by Nina Beck
He was walking up his front steps when he received a text from Riley and he cringed for a second before he read it:
>Glad u stayed home 2nite?
D wondered if that was a trick question—if she saw him this evening, she was probably being sarcastic and was going to rip into him if he lied. If she hadn’t seen him, and he admitted he did go out, she’d rip into him for breaking his vow already. So he played it safe and wrote:
>Im always glad 2 stay home.
It was true without being true. Exactly how D liked to be. Sorta true. Until, at least, Riley wrote back:
>Proud of u.
And then D felt like absolute crap. He lied to his best friend and then she had the nerve to say something as sneaky and as horrible as that she was proud of him. He was ashamed and angry—at himself, at Riley, at the random girl. Mostly at himself.
He vowed to be better (again). And behave (again). And as punishment, he wouldn’t even let himself think about the random girl from the bar—in the end, getting involved with her would probably just give him one more excuse to ignore the stuff in his life he needed to do. If he was going to be good, really good, he needed to cut all that out.
And he’d start right now.
OK…he’d start when he woke up, because he wanted to think about how she smiled and blushed, even as she did something daring and sort of stupid behind the bar.
OK, no, he’d stop thinking about it right now.
D went upstairs, took a really cold shower, and went to bed thinking about how he’d never think about that girl ever again.
D woke up the next morning with a headache.
“I didn’t even drink that much,” he mumbled into his pillow. His mouth was dry, his eyes felt swollen, and like every other morning that he woke up like this (and really, it was more mornings than he’d like to remember), he knew he was going to have a raging headache all day.
He crawled out of his bed and went into the adjoining bathroom, turned on the lights, and with a groan, flipped them off again.
After his shower, he swallowed two aspirins and enough water for a small camel, and put his shades on before he even got in the elevator. He was glad he had pulled on his long heavy coat over his tailored shirt and khakis. It was cold out.
The doorman held the door open for him as he made his way outside, but he still winced at the bright light that seemed to engulf everything and make his brain pound behind his eyes.
It was going to be a long day.
He checked his watch and realized he only had a few minutes before he was supposed to meet Riley for their traditional pre-school coffee. She always got the same thing: a vanilla bean Frappuccino (which she always argued was a coffee even though the entire world knew better—but goodness help anyone who tried to convince Riley of anything) and he always got a grande iced coffee, with milk, no sugar.
He needed that coffee, so he hailed a cab and made his way to Starbucks.
#4 GO WITH THE FLOW
Samantha met Riley outside of Starbucks about forty minutes before the first bell was supposed to ring. She had not dressed warmly enough, and stood outside shivering slightly as Riley walked up in a light jacket that fooled her by being extra puffy but not at all warm.
“Ugh, I hate winter!” Riley said. “But I love this jacket. Why does good fashion have to be so painful?”
Samantha couldn’t speak without her teeth chattering, so she just shrugged.
Riley looked at her phone to check the time. “He’ll probably be a little late. He always is.”
Samantha had heard all about Riley’s best friend, D. Back when Sam first met Riley, Samantha had learned that Riley thought she was in love with D. But then Riley had figured out that she was really in love with Eric.
If Samantha was going to be honest with herself, she was really nervous to meet Riley’s oldest and best friend. What if he didn’t like her—would Riley wonder if she was worth keeping as a friend?
Samantha knew she was being silly, Riley wasn’t like that—she didn’t care what anyone thought about her. It was just that the only time Samantha saw Riley acting un-Riley-like was in terms of D. So she wanted to make a good impression.
To mask her nervousness, she asked, “Are we going to be late for school?”
Riley rolled her eyes. “Sam, it’s the first day of the spring semester, they probably won’t even take attendance the first day.”
“Really?”
“Everyone knows the first day is optional!”
Samantha seriously doubted that.
“Oh, brother, she’s not giving the ‘first day is optional’ speech again, is she?” a familiar accented voice said behind her.
Riley turned and gave the guy standing behind her a huge hug, but his eyes were boring into Samantha’s. And Samantha was staring back. It was THEBOY.
THEBOY was D.
D was THEBOY.
Samantha was so screwed.
#5 STAY AWAY FROM DRAMA
D looked from Riley to the girl standing next to her and then back at Riley.
“Oh, sorry,” Riley said. “Samantha, this is my best friend, D. D, this is Samantha.”
“Samantha,” he said slowly, like he was feeling it out in his mouth. She looked like a Samantha. Last night—when he wasn’t thinking about her—he tried to guess what her name was. Alexis. Amy. Corrine. Samantha was a much better fit.
“Yeah, Sam. We met last year at New Horizons…” Riley let the sentence drag out. “Is everything OK in there?”
“Yeah, yeah,” D said, looking at Sam, who appeared to be as confused and befuddled as he was. Apparently she wasn’t expecting him to be here, of all places.
Riley turned to Sam, waved her hand in front of her face. “Hello?”
Sam blinked twice.
“Um, hi. I’m Sam.” She smiled and held out her hand. “Um…nice to meet you?”
