The Starter Boyfriend (21 page)

Jacy stepped closer to Saffron. “Look, while I don’t know much about Courtney’s life, I do think you’re missing something here. How many girls would have given a Homecoming Court date back to his ex, and missed the dance altogether? And it’s simply karma: good things happen to good people. Randy and I will always be grateful to her.”

Wow, that was
go big or go home
recognition from two people placed very high in the S.B. statusphere. I crossed my arms and sent her my best smile.

Courtyard security Betty Anne suddenly appeared in the center of things, a hand on her uniformed hip. “Everything okay here?”

I glanced around the circle, then back at the all-eyes-on-us table behind. And then shifted my grin to Betty Anne. “Thanks, but you know, I think it finally is.”

Chapter 25

The bell rang, and I started across the courtyard toward my next class. Only to feel Flea scurry up beside me.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am that this Saffron thing is over, Courtney. It’s been making me crazy.”

I was thrilled that she’d rushed up to me, but knew I had to brace myself for words I might not want to hear. “Did you know she had it out for me?”

Her cheeks rose with her grimace. “I knew
something
was up, that she wasn’t taking the head shaving thing as well as she’d pretended. I’d heard her mumbling your name in the dugout right after it happened, followed by a line from one of The Godfather movies about revenge being a dish best served when cold. Which I wrote off as petty and creepy.”

People passed by us, some giving us perfunctory nods, but it was hard for me to be anywhere but inside Flea’s confession.

“Lately, she’d made one too many digs about you being more interested in your job than the team and how you didn’t come out with us anymore. So with her party.” She paused, and seemed to swallow hard. “I really
did
think you knew about it, but was worried that she was using it as a test to see if you’d show up. And if you did, how you’d react to her going after Adam. To see if you’d roll with things and put the team first.”

“
Her
first.”

“Well, yeah. And you sure passed that one.”

“Although she still she came at me with both barrels blazing.”

“No joke. The Randy thing made no sense, either, because in your face she acted
so
excited and supportive of the two of you being together, but behind your back she was predicting you were going to dump all of us for him and his crowd.”

I knew it!

“She said you were a social climber.”

“Oh, right! Did you call her on it?”

“Absolutely. But you know Saffron. Once she has her mind set on something...”

I nodded, feeling the obvious statement hanging in the air between us. We were best friends. Why hadn’t she come to me about this as it was happening?

“I’m sorry,” she blurted, clearly on the same page. “I know I should have said something sooner. But Courtney, she
did
have a point about some of it. You weren’t coming around much. You
were
pulling back, and changing. I didn’t really know where I stood with you anymore. If we were still besties, even.”

I felt my muscles tighten. “
I
wasn’t changing. You guys were. With the drinking.”

“Hey,” she shot right back, “we’re juniors now. Everybody drinks.”

“Not everybody, Flea.”

Her mouth quirked, then froze. She had to know I was right.

“People were making it super-hard for me not to drink,” I pushed on. “Making cracks, hinting I was no longer fun. There was only so much I could take, and it seemed easier to say I had to work late or early in the morning and avoid the whole thing. Which was why I applied for my job in the first place,” I admitted with an exhale. “It wasn’t about the money, it was about trying to keep the peace with you guys.”

Stopping beside my classroom door, she studied my face, her lips pressing into a thin line. Okay, okay, it was fair to say these past months hadn’t been easy for her, either.

“Flea, you know my mom’s a drunk. Well,” I added, and felt an surprising surge of pride, “apparently a recovering one now. She just got her ninety day chip.”

“That’s wonderful!”

“Yeah. Anyway, her alcoholism probably makes me hyper-sensitive about this stuff. But in any case, even if I didn’t have to deal with that, it’s okay not to drink. I need you to respect that.”

She did this big nasal inhale, making me think (hopefully) of a fresh air and a fresh start. “Yes, you’re right.”

“Thank you. I’m going need your help, when people get on me about it. Saffron, Madison, whoever.”

