by Molly E. Lee
I forced out another laugh, tossing my hair over my shoulder before lightly touching his forearm. The hard muscle underneath the smooth skin sparked beneath my fingertips, but I ignored it and pushed on. “I was a bit…shocked,” I said.
“Me, too.” His eyes jumped from my hand to my face and back again. “You have every right to hate me?” He said the statement like a question, still eyeing my hand.
I smiled at the red dusting his cheeks, and stepped closer. “I don’t hate you, Gordon.”
Not entirely. But you will pay.
“Really?” He shifted until his back was flat against the wall. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to get away from my advance or if he was opening himself for me to get closer.
I shrugged. “I would’ve done the same thing.”
“No, you wouldn’t have.”
The disbelief in his eyes pinned me a little too hard. Could he possibly know me that well? I had thought about it, during my twenty-minute pull-myself-together session backstage, but he was right. I wouldn’t have ever thought to throw him under the bus if he’d earned the scholarship over me. In fact, I honestly thought he’d beaten me out of it. Winning it was almost as shocking to me as his hurtful words, and now this apology. Braylen was right, someone had spiked the graduation-punch with a potion that turned everything upside down.
“Sure I would,” I said, trying hard to sell the lie. “But I have to wonder what you’ll do if I earn the internship spot, too?” I nudged his hard stomach—cursing the way working at his dad’s restaurant had kept him so in shape. Unloading sacks of flour and sugar and all the other things that made that place delicious had given the smart boy a jock’s body. I’d been going for a playful hit, but feeling those muscles made me suck in a sharp breath. Another zing stole through my body. “Make a video on Snapchat about all the ways in which I’m awful?” I finally asked, remembering my original train of thought. It was supposed to be a joke, but my heart flinched. Maybe he would. Especially after my plan played out tonight.
For a split second, I wondered if I was taking things too far. Playing too dirty. I glanced around at the faces of my senior class, drinking and joking. Every once in a while, their eyes cut toward me with the same sneers I’d seen for four years, only less hidden now. Gordon had put a voice to the rumors—Zoey, the pampered princess who didn’t have to work for anything—and it was completely, utterly wrong. It was one thing for people who didn’t know me to think that, but for him? He knew better. He saw me grind every single day to get what I wanted, just as I did him. He’d betrayed me, which was completely different from beating me fairly in something we both wanted.
He deserved what he had coming.
His charm couldn’t erase what he’d done to earn it, either.
“No,” he said, rubbing his palm over his face. “I swear, Zoey.”
A chill raked over my skin when he said my name.
Damn, what is wrong with you?
I was having a hard time playing both roles—the girl who didn’t care that he’d slayed her on stage, and the girl who was crushed by it. It wasn’t easy pretending to be okay with what he’d done when in reality, it hurt worse than what those girls had said about me this morning in the bathroom.
My two opposing roles were messing with my responses to this…enemy.
Yes. Gordon is the enemy. He didn’t care about your feelings this morning and he doesn’t now.
“I honestly didn’t mean to hurt you,” he continued, and this time he was the one pushing off the wall to step closer to me. He placed a tentative hand on my shoulder, his eyes sincere. “I don’t know why you went after the scholarship, but you more than earned it. And, hell, you’ve probably earned the internship, too.” He cracked a grin that made my heart race. “But I’m still going to fight you tooth and nail for it.”
I laughed, the sound cracking some of the hurt off my heart. “Good luck,” I taunted, not sure why he didn’t understand why I went out for the scholarship. Surely he could understand the need to do things on my own? “Now…” I opened my arms in the universal lets-hug-it-out gesture. “Friends?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down before he set his beer on a thin table that hugged the opposite hallway wall. “Friends,” he said, and I wrapped my arms around his middle. He folded around me, and I sucked in a breath.
We’d never hugged before. Throughout it all—the trading back and forth of Branch, the same volunteer times, the accidental run-ins at the library—we never went beyond a friendly handshake or fist-bump.
