Secret Life (RVHS Secrets) (7 page)

Chapter
8

“What happened to you today?”

Not even a hello. At least this time I knew who was calling
since I’d programmed him into the phone.

“I had a lot of fun, thanks. Did you enjoy the party?”
More sarcasm.
I was becoming the sarcasm queen. Polish my
crown, peon.

I could hear him sighing through the phone. Who would have
thought Chris Kent was a
sigher
?

“You just took off.”

Actually, I hung out with Amy, ate too much, and played some
volleyball as Ben’s partner—translation:
Ben
played volleyball around me—then I went home
.

“I really don’t think Ben’s parents wanted me moving in. I
had to leave eventually.”

“Yeah.
And I had to get a ride
home.”

Talk about entitlement issues. I was putting a
No-Chris-As-Copilot-In-The-Honda clause in our agreement too. By the time I was
done with this tutoring agreement, we’d need two teams of lawyers to sort it
out.

“And that’s my problem how?” Even as I asked, I knew he’d
have a reason. Boy logic is a funny, funny thing.

“Mimi and Cheryl drove me home.”

Still not sure how that was my problem, but I could tell he
was really ticked about it.

At the party Amy had said something about Cheryl being a
bigger user than Chris and how she’d been surprised to see “That Cheer-ho”
hovering around him.

It was a little off-putting how protective Amy was of her
former non-boyfriend. As if he was the fragile one who needed looking out for.
Thinking about Cheryl, that vixen-in-the-making—who was I kidding—that vixen
period, maybe he did need a little protector care.

At this point though, my patience was thinner than the new
Mac. “And, again, how is that my problem?”

“Rachel, you were going to tutor me today after the party.”

Seriously.
Chris creating these agreements
I never agreed to was getting old. But the sooner the one week trial run
started, the sooner I could delete him from my cell.

“Fine.
Come on over.”

“Fine.
I will.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

Click.

Yup, more stimulating conversation with
the jock god.

~*~

“So, Mom, remember that whole ‘just say no to evil’ thing
today?” I leaned against the counter, watching her put away groceries.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think she just rolled her eyes
at me. Since that was not
even
possible, I let her get away with that laughing, “Yes?”

“Well, lock up the little ones.
Evil
cometh.”

“Rachel Ann, the melodrama?
Seriously?”

I came around the counter and hopped up on it next to the
nearly empty bags.
“Seriously, Mom.
He’s too much. You
can’t let Heather and Cassie around him. He’ll be charming them and warping
their perception of males before they even make it through junior high.”

Mom looked at me as if I were nuts. I know I was playing the
drama queen, but I honestly didn’t want the girls around Chris. If I couldn’t
handle him and his mood swings, his mysterious brooding and flashes of
empathetic caring, how could I expect them to have shields up to protect
themselves?

She must have realized I was actually worried about them
getting the wrong idea of boys and flirting and…well, boys, because she stopped
unpacking groceries and looked at me to answer.

“Honey, no boy, even your Mr. Evil, is stupid enough to mess
with a twelve and thirteen-year-old.
Especially with their
mom right here.”

“But—”

She cut me off before I could really get going again. “Plus,
your sisters are at a sleepover, so you can stop your watch-dogging and go
finish putting all those clothes away from this morning.”

“But—”

“Not a democracy. Go.
Clothes.
Now.”

Just what I needed.
Argument ended
by chores.

~*~

The doorbell sounded and this time I was ready for it. Early
evening was typically easiest. No idea why. I was still recovering from the
morning, but hadn’t worn myself out emotionally yet, I guess. Or maybe it was more
that I was typically home and safe for the rest of the day. So if I had to deal
with Mr. Your-Time-Is-My-Time, it might as well be now.

He was really pushing his luck showing up in the evening.
Sighing
not withstanding
.

Downstairs, mom was already feeding Chris. With three girls,
she was always happy to have a boy in the house. My dad left when I was nine
and we’d been a
uni
-gender house since. I think
that’s one of the reasons she let me get away with my “serial accessory
dating”. She was one of those women who probably missed having a son.

But even I was suspicious when I glanced at the counter.
Were those fresh baked cookies?
On a weekend free from all
three of us?

Mom was the first one to notice me in the doorway. She gave
me that scan, the one she always did to make sure I wasn’t doing any of my
living-on-the-edge actions. I’m thinking the only thing she might have noticed
was my annoyance at her spoiling the already rotten jock sitting at the kitchen
island.

“These are great, Mrs. Wells.” He actually sounded sincere.
None of that Eddie What’s-His-Name from Nick at Night.
“My
mom was a big baker too, but she’s been …”

It was the fadeout that caught my attention. It obviously
caught my mom’s too, because before he could try to rework the sentence, she
was in the fridge grabbing milk.

“Can’t have cookies without milk.
Rachel likes them with Vanilla Coke, but she’s always had a sweet tooth.”

Before she could turn around, I glared at Chris with what I
hoped was superhero-worth laser eyes. He was making himself way too cozy in my
kitchen.
With my mom.
And with what should have been
my cookies.

At the moment I’m not sure which ticked me off more.

Mom must have seen the not-so-
excitedness
brewing in me, because she poured Mr. Make-Himself-At-Home his milk and turned
to go.

“Rachel, don’t forget to let Molly out once more.”

And with that she was gone, letting me know she wouldn’t
bother us for the rest of the evening. Since my sisters were currently at
sleepovers eating pizza and talking about boys, I was pretty much on my own.

Chris chugged down the milk and set the glass aside with a
heavy
thunk
. “Thanks a lot for just leaving me there
today.”

My head started pounding. But this time it was aggravation
causing it to throb like a heavy-bass speaker, not my own issues.
Except, Chris Kent was my issue now.