D grimaced a little but felt a small amount of relief that she hadn’t told Riley that she had met him the night before at the bar. Sam didn’t know that D wasn’t supposed to be there, so she didn’t know that she was saving his butt in so many words—but he was grateful anyway. He extended his hand, clasped Sam’s, and said, “It’s very nice to meet you.”
D didn’t know what to make of the face that Sam made, but she didn’t look happy.
“Great, everyone is happy to meet everyone else,” Riley said, already heading into Starbucks. “Can we please get some caffeine before I wilt?”
“Of course, darling,” D said. Sam’s eyes flew to D and he flinched, and wouldn’t meet her gaze.
The two followed Riley into the coffeehouse, Riley ordering her normal sweet concoction, D ordering his normal grande, Sam ordering a tea.
“Tea?” Riley asked.
“Peppermint.”
“That’s not coffee, Sam,” Riley said.
“I don’t drink coffee.”
Riley’s cup stilled halfway to her lips. “But this is a Starbucks.”
Sam nodded.
“You have to drink coffee in a Starbucks!”
D watched the interplay with amusement. Sam merely kept nodding and said, “You didn’t order a coffee, so I figured they wouldn’t kick me out either.”
Riley looked at her cup. “What do you mean this isn’t coffee?”
“It’s not coffee, it’s a Frappuccino.”
“A Frappuccino is just a cold coffee.”
“Um, no.”
“It has the word ‘uccino’ in it. And the ‘app’ part.—Appuccino. Fra-ppuccino. It’s coffee.”
“Um, no.”
Riley took another sip of her drink. “Well, I like it.”
Sam nodded, took a sip of her tea, which was probably still hot. D laughed, and he could see Sam smile into her cup.
“I’ve been trying to tell her for years that it isn’t coffee.”
Riley squealed. “You are NOT allowed to both gang up on me.”
“Aw, nobody is ganging up on you,” D said, wrapping one ar
m around Riley’s shoulders. “It’s not your fault you think you drink coffee.”
“If it’s not coffee, what is it?”
D shrugged.
“An adult milk shake?” Sam offered helpfully. “Do you know how many calories—”
“I don’t want to know!” Riley groaned. “Since I’m already depressed, let’s go to class.”
D kept shooting looks at Sam.
D was never what you would consider a romantic. In fact, the closest D ever got to a full-fledged romance was in the fifth grade when he sent a Valentine’s Day card to Sylvia DeSalvo, who was his babysitter and a tenth grader, who laughed in his face.
D often thought about Sylvia, who was from Queens and had an accent D’s father called “unintelligible,” which D always thought meant something positive (well, at least until he was older), and even now he still had a warm spot in his heart for girls from Queens. But he hadn’t sent a Valentine’s Day card since the fifth grade and he certainly wasn’t looking to start doing so again.
Love, to D, was for mothers and puppies. And sometimes only for puppies.
But that didn’t stop him from having all his attention zeroed in on Samantha.
What a mess.
#6 MAKE NEW FRIENDS
Aside from Riley, Sam hadn’t made a new friend since she was fourteen. Which didn’t exactly help her stress level when walking into the Curtis Prep lunchroom. Excuse me, cafeteria.
Located in the middle of the school, the cafeteria was larger than her last school’s library. It was a big square room, and all around the edges were small stations where students could pick up items or full lunches to bring back to the little café tables that took up all the room in between.
Sam was going to have a panic attack.
Riley wasn’t in the same lunch period as she was, and Sam hadn’t really thought to try to meet people during her classes. It was as if everyone else had their friends already; their groups and cliques were already set. And now they all sat together in their little groups. There was a table of cheerleaders and what she imagined were lacrosse players, since half of them were waving their lacrosse sticks in the air above their heads while a teacher tried to get them to stop. There was a group of quiet students bent over books, who looked like they sat together so they wouldn’t have to sit with anyone else. Everyone else seemed like a more general mix, but walking through the group toward the lunch line, she heard their conversations…and realized that there were definitely cliques at Curtis Prep.
Samantha got on the lunch line (she had no idea that some school cafeterias were called cafés and served fresh pizza and sushi). She got a bowl of edamame (which are soybeans, for those of you who don’t know) and a slice of vegetarian delight pizza (which is pizza with vegetables, for those of you who don’t know), and then went into the café to find somewhere to sit.
She was starting to freak out, looking at the sea of faces (none of which she recognized), and couldn’t even find a seat that looked promising—or any empty table—and as her mind catalogued all the places where she might be able to eat alone (the girls’ bathroom? the library? outside?), someone tapped her on her shoulder, making her jump, and her edamame went everywhere (the pizza stayed put).
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” D said, trying to steady her tray with one hand. Samantha readjusted the tray in her arms, balancing a 1% milk along with an apple that she would snack on later. Even if the apple had just rolled onto her pizza and was now hot and a little cheesy.
“You didn’t. I mean, you did, but I don’t mind.” Sam scrunched up her nose a little. She had NO idea what she was saying and was talking like an absolute idiot. But this was the boy that Riley had been in love with just about a year ago. This was the boy who asked for her number just about twenty-four hours ago.
