Second to No One (8 page)

“Maybe you’re right,” Lauren said sitting back on her pillow in defeat. “Maybe it would be best if I just let it all happen naturally.”

Happen naturally? That was a horrible idea. I could just picture it. She would spend the rest of the year pining for him, and Jess would eventually notice this gorgeous, smart, farm-grown diva from Iowa. It wouldn’t be long until he developed his own little crush. Pretty soon, they’d be swapping smiles, then phone numbers, then spit, then vows, and I would be standing on the sidelines as Lauren’s fake best friend and Jess’s jealous ex-girlfriend, watching them live happily ever after.

I was not going to let that happen. It was much better this way. My way. If Jess found out that she liked him before he had a chance to notice her, he would be flattered, but that would be the end of it. Lauren would turn into this sweet (and kind of pathetic) new girl with a crush on him, and he and I could spend the year secretly laughing at her.

“It’s okay, Drew. I don’t mind asking him.” I turned back to Lauren with a convincing smile. “I’ll ask him in fourth period on Monday if you want.”

“Um, okay,” Lauren said hesitantly while eyeing Drew for consent. “I guess it’s better to just know. Then if he’s not into me, I can move on, right?”

“Exactly.” I took another bite of a Rangoon, and my stomach folded over with discomfort. I was a horrible, horrible person. What was I doing? Lauren was new in town. She was sweet, innocent, beautiful. Beautiful…that’s exactly what I was doing. I was marking my territory. Protecting what was mine. It was only natural.

Drew was still watching me with sharp eyes, about to protest, no doubt, maybe even throw me under a bus. But before she could, a low rustle sounded outside the window beside us. All three of us went dead quiet as we looked at the black window, waiting for the sound to come back.

“See, I told you guys!” Lauren whispered with wide, excited eyes, “There is a bear living in my front yard!”

But Drew put her hand up to shush Lauren. “Wait a minute,” she whispered and cocked her head toward the window. The sound came back, and this time there was a snap of a branch, and something that sounded like a human voice. “That’s no bear.”

Panic swept through my chest as I considered the possibilities. A burglar? A murderer? My heart nearly burst through my ribs.

Drew got up from her sleeping bag and turned off the light.

“What are you doing?” Lauren whined. She was on the verge of tears.

“If the lights are on, whoever’s out there can see everything we’re doing. But if they’re off, we can see them better than they can see us.”

I considered Drew’s answer as I melted further down into my sleeping bag. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone out there, watching us, analyzing us, planning their attack.

I could only see Drew’s dark shadow now as she moved away from the light switch and toward the window. She was nearly face-to-face with it when she said, “Lauren, when is your mom supposed to get home? Do you think she locked herself out?”

Lauren whimpered into her pillow, “She’ll be at work for six more hours. But the front door isn’t locked anyway. I left it open for her.”

This new piece of information made it impossible to breathe. We all sat completely still in the dark silence waiting—for what, though, we didn’t know. When the tension couldn’t get any thicker, a tap sounded at the window on the opposite side of the room. All three of us jumped, and Lauren yelped like a miniature poodle. Tears started pouring out of my eyes as I vocally begged to whoever it was, “Please just go away.”

After another moment, the tapping came again. This time from both windows on both sides of the room. There was more than one person outside, and whoever they were, they knew we were in there.

“Where’s your phone, Lauren?” Drew asked with fierceness. “I’m going to call the cops.”

Lauren’s words were muffled as she was almost completely hidden underneath her sleeping bag. “It’s in the kitchen.”

“Here,” I offered, with a degree of courage I didn’t know I had. “I’ll get my cell phone.” I got up from my bag and tiptoed across the room to where my bag was sitting near the far window. My heart was beating out of my throat as I ducked below the window and grabbed my phone with a shaking hand.

I made my way back toward Drew just as she began to pound sharply on the window. “We’re calling the cops! So if you’re smart, you’ll get the heck out of here!” she yelled.

I handed my phone to Drew just as a flashlight lit up outside the window. Drew and I grabbed hold of each other, and then we both saw what the flashlight was supposed to make us see. It was Kit Walker, and he was laughing and yelling, “Don’t call the cops, Drew! It was just a joke!”

“Kit!” Drew shouted. I had never seen her so angry. She stepped toward the window and threw it open. “You are such a jerk! You scared us to death!”

