He signals with his pencil up and down, his jaw slack. It takes him a moment to figure out how to speak, and I lean forward, blinking at him.
“Yes?” I say.
“Umm…what’s all this?” he finally asks, and his voice is choked.
I smirk. “Oh, do you like it?”
He swallows hard. “I…umm…you look…”
“Hot,” the girl next to me comments. “Love the new look.”
I smile over at her. “Thanks. I decided it was time for a change.”
She nods. “You nailed it.”
I lean back in my chair, and I can’t help the smile on my lips.
“Yeah, what she said,” Tyler manages to say, and I laugh to myself but don’t justify the comment by turning around.
Chapter 14
I don’t understand why I’m so nervous. I go to Kellin’s shows every Friday, but this time my hands are trembling as I put on my makeup. I steady them as I run my brush through the eyeshadow and then across my eyelid. In a matter of hours I’ve mastered the cat-eyeliner I always admired on Lindy, but I haven’t gotten used to the way I look with it on yet. I lean back, putting on some tinted lip balm before blinking at myself. I look good–is it bad to think that? I stand, pulling my dark purple v-neck shirt down just a bit, so it covers half of my butt and shows more of my newly found cleavage. A knock comes on the door just as I slide on my Keds. I take a deep breath before opening the door and smiling up at Kellin.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he greets me, and my pulse quickens. He slips his hand into mine. “Don’t worry; Lindy’s not home.”
“We have to tell her about this whole deal eventually,” I reply, not caring we don’t need to hold hands now because no one can see us.
Kellin holds the door to his truck open for me.
“It’s only been a week–” he begins, and I raise my eyebrows at him. “But you’re right; we should probably tell Lindy before she sees us holding hands.”
“Can you imagine how much she’d freak out?” I ask as he hops in the other side and slams his door shut.
He runs a hand through his hair before starting the engine. “Yeah, she’d be pissed.”
“I’m sure she’ll be okay with the arrangement, though.”
“Who knows. She’s probably still getting used to the fact people are drooling over you and not just her.”
“Yeah, I’m not the ugly friend anymore,” I reply, picking at the strands of my ripped jeans.
Kellin scoffs. “You never were.”
I look up, raising my eyebrows at him. “Come on, Kell. I wasn’t pretty before.”
He shakes his head, his lips in a harsh line just like his jaw. “That’s bullshit, Ree. You’re the same girl you were before, except your clothes fit a little too good and you stopped wearing glasses.”
“Don’t forget this,” I reply tossing my hair over my shoulders, and staring at him through my bangs.
He reaches over and runs his fingers over my chin in a way that makes me inhale deeply.
Breathe, Reese. Breathe.
“I do like that color on you,” he replies, his hand falling over mine and weaving our fingers together.
“I thought you would, ” I answer without thinking, squeezing my eyes shut as I think of exactly how that sounds like I did this just to impress him.
He glances over at me.”I’m glad you considered how I’d feel about the change.”
“You’re one of my best friends…besides Lindy, so of course I thought of what you’d think,” I explain, and Kellin’s hand pulls away from mine to go to the steering wheel.
He stares ahead, and I’m struck by the urge to take his hand back into mine again because now it feels wrong for his hand not to be there. We sit in silence until I finally speak.
“Are you mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad at you?” Kellin asks as he shifts the truck into park.
“I don’t know…you just seem angry,” I reply as I watch him squeezing the steering wheel with white knuckles.
“Not at all.”
“You sure?” I ask as he jumps out and moves the seat forward so he can grab his guitar and amplifier.
“Of course.” He slides the guitar over his back, taking the amp in one arm, so his biceps bulge as he holds the other out for me. “Ready to make an entrance?”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask as I look at the already crowded venue.
“Absolutely positive.”
Being Kellin’s arm candy is strangely satisfying. Girls eyes follow us as we enter the room, and narrow on me when I kiss his cheek before he goes on stage. At the end of the show, I can feel their stares as he pulls me into a hug, and then slings his arm around my waist, tucking his hand into my front pocket.
