He gave me that lopsided grin that should really be declared illegal. “We’re a team, right?”
“Uh…” I had no idea what that had to do with my homecoming nomination but, yeah, sure, we were a team.
“What better way to bridge this great divide than getting you the crown?”
I stared at him some more. He couldn’t possibly be serious. “That would never happen.”
He leaned down until he was so close I could feel his breath against my cheek. “Is that a challenge?”
Oh Lord, please give me the strength to keep my lips to myself. Honestly, did he have to use his sexy voice like that? It wasn’t fair. I couldn’t even think. What were we talking about?
I turned my attention to my phone because it was easier than looking up at him and resisting the urge to wrap my arms around his neck and hold on tight. Suzie and Matt had started up a group text and the message was clear.
They wanted me to do this, too.
I mean, I didn’t really have a choice in the matter—I’d been nominated and I was on the court. But what they wanted…it was stupid. Ridiculous, even.
They wanted me to win.
Their logic was pretty much the exact opposite of Jason’s. Unlike his whole can’t we all just get along? vibe, they were intent on sticking it to the popular crowd where it hurt them the most.
As Suzie so succinctly put it in her last text: Take their crown. Take their glory. Win the war.
She truly was a little frightening when she started talking battle strategies. Thankfully she had videogames as an outlet for that warrior spirit of hers because she did a stellar job of keeping it under wraps in the real world.
I looked from my phone back up to Jason, who was watching me expectantly, waiting for a response. What choice did I have? I was outnumbered. Whatever way you looked at it, the only way forward seemed to be making the best out of a ridiculous situation.
I forced a smile that probably fooled no one. “Sure,” I said through gritted teeth. “Let’s go win me a homecoming crown.”
Here’s the thing that no one told me about being popular—or attempting to be, at least.
It was exhausting.
In addition to band practice and tutoring, I was now forced to attend homecoming meetings with the other court members. I’d thought it was a joke at first. I mean…meetings? What on earth were we supposed to discuss?
But it seemed there was a lot of logistics involved with homecoming and the spirit week activities that led up to the final events—the football game, the parade where the winners were announced, and the dance where they were crowned.
Apparently there were floats to build and campaigning to be done, all of which had to fall in line with strict rules and guidelines. The first meeting was directly after band practice and I got the sendoff of a celebrity. Even Becky-I wish I could be first-chair forever-Sharpton had stopped giving me resentful glares long enough to give me a hug. “You got this, girl.”
Ms. Horowitz had made my first-chair status official at the start of rehearsal so her words were especially kind. I patted her back. “Thanks, Becky. And next year after I’ve graduated? That first chair is all yours.”
She grinned. “Yeah, I know.”
Any further talk was cut short by the group of bandmates who’d gathered around me to wish me luck at my first encounter with the other members of court. Their support, plus the nonstop texts from Suzie and Matt giving me words of encouragement, kept my morale high as I headed to the auditorium where we were all supposed to meet.
The moment I swung the door open, however, all that newfound confidence wavered big time. They were all there. All of them. And they were all staring at me like I was an alien from another planet.
Cara’s lips were twisted in a mocking sneer while Eleanor outright glared at me as though I’d personally offended her with my presence. Even Julia’s ever-present smile looked forced, although that was probably because she was stressing out over the unpleasant tension in the room as much as I was. Julia-the-Perfect was nothing if not empathetic.
I was aware of Jason sitting with the other guys up by the stage but I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. If I saw one hint of pity in those warm brown eyes there was every chance I’d lose whatever bravado I was clinging onto, and there was no way I’d let Cara Somers have that sort of satisfaction.
I held my head high as I forced myself to take that first step into the auditorium. It was Luke who broke the tense silence. “The lamb has arrived, ladies and gentlemen.” He threw his hands out wide as he grinned at me. “Welcome to the slaughterhouse.”
He softened it slightly with a wink and I found myself feeling just a little bit grateful to Jason’s cocky friend for acknowledging the tension in the room, which somehow helped to dispel some of the awkwardness.
“Hey,” Jason said as I drew closer.
I was forced to look at him, but there was no pity there as he patted the seat beside him. “Come sit with us.”
I joined him and Luke took the seat on the other side of me. Between the two of them I got the feeling that I had my very own set of bodyguards. Although if Cara was the big-bad villain, I had nothing to fear. I could handle a dumb mean girl in my sleep.
Still, I found myself relaxing a bit as Jason and Luke kept up a steady stream of small-talk as the others paired off to do the same. Jason turned to me at one point and nudged my elbow to get my attention. “Any news on the away game?”
I knew what he meant. He’d asked me every day during our tutoring sessions. Due to both of our crazy schedules, tutoring had moved to our respective houses and was usually held after dinner.
I nodded, a smile forming despite the fact that I was still in the midst of the enemies’ lair. “I got first chair back.”
“Nice!” Jason didn’t even hesitate to wrap his arms around me and pull me against his side in a sort of seated side-hug. “That’s my girl.”
