“The question is, why didn’t you tell me that you drove over here with him? It makes it seem like you wanted to hide it.”
“I didn’t want to hide it,” I say. I’m limping now. “Can we sit down for a minute?” I ask irritably. “My shoe is falling apart.”
I hobble over to one of the benches in front of the hotel and rummage through my carry-on bag, looking for my spare shoes. I pull them out, a pair of simple pink flip-flops.
Derrick sits down on the bench next to me. “Look,” he says. “I don’t . . . I’m not mad. I mean, I am mad, but . . . maybe we should take some time to think about this.”
“To think about what?” I wiggle my toes in the new shoes. Much better.
“You know, the whole . . . sex thing.”
“You want to think about the whole sex thing?”
“Yeah. I mean, we need to ask ourselves if we really should be having sex when you just lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie to you!”
“You lied by omission. Which is just as bad.” He sighs and stands up. “I just don’t think we should rush into anything.”
“We’re not rushing into it,” I say. “We’ve been going out for two years! In fact, when you think about it, it’s completely ridiculous that we haven’t done it yet. We’re, like, stunted.”
“I’m not stunted,” he says, sounding offended.
It takes me a second to realize what he’s saying. That he’s not stunted but I am. Just because he’s not a virgin. Just because he had sex with Lucia Santos at the beginning of sophomore year. Just before we got together.
“I don’t mean each of us,” I say defensively. “I mean our relationship.”
This makes him mad. “You think our relationship is stunted?”
“No, that’s not what—”
“Are you two coming?” Mr. Beals, my AP bio teacher and one of our chaperones, asks us. He’s standing just inside the automatic doors at the front of the hotel, looking for stragglers. “We’re meeting in the conference room for an informational meeting.” His eyes widen when he sees me. “Lyla McAfee,” he says. “Were you on the bus?”
“Yes,” I say. “But I never got my room assignment. I think maybe I was overlooked somehow.”
He frowns, and his eyebrows knit together. His teacher sense is telling him something’s off about the situation, but he can’t really come right out and accuse me of lying, because he has no proof.
“Mr. Beals!” Janae Patt squeals, running up to him. “You need to come quick. Bruno James might have ringworm, and it’s, like, so contagious! We probably all have it. I think he needs to get to a doctor ASAP.”
Mr. Beals sighs. “Okay, guys,” he says to me and Derrick. “Please come inside. Lyla, we’ll get you your room assignment. Just please, come inside.”
I think about making a joke about how I don’t want to come inside if Bruno James has ringworm, but something about the look on Mr. Beals’s face makes me stop. The poor guy isn’t even going to be able to enjoy his time in Florida because he’s going to be dealing with our crazy senior class.
I stand up. “You coming?” I ask Derrick. I step closer to him, putting my arms around his waist and making sure to push my chest against his. Wow. When did I become such a sexual vixen? “We can talk about this a little later. After the meeting, we can go to our rooms and change into our suits. Then we can hit the beach.”
“No,” Derrick says. He takes my arms and removes them from around his waist.
“No?”
“No.” He shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Lyla, but I need a little time to think about this. I’ll text you later, okay?” He kisses my forehead (my forehead! WTF?) and then pushes by me and into the hotel.
The informational meeting is a complete joke, filled with rules no one’s going to follow, and it’s cut short because of the Bruno James ringworm scandal. It turns out I’m assigned to room 217, which is nice, because all the second-floor rooms have balconies overlooking the beach. When I get to my room, my roommates aren’t there yet, so I take a second to step out onto the balcony and take in the scene.
Miles of white sand stretch out in either direction, interrupted only by colorful beach umbrellas. The beach is busy, but not crazy—there are just enough people to make it look fun and happening, but not enough to make it too crowded, with no place to put your blanket. Not that I have a blanket. Hmmm.
