A new realization had me sitting up straight. Oh God. I’d been fantasizing over Ronnie.
That was just too weird. I’d gone to grade school with Ronnie. I’d learned how to swing a bat alongside Ronnie at recess. We used to race each other at the local pool. And now I was fantasizing about her?
El pulled out of the parking lot, but if she was talking I couldn’t hear her. Those two names kept racing through my mind in an endless loop as I tried to wrap my head around the fact that they were one in the same person.
Veronica was Ronnie.
My mind was officially blown.
Chapter Five
Veronica
Trent kept glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. “Why do you look so freaked, Ron?”
“I’m not freaked.” Liar, liar, pants on fire. I’d so freaked. Ever since that awful run-in with Drew in the hall, I’d been scared of seeing him again.
Now it wasn’t just that I didn’t want him to figure out who I really am. Now it was so much more. I was afraid he’d see straight through my lies, I was afraid he’d look into my eyes and see, oh I don’t know—everything.
Today it had finally happened. After days of avoiding him, he’d not only tracked me down, he’d caught me coming from soccer practice.
Soccer.
AKA a sport.
I groaned as I slid down further into the car’s seats. “I’ve made such a mess of this.” I looked over to see Trent grinning as he watched the road. “I’m so glad my tragedy amuses you.”
He glanced over, not even trying to hide his smile. “It’s not too late to transfer back.”
I snorted. “And admit defeat after two weeks?” I gave him a sidelong glare. “I don’t think so.”
“There’s my girl,” he said, patting my knee condescendingly enough that I felt required to smack his shoulder. Hard.
“Ow.” He rubbed it, giving me that kicked puppy dog look that never failed to make me feel bad. “I was just trying to give you a pep talk.”
Rolling my eyes, I smacked him again, a little less hard this time. “Oh please. You’re being a condescending ass.”
He cast me a sidelong look and I let out a little laugh. “Okay, yeah. Maybe I deserve it. I suppose I’ve been acting a little crazy lately.”
“Crazy’s one way of putting it.” My best friend since birth pretend to toss his non-existent long hair and donned the worst Valley Girl accent I’d ever heard. “Oh. My. Gaaawwd. The boy I like likes me back and the other boy I like doesn’t know that I like him and he doesn’t know who I am but, like, I think that I like that but maybe I don’t and—Ow!”
I’d smacked his shoulder so hard the sound seemed to echo in the car. “Sorry.” Not really, he’d had it coming. I tried not to laugh. I mean, he was making fun of me and I didn’t want to reward him by laughing.
But I couldn’t help it. I let my head fall back as the last of my carefully constructed image faded away like a bad dye job. It felt good to laugh like an idiot, snorts and all. It was a relief to have my feet up on his dash and be sporting my sweaty soccer uniform.
“You’ve got to admit,” Trent said. “I have a point.”
I sobered at that. “Yeah, I know you do. And you deserve a medal of honor for putting up with my craziness these last couple weeks. You and Margo both.”
He let out a loud laugh. “Margo? Are you kidding? She’s having a field day with all… this.” He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture toward my hair and face. This, apparently, meant the new and improved “best version of me” that Margo had created and helped maintain. If it weren’t for her, I might have fallen off the blowout wagon a week ago.
“She’s been great,” I said, watching and loving as his mouth twisted up in a cute little smirk.
Trent might not be the most emotive guy on the planet but for anyone who knew him well, it was totally obvious that he was head over heels for his sweetheart of a girlfriend. My secret glee over Trent’s sappiness was almost instantly replaced with a pang.
That. That was what I wanted. The kind of connection they had, the excitement of dating and relationships. That was the whole reason I’d wanted to do this whole “new and improved” Veronica routine. I stared ahead at the road. I just had to stay focused on my goal and not worry about everything else.
Like Drew. Or the fact that he’d seen me in my soccer outfit today which pretty clearly confirmed that I was a big fat liar who loved to lie. I didn’t even realize I’d groaned until Trent looked over again. “Okay, spill.”
I shook my head. “You don’t want to hear it, and I don’t want to talk about it.”
This was the truth. I was so tired of thinking about Drew Remi, the last thing I wanted was to talk about him. Besides, I already knew what Trent would say.
You’re being an idiot.
And he’d be right. I should never have lied in the first place. And by lie I mean the lie of omission I’d started by pretending that I also didn’t know who he was. This whole situation was ludicrous. At some point he would figure out who I really was or he’d out me to his friends as the psycho sports-loving liar I’ve been these last two weeks.
Either way, one of the hottest and most popular guys at Briarwood had all the ammunition necessary to put a definitive end to the great Veronica 2.0 experiment.
I held back another groan of self pity.
But, I reminded myself, all Drew issues aside, this whole plan was going well. I mean, I had a date. My first date. Which could very possibly lead to my first kiss.
I glanced over at Trent. Nope. No way he’d be cool chatting about kissing and dating. Better wait until I saw Margo.
