When I get home from school, my mom and I are in the middle of an argument, when she finally says, “Go take out the garbage.”
She always says that when she doesn’t want to fight anymore. I huff and head for the trashcan. Sorry, but I’m not giving into her this time. Today when I finally admitted to her that Conrad was back in town, she insisted I invite him over for dinner. But no way.
As I head out the door with the trash, she reminds me, “He was your best friend, January.”
“Key word: Was,” I tell her.
I freeze when I get outside—Conrad.
“What are you doing out here?”
“Not listening to you fight with your mom about me, that’s for sure.”
“Why are you here?”
It’s a fair question. I haven’t seen him since he gave me back my underwear, and though I haven’t been able to bring myself to ask around, I haven’t seen him at school. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t enrolled back at Jefferson high, which is weird, but seems to be the case. But in any case, he hasn’t come around to see me, hence my fair question: “Why are you here?”
He looks into my eyes a sober moment, then says huskily, “So you can interview me.”
I blink at him. “Oh, you heard I’m on the school paper?”
I say it lightly, though he hadn’t given me the information lightly, but the way he is looking at me is making me nervous, and so I’m in fear of blathering, because that’s what I do when I’m freaked-out—I blather. “Is it because I’m interviewing North?—did he make some sort of switch with you or something? If he did, that’s okay, I suppose—you’re both equally awesome hockey players, right?”
His answer is a slow shake of his head. “I didn’t switch with North.”
The way he says it puts me on alert that something is up, but I’m still too shaken-up by seeing him unexpectedly to get my brain to work properly.
He seems to realize this, but instead of actually speaking to explain, he pulls out his phone and plays a voice message for me, “Hi Conrad, this is Ms. Worth from the school. Good news—January has agreed to do the interview with you.”
My heart slams against my chest. “Wait. It’s you I’m supposed to interview? But Ms. Worth said the guy I’m interviewing had a girlfriend that was murdered by an abusive boyfriend.”
His devastating response is a slow hesitant nod. “Abusive ex-boyfriend, actually.”
His voice comes out all raspy and strangled.
“Ex,” he emphasizes again.
I swallow and lose all of my fight. I sit down before I collapse with heartache from his tortured haunted expression.
“Your girlfriend was murdered?”
He winces slightly and bites his lip. Then nods, and I can tell he’s not going to be able to talk about it. He can’t even speak.
“I’m so sorry, Conrad.”
He looks across the street, but I know he doesn’t see it—the street, or our world. He’s seeing his murdered girlfriend. I can see it in his tortured eyes.
“Her name was Lydia,” he manages to tell me after a long agonizing silence.
“You don’t have to do this, Conrad. Ms. Worth said you refused to give an interview. That you only agreed to it when you learned I was on the paper. But you don’t have to do this.”
“No, I want to. For you.”
“No, don’t. Don’t do it for me. I get it, okay? I get why you didn’t come see me when you first came back. You were probably heartbroken and devastated and grieving. You probably didn’t want to see anyone.”
“No. I did. I wanted to see you.” His voice is husky and adamant. “I wanted to see you January.”
I want to ask him why he didn’t come and see me then. But I don’t want to sound accusatory, of course. So, I hold my breath and wait for him to go on. It’s a long, painful time before he does.
“But …” That’s as much as he can seem to manage to get out for an explanation.
“Sorry,” he murmurs with a weak smile. “I’m having trouble talking.”
“Yeah, I get that.” I bite my lip. “Look, I haven’t been very supportive since you came back. In fact, I’ve been an immature jerk. I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” he says softly.
“To make it up to you, I’m not going to make you go through with the interview,” I tell him.
“No, it’s okay. I want to do it. Vivian had said how it’s a coveted story. So, I want you to have it—not her.” He nudges me playfully, so gently. “Because the Customer’s not always right—you are.”
Vivian’s last name is “Customer.” We used to be entertained by making jokes about it. (We used to entertain ourselves easily.) But now there is pain in his voice, and the bittersweet reminder of our childhood makes me want to bawl.
When I squint at him he says softly, “The right person to tell this story to—to bear my soul to. You’re the only person I can do that to. You’re the only person that I ever could.”
A lump grows in my throat the size of a golf ball. I try to swallow it down. “Conrad, you so don’t have to do this. I can tell it’s painful for you.”
“It is. But Ms. Worth went on and on about what an important story it is.”
“You’re right. It is, I guess. But Ms. Worth said you didn’t want to tell it. You don’t have to do it for me, Conrad. We’re good—I promise.”
“Good,” he says softly and smoothes back an errant tendril of my hair. “I’m glad. But I want you to know, okay? I need you to know.”
CHAPTER 42
Conrad sits beside me on my porch steps to tell me about the sad “cautionary tale.”
There’s a long pause before he finally manages to speak, it’s kind of like he doesn’t know where to start, or even if he can. Finally he says, “A lot of girls tell me they were in Lydia’s situation—the sticking with an abusive boyfriend—and they can relate. They say that. So I’ll tell you it, what happened to her—as much as I know. I can’t speak for her though. She had a lot of walls up when it came to that. I still don’t understand, and never will. Why that smart, beautiful girl kept going back to him. I’ll never understand that.”
