Take My Dress Off

by S. Gilmour

  “School,” I groaned and put my key into the door.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next day I wandered from class to class in a blur. Same cliques, same drama, nothing ever changed at Vista High. Danielle and I only had one class together, third period Algebra Two with Mr. Haines who, (I was told), was a total hard ass. I arrived at the classroom before Danielle and took a seat behind Todd Guthrie, one of the few openly gay guys in school. I saved Danielle a spot, placing my binder on the seat behind me.

  “Ladies and gentleman,” called Mr. Haines as he rushed into the room. “Make sure the seat you choose is the one you want because you’re staying there for the semester. I’m only making this seating chart once.” He took his place behind the podium. I kept my eye on the door to see if I knew anyone entering the classroom. My heart sank when Dillon strutted in like James Dean, looking drop-dead gorgeous in black jeans that slouched on top of black army boots and an INXS t-shirt.

  Of course I noticed. He still got to me.

  His arm was around Sloane Pierce. She stared up at him adoringly with her doll face as she batted her big brown eyes. Sloane Pierce was a cheerleader and friends with Marissa but I didn’t care for her. She was the gossip of the school, always spreading a rumor about someone. But she did it in that sneaky quiet way that made her way more formidable than she looked. I had heard that Sloane and Dillon were slobbering all over each other (not that I cared) at the drive-in. I was hoping I wouldn’t have a class with him this semester.

  Dillon paused at the seat behind me and Sloane sat in the row next to him.

  “That’s my binder,” I said without turning around. “I was saving that seat.”

  “What are you, the Seat Nazi?”

  I couldn’t help but turn around and glance at him. He tossed my binder onto the desk behind him and then sat slowly and deliberately in the seat, smirking the entire time. My chair wobbled as he rested his boots on the book rack underneath.

  I tried to ignore him.

  He poked me in the back with a pencil.

  “What?” I snapped and turned around.

  “How are you?” he said and flashed his dangerous smile.

  “I was having a great day until about five minutes ago.” I turned back around.

  He leaned forward and yanked my ponytail.

  “Ow!” My head snapped back.

  “You. Constantly. Kill. Me,” he whispered into my ear, tugging my ponytail with each word.

  Danielle breezed in and smacked him on the arm. “Get out of my chair, asswipe.”

  He leaned back in the seat and smiled up to her. “You snooze you lose, baby. You can plant your fat ass right behind me.”

  Danielle tossed my binder back onto my desk. “You’re so tragic,” she scowled at Dillon and slammed her books onto the desk behind him. I was dying to tell her about last night but it was going to have to wait until lunch. The bell rang and we settled in our seats as Mr. Haines called out the names for the attendance.

  Dillon tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and he slipped a note into my hand. Seriously? Is this how it was going to be for the semester? But it was Danielle’s flowery handwriting on the note. I slipped it into my binder so I could read it discretely.

  I know you got home late. Are you grounded?

  Dillon poked me in the back.

  “Hanson?” called Mr. Haines.

  “Oh uh…here,” I shouted and raised my hand.

  “Hunter?”

  “Present sir,” called Dillon. I heard Danielle make gagging sounds.

  I quickly scrawled on the note: Yes, but you know Maddie, she’ll forget.

  Mr. Haines was writing on the board so I passed it back over my head to Dillon who tossed it to Danielle. Once again the note came back.

  Tell me what happened! I’m dying! I can’t wait!

  I wrote back: I’ll tell you at lunch.

  Mr. Haines was still writing. Sloane was watching, her ostrich eyes darting from Dillon to me. I turned and pretended to adjust my purse hanging on the back of the seat. I passed the note back to Dillon. He slid his Ray Bans over his eyes and gave it back to Danielle. She quickly jotted down her response and passed it back. Mr. Haines turned around and shuffled through the papers on his desk. This time Dillon pretended to tie his boot and slipped it into the book under my seat. I reached under and retrieved the note.

  Just tell me one thing, was he successful?