Margo would know what I should wear to the party. She’d know what I should talk about at dinner with Alex. The thought of Alex made me remember a moment at the end of practice I’d almost forgotten. One of the girls had made a weird comment about him and Tina and—
“Earth to Ronnie.” Trent was using his stupid robot voice, which had been lame when we were kids and had not gotten cooler as he’d aged.
“Sorry, what did you say?”
He gave me a funny look but let it go. “I said the guys are coming over, you want to hang out?”
“The guys” meant our friends, Pete, Robbie, and Luke. It was always the same group and “hang out” meant eating pizza and playing video games until we were either ready to puke from too much cheese or pass out in a carb coma.
I sighed as I thought about all the primping and prodding that would come tomorrow as I once again slipped into my new Margo-approved clothes and played the role of normal teenage girl.
“Honestly? That sounds like heaven right now.”
And it was. A little while later I was firmly entrenched on the couch in Trent’s basement, playing a game I’d played a million times before and listening to my friends talk smack like they’d done a million times before.
They caught me up on the gossip at my old school—not the girlie gossip, but the funny stuff. Like how old Mrs. Haggerty had finally gotten her dream come true and left to tape an episode of Wheel of Fortune last week. And how no one could figure out who specifically had hacked into the teacher’s online forum so they’d brought in every single student who’d logged in to the computer lab that week.
The conversation was easy, the pizza greasy, and all thoughts of Drew Remi or any other Briarwood drama was temporarily put on hold.
All in all, that night was perfection.
The next night, on the other hand…
“You cannot be serious.” I glared at Margo in my bedroom mirror.
She held up an eyelash curler and arched one brow. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”
I pursed my lips but then let out a sigh. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”
“What does that mean?” she asked. Now she was the one frowning as she came toward me with that metal torture device.
“I have no idea,” I said. “It sounds good though.”
She made a mmm noise that I
took as agreement, though she’d clearly lost interest as her attention was avidly focused on my eyes. Which was good. If someone was going to perform minor surgery to my eyelashes, I hoped they’d be focused.
“You are going to look sooo hot,” she murmured. “Drew Remi is not even going to recognize you.”
I gave a little snort of amusement. “Funny.”
She grinned down at me as she leaned back to assess her handiwork on eye number one. “I thought so.”
“It’s not Drew I need to impress though,” I said. I shifted a little but as she was once again coming at me with the metal wand, I stopped and froze.
“That’s right. So tell me about this Alex guy,” she said.
I told her everything I knew, which, to be honest, wasn’t a whole lot. In my defense, I’d only been going to school with this guy for two weeks and we had no classes together so all the info I had was from our little tet-a-tets outside the cafeteria and our short walks together down the hall.
“He sounds nice,” she said.
I nodded. Yeah, nice. Such a bland word and not one that really captured Alex, but I didn’t have a better description. Besides, I’d become more focused on what my teammate had said after soccer practice the other day.
I’d mentioned that he was taking me to Melody’s party and she’d given me this weird look. “Alex,” she’d repeated. And then, “Alex Wilson?”
I’d nodded. We were definitely talking about the same Alex. But then she’d said, “Tina’s Alex?”
I’d wanted to ask her what she’d meant by that but then Drew had shouted out my name and I’d done what I now seem to do best whenever my old friend was around. I panicked, diving into Trent’s car and temporarily forgetting all about that weird remark.
I’d managed to block it out until now. Now when I had approximately twenty minutes until he was set to pick me up.
I don’t know why I thought Margo would know, but she was so much better at the whole dealing with high school girls thing.
And now she was frowning at me, her brows drawn together in consternation. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
I arched my brows. “Join the club.”
Margo sank beside me on the bench seat we’d pulled into my bedroom for makeover sessions. “Maybe Tina and Alex were a couple and they just broke up.”
I shrugged. “Maybe.” It was as good a guess as any. “I mean, they can’t still be together, right? He wouldn’t ask me out if he had a girlfriend.”
Even to my own ears it sounded like I was trying to convince myself.
She nodded hesitantly. “Yeah. Right.”
“And it’s not a secret. Melody and Drew and some others heard him talking to me about it, so….”
She nodded with a little more enthusiasm which eased some of my tension. “Yeah, totally. She’s probably his ex or something.” She gave me a forced smile. “You’ll just have to feel it out at the party, I guess. But don’t worry. Even if you’re stepping on some other girl’s toes, you’ve got the excuse of being the new girl.”
The anxious feeling came back with a vengeance. First of all, Tina was not just “some girl.” I barely knew her but I knew that much about her. She had the kind of cool, ringleader vibe that April had in our old school. There were some girls who just seemed to have that quality. They were natural leaders.
Or maybe they were just naturally intimidating. Either way, I did not have that quality and neither did Margo.
She was watching me now with such hopeful optimistic eyes I could only smile and nod. “You’re right. It will totally be fine.”
Spoiler alert. It was not fine. Not even a little bit fine.
The whole “date” was a disaster. And I’m using quotes for a reason. I know I had no experience with dating but whatever that was with Alex, it so did not qualify as a date in my books.
First of all, there was no dinner. He honked the horn and I went out to meet him—no, I didn’t expect a corsage and roses, but seriously. Getting honked at like I’m late for carpool? Not exactly the most flattering way to start off my first date.