***
Tears run down my face as he tells me the story, my heart aching as much from the agony in his voice, as because the girl had been killed by a boy she knew was dangerous for her, yet she couldn’t stay away from, not until she had a wonderful, loving boyfriend, Conrad.
Conrad wipes at a tear. “I probably would have gotten tired of her, just like every other girl I dated. Probably. But the thing is—that didn’t happen. It didn’t get a chance to happen. Instead, she died. So now I’m left thinking of her as this perfect girl, and with the memory of this perfect thing we had. It hurts and it’s hard and after the hellish nightmare happened, I just needed to get through it—survive it. But I couldn’t, because everywhere I looked, everything reminded me of her. So I came back here—but here everything reminds me of you. You, and what we had. And I miss that. I miss us.”
CHAPTER 43
After hearing Conrad’s tragic story, I held him a long time. “We’ll be best friends again,” I promised him softly. “It will be just like old times.”
But even as I told him this, I knew it wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
I loved Conrad. I just did. Things couldn’t go back to the way they were, because he had laughed about them back at his birthday party with Griffin. Sadly, that’s the way I was with him then—a pathetic joke. It hadn’t always been that way, of course. But apparently ever since that night I had made him that stupid candlelight dinner I had given myself away—I wanted him to be my boyfriend. And it made him leave without saying goodbye, or put out much effort in talking to me after I blocked him from my life. Instead, he’d started a new life, and wouldn’t even have ever come back to this one if his “perfect” girlfriend hadn’t died, and he needed to get away from her memories. Then he needed his old best friend. But since things haven’t changed with me—I mean, I still feel
the same about him as when he left—he’s going to get creeped out by my feelings again, once he discovers that they haven’t changed, that they’re still way beyond “best friend” feelings, and into flat-out … well, feelings that will freak him out.
This going to be humiliating and painful all over again.
Sigh.
CHAPTER 44
The day after interviewing Conrad, I text North during math class. “Meet me at break in the tutor-lab for your interview.”
After a moment, he replies: “Isn’t Conrad back in school today?”
I squint at his words in confusion. “Yeah, it’s his first day back … why does that matter?”
“Um, I guess it doesn’t. Maybe.”
Then he texts, “But does he know you’re interviewing me?”
I furrow my brow. “I guess so. I mean, I mentioned it, sort of. But we were in the midst of a different conversation at the time, so I’m not sure if that information actually got absorbed since it wasn’t really part of the issue … but why does it matter anyway? Do you think he’s jealous of your hockey skills?”
North: “Well, he might be jealous of something—not that though … I think he’s secure in the knowledge he’s almost as good as me when it comes to the ice.”
I’d only been kidding about the jealous thing, so I assume North is too. So, I skip it. They are both equally awesome at hockey—but Conrad is already going to be in the paper, probably the front page, so this conversation is a non-issue no matter how baffling, which it is—baffling—but sometimes guys’ humor just is, especially guys on the hockey team. They’re always talking in code. Always! What I don’t understand, I just usually ignore. Believe me, it’s best. So, I do that now. “Meet me at the tutor-lab at break,” I tell him again.
“With Conrad?”
What the—?? “No, alone.”
Then I add, “Unless you’re afraid of me(??)”
“Afraid to be alone with you—a little, yes.”
I blink at his words; hockey team humor *eye-roll*. I sigh, “K, I’ll try to control myself—I promise.”
***
When I get to the tutor-lab, North is already seated at a desk. He’s doing something on his phone, but when he sees me come through the door he does a double-take and then his eyes stay on me as I come across the room and slip into the seat beside him. We’re alone in the lab. I hadn’t expected that.
“You don’t want my moves, right?” he asks, like he’s checking to make sure I didn’t plan it this way—us all alone in a suddenly hormone-filled classroom, just the two of us, alone.
“Nope. No moves. Just answers to questions—for your fans.”
His eyebrows go up mock-seductively, “Are you a fan?”
“I like hockey,” I inform him crisply, wanting to get us on a more business-like type mode.
“You like hockey players,” he murmurs.
I shake my head slightly, not liking that his every comment seems to have this underlying seductiveness to it, even though he’s just messing around. “I’ve never dated a hockey player.”
“But you want to,” he says.
“Enough, okay? I’m going to ask the questions.”
He grins. “It wasn’t a question.”
My face is burning. I don’t even know if his statement was insinuating that he knows I want to date Conrad, or if he was implying that I want to date him (North) … or both? I’m really not able to focus with his eyes on me the way they are, they keep stalling on my lips, then darting to my hair, like he wants to run his fingers through my long alluring tresses, and crash his hot tantalizing mouth hungrily on mine, and—man, it’s hot in here.
I clear my throat. “Okay, first question …”
I actually get through three questions before his lips press on mine. Mmmm.
But then he quickly pulls away—and apologizes, like he did something seriously wrong.
