by Patty Blount
Meg blinked the Green Envy from her eyes and waited at Bailey’s locker Thursday morning, trying not to flinch when Bailey slowed at the sight of her. “Hey.”
“Hey!” Bailey managed a smile with tight lips that showed no teeth, and Meg’s face burned.
Swallowing hard, Meg hoped her voice would sound casual. “Missed you.”
Bailey frowned. “Right. I was supposed to call you. Sorry about that. I had some other stuff to take care of. What about TVD tonight? Can you come by after work?” She fished her cell out of her bag, not looking Meg in the face.
Meg went still. “Bailey, I was let go, remember?”
Bailey clicked some buttons on her phone before she slid it into her bag. “Oh, yeah…right. I forgot.”
Meg shook her head slowly from side to side. Bailey would forget things like homework assignments and due dates for term paper, but plans with friends, things like lost jobs? No. Deep in Meg’s heart, a battle went on. Part of it just wanted to shrivel up in a ball. But another part kept insisting there was no way Bailey would be—could possibly be—cruel. Maybe it had nothing to do with Chase. Was Simon still harassing her? The thought gave her hope, and she laid a hand on Bailey’s arm, gave a little squeeze.
“Bay, are you okay?”
She gave Meg a stunned smile. “I’m great. Gotta go!”
Meg stared after her, jaw dangling.
She tried again at lunch, even though Bailey hadn’t been sitting at their usual spot. Meg caught up to her by her locker again, trying hard not to say anything when Bailey stuffed all her textbooks inside, even though she’d need two of them for her after-lunch classes. “Bailey, you want to hit the mall tomorrow?”
“Um…can I get back to you on that? I may have other plans.”
Hope withered. “Plans with Chase?” Green Envy tinted Meg’s vision again.
Bailey looked puzzled for a second and then nodded. “Chase. Right. I need to call him.”
“Yeah. No problem. You should call him. You and Chase would be great together.” Meg hurried to her next class.
The next day, Meg ended up going to the mall alone. Bailey never replied to her texts. The weekend was long and lonely. Megan spent most of it painting, studying, and painting some more. She didn’t bother trying to text Bailey again. Nor did she bother looking for Bailey at lunch on Monday. She sat in the cafeteria, picking apart a sandwich when the chair beside her squeaked. Meg grinned and looked up. “Oh.” The grin faded. “It’s you.”
Chase pouted. “Jeez, Megan. I haven’t seen you in a week. That wasn’t long enough for you?” He cracked open a soft drink.
Her face heated up. “No, um, sorry, I mean, I was hoping you were Bailey.”
Chase’s eyebrows went up. “You two fighting or something?”
“Like you don’t know,” Meg countered.
“Know what?”
“Aren’t you two—” The word got stuck in Meg’s throat. “You know…together?”
Chase’s eyes went round.
“No! I don’t know where you got that from, but I haven’t see her all week. I was sick.” He looked down at the table, picked at a scratch in the surface. “You…you didn’t notice I wasn’t in any of our classes?”
Meg shrugged. “I figured it was an Easter thing.” The holidays were always busy in the Gallaghers’ bakery. “Extra shifts and stuff.”
“No, I had the flu. And now I have a ton of work to make up, which reminds me, I need your notes.”
She slid a three-subject notebook from her pile of books and handed it to him.
“Thanks.”
Meg studied her tray, wishing he’d leave, hoping he wouldn’t.
Chase blew out a gusty breath and pulled his tray closer. “Any ideas what’s up with her?”
She spread out her hands and let them fall. “God, like a dozen. I thought she was fighting with her mom, or maybe Simon was harassing her, and I even thought—” She pressed her lips together and shifted in her seat.
“What? Tell me.”
“Um…okay. Don’t laugh, okay? But I thought maybe she was planning something for my birthday.”
“Oh, right. It’s like a couple of days from now, right?”
She nodded, her eyes on the tray between them.
“Okay, well, did you try to talk to her?”
