“We were afraid that if you thought Beth and I were going to the dance together that your feelings would be hurt. We’d planned to tell you that the arrangement was just an excuse, if it happened, but figured there was no point bringing it up until then. We weren’t even sure Josh would ask her. If he didn’t, then she wouldn’t need a fake homecoming date.”
Bebe scoffed. “You were afraid my feelings would be hurt if you asked Beth out? That’s what all of this was about? I don’t care if you go to the dance with Beth. I don’t give a rat’s ass who you go with. Geez, Cam, you’re such a conceited asshole.” My heart was ripping in two. She tried to slap me on the arm, but I grabbed her hand and held it to my chest so she couldn’t pull it away. She struggled against me, but I gripped harder. Then she turned her head so I couldn’t see her face.
“Bebe, look at me.” She shook her head no. “Bianca, please?” My voice was soft now, pleading. She finally gave in and turned her head to me, her eyes glistening with tears. I wanted to kiss her in that moment, kiss all the sadness away. I wanted to hold her and tell her that I was being such an idiot because I loved her and she didn’t love me back. I was so close to telling her how I felt. But she’d just told me that she didn’t care who I was with. How could I take that chance now? I’d rather have her friendship than not have her at all.
“I wasn’t trying to be a conceited asshole. I guess that’s just one of my many natural talents.” I gave her a small smile. She arched an eyebrow at me and I let out a single laugh. “I wasn’t. If you asked someone besides me to the dance, my feelings would be hurt. You’re one of my best friends. You never ask guys out. If you finally decided to break your rule and you chose to blow it on another guy, I’d probably turn into a jealous lunatic.”
She really laughed at me then. “You’re so full of crap.”
“That’s what you think, but I know the truth.” I winked at her, needing to lighten the mood. I finally let go of her hand on my chest, and she pulled it into her lap. “So, am I forgiven?”
“I don’t know. I guess I should forgive you, since you went through all the effort of wearing my favorite shirt and cologne.” She smirked.
“You noticed that, huh?” I couldn’t hold back my smile. “I was kind of hoping it’d be sort of a subliminal peace offering.”
She nodded her head. “It was a good idea.” Bebe paused for a long moment, then got serious again. “Do you promise you’ll never lie to me again? I might not have cared if you and Beth were going to homecoming together, but it was eating me up that I thought you were sneaking around and lying to me. You and Beth are my best friends; I need to believe that I can trust you.”
I held up my hand like a Boy Scout. “I promise you, Bianca Olivia Barnes, that I will never lie to you again. Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.”
“I’ll hold you to that. If you lie to me again, you might as well walk around with eye patches on to protect yourself.” She smiled at me, and I knew I’d been forgiven.
I put my arm around Bebe and leaned in to kiss the side of her head. “I’m sorry.” I breathed into her hair.
She wrapped her arms around my waist and sighed. “I’m sorry, too,” she whispered.
We sat like that for a while, rocking on the porch swing in companionable silence. Me holding her, and her snuggled up against my chest, the smell of her orange blossom shampoo tickling my nose. I love you, Bianca, I whispered to her in my mind. And just for a moment, I pretended that she whispered back to me…I love you, too.
. . . . .
B: How’d it go?
C: I think I’ve been forgiven :-)
B: Did you tell her the truth? Because I don’t want to tell her the wrong story again. LOL
C: Yes I told her the truth.
B: Which was?
C: That we’d planned the fake homecoming date so you wouldn’t have to go with Josh. And that we didn’t tell her the truth because we didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
B: Ha! And how’d that go?
C: She hit me and called me a conceited jackass.
B: ROFL!!! Did you tell her how you feel?
C: I couldn’t.
I waited for another text, but my phone rang instead. Beth’s name flashed on the screen and I picked it up. “Hello?”
“Sorry, I wanted to scold you and I didn’t think the full effect would come through over a text message.”
“The proper response to someone when they say hello is to say hello back.”
“Cam, this isn’t funny. Why didn’t you tell her how you feel?”
