They nodded in recognition, then parted ways.
“What are the odds?” Dylan reached over one of Kemp Hurley’s well-defined shoulders and lifted a limp bacon-wrapped mozzarella stick out of a gold metal basket.
“This sugar bun’s a hungry one,” Kemp, the team’s biggest perv, said with a devilish smile.
“Dy-lan,” Alicia whisper-hissed. “Put it back.”
“Why?” Dylan lowered the mozzarella stick to the table and swished it around the bowl of ranch dressing.
“Put. It. Back.” Alicia muttered through the side of her mouth. “Chris Plovert is staring at you.”
“Oh! Sorry.” Dylan blushed. “Were you about to eat this?”
The perma-tanned brunet shook his head no, then burped. “It’s all you.”
Dylan immediately swallowed a mouthful of air and burped back, “Thanks.”
Plovert’s mouth hung open in disbelief.
“See,” Dylan smirked and then devoured the stick in a single bite. “No one was eating it.”
“It’s not that.” Alicia rolled her eyes.
“What then?”
“Kuh-laire, will you tell her?”
“Tell her what?” Claire knew she sounded impatient, but she was too busy trying to figure out where Cam might be to care.
“That she’s never going to find a boy if she acts like a boy. A girl shouldn’t eat in front of her crush until they’re married. It’s a turn-awff,” Alicia explained.
“Oh.” Claire immediately thought of the bags of gummy worms and sours that Cam had given her over the last nine months and wondered if she’d been wrong to devour them on the spot.
“That’s so stupid.” Dylan grabbed a half-eaten crust off Kemp’s plate and stuffed it in her mouth. “Are you guys turned off by me?” she asked, sticking out her A-cups ever so slightly.
“Au contraire, honey bear.” Kemp winked. Chris shook his head and lifted his frothy chocolate milk shake to his wide mouth.
“Do you want to tell Massie you’re blowing the mission, or should we?” Alicia grabbed Kristen’s thin wrist and pulled her to the other side of the table.
“No, wait!” Dylan followed them to the head of the table. Suddenly, Claire was alone. She didn’t know if she should follow her friends (follower?), make small talk with the boys (cheating on Cam?), or leave (pathetic!). All she knew for sure was that lurking solo behind the Tomahawks’ table made her a shoo-in for the title of Soccer-Stalker.
“Hey, you,” beckoned a sweet male voice behind her. The familiar citrus-meets-oak smell of Drakkar Noir practically lifted Claire out of her olive-green Keds.
“Hey!” She turned, then blushed at the sight of Cam’s gorgeous blue eye and green eye. She wanted to hug him just for being there. So she did.
From across the table, Massie gave her an approving thumbs-up, then nudged the others to make sure they’d follow Claire’s flirty example.
Cam took her hand and led her to his seat beside Derrington.
“Hey, Fisher.” Massie playfully smacked his firm bicep. “Nice of you to finally show up.”
Cam sat down and pulled Claire onto his lap. “I was in the bathroom.”
“Pfffffft.” Derrington offered up his best mouth-fart.
“Mature,” Kristen mouthed to Massie, who rolled her eyes in a you-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about sort of way.
“Shut up, toilet-clogger!” Cam punched the side of his arm.
“That was Plovert, not me!” Derrington reddened.
“Was not!” Plovert shouted as he whipped a greasy slice of pepperoni at Derrington’s cheek.
“Was too,” Cam insisted. “And by ‘too,’ I mean numba two!”
Dylan cracked up and then added a “perrrrrrp.”
Cam swiveled in his seat and lifted his palm to highfive her.
“Grow up, Dylan,” Alicia snapped, loud enough for her Polo-loving semi-crush Josh Hotz to hear from the far end of the table. His chocolate-brown eyes were hidden under a navy-blue New York Yankees cap, but he seemed to be looking their way. “People are trying to eat!”
“How would you know about eating?” Dylan snapped.
“From watching you!”
“This is a disaster,” Massie whispered in Claire’s ear. “Flirt again.”
“How?” Claire mouthed.
Massie shrugged and glared, in an I-don’t-know-but-think-of-something-fast sort of way.