“Uh, OK,” D said. “I just wanted to know if you’d like to sit with us.”
“Um, no, I’m fine. Really, it’s OK. Actually, yes,” she mumbled quickly.
D stared at her for a moment.
“Shall I follow you?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, turning and walking to a far corner, where the round tables were huddled in a small group. He motioned toward a table and jerked his head to the others so they would move over and make a place for Sam.
“Hi,” Sam said, placing her tray down on the table. It took up most of the space and Sam realized no one else had a tray. In fact, most of them (well, the female ones) didn’t even have any food in front of them.
One of the girls looked at Samantha’s tray and muttered, “I think I’m going to be ill.” And she got up and walked away in her size-zero pants.
D turned to watch her go with a strange expression on her face.
“I know,” Sam said. “So much food, so little time.” She smiled, plunked down in her chair, and while the others looked on, shoved a huge bite of pizza into her mouth. “Mmmmmm, this is SO good.”
She wiped her mouth and drank a big gulp of milk. She realized she was going overboard, but didn’t these girls know that one slice of pizza never killed anyone? It was certainly better than not eating at all.
“Aren’t you worried about the calories?” asked one of the girls, with a pointed look at Sam’s midsection.
“Sure.” She took another huge bite and D smirked. One of the other boys laughed outright.
As Sam chewed she could feel her mind rebelling. Calories! Carbs! Processed food! Sam slowly made resolutions with herself that she’d go to the gym and do extra cardio to make up for it. But the occasional pizza wasn’t going to kill her, and it was worth shoving it into her mouth to make the non-eaters gawk.
Maybe extra gym time today and tomorrow.
You could take the girl out of New Horizons, but perhaps you couldn’t yank the New Horizons out of the girl.
“I’m Justin.” The boy who had laughed was looking at Sam and holding out his hand.
Samantha wiped her hands together to remove the crumbs and shook his hand. “Samantha.”
“Samantha is a good friend of Riley’s,” D said by way of introduction.
“Oh, you are Riley’s friend,” said the calorie girl.
“Yes, and you are?”
“I’m Marley.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Marley,” Sam said, chomping down another bite.
Marley smiled politely and then turned her head away to talk to a friend about something that included shopping, vacations, and what was on television that night.
“So, Sam—you’re new?” Justin asked.
Samantha took a good look at Justin and realized exactly what he was. If eighties teen movies had taught Samantha anything, it was the fact that in every school there was one boy who seemed to walk the line between different groups—which means that he can flirt and date anyone he wants: a jock girl, a preppy girl, a popular girl, and nobody would blink if he went out with the dorkiest girl in school—because, if she were dating him, she would be above reproach. He had an easy manner about him, Sam could tell from the way he sat. He felt like all he had to do was shower his affection on a girl and she would fall madly in love with him. It was probably true.
He had beautiful, blond boy-next-door looks but something in his eyes screamed “troublemaker.” And the dimple that appeared in his half smile didn’t help.
Samantha looked at D, who was shooting Justin a pretty evil stink eye.
“Yeah, my first day.”
“Wow, switching school your senior year—that must be tough.”
Samantha thought about it for a moment. “It’s harder than I thought it would be, but I’m still glad I did it.”
“So am I,” Justin said, smiling at her, until D coughed and Justin leaned back in his chair and Samantha blushed again, looking at D.
“Can I walk you to your next class, Samantha?” D asked, with a pointed look at Justin, who just raised his eyebrows in response.
“Yeah, I mean—yes, that would be lovely,” Sam said, gathering her t
hings while she stuck her apple in her bag, not failing to notice a little smirk that D shot Justin’s way.
“I’ll be right back. I’m going to go grab a drink,” D said. “Want something?”
Sam shook her head.
Samantha watched D walk away and she might (“might,” I’m not saying she did) have checked him out just a little.
“Tell me you aren’t interested in him,” Justin said, sidling into the chair next to Samantha’s that D had recently vacated.
“Who?”
Justin nodded in the direction that D had walked away, and Sam lowered her glance when D turned around to catch her staring. “I’m not, I mean, I don’t really know him.”
“Then it’s much easier to be interested,” Justin said, smiling at her.
Perhaps it was because Samantha was too busy watching D walk away (and it was an amazing sight), or perhaps because she wasn’t used to interacting with that many guys—having attended an all-girls boarding school for so long—or maybe it was just because she didn’t think anyone could possibly fall in love with her after five seconds of watching her shove a pizza slice into her mouth but, Samantha knew—almost instinctively—not to take anything Justin said or did too seriously.
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Do you think it would be just as easy to be interested in me?” he asked. He held her gaze and Samantha wanted to break it but felt like that would be losing some little game that she didn’t know the rules of.
“I think,” she replied, “that there would be absolutely nothing easy about being interested in you.”
Justin nodded slightly, and then laughed. The sharp look in his eyes, the one where he was assessing and pulling strings, went away. And Samantha felt herself relax as a real smile, a warm one, replaced the one he had previously been giving her. “Samantha, I think we might become very good friends.”