I could feel a blush forming and despised myself for it. My girl. Coming from anyone else I would have found that obscenely patronizing, if not sexist. But coming from Jason?
My girl. I was horrified by how much those words made the butterflies in my belly burst into action.
“What about you, Luke?” Jason asked, pulling back from the hug before it grew too intimate. “You going to the away game?”
“Of course, man, you know I wouldn’t miss the big game.”
Jason arched his brows. “Since when do you care about football? Don’t tell me you’re just coming to support your best friend.”
Luke scoffed. “Nah, man. I’m coming to watch Margo here for her debut as first chair.”
I rolled my eyes but I also laughed because there was no taunting in his tone. Luke, for some unknown reason, seemed to be trying his best to put me at ease. Jason was doing the same, of course, and by the time the senior class advisor showed up a few minutes later, I realized something even more unexpected.
It had worked.
Chapter Sixteen
Jason
It was official. My school year had gone from bad to torturous.
It was Thursday night, which meant I should be relaxing before our big away game tomorrow. Instead I was sitting inches away from Margo and I was anything but relaxed.
Her hair was pulled up in a messy high ponytail that left her neck exposed and the sight of it was tantalizing. I hadn’t known necks could be so sexy. But the more nights we spent alone in my room poring over my textbooks to make sure I was up to date and on track to get straight A’s, the more I realized that I found everything about this girl enticing. Everything.
Her straightforward, brazen personality, the slightly bizarre style sense that was at once playful and weird, the offbeat sense of humor, and the way she was so devoted to her best friends. And then there was her body, and her mind, and her heart.
There was no denying it. I’d fallen for this girl, and I’d fallen hard.
She looked up from her textbook and caught me staring
. But instead of calling me out on it she surprised me with a cute little smile as she shifted to better face me. “Jason?”
“Yeah?” My voice came out all gravelly and weird because there was something so ridiculously intimate about this moment. We were both on my bed, sitting cross-legged and listening to music in the background. The air between us felt thick and heavy, and maybe because we were both exhausted from the long week, we’d been talking softly, honestly. No pretenses, no joking. Just…talking.
“Do you think it’s working?” She tilted her head to the side and met my gaze and for a heartbeat I thought about kissing her. But then, what would she do if I did?
Fear stopped me in my tracks. We had a good thing going on right now. We were friends and I was earning her trust back. I couldn’t mess that all up now by kissing her.
I cleared my throat. “What do you mean?”
“This whole charade.”
“Charade?”
She waved a hand in the air like it was already spelled out in front of us. “Yeah, you know. You being all nice to me at school to make me popular—”
“That’s not why I’m nice to you.” I was torn between amusement and exasperation at her cynicism. “You’re my friend, remember?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. But you know what I mean.”
I kind of did. As part of “Operation Queen Margo”—that’s what Suzie had dubbed it—I’d been making a point of talking to her in the halls more, sitting next to her in class whenever I could…basically just being her friend more often and more publicly. But it wasn’t all for show, and I wasn’t at all sure she knew that.
Suzie and Matt had embraced my part in their grand plans to win Margo the court and from the way they talked, they seemed to think that I could singlehandedly win her the crown by sheer proximity.
What was it Matt had called it when I’d hung out with them in homeroom the other morning?
Oh, that’s right. Popularity by association. I hope you can feel my eye rolls. Still, they seemed certain that by merely being seen hanging out together, Margo would gain cool points. The other part of this two-pronged approach to winning, dreamed up by Suzie, was to garner support from all the kids in our school who hated the popular crowd. Which was to say…almost everyone.
At least, that’s how it felt most days as the hashtag war continued in more and more creative ways. True to her word, Margo had gotten GeekBook taken down. I didn’t ask how because I knew she wouldn’t tell me.
And true to my word, I’d gotten Joel to back off of Suzie. Some of his anger seemed to have faded with the site vanishing anyway and I’d used that to convince him that she wasn’t a threat.
But while we’d made some progress to ease tensions, I couldn’t help but feel like we’d only managed to slap a Band-Aid over the bigger underlying issue. The hashtag was still going strong, and the retaliations were fierce and swift. No one seemed to be worried about getting caught or getting in trouble because the more people who joined in, the less likely it was that any one person would get caught.
It was mob mentality at its finest.
“You don’t think this is actually going to work, do you?” she asked.
I couldn’t quite find the words for a moment because it wasn’t what she was asking that stumped me, it was the look in her eyes. It was one of those rare moments where the smartest, strongest individual I knew was vulnerable. With me.
This was a side of Margo that few got to see and right now it humbled me to my core.
I leaned forward slightly so she was forced to meet my eyes. “Of course this will work. Why wouldn’t it?”
She gave a small shrug. “I don’t know. It just seems so stupid.”
“Homecoming?” I asked.
“Homecoming, trying to win…all of it.” She shook her head. “I feel ridiculous. It’s not like I ever wanted to be popular—”
“I know.”
“But now everyone is looking at me like me winning actually means something. Like I’ll be letting people down if I don’t win a popularity contest.” She shook her head and rubbed her hands over her face. “Ugh, don’t listen to me, I’m just tired and feeling sorry for myself.”