I look down at the piece of paper in my hand, the one Mr. Beals handed me downstairs all absentminded-like while he was looking at Bruno James’s leg. Which definitely looked like it had ringworm. It was all burrowed into his skin, and like, round. Like a worm. Mr. Beals definitely looked disturbed. When I left to head up to my room, they were calling the hotel doctor down to take a look.
Lyla McAfee, the paper says. Room 217. I wonder who my roommates are. Since I got my room assignment late, Mr. Beals just scribbled it down on a piece of paper for me.
The rooms are triples, with two double beds and a cot in each one. I wonder if it would be rude to put my stuff down on one of the beds before my roommates get here. I mean, shouldn’t it be first come, first serve? On the other hand, the last thing I want to do is get them mad by staking my claim.
I take in a deep breath and sit down on one of the beds. I leave my carry-on sitting on the floor, so it seems like I’ve kind of taken ownership of the bed without actually taking ownership of it. The doors to the balcony are open, and a breeze flows through the room. There’s a fancy bottle of water and a sweet-looking clementine on my pillow, along with a tiny silver sunshine charm. Welcome to Florida, it says in lime-green lettering, the Sunshine State.
Everything is so cheerful and bright here!
But I don’t feel cheerful or bright.
All I can think about is Derrick.
What am I supposed to do until he calls me? And what about his phone? He said it was dead. How long will it take him to charge it? Twenty minutes? An hour? Will he plug it in right when he gets to his room? Will he text me while it’s charging, or is he going to wait until it’s fully charged? He’ll probably wait until it’s fully charged. Boys are so stupid like that. He probably doesn’t even realize he can just text me while it’s plugged in. He probably doesn’t—
The door to the hotel room goes flying open and Quinn Reynolds appears in front of me. Oh, god. First Aven at the airport, and now Quinn. What is this, some kind of nightmare?
She looks me up and down, her cool blue eyes taking me in. I remember those eyes. I remember how in the seventh grade Michael Masters told Quinn her eyes were beautiful, and I was so jealous I could hardly stand it. I went home and begged and begged my mom to let me get colored contacts, but she refused. I don’t even wear contacts—my vision is perfect—but I saw an advertisement online that said you could get them even if you didn’t need vision correction.
It just seemed so unfair for Quinn to have those gorgeous eyes when she wasn’t even interested in boys. All she was interested in was school. And getting into Stanford. And becoming . . . whatever it was that she wanted to become. First it was a doctor, then a lawyer, then an accountant, then a surgeon, then some kind of gene specialist. She could never just pick a normal job, like a teacher or something. No, Quinn had to be glamorous.
At least when it came to her careers.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she says now. She drops her suitcase on the floor and then walks into the bathroom and shuts the door.
Well.
That is definitely not the Quinn I remember. The Quinn I remember was afraid of making anyone upset and always knew the right thing to say. She always did the right thing, even if it was hard or uncomfortable.
Except when she told your secret.
The sound of water running comes floating through the bathroom door, and then finally she emerges. She doesn’t look at me and instead just walks across the room to her suitcase, which she lifts up and drops onto the other bed.
“I’m assuming you took that bed?” she asks
as she rummages through her clothes.
“Um, well, I’m not sure. I mean, I didn’t want to take it before everyone else got here, so I just thought that maybe—”
“Well, whatever,” she says, cutting me off. “You can have it. Let Aven sleep on the cot.”
“Aven?”
“Yeah.” Quinn pulls out a blue one-piece bathing suit, a gauzy white cover-up, and a pair of beaded flip-flops. “She’s our third roommate.”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Who’s in charge of making these room assignments anyway? I’d like to meet whoever it is, because they must have a really screwed-up sense of humor. Not that any of the teachers know that Quinn, Aven, and I used to be best friends. Actually, maybe they do. And this is their sick way of getting back at us for having to come on this trip and not have any fun.
“Yup,” Quinn says. She shakes her head sadly. “Apparently she’s still living in fantasy world.”
“What do you mean?”
“Aven was in charge of making the room assignments. She’s on the Student Action Committee.”
