“Stop making fun of me, Keith. Now get off the table. I need to study. Unlike you, I can’t aim for ‘functional’ if I want to get into a good college back east.”
“Why can’t you just go to school in California?”
“Because it’s not far enough away from…” I stopped myself before revealing the truth behind my school choice.
That was enough to pique his interest, though, and Keith sat up on the table, tilting his head like an eager dog waiting for a bone. “Not far enough away from what?”
I looked down at my paper. “Not from what. From who.”
Although I could no longer see him, I knew Keith was staring at me, intrigued. I’d just given away more than I’d intended to part with.
“Sam?”
I didn’t look up.
“Saaamm.” This time he sang out my name and nudged me with the toe of his sneaker. I looked up only to find him assaulting me with that heartthrob smile of his. I didn’t stand a chance.
I made a scene of laying down my pencil and sighing. “What, Keith?”
He leaned in, his hot breath inches from my tingling skin. “I feel like you’re keeping secrets from me, babe. I mean if you can’t trust a reformed drug dealer, then who can you trust, am I right?”
Despite all my reservations, I laughed. “Fine. I’ll tell you my secret if you tell me why you’re always looking over your shoulder.”
Pulling away from me, Keith returned to his crisscross applesauce position on top of the library table. I wasn’t certain, but I thought I saw him flinch. For all his positivity, the past few weeks had not been easy for him. He had an addiction that needed breaking, and that wasn’t something that disappeared overnight. And as if that weren’t bad enough, he also had to untangle himself from the drug trade. Keith talked a good game, but I knew him well enough to know when his insecurities came calling.
“You know who Brett Valentine is, right?” he began.
“Yeah, your friend.”
“Well…” Keith grimaced. “I’m not sure I’d call him that anymore. You know how when a dictator comes into power, he executes anyone who poses a threat to his authority? Well, if Valentine is the new ruler, where does that leave me?”
My eyes widened in response to his question, but then fear overlapped the surprise. “You think he wants to execute you?”
“Well, not in the chop your head off kind of way – at least I hope not – but Valentine wants me gone. And he has the backing of my former boss. So, yeah, I’m a little freaked out.”
“Keith, this isn’t a joke. You need to say something.”
“Right, because tattling on the bully is absolutely the best thing to do in a situation like this. No, I just need to lie low and not draw attention to myself, that’s all. Okay. Your turn. Who are you trying to get away from?”
My shoulders slumped as I spoke the words. “My mother.”
“Your mother? Why? Does she not cut the crust off your sandwiches?”
“She’s not a good person is all. Now let’s drop it and get back to work.”
“Well now, hold up. You want to move thousands of miles away because your mom’s a bitch? If that were the criteria, there’d be an annual pilgrimage into the heartland.”
“She’s worse than a bitch, Keith.”
I fought the tears pushing their way to the surface. I couldn’t let him see me cry. Exposing my weaknesses would give Keith the ammunition he needed to destroy me, if that was his desire.
“Hey…” He reached over and touched the back of my hand with his fingertips. It was just the quickest little contact, but it meant more to me than he knew. “You okay? I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s not you. My mother… she just – she makes me feel worthless.”
His fingers now slipped around my hand. Keith stared deep into my eyes before lowering his voice. “Why haven’t you said anything?”
“To you?” Telling someone like Keith, who had what seemed to be the perfect family, that my mother was verbally abusive... and worse… well, that would just bring all kinds of shame to an already embarrassing situation. If he only knew what a coward I’d been.
“Yes, to me,” he replied seeming slightly offended. He dropped my hand, making me long for the warmth of his touch. “Why not to me? We’re friends, aren’t we?”
“I…”
Even though he hid me from everyone in his life, he’d been more a friend to me than every other student in the school, with the exception of one curly-haired superhero.
“Yes,” I smiled. “We’re friends. And I guess I haven’t said anything to you for the same reason you haven’t told me about your dictator issue. I’m just lying low and not drawing attention to myself until I get into college and…”
“Move as far away from her as possible.” Keith caught my eye as he finished my sentence. Did I hear disappointment?
I nodded. “Next week I turn seventeen. That’s one year closer to escape.”
“Well, that’s one way to look at a birthday.” He grinned.
“It’s the only way to look at it… when no one cares if you turn another year older.”
Keith tucked a pencil behind his ear, considering my dilemma. “Then make them care. Throw a party. Live it up.”
“With who, Keith? I don’t have a squad.”
“Okay, but you have some friends, right?”
“I suppose I know four or five people who don’t want me to die.”
“Well, there you go.” He slapped my shoulder. “That’s a start.”
And despite my melancholy over a deadbeat mother, I smiled. I loved talking to him. There was no coddling, no politically correct wording. Keith was brutally honest, and after a lifetime of walking on pins and needles, it was a refreshing change of pace.
The librarian cleared her voice loud enough for us to hear. She motioned for Keith to get off the table with the flick of her head. It surprised me that Miss Markel had allowed him to linger even this long, when even an overeager rustling of papers could bring her over in a frenzy of flaring nostrils.
“Keith,” I whispered. “You’d better get down before she sends you to detention.”
