I’m not going to admit this to Andi, but when she froze me out that summer, it broke my heart. So when I saw that same pain on Crosbie’s face at Chrisgiving, I knew exactly what he was feeling and hoped he didn’t make the same mistakes I did trying to get over it. I hoped he didn’t bury his head in the sand and his cock in any willing body to convince himself he didn’t care at all, because then he’d never be able to patch things up with Nora and he’d never forgive me.
He didn’t do that, as it turns out. He went home, moped, got over it like an adult, and didn’t get gonnorhea.
“It was different with you,” I mumble, still focused on the jar. “Just...you know. I remember it all. Don’t think it’s the same or anything.”
“Okay. Kellan, put that jar down. You’re going to break it.”
The oven timer goes off and we jump. I use an oven mitt to fish out the trays, swapping them for the last two.
“Ooh,” Andi says, rubbing her hands together as she studies the cookies and the smell of peanut butter fills the air. “These look delicious.”
I stare at her for a second, but she’s fixated on the food. If she hasn’t already forgotten about my confession, she’s doing a great job of pretending she has. I don’t know why I don’t feel more relieved that she’s dropping the discussion; it’s not something I’ve been overly excited to mention. But I do feel disappointed. Kellan 2.0 wants to clear the air and God forbid Andi and I talk about something that matters. But instead of probing the topic and risking losing her again, I say, “We have to let them cool. Don’t touch.”
“I’m just looking.”
“You’re looking awfully closely. With your fingers.”
She backs away, wedging her hands in her pockets. “How do we make this filling?”
“Um, butter, icing sugar, jam, obviously...”
“Obviously.”
“I was trying to pay you a compliment.” I blurt it out so clumsily I feel like the entire apartment cringes.
Andi wipes flour off her nose. “What? When?”
“When I said that I remembered that summer. The sex.” The word hangs in the air between us, as visceral and pulsing as a neon light. Even while we were doing it we hadn’t really discussed it, we’d just...kept doing it. Until she called things off, without ever saying a word. Apart from the moment I propositioned her, this might be the only other time we’ve ever said out loud that we’d had sex.
“I don’t understand.”
I feel like a moron as I scramble for a believable cover story. I don’t even know what the true story is right now. “Well, you were asking about Crick,” I say, “and I just wanted you to know that if you got past the opening lines with him, you’d be okay with...the rest. The sex.”
“Okay. Stop saying ‘the sex.’” She looks as uncomfortable as I feel.
“Anyway,” I say, hurriedly dumping ingredients in the bowl and mixing. “Just so you know.”
“Right. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” The response comes automatically, even if it’s totally inappropriate, and the weirdness between us builds the longer I stir. The movie playing in the background suddenly sounds too loud, too complicated, too Italian. Everything feels like too much. This was a bad idea.
A sudden thumping on the front door snaps the tension. The door squeaks as it swings open and we spring apart like a bungee cord breaking. I recognize the sound of Crosbie’s footsteps as he thuds up the stairs, stopping at the top and looking around until he spots me in the kitchen.
“Hey,” he says, cheeks pink from the chill outside. His auburn hair is wet and mussed, like he jumped out of a shower and came right here. “What are you—” He breaks off when he spots Andi over my shoulder. “Oh.” He looks comically stupefied, like he can’t figure out why I’d be in the proximity of a girl.
“Um,” I say, wiping my hands on my apron. “This is Andi. I’m—”
“Yeah,” Crosbie says, “I know. She lives in McKinley. We met at one of the parties. Hey.”
Andi tugs at her apron, like she’s trying to hide the evidence of something. Or maybe she’s just embarrassed to be wearing an apron. “Hi.”
I look between the two. “I was just helping her make cookies for the bake sale. We’re not—”
“Cool,” Crosbie interrupts. “I’m starving.” He reaches past me to snag a hot cookie. “Shit!” he hisses, still managing to fit half in his mouth as the rest crumbles in his hand. “That’s hot.” He breathes out his mouth as he chews. “Pretty good, though.”
