The Kissing Deadline (14 page)

The lipstick applier turned and addressed the
couple in a slurred voice. “Do I need more gloss?” They ignored
her, so she turned to Cassie.

Cassie recognized Lynn by her uni-brow. She
knew what she wanted to hear. “Yes.” All that work on her lipstick
and all Lynn needed was five seconds with a razor.

Cassie spotted a second door and wondered if
it led to a second bathroom. Maybe she could get the male half of
the couple in front of her to check it out. “Uh, excuse me.” They
ignored her and pressed impossibly closer.

A jock walking by pointed to the second door.
“The back bathroom is empty, but we’d have to share.”

Cassie shook her head. He’d never even said
hi
to her in the hallways, now he thought she’d share a
bathroom with him? “Uh, no thanks.”

“’K, later.” The jock took her rejection well
and stumbled to get a spot in line at the beer funnel.

Another couple shoved in behind Cassie.
Unable to ignore their determination to get in her space, she let
them go in front of her. Now she was seventh in line, and no one
had left the bathroom since she joined the queue. She sighed and
wondered again how much trouble she’d get in if she went home
smelling like beer, but knew it was too much to make her leave the
line.

Ryan nodded as someone told him what a sick
party it was then waved a hand her way. “Come with me.”

Cassie didn’t hesitate. She followed him
toward the exit.

As they cleared the doorway, Amber, wearing
her cheer uniform, threw herself toward Ryan, and put her arms
around him.

Why did he date her?

“Pre-paid cabs are out front,” Ryan called to
a guy puking in the precision hedge.

”Let’s take the party into your house,” Amber
said.

“No way.” Cassie watched the vomiting guy
pivot and heave toward the flagstone path. Cassie wouldn’t let
these guests near the house if it were hers. She wouldn’t let them
near her ditch.

Amber turned her gaze on Cassie. “Did I ask
you? Who asked you?”

“My lab partner spilled her drink,” Ryan
said.

“Partner?” Amber said. “She’s such a klutz. I
want to continue the party in the house. Outside is lame.” Amber’s
voice held more demand. Her gaze flickered to the pool house and
stilled. ”Ooh, pyramid funnel.” A joyous smile spread across her
face, and she abandoned them. Drunks weren’t hard to distract.

Cassie figured she’d lose Ryan now that Amber
was near, but he led her to the side of his large two-storied
house. He unlatched the biometric lock with a finger swipe. Cassie
followed him through the arched wooden door, tugging at the clingy
damp fabric of her top. “Do you have a hair dryer too? For after I
rinse out my shirt?”

“Guys don’t use hair dryers.”

He was leading her down a marble hallway and
up a small back stairway. His house had two staircases--no hair
dryer, but two staircases.

Ryan eyed her tote. “What’s in the bag?”

“Swimsuit.”

“No cookies?”

“My swimsuit.” She followed him into a study
and he pointed toward a door. Cassie slipped inside and locked it.
The full bathroom was decorated in grey tiles with a separate tub
and shower and smelled like Ryan’s cologne. She breathed in and
braced her hands on the granite. She didn’t know what was better,
his cologne or his bathroom. Twice the size of hers, it had two
doors, the one she came through, and one off the other side. Cassie
locked the second one before slipping her shirt and bra off and
sticking them in the sink. This was so surreal. She was in Ryan’s
bathroom.
In Ryan’s bathroom--with no shirt on.

Soap foamed against the fabric, erasing the
beer smell, and after Cassie washed up, she wrapped herself in a
dry bath towel.

Tap, Tap, Tap.
The knock jolted her
heartbeat. “What?” she asked, feeling naked.

“Want to borrow a shirt?” Ryan asked through
the door.

Absolutely. “Yes.” Cassie unlocked the door,
and Ryan handed her a blue t-shirt and a button up. Ryan usually
wore a nice shirt over a t-shirt. It was funny he’d given her two
instead of one.

“Thanks.” Cassie retreated and put on her
bikini top, his t-shirt, and the over shirt. They were huge and
hung down to her thighs. She wrapped her wet shirt around her wet
bra and threw them into her tote before leaving the bathroom. “I
need a favor.”

Ryan held her stare. “What’s it worth to you?
You already have the shirt off my back.”