  I blushed and looked around the room. No one noticed our exchange except for Sloane. She ran her hands through her long Sun-In streaked hair and glared at me. If she was getting jealous over this she wouldn’t last one hour with Dillon Hunter.

  I wrote one word on the note. YES!!

  A worksheet was being handed down the row so I slid the note in between the papers and passed it to Dillon. I began working on the pre-test assessment. A few minutes later the note landed on top of my test. I opened it but the response wasn’t from Danielle. Under the word YES!! in Dillon’s block handwriting it said: WHO IS “HE”? I tucked the note into the pocket of my binder and shot Dillon an angry glare. He shrugged his shoulders as Danielle mouthed douchebag behind him.

  “Is there a problem over there, guys?”

  “No sir. No problem,” responded Dillon. “Paige’s pencil broke, may she get another, sir?”

  I slipped my pencil into my binder. A few students giggled.

  Sloane raised her hand. “Mr. Haines, I have an extra pencil I can loan her.”

  “Fine, take care of it…and voices off, gang.”

  Sloane handed the pencil to me and smiled sweetly before mouthing “back off” with her perfectly white Pearl Drops teeth.

  She definitely wasn’t going to last two seconds with Dillon.

  ***

  “Holy shit, I can’t believe it!” squealed Danielle when she and I finally got to talk in the cafeteria at lunch.

  “Jesus, keep it down!” I threw a grape at her and looked around the cafeteria. I had just given her a play by play of my incredible night between the sheets with Chaz.

  “Relax, Paige. It’s so noisy in here no one can hear anything.” She popped the grape into her mouth. “Shane wouldn’t go down on me. But he had no problem when I did. Douche!”

  I looked around our table. No one was very close and the stereo was blasting Madonna’s Get into the Groove through the cafeteria.

  “Can you not broadcast my sex life please?”

  “At least you have one. I’m totally over Shane the Wonder Lay.”

  “Do you know how many times I’ve heard you say that?” I took a bite of my dried-out cafeteria taco.

  “Well, I mean it this time. For sure!” She punched a straw forcefully into her carton of chocolate milk. “If I start mooning over him again you remind me of this day.” She crossed herself and held her right hand on top of a bag of Cheetos. “I, Daniella Maria Russo, do solemnly swear, that I am officially over Shane Davis and his itty bitty teeny weenie.” I laughed so hard I started to choke on my taco and that only made me laugh harder.

  “Do you need me to perform the Heimlich on you? Or anything else?” Dillon straddled the bench and wrapped his arms around my waist. He held his cheek against mine. “Maybe a little mouth to mouth?”

  “This table is full, Hunter. Move along,” snarled Danielle.

  “It doesn’t look full to me.”

  “Everything’s reserved. Make like Michael Jackson and beat it.”

  “Danielle,” I glared. She could be too blunt sometimes.

  “That’s okay.” Dillon pecked me on the cheek, swung his leg over the bench, and stood up. “I know when I’m not wanted.” His attention focused on Sloane who was waving way too eagerly at him. “And I know where I am wanted,” he grinned and ran his hand through his perfectly disheveled hair. “See you hags later.”

  “I really don’t know what you see in him,” said Danielle sliding a Cheeto between her red lips.

  “Saw,” I corrected.

  “He may be a to
tal babe but it’s ruined by the fact that he’s a complete dick.”

  “He’s not a dick, Danielle. He can be sweet sometimes.”

  “Ya, when he wants in your pants.”

  I looked over to him at Sloane’s table. She was sitting in his lap but he was watching me with intensity in his dark eyes that had started to become familiar.

  “Paige?”

  “What?”

  “He never got in your pants, right?”

  “Seriously, Danielle? As if.”

  Danielle looked back to Sloane and Dillon. Sloane was giggling and tossing her hair as he tickled her. Danielle grabbed my hand with her Cheeto stained fingers.

  “Paige, stay away from Dillon. Donny says Chaz and Dillon have a lot of bullshit between them. They’re going to end up killing each other over you.”