“That just cost you three dollars,” Andi tells him.
He grins at her and I feel a strange sense of annoyance. “Why are you here?” I ask, trying not to show my irritation. “Did we have plans?”
“Nope. But I know you don’t have class until two, so I thought we could play Target Ops for a while.”
“Which one?” Andi asks.
“Brutality. We beat Fury last year. Do you play?”
“Sometimes.”
Andi absolutely destroyed the boys at video games when we were growing up. She was the only girl in our group, often by her own invitation, but because she wasn’t simply obsessed with blowing shit up and actually paid attention to strategy, she could always beat us.
“Nice,” Crosbie replies. “What are you guys watching?” I’m equal parts relieved and bothered that he’s not reacting more to Andi’s presence.
“Um...” I can’t recall a single instance in which I’ve ever asked Crosbie to leave my house or which I’ve ever wanted him to. Until now.
“It’s called 8 ½.” Andi answers when I don’t. “It’s for a class. We’re supposed to be absorbing it by osmosis.”
Crosbie drops onto the couch and crosses his socked feet on the coffee table, watching the movie. “Ugh. It has subtitles?”
“Maybe that’s why the osmosis wasn’t working,” Andi says.
We exchange a look, an unspoken agreement to shift gears, forget whatever weirdness had been brewing, and get back to normal. We make the filling, finish the cookies, and Crosbie offers his stamp of approval after eating three as part of his role as quality inspector, a job for which he nominated himself.
“How much time do we have?” I ask, glancing at the microwave. “When does the sale start?”
“In half an hour. Just enough time to run these over to the gym. Thanks, Kellan.”
“I’ll drive you. This is a full-service company.”
The cookies fill three plastic containers and I tell Crosbie I’ll be back in twenty minutes as I follow Andi outside to my car. I drive a black two-door coupe, parked at the curb out front. I hold the door as she slips into the passenger seat, then balances the containers on her lap.
“I didn’t realize you knew Crosbie,” I say as I stick the key in the ignition.
“We met on my first day.” She squints into the side mirror as she restyles her hair in a slightly neater bun, probably to impress Crick. “It looks like everything that happened at Chrisgiving has been forgiven.”
“Yeah. Forgiveness is a great thing.” I say it with great meaning, but when I glance at Andi she’s just picking at a hangnail and missing my not-so-subtle hint. “You thinking about Crick?”
“I’m thinking about how much people are going to love these cookies.”
“You’re thinking about how much Crick will love them.”
Her blush gives her away. I try to act like it’s funny and not annoying that I just helped baked cookies to woo a guy.
The sale is at the school’s second gym, a huge building on the west side of the campus. The parking lot is packed when we pull in, and even though we’re fifteen minutes early it looks like the sale has already gotten started. Long tables covered in gingham cloth line the front of the building, decked out with all manner of baked goods, each table hosted by members of the volleyball team, identifiable by their Burnham jerseys.
“Where’s your shirt?” I ask as I snag prime parking in the front row. Andi doesn’t mock
my luck when it benefits her too.
“In my bag,” she replies. “I’ll change it now. Can you take the cookies?”
“Yeah.” She passes over the containers then roots around in her satchel until she comes up with the jersey.
“Fourteen?” I frown at the number printed on the back. “That’s not your number.”
She shrugs. “It was a misprint from last year. There wasn’t a name on it, so they just gave it to me. It doesn’t matter.”
“It totally matters. You refused to play on any team that didn’t give you number thirty-three.” She’ll deny this to anyone who’ll listen, but growing up Andi was absolutely obsessed with Jose Canseco when he played for Oakland and she’s worn his number ever since. Even when he started down the rocky road to reality TV and other crimes, she never lost faith.
