Tempted (12 page)

Drew pulled into the Waverly parking lot. He circled the visitor parking lot, looking for a spot among the Range Rovers and BMWs. He slipped in between a blue S-Class Mercedes and a beat-up Volvo with a bumper sticker that read
HIT
ME
YOU
CAN’T
HURT
ME. Jenny reached for the door as Drew turned off the car.

“So,” he said.

“So …” She trailed off.

Their eyes met, and they both moved their faces closer. Jenny noticed the sweet smile on Drew’s lips as his mouth met hers. She felt her body melt and relax as he pressed against her, his mouth warm and syrupy and exactly what she wanted. A Jacuzzi warmth spread through her as she felt her hand reach out to touch Drew’s neck.

A loud tapping behind her jolted Jenny out of her pleasant oblivion. She jumped back from Drew, her heart almost flying out of her chest.

Drew pulled away slowly, smiling. “Guess my roommate wants his car back.” Jenny whirled around to see a face in the passenger-side window.

“Oh,” Jenny said, taking a deep breath. “Guess so.”

The driver’s side door opened and his roommate stuck his head inside. He took in Jenny with surprise, as if he’d been expecting someone else. His dark eyes smiled mysteriously at her. “Cleopatra, right?” Jenny recognized Drew’s roommate from the Halloween party—he was the handsome dark-haired guy who was dressed like someone on the
Sopranos.
Inexplicably, he was still wearing his gangster costume, his thin white T-shirt strangely inappropriate for the weather, the gold chains still hanging around his neck.

“I guess so.” Jenny stepped out of the car, her shoes sinking into the wet gravel lot.

“This is Seb,” Drew said by way of introduction. He leaned his elbows on top of the car and tilted his head at Jenny. He looked like he was still thinking about kissing her.

“And this is Seb’s car,” Seb added, grabbing the keys from Drew’s hand. “And he’s got some shit to do, so thanks for bringing it back.”

“No problem,” Jenny said, grinning at Seb’s Jersey accent. She flashed Drew a smile and held her hand up in a little wave. She could tell he wanted her to stay and hang out, but she was floating from his kiss and she wanted to save more for later. Maybe she’d go get a cup of hot chocolate in Maxwell and pretend to read
Much Ado About Nothing
while she replayed their perfect* kiss in her head.

She was glad it had worked out.

Easy waited under the eaves of the dining hall on Friday evening as the rain picked up in intensity. A spray of water from the gutters overhead trickled onto his already wet Waverly blazer, and he cursed himself for leaving his waterproof North Face jacket back in his room. He couldn’t help thinking that maybe if he started wearing his Waverly blazer around and looking more like the model student the dean wanted him to be, Marymount would be less likely to buy him a one-way ticket to military school.

The rain eased momentarily and he stepped out from under the overhang, sloshing briskly across the quad toward the field house. Mrs. Horniman’s parting suggestion that he get involved with some extracurriculars was less a suggestion than a direct order, one he knew he couldn’t afford to ignore. It was kind of late to be joining a sports team, but what were his other options? Join the drama club and snag a role in one of their pseudo-intellectual minimalist plays where two characters sat on stage and talked about death in pig latin? Besides, Coach Cadogan, the twentysomething soccer coach, had tried to bribe Easy into coming out for the team after seeing him and Alan St. Girard keep a Hacky Sack in the air last spring for a Waverly record two and a half hours. Maybe he could just sit on the bench?

He’d had a passing interest in girls’ field hockey when he first starred dating Callie, but that probably wasn’t what Horniman had in mind.

The door to the field house was cracked open, and a toxic wind of sweat and mentholated creams permeated the air. He heard a symphony of metallic weights clanking as he approached the door. He paused before pushing through to find Heath working out in the far corner with his soccer cronies, Lance Van Brachel and Teague Williams. Apparently, it took three guys to bench-press—one to do the work and two to stand around and cheer him on. Along the back wall, beneath the giant maroon-and-blue Waverly banners, some other guys shot a game of horse on the half basketball court. There was Brandon Buchanan, in what looked like tennis whites, Ryan Reynolds, Lon Baruzza, Erik Olssen, and Alan, who was the kicker on the football team and got ribbed mercilessly for it. He claimed to love it because he was never on the field for more than two minutes in any game, ever. Other than that, the field house was empty—no girls in field hockey skirts stretching or doing gymnastics.