  “I think you’re being a little dramatic.” I brushed off her comment but part of me felt a slight spike of anxiety. Chaz had a definite disliking to Dillon, for why I didn’t know. It couldn’t just be about me. There was something else, something deeper that went back to before I came into the picture. I’m friends with Donny, not Dillon. Chaz’s words echoed through my thoughts.

  Danielle popped another Cheeto into her mouth. “Damn, I wish I had two guys fighting over me.”

  ***

  I raced home and checked the answering machine. No message from Chaz. I did my homework and cleaned my room. Still no call, no Chaz. I checked the clock on my nightstand, four-thirty. I would have to leave to go take care of my horse soon. I decided to call him. Maybe we could meet up while I was out. It rang and rang then I heard a click when it switched over to the main house. I was just about to hang up when his sister Kelly answered. She said he was at Spade’s house. I asked her to have him call me and left for the ranch in San Luis Rey.

  No matter how much my life changed the one thing that remained constant was the ranch. It was my refuge from the world. No matter how weird things were getting in life (my break-up with Brit, drama with Dillon) I always felt at peace there. It was quiet now that Jen had moved to her place in Fallbrook but everything else remained the same and that was how I liked it. People were always milling about, cleaning stalls, feeding their horses. Some were leaning on fences, chatting lazily in the afternoon sun, and some were invariably riding in the arena.

  I brought my horse, Dusty, in from the pasture and groomed her while she munched contentedly on her hay. I tried not to let my mind drift to Chaz and the events of yesterday, practically forcing a new thought into my mind whenever he tried to steal in.

  But it was impossible.

  Dusty helped distract me by snorting or stomping, occasionally swatting at flies with her tail and shaking her head. I hated that I felt so vulnerable now, that I let him get close to me. Dad and Maddie’s split and my break up with Brit had rendered me cynical, untrusting, convinced that anyone I cared for would end up leaving me.

  “You keep brushin’ that horse and she ain’t gonna have no hair left.” I turned around to see Woody, the manager of the ranch, unloading buckets of grain from a wheelbarrow, a cigarette pinched between his stained teeth.

  “She’s shedding like crazy,” I said and proved my point by pulling a wad of white hair from the brush. He grinned and nodded, exhaling smoke from his nose.

  I wondered if Chaz had called.

  Ugh! I didn’t want to be that girl again, obsessing over the answering machine, worrying about missed calls. Why hadn’t he called? We were supposed to talk about our first day of school and he was at Spade’s house instead? I thought after last night we would have met up right after school. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone back to his house last night.

  Stop it, Paige, I scolded.

  No. I wasn’t going to get down on myself. All of a sudden I was pissed. I decided I wasn’t calling him when I got home. If he wanted to talk he knew where to find me. I put my bucket of brushes away in the tack room.

  When I stepped back out, a familiar Mustang was parked next to my Firebird. Chaz was leaning casually against it in Levi’s 501’s, an aqua polo shirt, and topsiders with no socks. His emerald eyes caught mine and my knees went weak. I wanted to run to him but forced myself to walk slowly instead. I tried to remember I was pissed.

  “I heard you were looking for me.” A small smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

  “I didn’t know you were lost,” I said coolly.

  “Come here.”

  I found myself being drawn to him like a magnet and fell into his soft kiss. Why did he have this power over me? If he had said to get on all fours and bark like a dog I probably would have.

  He pulled back from me and tipped my chin up to his. “So...how was your first day of school?”

  “Not totally bogus but not awesome either.”

  “Same here. I came to take a beautiful girl to dinner. Have you seen one?”

  I pretended to look around.

  “If you see her, tell her to meet me at the Bob’s Big Boy Diner in ten minutes.”

  He hopped into the Mustang and the engine roared to life. I followed in my Firebird behind him. I was glad we were taking separate cars. I didn’t trust myself not to go back to his house (if he asked). I had to be home on time tonight or Maddie would definitely remember I was grounded.

  ***

  We were greeted by Maddie’s favorite waiter, the adorable Xavier. He seated us at a booth and said he would be back for our drink orders, holding his gaze on me just long enough to make me uncomfortable.

  “What’s with that guy?” Chaz opened the big plastic menu.