“I needed the scholarship. They needed a player. It worked out.” She grips the hem of her T-shirt and yanks it over her head, revealing a plain black sports bra and lots of bare skin. A second later she’s replaced it with the jersey, but the vision is burned into my brain. Which is stupid, because I’ve seen Andi in a sports bra a million times. She doesn’t even own any other type of bra because she doesn’t have much to hold up. She told me this during that last summer, and I didn’t care much one way or the other as long as she let me take it off. Since Andi I’ve been with more voluptuous girls, girls whose lacy lingerie and tempting cleavage are far more appealing...but I can’t recall any of that right now. The sight of Andi’s skin is like a stamp over all other memories.
“Okay,” she says, taking back the cookies, blissfully unaware of my thoughts. “This is going to sound bad, but could you not come by the table?”
It takes a second for the request to sink in. “I just spent hours baking these cookies!”
“I know, and I appreciate it. But I don’t want to hear the Kellan McVey fan club cheer today, and if Julian comes by, I don’t want him to know you had anything to do with this. Just in case he gets the wrong idea. No offense.”
I see what she’s getting at, but I am deeply offended, and whatever goodwill we’d just stockpiled is immediately forgotten. “I’m coming to the bake sale,” I say stubbornly, as though I’ve been dreaming of this moment all my life. “I’ll go to all the tables and I’ll act like I don’t know you. But that’s it.”
She sighs. “Kellan.”
“If I need an example for how to ignore people, I’ll just follow your lead.”
“It’s not that I’m not grateful—”
“You’re very ungrateful,” I snap, climbing out. I stride away before she can say anything else, but the person I’m most angry with is myself for feeling anything at all.
The crowd around the tables is three deep and I say hi to people I know as I wait. There’s every type of baked good imaginable, from banana bread and shortbread to chocolate cake and cheesecake. I’m six feet, but still it’s hard to see past the basketball players that have come to support the sale in advance of their game. I peer discreetly at every jersey that walks by, searching for Crick.
“Hey, Kellan.”
“Hey,” I say, not looking over my shoulder at the person who greeted me. I vaguely registered a female voice but I’ve said hello to at least thirty people so far, plus I’m trying to spy, so—
“I wanted to thank you,” says the same voice.
“No problem,” I reply, craning my neck to see farther along the row. There’s Andi, six tables down, arranging her cookies in an empty space next to a teammate. She hastily scribbles on a scrap of paper and sets up a tiny sign that says $3.00. These are pricey cookies, but then again, Burnham’s a pricey school. Students stroll by with their hands full of cupcakes, tarts and brownies—
“We met at the party?” the voice says tentatively.
That hardly narrows it down, but I stifle a sigh and turn to see this persistent person, doing a double-take when I actually know her. “Jackie!” I exclaim a little too loudly.
She recoils a tiny bit at the volume, but then beams at me. “You remember!”
“Of course I do,” I reply, one of the few times I’ve delivered that line and had it be true. “How are you?”
“I’m great. We’re here for the game. I just came out to window shop beforehand.” It finally dawns on me that she’s wearing the blue top and orange skirt of the Burnham cheerleaders, her ponytail threaded with colored ribbons.
“What?” I say, when she keeps talking and I stop listening.
“I asked if you were here for the game too,” she repeats.
“Oh, uh, no. Not exactly. I was just passing by and saw the...commotion.”
It takes a second, then she laughs uproariously. “You can just admit you came for the bake sale. I won’t tell.”
As we talk we inch along the table at the pace of the hungry crowd, and now we’re just two tables away from Andi’s display. She hasn’t noticed me, busy as she is selling the cookies I pretty much made by myself. She has a healthy audience, but I can see one head towering above the others, buzz cut brown hair, sharp jaw, and perfect grin aimed straight at her. I don’t need to see his jersey to know it says Crick.
Still, I should probably check.
I ease out of the line just enough to peek through the crowd, standing on my toes to see the white-printed letters stamped between his shoulder blades. C-R-I-C-K.
Fuck.
“What are you doing?” Jackie asks.
“Oh, just, um, checking to see if there’s any...lemon loaf left.”