I smiled. “What, did you think being popular would be easy?”
She peeked at me through her fingers and when she realized I was teasing, she burst out in a great laugh that had me grinning in return. “I know, right? Who knew being popular was such hard work.”
“Cara,” I said immediately. “Why else do you think she’s perpetually in a bad mood?”
I was rewarded with another laugh that made my gut clench. “To think, all this time Grover High’s favorite mean girl just really needed a nap.”
We shared a silly grin and for a second there I forgot all about homecoming and Cara and the rest of it. For right this moment, it was just me and Margo.
And it was perfect.
“Well,” she said, shifting her feet out from underneath her. “I guess I should get going, huh?”
Crap. Really? I glanced over at the clock and bit back my protest. It was getting late, and to keep her here just so I could try and win a few more smiles was beyond selfish. “Yeah, I guess,” I said.
She was halfway to my bedroom door when I stopped her. “Will I see you at the away game tomorrow?”
She turned back with a grin. “Of course. I’ll be front and center as first chair.”
I laughed as she did a little happy dance in place. “And that’s awesome, but I meant…” I felt as nervous as a junior high kid asking out a girl for the first time. “I meant will I get to see you after the game?”
She narrowed her eyes a bit. “Why? Is this all part of your quest to make me popular? You’re making sure a whole football stand sees us hanging out together?”
She was teasing but I wasn’t. I wanted to know that I’d see her tomorrow, that I’d get some time alone with her. My desire to see her after the game had nothing to do with popularity contests and everything to do with needing my daily fix of Margo. But before I could say any of that, she reached the doorway and leaned against it. “You’re really devoted to this homecoming queen idea, huh?”
She was teasing and the moment was over. I shrugged as if to say you caught me.
Her answering grin had me relaxing a bit even as I kicked myself for missing the opportunity. Although…there were other ways to show her how I felt. Maybe get her to see that there could be more here between us. “It’s crunch time, Margo,” I teased. “Maybe it’s time we take it up a notch.”
She let out a huff of laughter as she rolled her eyes. “Personally I think this whole thing is a lost cause, but hey—if you’re really that into this whole popular-by-association strategy, I can handle it.”
I called out after her, “Get ready to be queen, Caruso.”
She’d already disappeared around the corner but I heard her voice when she called back and it was filled with laughter. “Bring it, Connolly.”
I was still grinning even after I heard our back door shut behind her. Suddenly the exhaustion from practice was gone and my brain was spinning with possibilities. Was it the best idea I’d ever had? Possibly not. But giving Margo a taste of what we could be together seemed like a better strategy than trying to convince her that she and I were more than our groups of friends or the roles we’d fallen into over the years.
I tried to wind down so I could get some much needed rest before tomorrow’s game, but my mind wouldn’t stop spinning. I didn’t know what I was more amped for—the game, or seeing Margo after.
All I knew was that I had to win them both.
Game on.
Chapter Seventeen
Margo
First chair felt even better than I’d imagined—even if my bandmates did seem determined to give me crap all night long.
“Can’t believe you’re still content to sit with us lowly band geeks,” my friend Shayla teased from two rows back. “Shouldn’t you be hanging out with the other court
members, your highness?”
I rolled my eyes and gave her the finger over my shoulder, making her laugh that much harder.
Oh good. I’m so glad I can entertain.
But despite the teasing, my bandmates seemed glad to have me back and I was ecstatic because for the first time all week, I actually understood my place in this world.
And it was first chair.
I was grinning like an idiot at the football field, watching Jason as he led their team to a massive victory.
“Ooh, someone’s mooning over their new boyfriend,” Becky said from beside me.
I shot her a withering glare that held little actual heat. I’d gotten used to the teasing all week long. It wasn’t every day that one of us was nominated homecoming court, and having the school’s very own Prince Charming paying attention to me every chance he got?
That was a rarity around these parts.
So yeah, sure. I’d be doing the same if someone else from band was currently in my ridiculous situation. But still, I was ready to be done with this whole charade. Especially after last night.
There had been a moment there where it had all just felt so…real.
Oh, not the homecoming stuff. That still seemed just as absurd as it did the day I was nominated. But the other stuff…this newfound friendship with Jason. The fact that we were spending so much time together and that he was being so kind and helpful and understanding.
Not to mention the physical stuff. The way I’d gotten used to the feel of his arm around my shoulders when he walked with me down the hall, or the way his arm brushed against mine when we were both leaning over the same textbook.
The cheering of the crowd jarred me back to reality and I saw that Jason had done it again. Touchdown. Was there anything this guy couldn’t do?
Heck, if he could make me popular than he could accomplish anything. The guy might’ve been a miracle worker. Of course he hadn’t succeeded yet, and I didn’t expect him to. I didn’t even know if I wanted him to. This whole endeavor was beyond stupid, but worst of all—
Love at First Fight (Geeks Gone Wild Book 1) Page 13