Her shoulders lifted but not her spirits. “I tried. She either blows me off or just says everything’s fine.”
“Maybe she’s just got, you know, stuff on her mind. SATs and college and crap like that.”
Meg laughed once. “I’m not sure she’d even have taken the SATs if I hadn’t nagged her.”
His green eyes went sharp. “Why do you do that?”
Meg blinked. “Do what?”
“Talk like she’s some dumb blond.”
Meg’s hand tightened around her water bottle. “I don’t.”
He smirked and nodded. “Oh, right. My mistake.” He tipped his bottle in a mock toast. “Maybe she’d tell you what’s going on with her if you weren’t so judgmental.”
Meg slammed her half-eaten sandwich back to her tray and shoved back the chair. “I’m out of here.”
Chase shot out an arm to hold her. “Wait…here she comes now.”
Glaring at each other, they said nothing until Bailey sat down.
“Hi, Bay,” Chase said.
“Hey.”
It was obvious she was distracted. Obvious to her, so Meg shot Chase a look that said, See? Chase kicked her under the table, and Meg narrowed her eyes. He wanted her to talk? Fine.
“Bailey, can I talk to you a minute?” Meg asked before she could talk herself out of it.
She looked worried. “Um…I guess. What’s up?”
Meg’s heart twisted. I guess? A friend asks if you can talk and you say I guess? “Are you mad at me about anything?”
Her eyes popped. “No! I’m not mad. Why would you think that?”
Oh, God, did she really need to give her the list? “The Vampire Diaries. The mall. The movie. The yearbook.”
“Oh, right!” She winced and slapped her forehead. “I am so sorry. I just…forgot.”
“You forgot?”
“Yeah, I know that’s really lame, but it’s true. I’m…well—” She hesitated a moment and drew in a deep breath. “There’s this guy I really like, and I’ve sort of been hanging out with him a lot and—”
“Right. You and Chase are working on the game,” Meg interrupted, trying to ignore the burn in her gut. Red Bloom. Or maybe Crimson Gush.
“Not me. I told you I was sick all week.” Chase put up his hands.
Bailey said something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like Oops. “Um…it’s not Chase, Meg. His name’s Ryder.”
Not Chase. Meg’s stomach flipped a somersault at those words. Relief spread to every cell in her body.
“How’d you meet him?”
She wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Playing Call of Duty on Xbox Live. He’s—”
A pedophile. “How old is he?” Meg demanded.
Bailey rolled her eyes. “Jesus, Meg, are you my mother now?”
Chase arched an eyebrow in her direction.
Meg drew in a deep breath. Okay. Maybe she was being a little overprotective.
“We just want to know if he’s our age—that’s all,” Chase said.
“He’s seventeen and he’s homeschooled and grew up on a ranch in Montana.” Bailey’s face lit up like it was Christmas morning.
Meg pressed her lips together.
“We play video games all the time.”
Great.
“Meg, are you gonna say something?”
Meg looked to Chase, but he just shrugged and challenged her with a smile. She sighed. “Um…yeah. When do I get to talk to him?”
/> Bailey’s face froze for a second. “Talk to him?”
“Well, yeah. Maybe we could all play a match online or something.”
Bailey twisted a blond curl. “Um…yeah. Maybe.”
Meg narrowed her eyes at her. “Bailey.”
She wouldn’t look at her.
“Bailey, you have no idea if this boy is seventeen or seventy or even a boy, do you?”
“Of course I do!” She rolled her eyes. “We talk every day.”
The lightbulb went on. “How long?”
“Um…like a week.”
Bailey’s words hung in the air for a few seconds, circled her brain, and then slammed into her heart with maximum impact. “You…so…you’ve been blowing me off to talk to some guy? Only you’ve never even met him?” Meg heard enough. She crumbled up her napkin, grabbed her tray, and slung the bag on her shoulder.