Claire pulled Cam’s heavy black JanSport backpack off the ground and heaved it onto her lap. She’d always wondered what he stuffed in there, and now was as good a time as any to find out.
“What are you doing?” Cam shifted his weight, rocking Claire from side to side, until he settled.
“Looking for fun things to play with.” She unzipped the main pouch in a single semicircular motion.
Massie air-clapped and nudged the others again, hoping this time they might pay closer attention.
“Forget it.” Cam reached around her waist and gripped the bag.
“Why?” Claire giggle-swatted his hands away.
“It’s not polite,” he said in a fake girly voice. “You might find my tampons.”
“Ew!” Alicia rolled her eyes in disgust.
Claire hated that Cam knew what tampons were. What if he thought she actually used them? The notion filled her with so much nervous energy, she thrust her hand inside his backpack and accidentally smashed her knuckle into the spine of a notebook. The pain was sobering. “Are you hiding presents for me?” She managed to ask despite the throbbing.
Massie shot her a quick thumbs-up, silently encouraging Claire to press on.
“Yes!” Cam giggle-tugged the bag away.
“Liar!” She giggle-tugged it back.
“I swear!”
“We’ll see about that!”
With a final tug Claire managed to recapture the bag. “See ya!” She stuffed it under her arm like a football and serpentined around the tables as if charging the end zone.
“You’re dead, Lyons!” Cam shouted as he chased after her. “Give it back!”
Dylan, Alicia, Kristen, and Massie began chanting Claire’s name, encouraging her to run faster and go, go, go. Which she did, all the way to the very last stall in the ladies’ bathroom, where she caught her breath and wondered what Cam could possibly be hiding.
WESTCHESTER, NY
SLICE OF HEAVEN PIZZA SHOP
Monday, April 12th
4:22 P.M.
The restaurant’s doughy aroma was replaced by that of the pineapple-scented hand soap or tile cleaner or whatever it was that made the all-white bathroom smell like Hawaiian Tropic.
Claire lowered the wooden lid of the toilet seat and sat down. She placed the backpack on her lap and peered inside. The scent of pencil erasers and fermented red apples shot out like an invisible geyser.
It was funny how something as simple as having Cam’s knapsack made her feel closer to him. Like he was there with her and they were connected and—
“Claire, give it back!” he shouted as he banged on the door.
“Go away, young man!” she bleated in her best old-lady voice.
Part of her felt ashamed for being so obvious and flirty with Cam. And part of her couldn’t wait to see what he was hiding. A love poem? A bag of gummy bears? A burned CD of songs that made him think of her?
She reached inside and pulled out a black-and-white composition notebook. Anxious to catch a glimpse of his handwriting and to see the kind of notes he took (detailed vs. single word, possible margin doodles of her?), Claire opened it. All three postcards she had sent him from L.A.—of the Santa Monica Pier, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the Hollywood sign—fell to the oatmeal-colored floor. Her heart filled and floated like a hot air balloon. He’d kept them!
“No snooping!” Cam shouted, as if he was watching her.
“I’m not.” She stuffed the postcards between the pages and then heard a light ping.
A thin metal paper clip had fallen out
of the notebook and landed on the tile floor. And then a folded piece of paper floated onto her lap. Claire leaned forward to retrieve the paper clip and a flurry of loose papers tumbled out.
Knowing full well she should quickly attach them back in place without peeking, Claire nonetheless felt compelled to at least glance at a page or two. How else would she put them respectfully back in the right order?
Cam banged on the door again, a little harder and a little longer than he had before.
“Claire, give me back my stuff.” His voice sounded more serious this time.
“Coming,” Claire muttered while “respectfully” scanning what appeared to be a collection of printed IM conversations… with someone named Nikki. His messages were typed in Courier while hers were in some swirly-girly font that automatically dotted the i’s with hearts.
Claire’s pulse thumped loudly in her ears. Phrases like “camp this summer” and “when I wore your leather jacket” and “Valentine’s Day gift” cut her like a pair of super-sharp cuticle clippers to the heart.
