The International Kissing Club (35 page)

Where the hell was he?

Six torturous days later, Cassidy stood on the beach at North Narrabeen Point, outside Sydney, shifting from foot to foot, adjusting and readjusting her watchband, pulling her hair into a ponytail, then taking it back down.

“Are you okay, Cassidy?” Kara, Lucas’s sister, asked.

“What? Sure, I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

She laughed. “Nothing. You seem a bit twitchy, that’s all.”

“Oh, sorry, that’s the double espresso I had before you picked me up,” she fibbed. She couldn’t tell Kara the real reason she was acting like she’d missed a dose of Ritalin: she’d spent last night waiting, watching the moon cross the sky, instead of sleeping. At all.

When Lucas had called her to say good night, Cassidy had wanted to crawl through the phone. Turned out, not seeing Lucas was a much bigger distraction than seeing him ever could be.

Stupid, stupid break.

God, she’d wasted a whole week not being with him, and now she had only three more left until she went back home.

Lucas had asked Kara to bring her today because he’d had to get here so early. When the poor girl had shown up at Mrs. Gatwick’s, Cassidy was waiting on the stoop and had practically launched herself into the car before Kara came to a full stop.

The crowd was already thick on the beach when they’d arrived. Vendor tents lined the high ground, and you could barely walk without tripping over a surfboard. Cassidy scanned up and down the sand, her breath catching every time she thought she spotted Lucas’s wavy blond hair among the other surfers.

“Hey, girls, you made it,” she heard his out-of-breath voice call. Cassidy whirled to see him coming up from the water’s edge several yards away, carrying his shortboard under his arm. Her heart started hop-skipping around in her chest and she ran what had to be her record best in the fifty-yard dash. Lucas barely had enough time to drop the board and catch her as she jumped onto him, wrapping her arms around his neck, not caring that she was getting soaked to the skin. Good thing he was so strong, because any other guy would have been knocked to the ground by her body slam.

“Jesus, I’ve missed you,” he said before he set her down and kissed her. She kissed him back like she was using the air from his lungs to breathe, and she kept kissing him beyond the point of good taste, until the wolf whistles and heckling got too loud to ignore.

A throat cleared next to them. “Can I get a hug and kiss, as well, li’l man? Only not like that one,” Kara teased. Lucas shifted away from Cassidy just long enough to greet his sister, but it seemed way too long for Cass. She wanted him all to herself.

“The first heat’s about to begin. You two should go get seats in the stands.” Lucas pulled her against him again and smiled. God, that little dimple had haunted her dreams for the past week. “A kiss for good luck?”

She gave him a quick peck on the lips. “That’s for luck,” she said,
casting an impish grin when he looked disappointed. “The one for winning, well … you’ll have to win to find out, won’t you?”

So, Lucas did just that.

And after the finals, he waded through all the well-wishers to find her waiting with Kara at the front of the stands. She was almost gushing—okay, yes, she was gushing—with happiness for him.

He gazed up at her, his honey-colored eyes shining. “Hey, American girl, I believe I was promised a kiss for winning. Pay up.”

Cassidy bent over the aluminum rail to reach him. “I believe you’ve earned all the kisses you can handle, Lucas McCann,” she said before granting his prize.

Oh, this had gone way past dangerous—she’d taken the corner around dangerous at a reckless speed and gone off into the abyss.

Who cared if she was drowning? There were so many worse ways to go than this.

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Messages

Between
Piper
and
Izzy
:

Piper

I need help. I think I really screwed up.

Izzy

What happened?

Piper

What does it say about me that I accidentally kissed a guy I barely know!

Izzy

It’s not you. Others have done far worse than accidental kissing. We know you’re fabulous.

Piper

Why does everyone keep saying that? Is that code for “You’re so pathetic we can’t tell you the truth”?

Izzy

No. It’s code for men are stupid, effing idiots. Believe me. I know.