“Meg! I’m sorry! Meg—”
Meg fled before Bailey finished the sentence, tossing her trash and hiding in the privacy of the girls’ bathroom. Locked into a stall, she cried through the next two periods and didn’t even try to name the colors she felt.
Chapter 12
Bailey
“What the hell just happened here?” Chase glared and Bailey spread her palms apart, her face burning under all the curious eyes that watched Meg’s abrupt departure and then swung back to her to accuse her.
“Oh, my God. I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. I have to go after her. I have to—”
“Bailey, going by the look on her face, you’re the last person she wants to see right now. Let her settle and then apologize.”
Bailey bit her lip. What had she done? She only wanted to keep Ryder’s existence a secret just for a while—a little while—before she had to be responsible and mature and logical and practical. What was so wrong with that? Okay, so she’d been ducking Meg all week. And ignored a few texts. And ditched her for lunch. It’s not like she wanted to hurt her feelings. She’d just wanted to enjoy feeling special again. She hadn’t felt that way since Simon. Bailey’s eyes narrowed. Meg had reacted exactly as Bailey had expected, which was why she’d been keeping Ryder a secret in the first place, so really, Meg should be apologizing to her, shouldn’t she?
“What?” Chase folded his arms.
“What exactly do I need to apologize for?”
Chase sighed. “You want the list? Okay. You’ve been blowing her off. You made her think we hooked up. You forgot about her birthday and you kept an entire boyfriend a secret from her. Jeez, Bailey, I thought you guys were best friends.”
“We are, but—”
“Really? This is what best friends do?” He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Girls.”
Bailey’s lip quivered. She hadn’t forgotten Meg’s birthday. Not exactly. She just…well, hadn’t actually planned anything for it because she wanted to hang out with Ryder. She pressed both hands to her face and did her best to hold back the tears. Beside her, she heard Chase sigh again.
“Who is this guy, Bay?”
Chase’s voice no longer sounded harsh, and she was bursting to tell. “Oh, he’s so awesome, Chase! We met during a Call of Duty match. We’ve been talking video games, texting, and chatting. He’s really into programming and sent me some ideas for new levels and said he’d show me how to use a game engine. Oh, and he grew up on a ranch—like a real ranch with horses and cattle and stuff.”
“He sounds too good to be true.”
Bailey’s spine straightened. “You too, huh? I should have seen that coming. I mean, obviously, you’d take Meg’s side.” She shook her head and pressed her mouth into a tight line.
“Bailey, I’m not taking sides here. I’m just stating facts. You didn’t go meet this guy, did you?”
She avoided Chase’s gaze and merely shrugged.
“Bailey? Oh, tell me you’re smarter than that.”
“I tried, okay? He’s busy with other things.”
Chase brought both hands up to his hair, raked it back, and stared at her like it was the first time they’d met. “I can’t believe this.”
“Oh, my God, you sound just like Meg!” Bailey flung her hands up. “I’m a big girl, Chase. I don’t need you or her looking down on me because I finally found a guy who really likes me.”
“You hope.”
Bailey wrinkled her brow. “Hope what?”
“You hope he’s actually a guy. Megan’s right. He could be some perv.”
She shot him a long look and then merely nodded. “So I’m just some stupid little girl who can’t see a con unless her friend draws her a picture? Thanks. Thanks a lot.” She shoved back her chair and stalked off, ignoring Chase’s pleas to wait.
She thought about hiding in the girls’ bathroom again but then decided that she had no reason to hide. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She spun the combination on her locker and flung open the door, swallowing a frustrated scream. Okay! So she wasn’t as smart as Meg or as athletic as Chase, but she had skills, skills that other people admired, people like Ryder. Just because they’d met online didn’t automatically mean he was a perverted ax murderer, and it didn’t mean she was a brainless airhead. She grabbed books without even looking at them and slammed the locker door. It wasn’t stupid to be Ryder’s friend. She stomped to her next class, ignoring the looks and whispers. What was stupid was everybody treating her like she still wore training pants. She was seventeen years old! Old enough to know who she shouldn’t trust, old enough to know who her dad was, and old enough to know why her mother had kept him a secret all these years. She ground her teeth together and made a promise. She’d not only keep talking to Ryder, but she’d meet him in person and track down her dad too. She didn’t care if that pissed off Meg and Chase and her mom.