We’re one table away. Six people. I study an assortment of cupcakes, at least five different flavors ranging from appealing to appalling.
“Hey, Kellan,” says Lin, the assistant captain selling the cupcakes. I know her name because she’s one of the girls I had to track down during my did-you-give-me-gonnorhea investigation last year. She hadn’t, and fortunately she hadn’t been terribly offended by the question, either. Not-so-fortunately, Andi hears my name and her eyes fly to mine, then flicker to Crick, then back.
“Hi, Lin,” I say, giving her my best smile. “This is my friend Jackie.”
“Oh,” Lin says, looking surprised. “I didn’t know you had a...friend.”
“Well, good ones are hard to find.”
I can practically hear Andi’s eyes rolling, but I ignore that and focus on Crick’s words as Jackie quizzes Lin on the cupcake flavors.
“...really shouldn’t,” he’s saying, “but I don’t know how to turn to down a peanut butter cookie.”
“Don’t feel bad,” Andi tells him. “No one can resist a homemade cookie.”
“You made these?”
“All by myself,” she says definitively.
I want to throw a cupcake at her.
“With no help whatsoever,” she adds.
I give her a mean look.
She passes Crick a cookie, he passes her a few bills, and their fingers touch far longer than necessary.
“I’ll save this for after the game,” Crick says. “I can’t handle sugar or caffeine when I’m already hyped.”
“Same,” Andi answers. “I only drink coffee on weekends.”
“Yeah?” he says. “Do you know Beans?”
My mouth opens.
“Beans?” Andi asks. “Like the food?”
My mouth closes.
Crick laughs. “No. It’s a coffee shop downtown. I think they have an Open Mic Night coming up. Maybe we could check it out.”
I’m pretty sure the entire crowd stops talking, stops breathing, stops everything, straining to hear Andi’s reply.
“Definitely,” she says.
“Cool.” Crick pulls out his phone. “Let me get your number. “
“...has the lemon loaf,” Lin says.
I blink at her and the world resumes spinning. “Sorry, what?”
“You wanted lemon loaf? It’s down at the end. Penny made it.”
“Penny,” I echo. “Great. Thanks.”
We’re pushed along by t
he crowd, stopping in front of Andi’s table. “Ooh,” Jackie says. “What are these?”
Andi points to her handmade sign. “Peanut butter sandwich cookies with a raspberry jam filling.”
“They have better cookies at Beans,” I tell her. “It’s a coffee shop in town. I know some people who work there.”
“I know it too,” Jackie replies. “My roommate’s performing at their Open Mic in a couple of weeks.”
“No kidding? My friend Crosbie’s performing, too.”
“No way! Maybe we could go together,” she says. “To watch them.”
“Absolutely!” I say, too cheerfully. “We should always support our friends.”
The table jolts, and I’m pretty sure Andi just tried to kick me. It’s too far to reach, but just in case, I back up a couple more inches.
“Always,” Jackie says earnestly.
“In fact,” I add, “several of my friends are auditioning for the on-air spot on She Shoots, She Scores. And so am I.”
“No kidding!” Jackie exclaims. “You’d be so great.”
I slant a glance at a scowling Andi. “We’ll see.”
So maybe everything and nothing has changed, after all.
chapter six
“...so then while I’m pretending to change, you take my place, we drop the curtain, and voila! You’re me! But then I’m me again a minute later. That’s the impressive part.”
For the past five minutes my head has been swiveling back and forth like I’m watching a ping-pong match, following Crosbie as he paces across his small dorm room. He grows increasingly animated the more he describes the illusion he wants to perform at Open Mic Night next weekend. I don’t really understand anything, I just know that my part involves wearing a skin tight black body suit and stocking mask, like a male ballerina/thief, and that I don’t want to do it.
“Do you really think people will be fooled?” I ask, avoiding his suspicious stare. This is easier said than done because the room is approximately ten feet by eight feet, with very few places to look.
Undeclared (Burnham College #2) Page 8