He gently rubs his lips with two fingers, like he can’t believe what he’d just done with them. He squeezes his eyes shut. “Sorry, usually I take pills for my ADD—to help keep me from getting distracted. But your lips were distracting me. So the kiss—it wasn’t my fault—it was my mom’s fault. Because she didn’t pick up my medication refill, so I got distracted—by your lips.”
He smiles mildly, and weakly. “So see? It wasn’t my fault—it was my mom’s … and your lips.”
He gets up, “So, I guess the interview is over, okay?”
“But—”
“Short and sweet,” he says, “leave them wanting more.”
I want more—more of that kiss. But he darts out of the classroom like it’s on fire—or like I’m a demon from hell come to take his soul.
What’s up with that?
CHAPTER 45
**CONRAD**
CONRAD
“I kissed her,” North tells me.
I about slam his head in my locker. “You what?!”
“I kissed her.”
“What part of stay away from her don’t you get?”
“It wasn’t my fault. She put me under a spell.”
“Yeah, she does that.”
“One minute I was talking to her, the next my lips were attacking her.”
I want to bash his head through a wall. Or bash mine through one. Instead I just thump it against my locker.
North watches me looking both amused, yet sympathetic. “So, sorry. I just thought you should know—so you’re not shocked when we you see pictures of us on our honeymoon. Not that I’m exactly prepared to get married, but when she looks at me with those big pretty eyes, man. I bet it’s gonna happen. We’ll be poor, but we’ll live on our deep love for each other.”
“Shut up,” I tell him.
“Dude, just tell her how you feel so I can get over my misery. I’m not good with trying to hold back—I mean, I had every intention of holding back.”
“Dude, I mean it. Shut up. Or better yet, go ahead and date her. Be yourself—that will keep her busy, and soon disgusted with the whole male population and then she won’t be tempted to date anyone else.”
He blinks. “So, that’s the plan?”
“No that’s not the plan. The plan is—and always was—and always will be—stay away from her.”
“Yeah, that’s not working, dude.”
As if for proof, he gets a text right this second as we’re speaking. His eyebrows go up as he reads it, and he looks both agonized, yet pleasantly pleased. I kid you not—both those things, both at the same time. Still looking that strange mixture, he peeks up at me, then shows me the text. It’s from January!
I scratch my chin. “Okay, new plan, I guess.”
CHAPTER 46
**JANUARY**
JANUARY
After North scurried out of the tutor-lab like I had an apple I was trying to feed him (look it up in the bible); I sat in a confused daze for an embarrassingly long time. Mostly I was dazed by that kiss. It was short, but effective. Sooo seductive. Very, very different from Nate’s. Like, North could totally be called “The Giver.”
That kiss … Mmmm. I was pretty sure tonight I’d wake up kissing my pillow over it.
The thought gave me an idea.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if North and I got together on occasion for some massively needed kissing. Sometimes. After all, Paige was now dating Tommy exclusively. So she wouldn’t care. No one would care—not even North, probably.
The thing was, I mean, what I figured was, if I had North’s kisses occasionally for a distraction it could help keep my mushy kooky feelings for Conrad in check. And it wasn’t like I’d have to explain all this to North—no need. He’s used to kissing girls with no strings attached. The dude doesn’t do strings. He doesn’t make commitments. He’s never had a committed relationship in his life, as far as I know. No girlfriends—ever. Just flirting and kissing, then moving on to new girls to kiss—flirting, flirting, flirting. What I mean is, he’s always playing with girls, never serious. So, this seems perfect—r
ight? Getting his scrumptious kisses, but not having to worry about my heart getting slaughtered. Because we’d both be in it only for the kissing—not a relationship.
With this brilliant plan forming in my kiss-dazed mind, I quickly text North before break is over, “Why don’t we finish the interview over dinner tonight?—my treat.”
Especially it will be my treat when I get his lips on mine again—I just hope I don’t pretend I’m kissing Conrad. That would be bad. Very, very bad!
It takes North a few moments to write back. “Okay. Sounds good.”
Then he texts, “You drive us there, okay?”
I stare at his words kind of a little bit baffled by them, but I’m not even sure why. I shrug it off, and text, “Okay,” because you know what? I have a date.
Okay, so it’s with a substitute “The Giver.” And really all that’s going to happen is some distraction kisses. But hey, I’m okay with that.
I quickly text Conrad, “I have a date tonight!”
After all, we’re friends again, right? And that’s what friends do—they share. They don’t cling to their sweatshirts, or make them candlelight dinners, or wake up kissing their pillow because they dreamed they were kissing them. No, they don’t do that stuff.
They save it for their substitute.
CHAPTER 47
Conrad didn’t text me back. I sit in history class, not sure what this means. Is he sad? Did he just not see the text? Did his phone die? I’m still contemplating the mystery as our teacher detours from her lecture and says, “I realize this information may not be as fascinating as January’s profile seems to be—but it is a huge chunk of your grade.”
In shock, I whip around and catch Conrad dart his gaze away from me.
All the air whooshes out of me. I didn’t even know Conrad was in this class.
The Boyfriend Contract Page 10