I sank into his embrace, each of my coiled muscles unraveling under his touch. I breathed deeply, swimming in his scent—a killer combination of citrus and fresh bread dough, something delicious that penetrated his skin from his dad’s restaurant no doubt. For a second, I forgot the plan, forgot the reason why I’d opened myself up for this intimate contact in the first place, and simply…breathed. Like I hadn’t taken a good breath in years.
When he started to unwrap his arms from around me, I jolted back to reality. I pulled him closer, held him tighter. No time for nerves, I slipped my hand in the back pocket of his thankfully loose-fit jeans as gently as I could. Quick as possible, and with a touch as light as a feather, I plucked his keys into my fingers at the same time I turned my head up just enough to look at him.
The brown in his eyes was swirling with shock and question, but he didn’t blink when I’d made the move. Luckily, my assault of a hug was enough to distract him. Hell, I was distracted enough to almost forget he was the enemy.
Not a boy who smells too good and feels too good against me and who maybe I should have found a way to get this close to before this moment.
Right. Nothing like that.
I smiled up at him, stepping out of the embrace as I hid his keys in the side pocket of my clutch. “Can we…start over for the night?” My voice was too soft, too low. I needed to get a grip.
“How about the entire day?” He smiled.
I motioned toward the kitchen down the hall. “Get me a drink?”
He pursed his full lips, his eyebrows raising as he nodded. “I can do that.” He waved his arm for me to lead the way.
“I’ll meet you there,” I said, fishing out my cell. “I need to talk to Julie really quick.”
“All right,” he said, blinking several times like he wasn’t sure if what had just happened was real or if he’d imagined it. The look would’ve made me laugh if guilt wasn’t already churning in my gut for pulling off step one of plan A.
If it hadn’t worked then I would’ve been off the hook from myself.
But it had gone off without his noticing, and now there was no turning back.
I typed out a fast text to Julie, and she found me in the hallway rooted to the same spot five minutes later.
“Whoa,” she said. “You okay?”
I nodded, forcing the conflict to not show on my face. “Got ’em,” I said and handed her the keys. “Does Jay have everything?” I asked.
Julie downed the rest of whatever was in her solo cup and nodded. “Oh yeah,” she said, tossing the keys into her clutch. “He’s already there waiting. And Kennedy is in the car outside, ready to go. Everyone is more than on board.” She clutched my shoulder. “After what he did, this is letting him off easy.”
I forced a smile. “He apologized.”
“Please.” She scoffed. “He only did that to make himself feel better.”
“You think?”
“Mmm-hmmm. He doesn’t really feel bad. If he did, he wouldn’t have done it in the first place.” She tilted her head. “Are you having second thoughts? Because that is an entirely different situation.”
“No.” It was another lie, but I didn’t have time for an emotional debate right now. If I wanted to carry out the plan—which an hour ago I thought he more than deserved—then now was the time. There was no going back.
Julie crushed me in a hug. “It’s okay if you want to call it off. He deserves this, but you don’t deserve to feel like hell
over it.”
The fact that she was prepared to go whichever route I was comfortable with only made the struggle in my mind more difficult. I chewed on my lip for a moment, but shook my head. “Do it,” I said.
She nodded and was out the door before I could take the order back. Julie and Kennedy would do anything for me, I knew that. I’d known that when I’d asked them about the plan over asking Braylen—because while Bray was my best friend, I knew she would’ve talked me out of it. And I was already giving myself enough of a hard time. In the end, it would feel good. I was sure of it.
Hell, Gordon had appeared like he was on cloud nine after he threw me under the bus, sauntering off stage like he didn’t have a care in the world. I just had to make it through the night, and by the end of it, I would get to feel that sweet victory that only comes from the beauty of a perfectly executed plan.
Then why do you feel crappy now?
I shoved aside the voice in my head, along with the twisting sensation in my stomach. I was officially the worst rule-breaker ever.
Gordon deserves this.