“Guys, you remember my girlfriend Reese from when we went to the beach, ” Kellin says, and Schmidt narrows his eyes at us.
“How long have you been dating?” Schmidt asks.
Kellin shrugs. “We’ve known each other for four years…so she’s used to hearing about you toolboxes.”
“Isn’t this your sister’s best friend?” Fague asks, crossing his arms.
Kellin nods, and I bite my lip as I study each of their passive expressions. They don’t seem surprised at all. I feel like I’m missing something, but just then the girl I saved a few shows back comes up to us.
“Hey, Kellin,” she says, studying me carefully. “You look familiar.”
I hold my hand out. “Reese–Kellin’s girlfriend.”
I smile in satisfaction as her mouth drops, and her face reddens. She takes my hand and shakes it, before looking over at Kellin. “I didn’t realize you were seeing anyone?”
Kellin leans over and kisses my neck, sending my pulse skittering out of control as I fight the lightheaded feeling it causes. “Yup.”
She nods before turning to the rest of the band. “Great show, guys!”
I look up at Kellin, and he winks at me, before pulling me closer to whisper in my ear. “See, it’s not that bad. I think we can pull this off.”
Chapter 15
Saturday morning I wake up to the sound of the vacuum machine and roll out of bed. I shove my glasses on my face and then look at my alarm clock. Lindy is out of her mind. It’s hardly seven o’clock. We’re lucky if she wakes up that early during the week.
“Woah, now!” I say as Lindy bumps into me carrying the mop. “What’s the big deal?”
She turns to me and blinks, her yellow gloves squeaking as she squeezes the cleaning tools tighter. “I want the house to look as good as it did the first time our parents saw it! This is my uncle’s house. I don’t want my parents to tell him we made a mess of it already, and your parents are neat freaks.”
I blink at her as the words sink in — Family Day. I plop down on the couch as I stare up at her, the blood draining from my face. Kellin warned me at the beginning of the week, but somehow I completely forgot because of how good I felt. Now I feel sick.
“What is it now, Ree? Are you that scared of a few cleaning utensils–you should be helping me!” she says, and I look around the clean house.
“We aren’t pigs, Lindy. The house is fine the way it is,” I reply, gritting my teeth.
“This,” Lindy says, swiping her finger across the top of the TV and turning a barely dusty finger to me. “Is not clean!”
I suck in a breath through my nose before responding through my teeth, “I have bigger things to worry about.”
Lindy looks at the ceiling before letting her eyes fall slowly to me. I want to throttle her as she asks, “Like what?”
I stand, throwing my hands up and signaling to my body and lastly my hair. “Oh, I don’t know! The fact that I look like an entirely different person!”
“You look great, what’s the problem?” she asks, fluttering her eyelashes at me with her lips in a stern line of discontent. She really only cares about cleaning right now, and she has to deal with me.
“The big deal?” I fir
e at her as I cross my arms over my chest, which reminds me I’m actually showing I have boobs now. I put my arms at my side and my nails bite into my fists. “I don’t know, Lind? Maybe the fact I look like a rebel? The fact I have purple hair? I don’t know, any number of things about my appearance that might set my parents and yours off!”
“Come on, Ree, it’s not that bad,” she replies as she pulls a rag from her cleaning supplies and begins scrubbing the top of the TV.
I stare at her in disbelief. “I forgot, you wouldn’t understand. You’ve always been what everyone wants you to be–and you’ve always wanted to be those things.”
Lindy looks over her shoulder at me before shaking her head and moving to the bookshelf. “So what are you going to do? Hide like Kellin does? You can change back into your old clothes, but unless you’re going to wear a turban, good luck covering up your hair.”
My chest heaves as I stand. She doesn’t have the faintest clue what this feels like. The panic sinks in again, making me hot and cold as sweat begins to drip down the back of my neck. What if my parents don’t approve? What if Kellin’s parents don’t?