“You weren’t there; you didn’t hear her. I was going to tell her, I swear. I told her everything else that happened. I came clean about the note, and that we knew Josh was going to ask you to the dance so we planned a fake date to get you out of it.”
“Did you tell her that the real reason we were faking a date was to make her jealous?”
“Well, no, but…” I was cut off before I could defend myself.
“Then you didn’t tell her the truth. If she ever finds out that you kept something from her, she’ll never forgive you. Bea can hold a grudge for a really long time.” I was definitely feeling her scolding right about now.
“Do you know what she said to me right before she called me a conceited jackass?” I asked. “She said that she didn’t care if you went to the dance with me. That she, and I quote, ‘didn’t give a rat’s ass who I went to the dance with,’ only that she’d been lied to. How was I supposed to tell her my real feelings after that?”
“I don’t know? You open your mouth and words come out? Truthful words…” Beth was getting frustrated. That seemed to be happening a lot lately.
“Bethany,” I said her name as gently as I could so that she’d calm down and listen to reason. “She doesn’t like me. She basically said as much. There’s no point in telling her how I feel and making everyone awkward.”
“Cameron.” She used my full name, too, but with none of the gentleness that I’d used with hers. “I can’t just stand around and watch you self-destruct because you and Bianca are prideful idiots. She likes you, I know she does. I’d be willing to stake our friendship on it. I’d even be willing to bet you and Bea’s friendship. This has to stop. If you don’t tell her how you feel, then I’m going to.”
“You can’t. I’ll lose her.” I was on the verge of tears. I’m not much of a crier. Not over my feelings, at least. I cry in movies when little kids die or underdog teams win championships. You know, the kind of stuff you’re supposed to get teary-eyed for. I’m man enough to admit it. But this was too much. I’d been holding in my feelings for two years. If I tell her now, I risk losing her, but if I don’t tell her at all, I’ll lose her anyway when we graduate. Maybe I’ll get lucky and she’ll change her mind once she knows how I feel.
Beth’s voice took on a kinder, softer quality. “I know it’ll be hard, but I promise you it will be worth it.” She was using her mom voice on me.
“Ok, Mom.” I couldn’t help the jab, and it made me smile. A tiny, pathetic smile, but a smile nonetheless. There was a long silence before I spoke again.
“I’ll tell her. I promise. I just need a little more time. I need to find a way to show her how I feel before I tell her. That way she’ll believe me when I do.”
“Fine.” Beth had switched from her caring and concerned mom voice to her no-nonsense mom voice. “I’ll give you one week.”
“A week? What can I possibly accomplish in a week?”
“A lot more than you think. You need a deadline, Cam, or you’ll never actually do anything.”
“But a week?”
“Fine,” she conceded. “Ten days. Tomorrow is Wednesday. I’ll give you through next Friday night. If you haven’t told her how you feel by then, I’m marching into her room first thing Saturday morning and telling her for you.”
I knew she’d do it, too. “Crap, Beth, you really are starting to sound like my mom.”
“That’s b
ecause you’re desperately in need of a little tough love.” We were on the phone, but I could hear her smile through the receiver. I guess she was embracing her role as my third parent.
“Ok. I’ll figure something out.”
“Good boy.” She was really running with this mom thing. “Now I better go, because I just heard Bea come upstairs and I have some groveling of my own to do. Thank heavens you went first. I’ll probably dodge the conceited jackass accusations.”
“Did you just say ass?” I laughed in disbelief. Beth never swore.
“It was a direct quote. Don’t make me use it again.”
“Yes, ma’am. I guess you better go make your peace.”
“It will be all right, Cam, I promise.”
“Thanks. Good luck.”
We hung up the phone, and I lay back on my bed with my basketball, tossing it into the air and catching it over and over again. I sure hoped she was right.
BIANCA
I’d wanted to stay mad at Cam for longer. I tried, really I did. I can usually hold a grudge like nobody’s business. But where Cameron Bates is concerned, somehow my defenses are weakened. He’s my kryptonite. The only other person that I can’t stay mad at for long is Beth, and since I’d forgiven Cam, I guess I needed to forgive her, too.