An exaggeration, because he still wore his
maroon polo over swim trunks. He plopped down onto a small sofa and
tapped his hand against a hardback book left open on the cushion.
Cassie forgot they were bargaining when she saw it. She removed a
copy from her tote bag. “I’m reading the new Suzanne Collins too.”
The book jacket was a little damp, and she rubbed the moisture off
before holding it up. “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” He nodded. She took
the other end of the couch, licked her lips, preparing to ask him
for the favor. “Sierra and I have to leave by 9:30 so we’ll be home
by 10 p.m.”

Ryan nodded. Minors had to be off the roads
by 10 p.m. during the first year of their Texas driver’s license,
unless the trip was an emergency or work-related. His party was
neither, though it looked like it might turn into the former. “I
want to hang out somewhere and read until then.”

He said, “Lame.”

“So.”

“Okay.”

Ryan flipped open his laptop, squaring the
monitor on the coffee table so it faced them. Music came from
speakers mounted in the wall as the opening credits of an action
movie came on. “Did you see this one?”

“No,” Cassie said, and let her book fall
closed.

Ryan turned and lay back on the couch
cushion. He dropped his head in her lap and propped his feet on the
armrest. The movie ran in the background, but he wasn’t paying any
attention. He had his eyes closed and Cassie stared at his long
eyelashes against his cheekbones, feeling somewhat confused about
what to do but no longer having any interest in reading. She
touched his hair. The strands were coarser than her own, but nice.
She sank her fingers in deeper, gliding her nails over his scalp in
a massaging motion.

Ryan shivered and murmured a noncommittal
noise.

Cassie let her hand fall and Ryan circled her
wrist and pulled her arm to his chest. She felt the rise and fall
of his breathing and the hard strength of his muscles under her arm
and hoped he couldn’t feel her pulse race under his fingertips.
Ryan let his arm drop and she left her hand over his heart.

“Wild party,” she commented. “I didn’t even
recognize some of those guys.”

Ryan’s eyelids popped open and she was so
close she could see the flecks of blue and gold in the green of his
irises. “You don’t need to know any of those losers.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I may bring a date next
time to one of these cage matches you call a party.” Cassie moved
her hand to his shoulder and squeezed. Her fingers weren’t long
enough to cup the whole of his muscled shoulder and she moved her
hand in a circular motion to press another spot. “Someone has to
protect me from your other guests.”

His eyelids lowered again and his big hand
dropped over hers. “You’re not dating any of those losers." He half
rose and slid an arm around her waist then pulled her down beside
him. Cassie grabbed for her shirt, keeping the length modest and
Ryan tugged a square throw pillow flat, positioning it under their
heads. Cassie breathed in, feeling her heart beat fast, and knowing
it had nothing to do with the on–screen car chase.

“The soundtrack’s killer. What do you think?”
Ryan asked.

“I don’t know. I like an alternative edge.
What do you like about it?”

Ryan expanded on how loud music got you out
of your own head and into the moment. He talked more about music
than the movie and Cassie agreed some and argued about other bits.
She hadn’t realized how much time had passed until his cell phone
beeped. “Yeah.”

Ryan’s voice was startling in its closeness,
just above her ear. “Okay, Yeah, I’ll find her and bring her out.”
He disconnected. “It’s Mike. Sierra’s at the car, and she’s ready
to go.”

Cassie sat up and stretched her arms
overhead, eyeing the latest of the music videos that had come on
after the movie ended. “Okay.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Ryan said.

She followed Ryan down the grand staircase
and out the front to Sierra’s car. Mike lay angled against Sierra,
kissing her while she lay against the driver’s door. “Dude, do you
even care we’re watching?” Ryan asked.

Mike straightened but he didn’t react to
Ryan’s comment. He glanced between Ryan and Cassie and took revenge
for being yanked out of his romantic goodbye. “What are you
wearing, Cassie?”

“Don’t worry about it, Mike.” Cassie turned
to Ryan and glanced down at the shirt he’d lent her.

Ryan said, “Keep it.”

“I’ll bring it to class.” She lowered her
voice. “I had fun tonight.”

He paused in reaching for the passenger door.
His eyes searched hers a moment and he touched her cheek with his
free hand. Then he blinked and backed up a step. “Me too.”