Then when I get in he grinned, told me I look hot, and also informed me that he ate already so let’s just get to the party.
I had not eaten. Why would I have eaten when I’d thought we were going out to eat? I should have said that. In hindsight I would have told him that. But it all happened so quickly, and I was so nervous, and have I mentioned that this was my first date? Oh yeah, and also my first real high school party. Unless you count our little pizza parties down in Trent’s basement, but I’m pretty sure no one would consider those a “party” despite the fact that we down enough pizza to feed an army.
Where was I? Oh right. No food. So there I was, looking “hot” according to Alex, in my short skirt and slinky T-shirt. But I was now starving on top of anxious, and one thought kept playing through my mind. What the hell had my teammate meant by “Tina’s Alex?”
I should have asked. In hindsight, I totally would have asked.
God, I one hundred percent understand that “hindsight is twenty-twenty” saying now. If I could do it all over again, I would.
But I couldn’t, so here’s what happened. We bypassed dinner and headed straight to the party. Alex wrapped an arm around me and led me to the door. I felt like everything was happening too fast. Not only had we already skipped over a crucial component of this date but everything was happening in warp speed.
Melody’s house was close to mine so before I could say “let’s change the radio station” we were already pulling up in front of her house. Tons of cars were already there so clearly the party was well underway even though the sun had barely set.
Next thing I knew I was being hustled up the drive as Alex shouted out to people he recognized getting out of a truck nearby.
I didn’t recognize them but no one thought to make introductions.
And then we were inside and yet again I felt like I’d skipped something crucial… I mean, other than dinner.
The party must have started early because Melody and all of her friends looked wasted. Have I mentioned that it was dinnertime? I thought parties didn’t really get started until later, but what did I know.
Nothing.
Turns out, I knew absolutely nothing. Man, I was so naïve.
“Veronica!” Melody called out, her brown curls bouncing as she headed over to me and wrapped her arms around my waist. Melody is about half my size so she looked a bit like a child cuddling up to me.
Then she pressed a red plastic cup in my hand and gave me a sloppy grin, her eyes unfocused. “I’m so glad you came.”
She sounded so sincere it honestly made me a little weepy. Things had been going well for me at Briarwood, but I could safely say that being the new girl sucked no matter how well I was faking it.
Being new meant there was always an uneasy component to it all. Shifting variables that I could never quite determine. There were always subtexts and hidden agendas, or maybe I was just paranoid? It was impossible to say because unlike at my old school, I didn’t know these people, not truly, and I didn’t have access to all the information.
A fact that would become appallingly obvious in about… oh, thirty minutes. That was how long it took for Tina to discover that I was there.
And that I’d come with Alex.
For the first half hour or so I hung out in the kitchen with Melody and her friends as Alex came and went. I’d like to say that he kept coming back to the kitchen to check on me, but that would be giving him too much credit.
The kitchen also happened to be where the keg was located and it is with full humility that I admit—as far as my date’s priorities were concerned, I came in second to a keg.
I pasted a smile on my face, but the smile hurt. Two weeks of being friendly and acting like I had all the confidence in the world when really I was questioning everything I said and did… It was exhausting. I was tired. I would have paid money to go over to Trent’s and join him and the o
ther guys for a round of Mario Kart.
I would have sold my soul for a slice of the pizza that they were most likely devouring as I stood there awkwardly pretending to be part of a conversation, even though it was about people I barely knew and their boring lives.
I know, I was being judgy. For a girl who wanted to be playing Mario Kart on a Saturday night, I should not be calling other people boring.
But the stories were boring—for me, at least. And the beer was flat and gross. And the kitchen was way too crowded as fellow students of Briarwood continued to file in one after the other.
People were shouting because they were drunk, and then others were shouting to be heard over the people who were originally shouting.
My ears hurt. My cheeks hurt. My stomach hurt.
I was miserable.
And that’s when it happened. Alex came in from outside. He sought me out and draped an arm around my shoulders. “How’s my favorite date?” he said far too loudly.
I smiled up at him but I’m sure it looked forced. I was having a hard time keeping my lips in the smile formation and I know without a doubt that it didn’t reach my eyes.
He didn’t seem to notice but I became increasingly aware of the amount of eyes focused on me. On us.
Maybe I was being paranoid again. I glanced around and saw Melody peering at us creepily over the rim of her cup. One of her friends leaned in and whispered something to her and they both giggled while still watching me.
Um… okay. That’s not weird or anything.
All of the shouting seemed to stop as Tina walked in through the same outside door that Alex had just come through.
The whole thing felt staged. She stopped and stared, her pretty mouth pursing and her eyes narrowing on Alex’s arm around my shoulder.
I knew Alex saw her because his grip tightened on me and the air in the room seemed to grow thicker and heavier. Time seemed to slow as I found myself suddenly and unwittingly part of a scene.
I might be well-rounded but drama has never been my thing. I had no secret desires to be an actress, nor did I want to be in the spotlight. And if I’d ever doubted that decision, this moment confirmed it.
Out of His League Page 5