I’d come upstairs and lain down on my bed after talking to Cam out on the front porch. I needed to think before I spoke to my sister. They’d been worried about making me upset with a fake homecoming date scheme. That was utter nonsense, because I’d have been totally fine. It even sounds like a plan I’d have come up with myself, had they bothered to involve me in the plotting.
Their worry over my feelings could only mean one thing. One, or both of them, suspected how I felt about Cam. My money was on Beth. I’ve never been able to hide much from her. She calls her ability to read me her Super Secret Twin Sense, but I’ve always thought of it more as a mother’s intuition. Her powers seemed to amplify whenever I was about to do something stupid that would get me in trouble.
If Beth thought I had feelings for Cam, then I hadn’t been playing it cool enough. Fake date to homecoming my butt. Their dumb plan was pushed into motion by fate. It was the universe, telling me it was on to me. Letting me know that my daydreams had been written across my face. I knew how to convince Beth that I wasn’t deeply, madly in love with Cam. Their fake date to the homecoming dance needed to be a real one. If I pushed for them to go together, maybe they’d believe me when I said I was ok with it.
It would suck, of course, watching them dance all night, wishing it were me in Cam’s arms. Unfortunately, it may even plant a seed that hadn’t been there before. I didn’t really think Cam and Beth were into each other, but forcing them together in such a romantic situation might light a spark. Coming clean about my feelings so I could take him to the dance myself would definitely ensure they went together. Their date to the dance was inevitable. But if they went at my insistence, maybe the night wouldn’t end with a goodnight kiss…or something more.
Fate was a cruel master. I had to push Cam and Beth together in hopes of keeping them apart. I sat up on my bed, knowing what I had to do. I was getting up to talk to Beth, when I heard a knock on my door. “Bea, can I come in?” Beth’s voice was hesitant.
“Sure,” I called as I leaned back against my headboard. Beth entered the room with an apologetic smile.
“So…Cam talked to you already?” She asked it like a question, but I was pretty sure she knew the answer. Beth probably sent him first so I’d be less mad when I got to her. It’s what I would have done.
“Yes, we had a talk.”
“And?”
“And you guys are both idiots. Why didn’t you tell me about Josh Sutton? I can’t believe you went to Cam first. I’m your sister, for crap’s sake. Your best friend. Your freaking twin. Me, I’m all those things, not Cam. You should always come to me first.” I pouted, but it was clear that I wasn’t mad at her anymore.
Beth had the decency to look really guilty. “I’m sorry, Bea. I was freaking out because I really didn’t want to say yes to Josh, and I didn’t have a good enough reason not to. You’d stayed for that basketball meeting and Cam was the only one around, so I told him because I was desperate to find a solution.”
Well, that explained the long car conversation I stumbled across yesterday. “Why didn’t you say something to me when I got home?”
She’d sat down cross-legged on the end of my bed, and now she was looking down at her lap, playing with the hem of her shirt. “Well…”—she started—“I still think you like Cam. I worried that if you thought we were going to the dance together, you’d feel like I’d betrayed you. We were going to tell you about the plan so you didn’t get the wrong idea, but then Josh asked me while Cam was actually standing there. Cam had to spill the beans before we’d gotten the chance to let you know.”
Ok, so Beth knew how I felt. Don’t stress about it, Bianca. Deny, deny, deny. “Beth, I’ve already told you…” She didn’t let me finish, holding up her hand to stop me.
“I know, I know, you don’t like Cam. Say it as many times as you want; I’ll never believe it. You may not fess up, but I know the truth. You can’t fool me.”
“Well, if you really believe that I like Cam enough to be worried over a fake dance proposal, then you were very shortsighted in your plan.”
“What are you talking about? It’s not like we’re actually going to the dance together.”