“This isn’t funny.” Cam’s voice cracked. “I thought I could trust you.”
“You can.” She stuffed the papers in the notebook and shoved it toward the bottom of his bag, wishing all she’d found was a crinkled Ziploc filled with sours.
“Then gimme me back my stuff.”
He sounded impatient, if not slightly angry.
Claire zipped up the backpack and hurried toward the exit. Feeling that surge of nervous energy, she leaned with all her weight and smashed into Cam. Normally, the collision would have cracked them up, but she wasn’t feeling particularly normal. Instead, they quickly separated and glared suspiciously at each other.
Claire dropped the backpack in Cam’s open arms. “You’re acting like you have something to hide.”
“That’s because I do.”
Her pulse quickened.
“What is it?”
Without a single word, he turned and zigzagged his way around the bustling waiters and returned to his table.
“What are you hiding?” Claire hurried after him, clutching her roiling stomach.
“Your present,” he answered.
“Yeah, right,” she mumbled.
He sat and turned toward Derrington, trying to feign interest in a joke he was telling Massie about a tuba player and a burrito salesman.
Claire stuck her tongue out at the number 2 on the back of Cam’s green soccer shirt and helped herself to a seat at the empty four-top behind them. She flipped open her red Swarovski-crystal covered cell and pretended to make a call.
Massie immediately left Derrington’s side and joined her. The rest of the Pretty Committee followed.
“What happened?” Massie shouted over the blasting stereo, where some angry rock guy was scream-singing about his desperate need for blood. “Are you okay?”
Claire shook her head no.
“I knew it!”
“How did you know?”
“You’re faking a phone call so you can have private time to think without looking like an LBR.” Massie pointed at the sparkling Motorola in Claire’s palm. “I taught you that trick, remember?”
Claire nodded. She wanted to smile, but her face felt too heavy for the task.
“Did you find anything juicy?” Alicia leaned forward in her seat. She slowly gathered her glossy black hair and tossed it to the left side of her neck, showing off her “better side” in case any HARTs were watching.
“Not really.”
“Then why aren’t you sitting together anymore?” asked Dylan, pulling up a fifth chair.
Claire shrugged, and then side-glanced at Cam, who was side-glancing at her. She quickly looked away.
“Well, something must have happened.” Alicia put her arm around Claire’s shoulders. “I can tell just by looking at—”
“Who’s that?” Kristen tilted her head toward the busboy one table over. He was hand-sweeping pizza scraps into a gray plastic bin. His jeans were straighter than Alicia’s. At first Claire couldn’t understand the attraction—and then he turned around. His eyes were army green and as round as the Target logo. Against his zitless clear skin, they resembled the two olives in Mr. Block’s après-work martini.
“Done, done, and done. I found my date,” Kristin told the PC.
“Ew, the busboy?” Massie’s face contorted like she’d bitten into a lemon.
“Yeah, he’s kinda hawt,” Kristen whispered.
“He’s a busboy,” Massie practically spat.
“He’s a total HART.” Kristen defended the stranger.
“Minus the R.” Massie smirked. “Which makes him a HAT.”
Dylan and Alicia giggled.
“So?”
“So?” Alicia held up her palm, letting Massie know she would take it from here. “So don’t you think someone in your position should be going after someone with a little more—”
“Height?” Kristen asked, sincerely.
“Nooo,” Alicia said in guess-again sort of way.
“Body mass?”
Dylan snickered.
“Noooo.”
She gazed at her potential crush while he bobbed his head to the angry death rock that roared though the speakers. “What?”
“Money!” Massie blurted.
Alicia and Dylan nodded in agreement.
“Huh?”
“Kris, you’re always complaining about being p-o-o-r,” Massie whisper-spelled. “So maybe you should get attracted to rich guys.”
“He ah-bviously has a job.”
All of a sudden Derrington plopped himself down on Massie’s lap. She shifted uncomfortably.
“You’re poor?” he asked.
Kristen shot Massie a thanks-a-lot look.
Claire’s stomach sympathy-dropped for Kristen and her spilled secret.