  “What do you mean? He’s just being friendly because Maddie always tips him really well.”

  “Maddie’s not here.” Chaz closed the menu abruptly. “So the more he eye-rapes you the less of a tip he’s getting from me.”

  Was he kidding? With Chaz it was hard to discern sometimes.

  “Okay, beautiful girl,” said Xavier opening his order pad. “Let me guess, Dr. Pepper with cherries right?” He gave me a big smile, his dark eyes glittering from the bright light suspended over our table.

  “That’s it.”

  “See, I already have it down.” He presented the order pad to me. He had in fact written it down.

  Beautiful girl, Dr. P w/cherries.

  I blushed and pushed it back to him.

  “And you?” he asked Chaz without looking up from the order pad.

  “Iced tea,” Chaz replied sharply.

  “Are you ready to order now or should I come back?”

  “Come back,” Chaz glared.

  Uh oh. Chaz wasn’t kidding. He’d been possessive before but not like this. After last night our relationship had definitely changed.

  “Sure, take your time guys.” Xavier got the hint too. He backed away and didn’t look back. He quickly returned with our drinks and another waiter took our order and dropped off our food.

  Chaz’s strange mood made me even more anxious about telling him I had a class with Dillon. I knew he was going to ask and I couldn’t lie to him. He was bound to find out anyway. I stalled, keeping him busy by asking questions about Palomar. But since he only had two classes today that didn’t take long. I wondered if he would bring up last night. I wanted to talk about it but not here in the hustle and bustle of this diner with Xavier or whoever popping in and out of our booth. I had hoped for a more intimate setting.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Chaz said as he slowly stirred his iced tea. “Why don’t you move your horse to my house? The cows are gone and the pasture from when my sister had a horse is just sitting empty.”

  “I don’t want to be a burden to you or to your family, Chaz.”

  “It’s no burden. You’d be doing me a favor because I wouldn’t have to mow it.”

  “Only if it’s okay with your mom.”

  “I pretty much make all the decisions now when it comes to the ranch. I don’t even think she’d notice anyway,” he said with a hint of sadness. I took his hand into mine and squeeze
d.

  “How are your classes?” asked Chaz, his mood lifting. “Any good teachers?” I rattled on about my classes and tried to change the subject to the Holiday Show that was coming up but he kept steering the conversation back to school.

  “Have any classes with anybody I know?” He took the last bite of his hamburger.

  Here we go. I might as well get it over with.

  “I have PE with Marissa and Algebra Two with Danielle…and Dillon,” I dropped casually as I pushed my plate to the end of the table. Chaz stopped chewing, his eyes darkening to a deep jade.

  “Did you talk to him?” he asked casually like we were talking about the weather. He held my eyes with his as he dipped a fry into a blob of ketchup.

  I took a long pull from my straw thinking of how to deliver a safe response.

  “How are you guys doing? Need anything?” Xavier’s return bought me a short reprieve.

  “No,” replied Chaz sharply. He didn’t lift his eyes from mine.

  “We’re fine, thank you,” I smiled awkwardly.

  Xavier motioned to my half-eaten sandwich. “Do you want me to box this up?”

  “No thanks.”

  Xavier stared at me a moment, his dark eyes questioning before shifting his gaze to Chaz then backed away. Chaz waited calmly for me to continue.

  “Did you know that Dillon is going out with Sloane Pierce now?”

  “Like that’ll last.”

  Xavier placed the check on the table, flashed a dazzling smile to me, and dashed off to another table. Chaz scanned the check and tossed a ten dollar bill onto the table. I added a few more dollars and we slid out of the booth.

  “Thanks, see you next time,” called Xavier as we walked out. He winked at me and smiled.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Chaz turned to walk back in.

  “Chaz, stop.” I jumped in front of him and grabbed his arm. “He’s just a flirt.”

  “Flirt my ass.”

  I pulled Chaz back out of the diner and we walked to the parking lot. I just watched him go from zero to crazy in a matter of seconds. He wasn’t like this before his father passed away, at least not that I’d seen.

  It was kind of scary.