“First of all, Saffron’s, like
dead
to me after those fliers. And secondly, that’s what best friends are for, right?”

I smiled.

While I’ll never know who made the first move, suddenly we were smashed together in a full-contact, true-feeling, BFF hug. I even suspected there was some thick-throated, wet eyes involved. At least, I know there was for me.

* * *

I was on a roll. These things didn’t happen very often—at least not to me—and the timing couldn’t have been better since I had one really crappy thing left to do: text message Phillip about a good time to return the dress.

The problem was, I had detention all week and of course the wedding on Saturday, so it had to be an evening that he was staying open. If he’d agree to see me at all.

I labored over the wording, finally going with a straightforward question, and sending the text moments before entering the detention room. Then I dutifully turned off my phone. I was going for model student, just in case there was “time off for good behavior.”

Ninety incredibly boring minutes later, I jacked my phone back on. Nothing from Phillip.

A reply didn’t arrive until that night, while I was helping clear the dinner dishes:
I’ll be here Thursday until six
.

Short, but definitely not sweet, giving my heart a cold whack.

Glancing over at Jennifer, I fleetingly reconsidered her offer to drop the dress back for me or to tag along as moral support. The thing was, as uncomfortable and embarrassing as this mess had become, it was my mess. The only way I’d be able to put it behind me was to see it through alone.

Besides, she was frantic with the wedding just days away. Not to mention all the crazy moves she kept breaking into every time she remembered what Saffron had said about her.

“Remind me again,” she prompted that next evening, holding the fruit bowl on her head while doing a hip-thrusting salsa through the dining room. “I am the only cool step-parent at Sunset Beach High?”

“Better than that,” I said, grabbing her waist to wiggle my way into a conga line. “You are the only
totally
cool one.”

“Totally cool!” she cried out. “That’s me!”

She waved her free hand at my dad, only to have him saunter his way up front to lead us in the shaking of an imaginary maraca.

Making me think that Jennifer wasn’t joining our family as much as we were becoming hers. Which was also totally cool.

* * *

Jacy dropped by the softball table during morning break that next day to ask if I wanted to hit Mickey D’s with her at lunch.

Across from me, Flea’s head jerked up. She and I had plans to split the caf’s special later, an oversized taco salad.

“Thanks,” I told Jacy. “How about another time?”

Jacy held my gaze a beat longer than necessary, telling me she’d sized up the situation. “You got it.”

I bit back a smile, but my eyes didn’t follow Jacy as she wandered off, nor travel to Flea. They went instead to Saffron a couple seats over, who sat crunching carrot sticks as if in acts of protest, probably steaming mad that our lives were continuing on without her direction or permission. (Ha!)

But hours later, pulling the dress bag from my backseat, I wasn’t exactly a happy camper myself. I just hoped I could pass the dress off to Phillip quickly, and keep our chilly encounter to a minimum.

Crossing the parking lot with the dress cradled between my outstretched arms, my mind drifted back to the afternoon I’d tried the dress on, to the admiring look on Phillip’s face and even the mirrored reflection of my own. I remembered how the dress had made me feel different, prettier, smarter and more in control. And I marveled at how something as simple as fabric and notions could effect a person’s whole self-image. Almost like therapy. Retail therapy.

I’ve loved retail on both sides of the counter. Too bad I’d screwed up and lost the best chance I had at making some kind of career out of that, huh?

The sight of the window display took that, and all other rational thoughts, from my head. For it was empty. Darkened and empty.

“Hello,” I called out, forcing myself through the doorway.

Phillip repeated my greeting while stepping out from behind his desk. Instead of making a move to take the dress from my arms, he walked right on past.

I turned to see him flipping the “We’re Open” sign to “We’re Closed.”

Everything inside me tensed.

“I want you to answer something for me, Courtney, truthfully,” he said, then pointed to the display rack for me to hang the dress. “When you took the mannequin out to the beach the other night, was it really for safety reasons? Or were you taking him on a date?”

The hanger made a solid clunk as it connected with the rack, but I’m pretty sure my own gasp was even louder as I whirled in his direction. “Safety—really! I wouldn’t have taken it if it wasn’t important.”