“I didn’t mean Kristen’s poor—I meant she has poor taste when it comes to guys,” Massie covered.
“There’s nothing poor about Griffin Hastings,” Derrington offered.
“Huh?” Massie squirmed, making zero effort to hide her sudden discomfort. “How do you know him?”
“He’s in one of my classes.”
Massie’s amber eyes widened. “The busboy goes to Briarwood?”
Kristen beamed.
“Yeah, his dad owns, like, twenty theme restaurants on the East Coast. He’s being groomed to take over.”
“How do you think this song got on the stereo?” Derrington added as he slipped his arm around Massie’s neck. “This is practically his place.”
“Why didn’t I know about him?” Alicia asked with a trace of jealousy.
Massie made a fist and stamped the table. “Ah-pproved.”
“Yay!” Kristen air-clapped as she watched Griffin wipe the back of a vinyl chair. “Ehmagawd.” She gripped Massie’s arm. “Is that a book in his back pocket?”
“Beware! He’s a huge horror geek,” Derrington warned. “Griffin is going to suck your bloooood!” He took a pretend bite out of Massie’s neck.
“Ouch!” She pushed him to his feet.
“What? I didn’t really bite,” he pleaded.
“Well, it hurt.” Massie rubbed her neck.
“Let me kiss it better.”
“Nawt in public,” she hissed.
“Whatever!” Derrington stood and stormed back to his table.
“Gawd, he can be so immature!” Massie rolled her eyes.
Claire knew Massie well enough to know she was suddenly looking at Derrington through Skye’s eyes, wondering if he had enough HART to impress the alpha, and starting to doubt it.
“Anyway, back to the mission.” Massie turned to Kristen. “So? Are you going to ask him?”
“I do love that he reads…” Kristen replied.
“Then ask him.”
“Not yet,” Kristen told her. “I have to get to know him a little better.”
Claire peeked at Cam again. This time he smiled back. And Claire couldn’t help hoping tha
t maybe Nikki was a young camper with a crush. Perhaps he’d kept the IMs to avoid hurting her feelings, or maybe he’d made them up for a creative writing class or…
Suddenly a girl in a pink Splendid hoodie with bobbed brown hair, full high-glossed lips, and gold aviator glasses appeared at their table with an extra-large pizza balancing in the palm of her hand. She wasn’t dressed anything like the other Sauce Stylists.
“Here’s your pie.” She carefully handed it to Massie.
“Um, doubt it.” Massie pushed her hand aside.
“Is your name Massie Block?”
“Yeah.”
“Then enjoy.” She grinned from behind the gold aviators, dropped the pizza on the table, and bolted.
“I’m so nawt eating this.” Massie glanced at the boys’ table to make sure they’d heard her.
“I’ll have it.” Dylan reached for a slice, then stopped. “Ehmagawd, look.” The Pretty Committee leaned forward, examined the pizza, and gasped. Written in tiny sausage crumbles, it said, SKYE WILL PICK U UP AT 1 P.M. ON SAT. B READY.
Massie slammed the box shut. “Ehmagawd, she’s watching us.” Her voice quaked as she scanned the crowded, igloo-shaped restaurant. “You guys need to find dates ay-sap or we’re gonna have to—”
“You’re being paranoid,” Kristen insisted.
“Why else would she want to see me?”
“Point.” Alicia lifted her finger in the air.
“Hurry, pick someone.”
“But it’s so hard to decide,” Dylan whisper-whined. “We don’t even know half of these guys. What if we pick Blisters by mistake?”
“Kristen, go ask Griffin,” Massie pressed.
“He’s a rocker. What if he hates blondes?”
“No one hates blondes,” Massie snapped.
“Well, what if he hates soccer?”
“Or scholarships,” Dylan added.
“Thanks.” Kristen sneered.
A pack of St. Catherine’s girls wearing blue-and-white kilts and birthday hats sat at the table behind them. Two mothers stood impatiently while Kristen’s crush scrambled to wipe down their table. The girls, on the other hand, were so giddy and happy that Claire wanted to chuck the silver napkin dispenser at their heads.
Sealed with a Diss Page 3