The room spins. Most likely, they won’t like anything about who I am now. There has to be a reason Kellin has never shown them his tattoos and lip ring. I swallow. Finally, I understand exactly why Kellin hides his tattoos and badass ways. This feeling is awful. I like who I am, but will they? If they hate it, will I change back?
I stand up and nearly take Kellin out as I rush towards the stairs. He grabs me by the shoulders, and I know the panic is still written all over my face.
“Hey.” His voice cracks as he looks me over. “What’s wrong?”
I look over at Lindy in all her perfection cleaning the house. I will never be that. I have tried for years to get perfect grades like her, but she always does it without trying, and everyone naturally seems to love her. I’m just not her, and I’m confident I don’t want to be.
“Family Day,” I finally answer as my eyes fall back to him.
“Let’s go for a walk?” Kellin suggests, nodding over his shoulder. I follow him out the door, and he plops down on the front lawn, laying back. He closes his eyes and gently tugs on my ankle for me to join him. He opens his eyes a slit and then turns to face me. “Can you imagine how my parents would freak out if they knew I look like this?”
My eyes move from his raised brows down to his pierced lip to his chest and arms that show because he’s wearing a tight v-neck t-shirt. I swallow hard. I don’t want to admit that it’s one of the reasons I’m freaking out so much.
Kellin’s chest rises as he sighs. “Listen, Ree…I don’t want you to feel like I do. I don’t want you to feel like you need to hide. It’s not a good feeling.”
I look down at the ground beneath me, chewing on my lip before I lock my gaze on him. “Why do you keep hiding then?”
Kellin turns onto his back before letting his head roll to his shoulder. “It was easier to hide, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t realize I was hiding, but you know who you are, Kell. I don’t know why you’d want to hide it. Especially when it feels so shitty to.”
His jaw tightens. “You’ve heard my music. What do you think my parents would think of that?”
I put my hand on his cheek, and the muscles relax beneath my touch. “I think your music is amazing.”
Kellin sighs. “You’re special, though…I doubt think my parents would understand. They think I’m some sort of angel.”
I reach forward, tracing the bluebird tattoo that dances in the wind of his sleeve and I watch as his skin rises where my finger trails. “Do you think me looking like this makes me a bad person now? That your parents and mine will think that?”
His eyes dart up to my face. “Of course not, Ree.”
I give him a weak smile. “Why is it so different with me than it is you?”
Kellin sits up and leans his arms on his knees. “Everyone has a mold they want me to fit into. Even you, Ree.”
My head jerks back as my stomach forms into a hard knot.
“At school, I’m the rebel player. To you, I’m the boy next door who just happened to get some tattoos — the guy who would do anything for you, and to my parents, I’m the kid with the angel’s voice and a 4.0. Did you know I have a 4.0?”
I swallow as I look away. I don’t want to admit I’ve always thought Kellin probably didn’t do well in school.
Before I can respond, he speaks, “Exactly, and you’ve known me forever.”
I run my fingers over my lips before letting my eyes fall back to his. “I’m sorry.”
He twirls one of my curled plum locks around his finger. “Don’t be. How are you handling not being the invisible nerd anymore?”
“I’m fine,” I reply, trying to ignore the way my heart seems to have stopped functioning properly. “Besides, I’m still a partial nerd, even though I don’t look like it. I still work in the library, after all.”
“Yeah,” Kellin says, laughing. “You can’t completely banish your nerd image even though you’re not covering up you actually have a personality now.”
“I guess I can’t pretend I’m invisible anymore — not at school and not with our families,” I reply as I take a deep breath.
“You were never invisible to me.”
I gaze down at my hands. “Thanks… I have a feeling I’ll want to be invisible once my parents see my grades for this semester.”
“What are you talking about?” Kellin asks, and I bite my lip, looking up at the sky as the corners of my eyes begin to water.
“Let’s just say I look a little bit more like the person I actually am,” I say, swallowing. “I was just pretending to be a nerd before. I’m doing so bad in accounting, and I have another three whole classes in math that I need to complete for my degree.”