Easy took a deep breath. Maybe doing some sort of activity would help him focus and get his mind off Callie, an obsession that had gotten him too many reprimands, half a dozen teacher conferences, multiple probations, and several near-expulsions. He’d gone through a Nietzsche phase last spring after taking Dr. Rosenberg’s Intro to Philosophy class, and remembered a quote from one of the dog-eared library books: “Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.”

“You lost, Walsh?” Heath panted as he lifted himself off the weight bench. His heather gray
SMILE
IF
YOU
WANT
TO
KISS
ME T-shirt was drenched with sweat.

Easy tipped his chin, the way he’d seen jocks acknowledge each other on campus. He had nothing to say to Heath, but he didn’t know Lance or Teague that well and felt like he’d stepped into enemy territory.

“Where’s Coach Cadogan?” Easy asked, suddenly self-conscious in his Waverly blazer when all the other guys wore sweaty shirts and shorts.

Lance, a senior with an extra-large head, jammed his thumb in the air. “On his back in the office,” he said. “Says the rain makes his back ache.”

Easy wasn’t sure if he should bother Coach Cadogan, but he also wasn’t sure if just showing up at the gym would count with Mrs. Horniman. He looked at the grease board outside Coach Cadogan’s office and saw the notice:
ALL
SPORTS
CANCELED
TODAY
DUE
TO
RAIN
.
WORK
OUT
INSTEAD
,
YOU
BIG
BABIES
.

Brandon let out a howl as a wide jump shot bounced off the rim and rainbowed back toward the weight bench. “Heads up!” he called out. The basketball bounced off a stack of worn blue exercise mats and rolled toward Heath.

“Girls!” Heath shouted as he booted the ball back toward the court. “We’re trying to pump up here! Keep your balls to yourself.”

Brandon picked up the ball and bounce-passed it to Easy. “You want in?” he asked. His normally gelled-to-perfection hair was damp and tousled, and he looked much more relaxed than usual. Apparently, dating Sage Francis was treating him right.

Easy shrugged and dropped his canvas messenger back on the floor, sliding his wet Waverly blazer down on top of it. “Sure.” He carried the ball onto the court, his wet shoes squeaking.

“Traveling,” Alan joked as he ran up behind Easy and tried to steal the ball from him.

“You guys playing horse? What letter is everyone on?” Easy asked, bouncing the ball in front of him and holding Alan back with an arm. His older brothers used to make him play basketball with them just so they could have someone to knock to the ground. No wonder he thought jocks were assholes.

“U,”
Ryan called out, bouncing in place on the balls of his feet. Some part of him was always moving—he kept tapping his foot, snapping his fingers, rubbing his knees—and Easy wished he would either get some Valium or get laid.

Easy eyed the basket. “There’s no
U
in Horse.”

“We’re playing Bullshit,” Lon answered, lunging for Easy in an effort to snatch the ball. “Sounds like you can’t get horses off your mind. What do you do with them out in the stables all day, anyway?” He leered at Easy.

“Same thing you do with Benny.” Easy bounced the ball a few times in front of him. He felt the rubber dimples in his callused hands as he let the ball fly. He opened his eyes in time to see it bounce hard off the backstop and right to Lon, who was reputedly getting nowhere with Benny Cunningham after weeks of sneaking her out to the gazebo. “Nothing.”

“Cold,” Ryan shouted, thumping his fist against his chest and laughing. He held his arms out for the ball. Lon passed it to him, then good-naturedly flipped off Easy. Ryan bounced the ball and hurled it toward the basket, the bottom strings of the net whooshing as the ball fell just short.

“I haven’t seen you fucktards make a shot yet,” Heath called out, tearing his shirt off and jogging over to the court, apparently needing to be half-naked to shoot properly.

“Be our guest,” Brandon said. He pumped the ball in Heath’s direction. Heath caught it and dribbled in place.

“Fuck, I’m bored,” he said. He heaved the ball more at Brandon than the basket. “How long can we stay cooped up in here?”