“Yeah,” he scoffed. “Miss Markel wouldn’t dare.”
The fact that he was so sure of himself had me instantly intrigued. “And why not?”
Keith looked around before lowering his voice. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Sure.”
“Miss Markel is a former client of mine. Turns out she likes to let her hair down with a little of the devil’s lettuce, if you know what I mean.”
Miss Markel – a pothead? I didn’t believe him for a second. With her polo shirts and twisted buns, she was more straight-laced than me. I grinned. “You’re such a liar.”
“Believe what you will.” He shrugged. “All I’m saying is I have enough dirt on her that I could take a crap in the middle of the library and there’d be nothing she could do but hand me a roll of toilet paper.”
My mouth dropped open as I glanced between Keith and my one-time book-buying hero. Yet just the fact that he was still perched on the table as she wandered around the library was indication enough that there might be some truth to his claim. “How many more secrets do you have about our fine institution?”
His eyes sparkled with mischief. “Let’s put it this way – if the superintendent of schools tortured me for information, half the teaching staff would be gone.”
“Damn.” I giggled. “Where have I been all my life?”
Without skipping a beat, he answered, “Saying no.”
And with those two little words, Keith McKallister perfectly summed up my last two years. There was no way to defend myself because we both knew he was right. When ‘no’ had become my favorite word, I couldn’t say, but it was now my way of life. I’d even turned him down the first time he’d asked for my help. Had he not been persistent, I would have missed out on getting to know him, and that would have been the bi
ggest mistake of my short life.
Perhaps he sensed my turmoil, and he backtracked. “I was kidding. Relax. Hey, you know what you need?”
“If you’re going to say I need to get laid, I’m going to blow my rape whistle… right here in the middle of the library.”
He lifted his arms. “Whoa that escalated quickly. No, I was going to say you need to get drunk – let the liquor take your mind off everything for a few hours.”
“Right, but then afterward, I’ll just be right back where I started.”
He scratched his head. “Huh. So that’s how addiction works? So simple.”
I laughed. “Yes, Keith. That’s how it works, and I don’t need to add that to my list of woes.”
“One drunken binge does not a habit make, Sam.”
“Okay, if I were to go with your plan, how might an almost seventeen-year-old purchase this booze you speak off?”
“How might?” Keith mimicked me. “How come you talk like a character in a prehistoric novel? Newsflash, Sam. You live in the 20th century. Act like it.”
I cringed. We had such a long way to go. I considered correcting him on his centuries, but he seemed a little overwhelmed by the heavy influx of learning, so I let it be. “I know. I need to loosen up. I wish I were more like you. Sometimes I feel so old.”
Again, Keith reached out and glided his fingers over the back of my hand. Aside from the occasional nudges and arm punches, he’d never touched me, and now all of the sudden my study buddy had octopus tentacles. What was happening and why was my body shuddering under waves of heat? Was it so wrong to ache for affection from him… or really just from anyone?
“Keith,” Miss Markel interrupted, her eyes gliding over him in a knowing manner. This woman had been aiding in the delinquency of a minor. I had no respect left for her. “Off the table, please.”
They exchanged a glance before Keith morphed into a sloth-like creature and, in the slowest most deliberate movements possible, returned to his chair. I watched his whole show in amusement. Clearly he was making a statement, and Miss Markel had no choice but to allow it.
I met Keith’s eye, questioning. He grinned, shrugged, and dove back into his geometry homework. Reluctantly, I returned to my AP English assignment.
Several minutes passed before he nudged me and whispered, “Hey, Sam?”
I tilted my head. “Yes?”
“I care.”
“What?”
“That you’re turning seventeen. I care.”
9
Keith: Trust Me
Sam was in the library when I arrived for my tutoring session, papers spread out around her. Her shiny brown hair grazed the table as she concentrated on the task at hand. Sensing me, she glanced up from her work and smiled. Not the kind of smile to simply acknowledge one’s presence but a wide, glowing one that worked in conjunction with her sparkling eyes. My pulse quickened, as it did more often now. I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening but the uptight girl I’d met a month and a half ago was mutating into my dream girl before my very eyes. How did she keep getting hotter?
Clearly, I’d underestimated Sam. At the start of our partnership, I’d viewed her as nothing more than a pass off, a way to get to the end zone with the least amount of work possible. But there was no willy-nilly homework copying with this girl. Oh, no. Sam wasn’t like most girls, who seemed perfectly happy caving to my will. This one always had to push back, make me think. I’d never worked harder or thought deeper.
As strange as it sounded, she was single-handedly rewiring my brain. Aspiring to become a pirate just wasn’t going to cut it anymore. I wanted more for myself. She’d opened my eyes to a future I might not have known about had I never met her. To Sam, I wasn’t Kali, the drug-dealing stoner. Instead, I was the guy trying to rebuild the life he’d nearly thrown away. And the distinction hadn’t escaped her. She was proud of me, and that was validation I clung to.
And now for the weird part: the more she challenged me, the deeper I fell under her spell. She was like every wicked teacher fantasy I’d ever had come to life. Who knew I liked girls with brains? Not me. But the way my timid cottontail bunny morphed into a quick-witted Jessica Rabbit, I could do nothing but become a believer. Suddenly, taking my sexy nerd behind a rack of hardcovers and teaching her a few things she wouldn’t find in any of her dusty books was all I could think about.