Cassie, screamingly conscious of Sierra and
Mike watching them, sank into the seat with a small wave as Ryan
shut the door behind her.

The ignition turned over. “Spill it,” Sierra
said.

Cassie shared her drama then her total lack
of it.

Sierra laughed. “No shirt on, in his house,
and still no kiss? I can’t wait to tell Brooke. I don’t think
that’s ever happened to anyone before now.”

“Probably not.”

“Too bad Ryan has a girlfriend,” Sierra said.
“It’d be fun to double date. Me and Mike. You and Ryan.”

* * *

Sunday, March 11
^th
. They were
halfway through the kissing plan and had begun the downward spiral
toward her birthday. Cassie stared at row six on the poster,
Sierra’s Brother,
and tilted her head. “What does that
mean?”

Sierra ignored the question and removed a few
items from her backpack. “Here's the new stuff for your kiss kit.”
They included wintergreen mints, a tongue scraper and a jar of
maraschino cherries. Cassie put the mints on the table and lifted
the jar and tongue scraper. “What do I even do with these?” She
shook the jar, and the cherries danced.

Sierra took the jar from her and pushed the
mints at her. “Start with the wintergreen mints, jocks love them.”
She showed her row seven on the poster:
Kissy
Kristnaldo.

“No.” Cassie shook her head.

Brooke said, “Wait, we haven't talked about
number six yet.”

Cassie poked at Brooke's arm with the tongue
scraper. She didn’t like the looks of row seven and would rather go
back to row six too. “Yeah, what does, ‘
Sierra's brother’
mean?”

“We're going to pay Sierra's brother to kiss
you.” Brooke giggled over the last three words.

How embarrassing. Cassie stopped poking and
tossed the tongue scraper at her friend. “Can we forget that
one?”

“I know it’s taking the easy way out.” Brooke
was ready to justify the step, but Sierra stopped her.

“Yeah, about that. I asked Parker, and he
said no.”

Cassie slid to the floor in a death roll.
“Kill me now.”

“It’s not you he objected to, so much. It’s
being caught with a sophomore. He'd do it if you were a
junior.”

“She doesn't need him to kiss her when she's
a junior. Juniors can be selective. Did you thoroughly explain the
situation?”

“Please stop,” Cassie begged.

“I explained, and it’s just not going to work
out.” Sierra pointed back to number seven.

“We should focus on this, and…” She showed
them number eight.
Party: Spin The Bottle & Seven Minutes In
Heaven
. She removed a Coke bottle from her backpack, and gave
it a twirl. “We’ll play
Spin the Bottle
at Lizard’s St.
Patrick’s Day party.”

Cassie slapped a hand down to halt the
rotation
. “Half the kids in our school have mono, and you want
to start a game of spin the bottle?”

“Oh, you're playing.”

Trallwyn High School Dragon Scoop Monday,
March 12th

Lockdown drill may or may not occur this
week.

Cassie had Geography class first period--her
favorite class. Well, it had been until Ryan became her lab
partner. Now Geography was her second favorite. The teacher threw
in lots of cultural trivia to make the places on the map come
alive, plus she let them have drinks in class.

After January, when no major incidents had
occurred with the beverages, the teacher allowed them to bring in
breakfast. They got an extra point if they could connect their
breakfast item in any way to the topic being studied. They were
studying Canada this week. Canada had a French province, so Megan
made a nice tie-in to her French toast. Cassie was still trying to
think of a connection to her blueberry muffin when Ryan walked in.
He handed the teacher a slip of paper and looked around.

“Hi,” a jock called out.

“Hey, Rye,” another said.

The teacher looked over the paper with a
frown. “We have a new student in Geography. Please welcome
Ryan.”

“Hi, Ryan,” everyone said in unison.

Ryan walked back to Cassie’s desk and looked
at the kid beside her. The guy jumped up and offered Ryan his seat,
currying favor.

“Thanks…”

“Ian,” the skinny kid supplied.

“Thanks, Ian.” Ryan took Ian’s seat and eyed
Cassie’s blueberry muffin.

Yes!
“Um, Canadians are friendly,”
Cassie said, “so I offer the new kid half my blueberry muffin in
friendship.”

Ryan smiled and held out his hand.