“You’re doing that bad?”
I yank at the grass beneath my hands. “I’m failing, Kell. I’ve been in college one semester, and I’m already flunking. I’ve always struggled in math–but accounting…”
“Is the exact opposite of math,” Kellin finishes my sentence.
I nod, putting my forehead on my knees. “I have no chance at passing.”
Kellin sits up beside me, but I keep my head down. I’m still too mortified to look at him. I’m definitely not as smart as he thinks I am.
“Yes, you do. I can help.”
“You’d do that?” I ask.
“Sure, what are fake boyfriends with 4.0’s for? I’m not just arm candy,” he says with a wink as he stands and holds his hand out for me.
I let him pull me up into him, and instead of pulling away I look up into his face, only inches from mine. “In return, I’ll take the hit on the rebel looks first and then when no one in our families freaks out; it’s your turn.”
Kellin chuckles, tucking my bangs behind my ear. “Deal, but on my own time. No pushy girlfriend maneuvers, okay?”
“For now,” I reply, and he rolls his eyes.
“We should probably go help Lindy,” he says.
“I have a better idea,” I say, wiggling my brows like Dad would. “We get Starbucks.”
“I like the way you think,” he replies.
Chapter 16
I go to Kellin’s bedroom door and take a deep breath before knocking. He opens the door, and a broad smile comes to his face as he looks at my outfit.
“Is it okay?” I ask as I glance down at the red graphic tee with headphones on it and black skinny jeans. I’ve thrown a loose black cardigan over it, and I’m wearing my red and pink flower Keds.
“Amazing as always,” Kellin says as he slips his thumbs through the holes he’s made in his Henley’s sleeves. He’s taken out his lip ring and not an inch of his artistic skin shows.
“And you don’t look like yourself at all,” I reply just as the doorbell rings.
He leans forward and kisses my forehead. “You rebel out first.”
“More like I take the bullet.”
&nbs
p; My hands shake, and Kellin squeezes them before heading downstairs. When he reaches the bottom, I’m still standing at the top as I contemplate locking myself in my bedroom and saying I have the flu. He cocks his head at me and signals for me to follow him. I shake my head, and he comes up to the steps.
“Don’t make me come up there and throw you over my shoulder,” he says with narrowed eyes.
The idea makes my face flush, and I cross my arms. “Maybe that’s what I want.”
His brows come up. “We should save that for later when the parents aren’t around.”
I run my tongue over my teeth, and his cheeks flush as he laughs.
“Please?” he says. “You look beautiful, and if you don’t come down here, I’m sure Lindy will drag your ass down the stairs anyways.”
I take a deep breath and step forward just as Lindy yells, “Kellin! Reese! Where are you?”
“Coming,” Kellin calls back just as I reach the last step and freeze. “You’ll be fine.”
I stop when we turn into the living room where Kellin’s parents sit on the couch and mine sit in the loveseat. Dad’s eyes come up and widen while Mom’s jaw drops.
“Wow,” Dad says as he stands. “This is a change.”
My shoulders come up to my ears as I try to smile. I’m pretty sure it’s a cringe.
“Doesn’t she look fabulous?” Lindy asks. “I helped!”
Lindy’s mom’s mouth opens and closes before she ends up just nodding.
“Bold, very nice,” Dad says as he pulls me into a hug. “You look amazing, Bugs.”
I glance over his shoulder at Mom, and she still looks confused. Finally, when Dad signals with his head towards me, she stands.
“Purple, interesting choice,” she says as she gives me a weak hug.
“Follows after her mother,” Dad comments and Mom goes pale before stepping back and elbowing him.
“Huh?” I ask.
“Your mother had cherry red hair when she was your age. She was quite the rebel with her cut off shirts and leather jacket,” he replies, and Mom looks up at him like she wants to kill him.
Rebel Cause (Boys of Fallout Book 3) Page 8
