone would find out.

“Thanks.” I slide past him to the dresser, my bound hands clutching the dress to my body. “Check on Prince Freckles? And grab my phone? I left it on the deck.” Finally alone, I open the drawer and dig out a pair of basketball shorts and a shirt from Estes Park.
Bears love people!
it says, right under a bear chasing a stick figure.
They
taste like chicken!

I lay Ellie’s dress facedown on the bed and zip it up, 56

remembering again how excited she was to find it. I was just playing dress up tonight, a Cinderella doll, but she loved this dress. She called it
the
one
, her eyes glowing with possibilities about how the big night would unfold.

How could she fake something like that? Why didn’t she tell me?

When did we start keeping secrets?

Four years ago . . .

I drape the dress over the footboard, hang those stupid fairy wings over the post, remove the chandelier earrings Mom lent me, pull on Cole’s shorts and shirt, and shake the pins from my fancy Texas hair.

By the time I crawl between the forest-green sheets, the transformation is complete. I’m no longer a princess.

Just a girl with a twisted-up heart.

I turn on my side and glue my eyes to the wall, to the calming ocean-blue paint. It doesn’t matter what Cole said, how long he and Ellie have been drifting or how much blame he takes. Ex or not, I’ll never be able to forgive myself.

The kiss was over almost as soon as it started, but my feelings weren’t.

Aren’t.

And that’s the worst offense, because for the first time in four years . . . I think maybe he likes me too.

Cole slips back into the room, shutting the door and 57

sliding the lock in place behind him. Dresser drawers open and close. Buttons, zippers, legs sliding out of pants. Dress shirt tugged from arms, dropped to the floor. Shorts pulled up. Keys on the dresser, clicks and clangs, and then a camera flash like lightning.

Say . . . magic pixie dust!

“Sorry,” he says. “Trying to set your phone alarm. John gave me his keys—we’ll head out at nine.” The air cools when he lifts the sheets, mattress moaning under his weight. He flops around for a minute, finds the right spot. The sheet falls back into place, tickling my arm as it lands softly between us.

Music and laughter filter through the floor from the living room below, and on the dresser, my phone buzzes with a text, then another.
Ellie.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to slow my breathing, convince them both I’m already asleep.