The only apologizing that would be done today would be to her.
Chapter 13
Meg
The day finally ended. Meg boarded the bus without waiting for Bailey for the first time in years and folded herself into a seat all the way in the back. She drew her hood up and tried not to sob when the tears came. Someone took the seat beside her and she sighed. I’m always alone except when I need to be alone.
“Here.” A cafeteria napkin appeared in front of her face, clutched in Chase’s hand. His eyes sparkled like gems in her blurry vision. “It’s clean, I swear.”
“Chase, I—”
“Don’t talk, Megan. For once, just don’t talk and let me help, okay?”
Jeez, if I want to talk, I’m damn well going to talk. Besides, she was only going to say—oh, hell. When all the color bled out of her anger, Meg nodded and slid further down her seat, propping her feet on the seat in front of her.
“Aw, what’s the matter, Meg? Lose your best friend?” Somebody mocked from across the aisle, and the rear of the bus exploded in laughter.
Chase stood up and the laughter abruptly stopped. When he sat down again, Meg squeezed his hand briefly. He sucked in a sharp breath of air, so she tried to move her hand, but he only tightened his grip. For a moment, Meg looked at their clasped hands and finally looked up at him. “Chase—”
“Megan.” He smiled.
“Why are you on the bus? Don’t you have practice?”
He shook his head. “Canceled. The coach is sick. Probably has what I had last week. Besides, I thought you could use a friend.”
A friend. She bit her lip. “Why do you keep doing this? You know how I feel.” She almost rolled her eyes. Expecting him to know how she felt when she wasn’t sure was pretty damn ludicrous. She felt like throwing herself into his arms and running away at the same time. But she didn’t have to spell it out for him. Didn’t have to elaborate. Because he didn’t bother to deny it.
“You’re right. I do know how you feel.” He leaned over with a grin that was almost wicked and whispered in her ear. “Because I feel the sa
me way.”
No. Meg tugged her hand back, and again, he tightened his grip, still grinning wide.
“Megan, I won’t hurt you. I swear. Not the way your dad hurt you and your mom.” He was completely serious now.
Her entire body clenched and she snatched her hand away. Meg never talked about her father. Ever. No one knew what had really happened. She’d never told anybody about her parents, except—
“Bailey. She—oh, God. She told you.” Damn it. No. No, it wasn’t possible. She swore she’d never tell.
Chase frowned. “Told me what? It doesn’t take a genius to see you’re pissed at your dad.”
Meg turned her head away and breathed a sigh of relief. Her anger was a weird thing. It was like someone had poured mad over her entire field of vision, tinting it a murky red. It was like trying to see through Alizarin Crimson. She should have known better. Bailey would never tell.
Then again, she didn’t think Bailey would stand her up for some guy either.
“I never understood why you guys are friends,” he murmured.
Meg whipped her head back, eyebrows raised in question.
“You’re both such different people. Bailey’s all fun, and you’re—”
“Not.”
He rolled his vibrant eyes. “I was gonna say serious. She’s all fashionable, and you’re—”
“Not.”
This time, he blew out a frustrated sigh. “Will you stop that? I was gonna say you always look great, even though you’re not all tied up in knots trying to look that way. I guess I just wonder what you guys talk about.”
Meg blinked. “We talk about anything. Everything. I don’t have to be special for her.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You don’t have to be special for me either, but you won’t let us be friends like that. I just wish I understood why.”
Meg looked down at her feet and tried to find a good excuse. “Too scary.”
He laughed. “You really are afraid of me?”
Meg burrowed deeper into her hoodie. “Not of you, just…uh, afraid in general.”
He frowned and shook his head. “Okay, that cleared it up.”