Senior year was not supposed to be this stressful.

“You looked too comfortable to interrupt. I didn’t want to
upset your fan club.” I heard the annoyance in my own voice. Noticing him today
had
not
been part of the plan.
Actually, if there was an anti-plan, that was a list-topper. “Plus, I figured
your sense of humor seemed to be running on low with me by the end of the
party.”

He stopped setting out notebooks and glanced up at me, this
weird look on his face. It dawned on me I’d known him almost all my life but
didn’t
know
him. I didn’t know what
it meant when he pursed his lips like that. Or when one brow creased down lower
than the other.

“They aren’t my fan club.” He ignored the second half of the
statement and pushed the plate of cookies away. “You think I don’t know that
some girls just like to be with the guy that’s going to get them the most
attention. I may need History tutoring, but I’m up to speed on school
politics.”

That
was a
boatload of bitterness.

As if he got nothing out of his adoring masses. So, yeah:
Ironic bitterness.

Chris toyed with the pencil in his hand, doodling along the
edges of the paper and not meeting my eye. It obviously bothered him. I pushed
away any pity I may have been nursing. It wasn’t like he didn’t thrive on the
attention. Everything he did
said
,
Check.
Me. Out.

Not just the way he looked, but the way he dressed and
carried himself. The way he moved. The way he looked at girls as if he expected
them to look back. The way he
didn’t
look at girls as if he expected them to be looking period.
The
way he demanded attention as if it were his due.

If he was trying to not be the banner boy for popularity, he
had some work to do.

If only all that added up to those moments I was seeing—those
lost moments, the thoughtful moments.

“Anyway,” he continued. “It wasn’t that I was ticked at you.
I just…”

I really had no idea where this was going so I just kind of
watched him like one of those Discovery Channel shows.
Boys
in Their Natural Habitats.

“Well, you’d been upset and it was my fault, and then Ben
was pushing you in his room and I felt responsible and…”

Wait. Chris was trying to protect me earlier because he
thought he’d upset me?

Okay.
Alternate universe.
Where was
the portal I went through?

He looked somewhere past my right ear. “I’m sorry I put you
on the spot and if I embarrassed you in front of Amy and Luke.”

That made more sense. It was about what Amy thought. He
didn’t want Amy ticked off because of Ben.

“Can we just get this over with? We’ll get something that
resembles History in that brain of yours and you can head off to whatever party
your fan club is expecting you to be at.” I put my hand up as he opened his
mouth. “And when you get there, you can ignore them as if they don’t exist.”

I smirked. I could feel it. I’m sure it wasn’t pretty, but
he was about to have me throwing things at him and we were in a kitchen with a
set of butcher knives within reach. He showed his first sign of common sense
and kept his mouth shut.

I joined him at the counter, dragged out my notebook and
started paging through it, reviewing dates and people from class as we went.
Anything with a star next to it, I made sure he had in his notebook too. I got
almost to the end when Chris slammed his shut and reached for cookie
eight-hundred-and-seventy-four.

Which just ticked me off.
It was
bad enough having to share my mom’s homemade cookies, but knowing I could have
two and gain seven pounds and he could eat until he felt sick and not gain an
ounce did not endear him to me.

“I just don’t
get
how to study History.” He at least had waited until his mouth wasn’t full.
“There is absolutely no logic to this crap.”

Maybe he was even less bright than I’d give him credit for.
I must have given him a look because he pushed the book away with a frustrated
huff.

“All these people and places and dates.
Things happen in the book at the same time or out of order. Sometimes we go
back to the same year after skipping forward. Then when we jump to a different
country and they expect us to remember what was going on somewhere else. And
Mr. Reed keeps telling us events are all linked.
By what?
The guy who decided to put them all in the same book?”

He stood so quickly he knocked the stool over. Bending down,
he straightened it and paced to the fridge. Pulling out a two liter of Coke, he
turned to me.

“Want some?”

Well, he’d certainly made himself at home. “No. I’m good.”
And besides, when did Mom buy non-diet anything? I eyed the cookies.
Hmmm.

“It should be more like the movies.” He dropped a couple ice
cubes in a glass before filling it. “Everything is laid out in
order,
they jump to scenes at the right time. I mean, they
even put those little signs at the beginning.” His voice shifted to the
standard Movie Announcer Guy Voice. “In 1840, Rachel Wells, scourge of the
west, arrived in town from her homestead in Ridge View carrying only her
overnight bag. It was at this time President So-and-So declared her new home
the outpost for his bad-guy-killers.”

He took a long swig from the glass and continued in his
normal voice. “Then, you know, the adventure starts and it all makes sense.”

And suddenly everything did make sense. Chris had date
dyslexia or something. That I could work with. Maybe I’d discovered a new disorder!
I needed to look up if that was a real thing.

Google’s my friend.

I needed to get going on this. With something solid to work
with, maybe I could catch him up and send him on his way in the week we’d
“agreed” to. Maybe I could get a night where we actually opened our math books
too.

I glanced at the clock. It was almost ten. How long had he
been here?

I swallowed down my frustration.
Night
one, no Calc.
But, my idea for how to get him caught up would free up
more study time. I could give up one night to gain the rest of the week.

“You know, I have some ideas about this tutoring thing.” Why
was I trying to make this work? Why? He looked at me, not with a lot of trust,
but still. “I think I know how to help, but I need to try something first.”

He nodded and picked up his pen again.

“Um, no.
I need to look at some
stuff.” Long pause.
“On my own.”

The light finally dawned, and he laid the pen down. “So,
we’re, like, done tonight?”

I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, hoping his
accusatory tone of voice was caused by panic. I could forgive panic.

“Yup.
We’re done.” I closed my book
with a thump to prove my point.
“All done.”