I cautiously stepped up to the window while nervously wiping the tears from my cheeks. “Are you alone?” My voice was still shaking. Before Kit could answer, another dark figure—obviously the one that had been tapping the window on the other side of the house—showed up next to him. When he got close enough, I was able to make out exactly who it was. “Trace?” I squinted my eyes at him through the half open window, “
You
did this?”

Trace lifted both hands up in defense. “I’m sorry, but what was I supposed to do? You told me the three of you were having a slumber party so you could listen for bears outside Lauren’s house. I wouldn’t be able to respect myself if I let an opportunity like this pass me by.”

“How did you know where I live?” Lauren was suddenly standing at our sides, and I could tell from the sound of her voice that she was flattered by the attention.

Kit’s eyes lit up when Lauren appeared. “Everyone knows where you live. This house is famous.”

“You mean
Lauren
is famous,” Drew said with a roll of her eyes.

Kit ignored Drew’s comment. “So are you girls going to come out or not?”

“Not!” Drew spat back before Lauren or I could process the question.

“Come on,” Trace urged with his perfectly symmetrical smile. “We came all the way out here. Let’s go get something to eat.”

“Eat?” I said flatly. “It’s almost eleven.” I glanced down at the stale rice noodles laying on my plate. “And I’m stuffed.”

Kit jumped in. “The diner in town is open. You can just get hot chocolate or something.”

“No way,” Drew said with a strict, motherly tone. “Lauren’s mom would freak if we left.”

“She wouldn’t really know.” Lauren rocked on her heels. “She’s working the grave shift tonight at the hospital. She won’t get off until three. As long as we’re back by then…”

My jaw dropped. Sweet, respectable Lauren actually wanted to go? And Drew, of all people, was acting like the mother duck. I felt everyone’s eyes on me as though I had the final say, and somehow the power I felt, the power to make the final decision, made me turn into a different person than I ever knew I was capable of being. Then I heard myself say, “I could go for a hot chocolate.”

Chapter 7

“I
f you’re not going to
order anything to eat, you can sit yourself outside.” The big, hairy waitress whose name was apparently Denise, bounced on her hip and glared Lauren in the eyes.

“But I’m not hungry,” Lauren protested. “I don’t even have any money. I just came along for the ride.”

“Does this look like a taxi to you, little missy?”

Lauren’s face turned red. “Little missy? You can’t—”

“It’s okay,” Kit interjected. “She’ll have a blueberry waffle.” He looked at Lauren sternly. “It’s on me.”

Denise jotted the final order on her notepad and huffed away from the table.

“She can’t force me to order anything!” Lauren continued after she was gone. “This is a free country!”

Drew was resting her head against the vinyl booth and was typing something into her cell phone, “She just wants tips, Lauren. Can you blame her?”

“Who are you texting?” I asked, leaning over her shoulder to get a better view of her phone. The five of us were scrunched into a booth that should have only sat four.

“Bryce,” she said matter-of-factly. “I feel like I’m the fifth wheel on this double date.” She eyed Kit and Lauren who were flirting endlessly across from us, then at Trace who had his arm draped over the back of the chair behind me. “He’ll be here in ten minutes.”

Bryce was the new guy that Drew was dating. They met in the cereal aisle of Wal-Mart a few days before, and now they were practically a couple. I had no idea how Drew did it—a new guy every week—I could barely keep up with her. “He’s driving here all the way from Highlands?” I asked skeptically.

“It’s not that far. There’s no traffic at this time of night, and he was already at a party on the north end.” Drew sent her final message, then stuck her phone in her pocket.

Soon a tiny bell sounded over the front door of the diner, and all five of us instinctively turned to see who was coming in. I thought maybe it was Bryce getting here freakishly fast. But my heart skipped a beat when I saw who was actually coming through the door. There were three slightly familiar faces from school—a couple girls I knew only as junior cheerleaders and a guy that played every sport available at Franklin High. But the last person to enter was the last person I expected to see at a diner in town at eleven o’clock at night. The last person to enter was Jess.

Before I could digest his presence, I felt a sharp kick against my shoe. “Ow.” I grimaced and looked across the table at Lauren who was staring at me with wide eyes.

“Did you see who just came in?” she whispered between locked teeth. “I’m dying!” She said slightly louder, “I’m dying!”