“Yeah, me too,” Lance said. “I’m going for a jog. Who’s in?”

“Me,” Teague said. “It’s just a little rain.”

The rest of them watched as Lance and Teague donned their maroon Waverly windbreakers and headed out into the rain. Easy scratched his head and tried to imagine why anyone would want to run at all, much less run in the rain. Lon practiced his jump shot while everyone else stood on the sidelines.

“You know what we need to do?” Heath asked suddenly, staring up at a large banner that read
WAVERLY
BOYS’
SOCCER
DIVISION
CHAMPS
1977. “We need to organize a
Men
of Waverly club.”

“A what?” Lon shouted from the court.

“You heard me,” Heath answered. “We need something for times like these, when we’ve got nowhere to go and nothing to do. The chicks have their little club, so why shouldn’t we?”

“You mean like a poker club or something?” Ryan asked, wiping drops of sweat off his forehead and looking less-than-enthused about spending time with a bunch of guys.

“Strippers, poker, sure, whatever.” Heath rubbed his hands over his bare chest, deep in thought. “The point is, there are enough of us that we should band together and give the ladies a run for their money.”

Easy lazily picked up the basketball and rotated it in his hands. It was unlikely that Mrs. Horniman would consider Heath’s poker/strip club a worthwhile extracurricular activity— but if they did it on school grounds, and sort of fudged their mission statement a little, maybe it could pass.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Brandon agreed. Easy glanced at Brandon, surprised to hear him side with Heath.

“Thanks for the vote, Buchanan,” Heath said. “Who else is in?” He raised his hand like a second-grader, and it wasn’t long before the others did the same, all staring at Easy, who still had his hands at his sides.

Easy shrugged. His father belonged to the Century Club back in Lexington, where lascivious old geezers pretended to love golf and racquetball so they could lust over the curvy college girls who spent their summers handing them cocktails.Whenever Easy thought about any sort of male bonding, he thought of those jackasses.

But military school had to be worse. “Yeah, sure, okay,” Easy responded finally.

“Good,” Heath said. “This’ll shake things up a little around here.” The veins around his left eye pulsed, and Easy couldn’t tell whether it was from lifting weights or from whatever wild, slightly illegal plans he was hatching for the Men of Waverly club.

At least it
sounded
official.

Asharp pain shot through Callie’s back as she feebly swung the ax with both hands. The dull blade thudded into the stump of wood, shaving a little bark off, but hardly cracking it into firewood.

“Put some muscle into it!” Natasha barked, clapping her thick, muscular hands like a satanic cheerleader. Natasha wasn’t her coach’s real name, but Callie hadn’t managed to catch it when the old hun had spat it out at the crack of dawn. It didn’t even sound like Natasha—it was more guttural and mean sounding.

“I’m slipping!” Callie protested, pointing at the oversize work boots Natasha had issued her. She’d been given standard-issue denim pants (to call them jeans would have been flattery they didn’t deserve—they were high-waisted and felt like they were made of cardboard) and a button-down flannel shirt. Flannel? And now chopping wood? She hadn’t worn flannel since her grandmother had given her a pair of pink pajamas with kittens on them in third grade—and they’d felt like satin compared to this nasty fabric.

This place was not, in any sense of the word, a spa. The second Natasha had left her room after the brutal awakening that morning, Callie had immediately reached for her silver Razr to call her mother. She needed to (A) bitch her out—she should be getting a facial, not chopping wood!—and (B) get the hell out of here. But to Callie’s horror, she found her cell phone had been confiscated. She threatened to call the police on Natasha, thrashing around her barren room. But of course, calling the police would also require a phone. Figuring this couldn’t last forever, she’d reluctantly slipped into the thick work pants and laced up the boots that were at least half a size too big and looked like they’d been worn by about a hundred people before her.

“Use your muscles,” Natasha snapped, leaning toward Callie threateningly. Callie glared at her and planted her boots more firmly in the mud. She turned her back on Natasha and blinked her eyes rapidly. It was positively
arctic
here—even her teeth were cold—and she could feel her hair frizzing nastily without her Oscar Blandi intensive repair conditioner.