Walking toward the kitchen, I repeated the mantra in my head over and over again. When I found him holding a bottle of my favorite hard cider, I said it again. This time with feeling. I knew we’d picked up details about each other over the years, how could we not with how much we saw each other inside and outside of school? But the fact that he knew it was my favorite drink and the way he offered it made my stomach fill with butterflies.
I was losing it.
Because for some reason…some super quiet voice in the back of my head kept whispering that if I wasn’t careful, I’d let my guard down with the one person I shouldn’t.
Chapter Seven
Gordon
Zoey stared at me like I’d grown an extra head, so I pushed the bottle into her hand and closed her fingers around it. “You prefer cider, right?” I asked, wondering if I’d gotten it wrong.
She blinked a few times, glancing from me to the bottle and back again. “Yes,” she said. “How did you know that?”
I snorted. “Seriously?”
She nodded.
“I’ve known you since kindergarten.” Could she really think I was that oblivious?
“It’s not like we’ve ever been…best friends,” she said, and I flinched at the way she said the words.
“Kind of hard to be when we’re always going after the same things.” I straightened, smiling at her. “But that’s in the past now, right? I mean, after the internship it’ll all be over.”
And she’d asked for a fresh start today. Even though I hated that she hadn’t told me why she’d gone after the scholarship when she said she wouldn’t, I didn’t press the issue. It didn’t matter now. She’d forgiven me, and I could forgive her…if not forget. It was a tangled mess, but with the shop in jeopardy and my college status wavering, I couldn’t muster up enough of a fight to care about something that was out of my control to change.
She took a quick drink. “Right,” she said. “And it’s not like we’ll be fighting for things at Stanford. You’re Economics, right?”
My heart twisted like someone was wringing out a dirty washrag. “Right.”
“Whoa,” she said, reaching out to touch my arm again, and that same damned force of heat shot through my blood under her fingers. “Did I say something wrong?”
I shook my head, forcing out a breath. “Not at all. We may have to discuss the custody of Branch. I was planning on giving him to you this morning, but since you beat me this time…” I finished the water in my hand and tossed the bottle into a trashcan nearby, burying the anger that had returned over her lying to me. “I only came here to apologize. Thanks for understanding, Zoey.” I pressed my lips together. Why did I want to stay instead of leave like I should? “I’ll see you around.” I turned my back on her, fully prepared to walk out of Lennon’s door and sit in my car for thirty minutes before driving home.
“Wait.” Zoey grabbed my arm and spun me around, her eyes wide. “Stay.”
I scrunched my eyebrows at her. “What?”
“I mean, who knows? Maybe by the end of the night, we’ll figure out a shared-custody schedule for Branch.” She shrugged. “We’ve called a cease-fire, right?”
I swallowed hard. She had. She’d shocked the hell out of me with her easy acceptance of my apology, and the hug afterward had been way more than I’d deserved. I could still smell her light vanilla perfume on my shirt where she’d clung to me for a few brief moments. Another warm thrill raked my skin and I tried to ignore it.
“So,” she continued when I hadn’t said anything. “Why not stay for a while? We could…”
“Talk?” I asked when her voice had trailed off.
“Yeah,” she said, smiling. “We haven’t ever had the opportunity to do that without something hanging in the balance.”
She wasn’t wrong. There had been times where I’d thought about broaching a non-school topic with her just to see if we’d end up in a debate, but I’d never carried out the idea. I was too busy trying my damnedest to beat her.
And even though I was still hurt over her lying, I was ready to solidify the peace I needed between us.
I turned back around and settled against the kitchen counter again. “All right,” I said.
A few more hours won’t hurt. I’ll still make the meeting with her father and hopefully sway him into saving the shop.
An awkward silence made my chest tight as I floundered inside my head for something to talk about. I blamed my sudden loss of words on her whiplash-behavior. It didn’t help that she simply stared at me, her eyes open and waiting like it wouldn’t bother her a bit to wait all night. It was a side I hadn’t seen of her before. What else had I missed about Zoey while trying to one-up her our whole lives?