Piper

Is Linc giving you a hard time?

Izzy

He is the least of my worries … But no kissing action here. I’ll leave it at that. Btw, thanks for the chocolates. They’re a great substitute.

Piper

I’d send you a French guy if I could.

Izzy

Back to you … Does the new point you posted refer to the “accident”?

Piper

I told you I screwed up. I was colossally stupid. I really screwed the pooch.

Izzy

Please tell me there wasn’t an actual dog involved! Just kidding. Trying to lighten the mood.

Piper

Should I tell Sebastian?

Izzy

God, no. Just try to gloss over it. What Sebastian doesn’t know won’t hurt him. As long as it didn’t mean anything.

Piper

Oh God, no. In fact, I think I deserve negative points. Can I take it back?

Izzy

Don’t worry, no one will hold it against you.

Izzy

I really miss you, Pipes.

Piper

I miss you, too, but I gotta go. Simone is taking me to a show at Le Moulin Rouge. Thanks for the advice.

Chapter 19
Izzy

After seven weeks of eating lunch basically alone, Izzy had thought she was used to it. For the first few days, she’d put an inordinate amount of thought into where to sit. One table over was where the stoners sat—not that there were many of them in Paris, but every school had some. By the back entrance was a row of tables where all the 4-H types ate. Since she’d gone vegetarian to reduce her carbon footprint, she didn’t exactly have a lot in common with them. Near the door, the hardcore geeks congregated. Then along the east wall sat the trio of tables where Germaine held court. In the far west corner sat the now empty table she’d shared with Piper, Mei, and Cassidy for the past two years. She hadn’t been able to face sitting there alone.

In the end, she’d followed Mei’s advice and sat with the debate nerds and mathletes. Of course, she meant that with a great deal of affection. They were the only clique that had been welcoming at all. But as friendly as they were, they weren’t really her
friends
. They had their own lingo, their own set of inside jokes. So she sat at the end of their table, keeping the illusion of being part of a group, without really being part of it.

Armed with her insulated bag full of hummus, olives, and pita bread in one hand and her battered copy of Al Gore’s
Earth in the Balance
in the other, she dragged herself to the cafeteria, determined to hold her head high as she claimed her new spot on the fringes of
geekdom. She’d tried to keep up with the conversation, until they’d started arguing the top ten episodes of
Battlestar Galactica.

Izzy had just unearthed her bookmark from the tome when she saw Germaine’s evil minions slithering by on their way to the royal dais. The wolves were circling again. Rosemary tittered as she passed. Izzy just gritted her teeth and focused on the fact that the earth had it a lot worse than she did. But just as she was starting to read her book, someone paused by her table.

Izzy tried not to notice, pretending to be engrossed in reading. When the person didn’t budge, she finally looked up. Germaine the Lame. Why wasn’t she surprised?

Germaine smiled. “I hope you’re not mad about my teasing last weekend out at Tanner’s farm.”

Suspicious, Izzy searched Germaine’s perfect features for the near permanent sneer of disdain. For once, it was absent. Suddenly even more nervous, Izzy muttered, “I—”

“Tanner thought I might have hurt your feelings.” Then she gave her annoying trilling laugh, even though there was nothing funny about what she’d said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Izzy said quickly, wanting the conversation to end. If Tanner had put Germaine up to this, she was going to kill him. Why did Invisabel Isabel have to slip out from under the radar
now
?

“Thanks!” Germaine’s smile broadened. “You know, you should come sit with us.”

“With you?” Izzy stilled.

“Sure.” Germaine gave her arm a little tug. “Pack up your lunch and come sit at our table.”

Michaela had stopped a few feet behind Germaine. Now she stood with her mouth gaping open like one of the fake fish people mounted on their walls.

“I don’t th—”

“Come on,” Germaine coaxed. “What else are you going to do, sit
here by yourself for three more weeks? Al Gore hasn’t written that many books, you know.”