“The Student Action Committee?” Never heard of it. “I’ve never even heard of the Student Action Committee.”
“That’s not surprising,” Quinn says, shaking her head again.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing, just that sometimes you don’t pay attention to what’s going on.”
“Yeah,” I say. “And sometimes you pay too much attention to what’s going on.”
She opens her mouth to say something, but then she must realize what I’m really talking about. Our fight. The way she told my secret, how she almost cost me my relationship with my mom, how she might be the reason I haven’t talked to my dad in over two years
“Whatever,” Quinn says. She disappears into the bathroom again. When she emerges, she’s wearing her bathing suit and cover-up, along with the beaded flip-flops and a floppy brown hat. The hat looks ridiculous. But Quinn has fair skin (to go along with those gorgeous blue eyes), and she burns really easily.
“I like your hat,” I say, just to be a brat.
But Quinn either doesn’t get the sarcasm or doesn’t care. She starts taking her clothes out of her suitcase and refolding each piece carefully before placing them in the top dresser drawer.
“You’re unpacking?” I ask.
“Yes, Lyla, I’m unpacking. It’s what one does when they get to a place they’re staying. Most people don’t throw their things around like hooligans, even though I’m sure it’s just so tempting.”
I want to tell her it’s ridiculous to unpack your things at a hotel, that nobody does that, especially if they’re only staying for a few days, but I’m not sure if it’s true. Am I the weird one? Does everyone unpack their things at a hotel?
There’s a beep as someone slides their key card into our room door. The handle slides down and Aven walks in. She looks around the room. I glare at her, wanting to show my displeasure over the fact that she made us roommates. But if she has any embarrassment about it, she doesn’t show it. In fact, she doesn’t even try to hide her happiness. Her cheeks are all rosy and her hair is a little tangled and her eyes are bright. Her skin looks flushed, like maybe she ran up the stairs to get here.
She sees that Quinn and I have each snagged a bed, and I brace myself for a fight. Well, if she pitches a fit about it, there’s no way I’m going to take the cot. Aven should take it, as punishment for putting us all in this mess. Not that it would be a big deal for me to take the cot—I’ll probably be spending most of my time with Derrick in his room, anyway. (Well, once we make up from our fight.) Now that I know I’m rooming with Aven and Quinn, there’s no way I’m going to be able to have this room to myself. I’m not asking them for any favors.
We’ll just have to use Derrick’s room. It shouldn’t be a problem, even though Beckett’s here now. In fact, Beckett owes me for getting me in trouble with Derrick, so he’ll probably be happy to let me and Derrick have the room to ourselves for a few hours. A few hours? Is that how long it will take?
Not the actual sex part. I mean, I know that won’t take a few hours. Will it? That seems rather unpleasant. But you’d think we’d have dinner or something first, like out on the balcony. Ooh, maybe by candlelight! Derrick will order up some lobster or something from downstairs (is there even a restaurant downstairs?—I make a mental note to check), and it will be fresh from the ocean and we’ll sit on the balcony and eat and smell the salty air.
He’ll have ordered chocolate cake (my favorite) for dessert, but by the time we’re done eating our main course, there will be way too much anticipation, and I’ll be all, “Let’s just skip dessert, don’t you think?” and then his eyes will get all bright the way they do when he’s excited, and he’ll take my hand and lead me into the bedroom and then—
“I guess I’m taking the cot,” Aven says, not sounding put-upon at all. She drops her things on the cot, then stands in front of us and twists her hands together. “I just want you guys to know that I’m really happy we’re all rooming together.”
Quinn and I stare at her blankly.
“I think we could all benefit from spending some time together,” Aven goes on. “I know that our misunderstanding got out of hand, but with graduation coming up, I think it might really be time to move past it.”
I can’t help but laugh. “That’s what you think it was? A misunderstanding?” Yeah, if a misunderstanding is your two friends taking something you told them in confidence and then almost ruining your whole life when it turned out they couldn’t keep their mouths shut.