“Parents lose it when you told them you’d landed the scholarship?” I finally blurted out, the words stinging every inch of the way. I’d pictured my dad tearing up and then hugging me in a way I would say was embarrassing but secretly lived for. Moments where I made him proud were why I worked so hard, but things hadn’t exactly gone to plan. Now I had to pray the internship was mine because we’d already been through three interview processes. They were still deciding and would make their choice based off any number of factors. It was completely out of my hands, and Zoey’s, which took the pressure off.
Zoey rolled her eyes before shifting them to the floor. She toed a line with her gold flat. “They were…” The muscles in her shoulders tensed like she braced for impact. “How they are.”
I motioned toward the fridge, hoping she’d follow me so I could grab another water in the spirit of staying smart. “They wanted you to go to Stanford, right?” I asked as I snatched a bottle and then shut the fridge.
“Honestly?”
“Yeah,” I said, twisting off the cap.
“I think they were hoping you got it instead.”
My eyes popped. Well, that makes three of us. “Why do you say that?” I asked after swallowing an ice-cold gulp of water and the accusations of her hiding the information from me on purpose. New leaf. Cease-fire. I wouldn’t lash out at her again.
“My dad wants me at the family company as soon as possible. He said he’d only pay for my college under the stipulation that I work for him part-time and not take the internship…if I got the position, that is.” She jolted like she hadn’t meant to blurt all that out, then with a wink and a motion to follow her, she turned on her heels toward the back door.
I stood rooted to the spot for a second, blinking like that would somehow make sense of the image she’d painted of her parents. I had assumed her dad would pay for her school no matter what. I also believed she’d be excited to work for the company after college.
Was I totally off base with her? Was everyone?
The curiosity propelled me after her more than the way her butt looked in those leggings.
Sure, keep telling yourself that.
Well, I couldn’t help
what I saw. I was a flesh-and-blood male who spent more time chasing down equations and economic books than I did girls. It would pay off in the end, though, and now that Zoey had forgiven me, the weight on my chest had already lightened. All I had to do was nail the meeting tomorrow with her father, then wait out the week until they’d announce who’d earned the internship and go from there. My brain begged me to formulate a plan B, C, and D, but I quashed the urge. No use in worrying myself to death over something that may or may not happen.
What bothered me now? Mainly the fact that I was dying to know if Zoey was being real or if she was exaggerating. It was hard to know, since she always played things so close to the chest and rarely let anyone past her closest friends into her home. I had no way of knowing what her parents were really like, only rumors.
“Hey,” I said when I’d caught up with her just outside the back door. I lightly touched her shoulder, and she turned around to face me, her drink at her lips. “Is it really like that?” I couldn’t pose the question any other way, and I was never one to mask what was on my mind.
This morning included.
Damn. Every time my stupid speech came back into my head my body hurt all over again. I can’t believe I was such a dick.
Make up for it now. Yeah. That’s what I was doing. Amends. If there was something Zoey needed to get off her chest—and from the way she chugged that cider, it seemed like there was—then I could be there to listen. And she had asked me to stay.
She lowered her bottle and let it hang by her hip, her eyes slits as she looked me up and down. “Do you really care?” She tried to laugh off the question, but the sharpness in her tone wasn’t lost on me. “From the way you said it this morning, you believe everything you hear about my family and me. Just like the rest of them.” She motioned the bottle toward the crowd of students hanging in or around Lennon’s infinity pool but never took her eyes off me.
Something sizzled in my gut, a combo of anger and guilt. I stepped close enough to her that my body cast a shadow over her eyes. She had to arch her neck to look up at me. “You told me you weren’t going after the scholarship. I didn’t know I had you as an adversary. It shocked me. Hurt me. But I apologized for that. If you knew—” I stopped myself before I spilled my guts about Dad’s shop, too. “If I could take back what I said this morning, I would. I swear. You said you forgave me. If you didn’t mean it, fine, but don’t use what I did as an excuse to not talk to me.”