“That’s my point exactly. Now you have to go together.” Beth looked confused. “Think about it, brainiac. Boy, for a smart girl you really are slow sometimes. You still have to go with Cam, or Josh will know you lied to him and you’ll hurt his feelings anyway. Either that, or he’ll find out you’re free that night and ask you to go again. You probably let him down a little too gently.” I smirked. I was kind of enjoying her predicament. “Not to mention Angelica will just think you lied to her…again.” At the mention of Angelica, Beth groaned and threw herself across my bed, burying her head under my pillow. “How’s that going, by the way? Did you tell her what was really going on?”
Beth rolled on her back and put the pillow behind her head. “Yes, but she’s still super mad. I told her that Cam lied to Josh and we hadn’t actually decided to go together that morning. It’s not like she’s never done the same thing to avoid a date. Of course, she says no to the guy’s face sometimes, too. She still thinks you told her to ask Cam so that she’d look stupid when he turned her down.”
“That’s probably because I did.”
“I know that. You’re a big fat jerk by the way, but I still stuck up for you with Angelica. I told her you didn’t know about the arrangement either.” Beth put the pillow over her face and screamed into it. I tried not to smile, but I couldn’t help feeling that she was getting what she deserved. I’m a horrible sister. “If I show up at that dance with Cam, she’ll never speak to me again. I’m screwed either way.”
I couldn’t help but dish a little of her own motherly advice. “I guess next time, you’ll have to think about the potential consequences of your decisions before you act on them.” I delivered my wisdom authoritatively.
Beth rolled her eyes at me, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Thanks, Mom.”
She quickly realized what she’d said and slapped her hand over her mouth in shock. That was my line; she’d never used it. We looked at each other, then erupted in a fit of giggles. Beth looked up to the sky. “Sorry, Mom.” She sighed and cast her eyes in my direction. “Our mother is probably looking down on us and wishing she could spank our butts for all the times we take her name in vain.” The smile slipped from her face, and her eyes glossed over.
I crawled over to Beth and put my arm around her. “Well, since you obviously got your practical and responsible nature from our father, I like to think that I got my wicked streak from Mom. I bet she appreciates all the mom jokes; she probably even laughs at them. I think it makes her happy to know that even though we don’t
remember her, we haven’t forgotten her.”
“You really think so?”
“Yes, I do. And I also think she’s incredibly proud of the person you are. You’re an excellent mother.” She elbowed me lightly in the side, but her smile was back. “I couldn’t have our real mom, so God blessed me with the best sister-mother anyone could ask for.”
Tears spilled from Beth’s eyes. “I’m so sorry I hurt you, Bianca.”
I laid my head on her shoulder. “It’s ok. You’re my twin and my surrogate mother. I’ll always love you. No matter what.”
. . . . .
Cam must have still been feeling guilty, because when he met us at the car Wednesday morning, there were no sassy remarks. Or maybe it was because he was running behind and needed to stay on my good side. If we didn’t hurry, we’d be late for school.
“Good morning, Beth; good morning, Bebe.” He gave Beth a hug, then wrapped an arm around me, in sort of a side hug, while kissing me on the temple. Weird. But amazing-weird. Is that even a thing? The weirdest part wasn’t that he had kissed me; it was weird because even though it was unexpected, it didn’t feel weird. It felt natural.
Of course I couldn’t let it slide. “What was that for? Still trying to get back in my good graces? I already told you that you’re forgiven.”
“Can’t a guy hug his friends?” I gave him a pointed stare. I was referring to the kiss, and he knew it. He smiled and answered the question that I’d sent with my eyes. “I’m just glad you aren’t mad anymore, so I’m in a good mood.” Cam opened the passenger door but didn’t get in; instead, he held it wide and stepped away. “In fact, I thought I’d offer you the front seat today, if you want it.” His eyes were sparkling with mischief.
“Don’t do it, Cam,” Beth warned. “If you give her an inch, she’ll take a mile…or two…or ten.”
“Is this some kind of a trick? Do you have a water balloon, or an egg, in your pocket that you’re waiting to smash over my head?” I wanted the front seat, but I was very skeptical.
Perfectly Oblivious (The Perfect Series Book 1) Page 10