“Calm down,” Drew said coolly from her end of the booth. “It looks like he’s here on a date.” Drew glanced at me for a nanosecond, which forced me to peek over the empty booths toward Jess. She was right. It definitely looked like the group was paired up. The nameless jock was with the pre-anorexic blonde, and Jess was with the prettier girl with big, bright eyes. “It’s not like anything can happen tonight,” Drew said to Lauren with a demanding voice. “Just forget about him.”

Kit and Trace, who had been lost in the conversation up until now, peered over their shoulders at the group in discussion. Kit turned to Lauren with an obvious look of disappointment. “What? Do you have a thing for Cole Bradley?”

Lauren finally found the ability to focused on Kit’s face. “No, it’s nothing like that. I just…” She searched for a way to retract her previous outburst. “I just get nervous around popular people.”

It sounded idiotic to me, but Kit bought it. “Them?” He nodded toward Jess’s group. “They’re not all that popular. Cole is a bench warmer of the worst degree, and those cheerleaders would do better in the glee club.” He laughed at his own joke and took a sip from his drink. “The only one that has any clout at all is Jess Tyler, and you have nothing to be nervous about. He’s a cool guy.”

I’m pretty sure I could see Lauren’s heart beating through her sweater. It was obvious that Kit’s high appraisal of Jess only made her crush on him that much worse, and it didn’t help my feelings much either. How had I ever thought, for even a minute, that Jess could possibly be into a girl like me? I obviously wasn’t anywhere near good enough for him. To think that I actually thought he and I were going to end up together overwhelmed me with a feeling of embarrassment and inadequacy.

Eventually Drew’s new boyfriend, Bryce, came through the diner door and squeezed in next to Drew. I had never met him before, but the way Drew described him, I had pictured him to be a lot taller, more athletic, and at least slightly charismatic. Bryce was none of those things. He wasn’t much taller than Drew, and there’s no way he weighed more than a hundred pounds. He wore thick-rimmed glasses (that looked more like an accessory than a necessity) and tight skinny jeans that you’d expect to see on one of the Jonas brothers. He was quiet and seemingly shy. But there was something that was intense about him, and it was obvious that despite their short time of knowing each other, he was very intense about Drew.

I was so busy analyzing Bryce that I didn’t notice Jess get up from his table and approach ours. “Hey, you guys,” he said as he filled up his drink in the fountain drink dispenser just behind our table. I was at the end of the booth and propped perfectly underneath his arm where I had a front row seat of the smell of his familiar men’s deodorant. “How are the waffles?”

I thought Lauren’s lips would crack the way her mouth was spread unnaturally across her face. She watched him with those flirtatious eyes of hers, and I knew that she hoped he had stopped by specifically to say hi to her. I couldn’t blame her for hoping however. She
was
the only one at the table with a waffle, and that perturbed me to no end.

“So what’s the deal man?” Kit asked curiously before anyone had a chance to answer. “Are you on a date with Trista?” Out of all of us, Kit was the closest to being “in” with the junior crowd, so it was only natural that he would know the names of the JV cheerleaders.

Jess cocked his head toward Trista, who I assumed was the pretty one, then looked back at Kit hesitantly. “Something like that.” He then looked right at Lauren. “It looks like you went for the blueberry waffle. Good choice.” I don’t know what annoyed me more, the fact that Jess was purposely singling Lauren out or the fact that he was obviously flustered because he couldn’t think of anything better to talk about than her stupid blueberry waffle.

Lauren smiled with wide flattered eyes. “It’s really good.”
Right, Lau
ren. Don’t mention t
he fact that the wai
tress practically ha
d to hold you at gun
point to get you to
order it.

“What about you, guys?” Jess nudged the back of my shoulder, and my heart did a summersault. “Is this a group date?”

No one knew how to answer. We were obviously paired up at the moment, but no, it wasn’t really a date. However, that was the last thing in the world that I wanted Jess to know right now. “Yes,” I found myself saying, and suddenly everyone’s eyes were on me. “I mean, it’s nothing official, but I think it would be pretty weird if I suddenly started cuddling up to Kit right now.” I laughed self-consciously. “I doubt Trace would be very happy about it either, right?” I turned to Trace with a flirtatious grin that he ate up willingly.