I stopped in front of the table, tilting my head and flashing what I hoped would be my most affecting smile. “Hello, Sam.”
“Well, hello yourself, Keith.” She smiled. “Are you ready to get started?”
“Actually, no.” I held out my hand to her, urging her to take it without complaint. “Let’s get out of here.”
“What? Where?”
“It’s a surprise.”
She eyed me suspiciously. Because Sam was a calculating person, every decision took time and careful consideration. I knew this and patiently waited for the refusal I assumed would be coming. ‘No’ was her motto, after all. Only today, on her seventeenth birthday, I wouldn’t be accepting that as an answer.
“What about your test this Friday?” she asked.
“What about it?” I shrugged.
She put her pencil down, staring at me with an intensity I hadn’t expected. “What about your friends? What if they see us together?”
I flinched, embarrassed she’d even needed to ask such a question. As much as I was digging this girl, I had kept her hidden from my buddies, knowing if I revealed my connection to Sam, they’d rip her – and me – to shreds. I told myself it was to protect Sam, but I knew better. My position in Utopia was precarious now that I no longer had my fledging business to fall back on, and one misstep was all it would take to be cast out. And so, to protect myself, I kept the connection between Sam and me a secret from everyone but the mega geeks in the library, who couldn’t give a Millennium Falcon fuck about the status quo.
“Who cares?” I said. “Let’s go.”
The glow that passed over her face twisted a knot in my stomach. She thought I was finally ready to present her to my world, when in reality, I’d arrived at the library fifteen minutes late, allowing ample time for my crowd to disperse. I was such a dick.
“Well, okay then.” She slapped her book shut and neatly placed her papers in her folders before sliding them all into her backpack. “Why not?”
Exactly. Why not? And then I said a silent prayer to the reefer gods – wordlessly pleading for my glazed-over posse to have passed out by now. I sighed at my utter douchiness.
Forgive me, Sam, for I have sinned.
* * *
My hands gripped her hips as I held her in place. Like a baby giraffe learning to walk, Sam’s legs splayed at unnatural angles, making it impossible for her to stand up straight. I laughed with abandon. Damn, she made me happy. It was like we were mismatched socks in this weird static cling world.
I shook her playfully, but what I really wanted to do was sink my lips into the crook of her neck and watch her fall apart under my touch. “What’s with the loosey-goosey shit?” I teased, like a booger-laced nine-year-old crushing on the cute girl at the next table over. “Stand up straight, Nostradamus. You’re embarrassing me.”
“Keith, I think you might mean Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
Did I? My eyes rolled up, thinking. Was there a difference? Since meeting Sam, it seemed like I was wasting an awful lot of time looking shit up.
“Anyway, I’m doing the best I can here, given the fact that you chose to bring one of my greatest fears to life on my birthday.”
“It’s ice-skating.” I shook my head. “How terrifying can that be?”
“Plenty of people are afraid of ice skating. Just because you’re not afraid of anything doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t.”
“I’m afraid of things.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Sinkholes.”
“Sinkholes?” Sam’s voice rose to comical levels. “Let me get this straight.
You’re okay with shark attacks, being trampled by the bulls, and spontaneous combustion, but sinkholes in California – where it never rains – that’s what you’re afraid of?”
“Is that weird?” I squinted, playing it for laughs. “I feel like you think that’s weird.”
She laughed, which caused her to bobble and, that in turn, resulted in Sam digging her icy hands into mine with bone-breaking force.
“Well, since the chances of me falling on my butt are higher than the chances of you getting swallowed up whole by the earth, I think it’s fair to tell you that if you let go of me, I’ll personally see to it that you fail every single class for the rest of the semester.”
“Oh, no, Sam,” I gasped in mock horror. “Not academic ruin, please! Anything but that!”
“You laugh now, but…” Sam stumbled on the ice, screaming as she pushed back and burrowed her shapely ass into me. As cute as her terror was, the contact produced a chain reaction in my jeans. Shit, she was going to be so pissed if she felt my overeager woody building a bridge between us.
In an effort to keep the evidence from poking her in the butt, I moved her to my side, wrapping my arm around her dwindling waistline. The swift movement startled her, and she dug her nails even deeper into my flesh.
“I don’t like this position,” she protested.
“No?” I dropped my head into her neck. “What position do you like?”
“Are you flirt…” Sam swept her eyes over me, landing on my very noticeable hard on.
For safety reasons I widened the gap between us, but in my haste, my skate collided with Sam’s. She stumbled forward, and as I tried to right her, I lost my balance as well, and the two of us tumbled to the ice. I landed missionary style on top of her, my steel beam now at a 90-degree angle and poking into her pubic bone. Sam’s shock was so complete that I willed a sinkhole to open up and save me from her wrath. But instead of anger, her eyes crinkled in the corners and the purest, most untainted happiness burst forth. Her laughter was so infectious that it spread to other skaters, who smiled as they whizzed by.
Rogue Wave: Cake Series Book Five Page 9