“I know your feelings are still probably really hurt, Lyla,” Aven says, her tone getting serious. “But Quinn and I never meant to hurt you.”
“Don’t speak for me,” Quinn says.
I glare at her. “So you did mean to hurt me?”
“Whatever,” Quinn says. “I don’t want to do this. I don’t even care about this. It takes up, like, this amount of space in my mind.” She picks up her fingers and holds them about a centimeter apart, to show us just how little she thinks of it. And then, without saying anything else, she turns and walks out of the room. A second later, she peeks her head back in the door.
“Keep your hands off my stuff, Aven,” she says. “I know you like to borrow people’s things.” She gives us this really big fake smile and then walks out.
Aven’s lip quivers for a second, like maybe she’s going to cry. “Lyla,” she says. “Can we just—”
I hold my hand up. “No,” I say. “Let’s make this easy. I didn’t want to forgive you then, and I still don’t want to forgive you now. So save whatever dumb thing you’re about to say.”
Her eyes fill with tears, but she shakes them off. “Forget it,” Aven says bitterly. “Just forget it. I was stupid to think that maybe you’d changed even a little bit.”
“Me?” I say. “I’m the one who has to change?”
“You don’t get it, Lyla. You really don’t. In fact, you’re just as selfish as you used to be.” Then she turns and walks out the door, slamming it behind her.
I sit there for a second, stunned. How did this happen? This morning everything seemed so . . . I don’t know, possible. I was going on a senior trip to sunny Florida to lose my virginity to my boyfriend who loved me. Now I’m in a big fight with said boyfriend and stuck in a hotel room by myself. A room I have to share with my two ex–best friends. It’s ridiculous.
I pick up my phone and think about calling Juliana. But I’m really not in the mood to hang out with her, especially not after the comment she made on the plane. But if I don’t hang out with Juliana, then who am I supposed to hang out with? After Aven and Quinn and I stopped being friends, it was hard to make new ones. It wasn’t like I could just insert myself into someone else’s group. They’d all built memories and stories and private jokes and connections. I started dating Derrick pretty soon after my fight with Aven and Quinn, and then I was spending so much time with him I guess
I never really had to worry about replacing them.
I pick up my phone just to double-check that Derrick hasn’t texted or called. No texts. No missed calls. Should I text him? Or call him? Or maybe I should just go and see him. What was his room number again? I think he said 145.
Of course, that would be presumptuous, since he basically told me to leave him alone. Unless I wore my inappropriate bathing suit. That might cause him to decide he was done thinking about things with us, that he’d had enough time to ruminate over my lies. I pull my bathing suit out of my bag and lay it out on the bed.
Beckett will be there, a little voice in my head whispers.
So what? I don’t care if Beckett sees me in my bikini. I mean, I was planning on wearing it in front of all those strangers on the beach. Beckett’s probably not even in his room, anyway. Derrick probably punched him as soon as he got there. He was probably like, “You need to stay away from my girlfriend, Beckett!” and even though Beckett has no interest in me, like, whatsoever, that won’t stop Derrick from knocking him out.
The thought of two guys fighting over me is kind of exciting. I know violence is never really the answer, but—
There’s a knock on the door, and I spring off the bed.
Derrick!
I smooth my hair down and then arrange it over my shoulders so that it falls perfectly around my face.
I throw the door open.
But it’s not Derrick.
It’s Beckett.
“Hey, Pink,” he says, and leans against the door frame. “What’s good?”
FOUR
I WILL NOT LOOK AT HIS BICEPS, I WILL NOT look at his biceps, I will not look at his biceps. I keep repeating this to myself, like a mantra. Because the way Beckett is standing, with his arm against the door frame, is making his biceps look all kinds of muscular and delicious.
Okay. Deep breaths. I need to get him out of here as soon as possible. Yes, he did me a favor by bringing me to the airport this morning, but he also really screwed things up by sending me that note. Who does something like that?
Heat of the Moment Page 4