“All right,” he said and shrugged. “Because these past few weeks, sometimes when I’d find you beside the mannequin, well, I thought you were seeing more than was there. Like the mannequin had become sort of
real
to you.”

I nodded; I couldn’t help myself.

“Like a fantasy boyfriend.”

Emotion grabbed hold of my throat. While my father and Adam had made noble efforts at recognizing Tux and what he might mean to me, Phillip had hit it on the head. “I called him my starter boyfriend,” I croaked out, then laughed. Not because it was at all funny, just crazy. “How did you know?”

“Let’s just say you’re not the first teenager to be confused about your life, and to act out in an unusual way.” He sat the stool beside the alteration pedestal. “I’ll bet you didn’t know I was a football star in my day? Right here at Sunset Beach High.”

I shook my head.

“That’s how I got my limp, trying to crawl my way out of a huddle. That aside, I had a great life. So great, in fact, I developed a fear of high school ending. Meanwhile, my grandmother had moved in with us for what would be her final months, and proceeded to teach my sister and me her lifelong love of sewing. Which I thought was pretty pointless and stupid at first.

“After she died, I really missed her,” he added, scratching at his chin. “I found myself stealing into her room sometimes and playing with her sewing machine. Just because it made me feel closer to her. Soon enough, I’d created this cool zombie Halloween costume. Next thing I knew, I was making them for the whole team. Which the guys loved—but only because I got my sister to cover for me, to say she made them. Because macho football players did not sew, right?

“And therein lay the rub: the one thing that was giving me the most peace in my changing world would also give me the most grief if people ever found out.”

Hearing Phillip found solace in needlework was hardly a shock, but I’d never considered when or how he got so good at it, and I was incredibly touched that he was sharing it. Especially after I’d done a big, fat nothing to deserve his confidence, let alone friendship.

“I got my start in custom fabric furniture,” he went on. “Eventually moving on to this shop. It all worked out for me. And it will for you, too. Especially now that you’re ‘over’ the mannequin.” He narrowed his eyes. “You
are
over it?”

“
So
over!” I spread my fingers out in front of me. “How did you figure it out?”

“Your tension would just fall away when you got near the thing. And then I’d see you sort of fawn and flirt, telling me you were imagining it to be your boyfriend. When you announced you had a Homecoming date, I was so happy for you, hoping a ‘real boyfriend’ might help you to move on from the fake one.” His eyes widened. “Even though, honestly, I thought you had more chemistry with the surfer boy than the jock.”

“You’re right,” I blew out on a breath, my fingers coming up to my warm cheeks. “About everything. The chemistry with Adam, the hiding inside the fantasy that Tux was my boyfriend. Wow, Phillip, thank you for seeing all that, and for understanding, and sharing. I’m only sorry I let you down the way I did.”

He did a quick shrug. “Thing is, I’ve missed you around here, kiddo. It’s too quiet. Too boring.”

He smiled, and I did, too.

“If you can promise me that nothing like that would ever happen again—you’d never use your key after-hours, you’d never take any of my property out—I’d be willing to give you another chance. I think we make a pretty good team.”

“Oh, Phillip!” I cried and threw myself at him in a hug so hard I almost knocked him off the stool. “Thank you! Thank you! You have my word.”

“I take it that means yes.”

I squealed. “Yes! I can’t tell you how happy I am to come back. To have your respect again, and this job.” I swallowed hard. “Not because I’m trying to hide from anything anymore. Because I love this job, and I’ve been realizing how much I’ve been learning from you, about fashion and retail, and, well,
people
. You’re kind of like college-before-college for me, helping me figure out my future.”

A smile teased at his mouth. “Well, since you put it that way, I have no choice but to welcome you back, huh?” Then his smile fell away. “But no more messing around with my mannequin?”

“I promise,” I said and crossed my heart. Because in addition to respecting my soon-to-be-boss-again’s wishes, I knew I no longer needed Tux.