by Pamela Wells
Oh my god.
Ben’s lips pulled away from Alexia’s mouth and ran down her neck.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asked.
Say something, Alexia thought, but she couldn’t seem to connect her brain to her mouth, and her hand grabbed Ben by the back of the head, keeping him close to her. She didn’t want to stop.
TWENTY-THREE
Rule 6: Make him feel special, like he is the only guy in the world!
Raven turned her Nissan Sentra into the airport parking lot and navigated through the maze to find a parking spot. She finally found one about five minutes away from the building, but she still had twenty minutes before Horace was due to arrive. She’d wanted to get here as soon as possible so she wouldn’t make him wait any longer than he needed to.
Shutting the car off, Raven threw her keys in her bag and then checked her reflection in the tiny mirror behind the visor.
Clean teeth? Check.
Glossy lips? Check.
No makeup smudges? Check.
She ran her hand through her hair once, then twice, wanting to make it look perfect. She’d blown it out with a hair dryer so that it was pin straight. She’d been going for the volume effect, but instead it just hung along her face like a dark curtain. Maybe she should have used that Giovanni Vacell wave-enhancing gel instead and gone with the messy look.
Why are you worrying so much? Horace will love you no matter what.
Raven reached for the door handle when her cell went off in her bag. She smiled to herself, thinking it must be Horace and that he must have gotten in early!
The screen on the outside of the phone said it was Kelly.
Raven’s shoulders sank as she flipped the phone open. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey. Have you talked to Alexia since the Fourth?”
Raven got out of the car and locked the doors. “No, why?”
“Because I haven’t either. She’s gone hermit on me.”
“She and Ben have been getting more serious. They barely come up for air. She’s probably hanging out with him.”
“Yeah.”
“Anyway,” Raven said as she stepped up to the sidewalk running in front of the airport, “I’m picking up Horace right now. Can I call you later?”
“Oh, I forgot Horace was coming home! Tell him I said hi.”
“I will.”
“Later!”
Raven said good-bye and hung up.
The glass doors to the airport whooshed open. Raven walked through as she went to baggage claim, where Horace had said he’d meet her.
She still had fifteen minutes. Now she just had to sit and wait.
She bumped shoulders with someone.
“Raven?”
Spine rigid, she shot a backward glance and saw Blake. “What are you doing here?” Panic turned her voice squeaky, which made her blush like some silly schoolgirl.
Blake pointed at Mil-D in line at the airport McDonald’s. “We’re going to L.A. for a few days. Mil just had to get his McCrack before we boarded.”
Raven found herself laughing at the McDonald’s joke, but quickly squashed it as a new stream of people winded through the airport. Horace appeared, cheeks sun darkened, hair a few inches longer, waving at her over the heads of other passengers.
She swallowed. Hard.
“Who’s that?” Blake said, watching Horace navigate through the crowd.
“My boyfriend,” she muttered, and the perpetual grin on Blake’s face faded.
He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “So this is the boyfriend, huh?”
Horace came over, wrapped his hand around Raven’s. “Hey,” he said, his husky voice hitting all the right notes in her stomach and making the butterflies dance.
He was in a pair of ripped jeans, white strings hanging from the knees. A white band T-shirt peeked out from beneath a red, white, and yellow plaid Western shirt. There was a necklace around his neck with some sort of animal tooth strung on it.
Raven loved Horace, but suddenly her cheeks warmed as she watched Blake watch Horace. She wondered what he thought and for some reason she cared.
Did he think Horace was a dork like the rest of the jocks at school?
“Hey,” Blake said, holding out his hand. “I’m Blake. Raven’s new neighbor.”
Horace shook because he was a gentleman like that. “Horace. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
Mil-D sauntered over. The Big Mac in his hands looked tiny compared to his overall size. “Almost ready, son?” he asked around a mouthful of food. “Ray-ray!”
“Hi, Mil,” she said, tightening her grip on Horace’s hand. She wanted out of here. Like now.
This whole situation felt wrong. She had nothing to feel guilty over—it wasn’t like she cheated on Horace—but the butterflies in her stomach were suddenly warring.
“We should go,” she said to Horace. “Have fun in L.A.,” she said to Blake, thankful that, after this awkward encounter, she would be Blake-free for a few days. It would give her a good amount of time to forget about how fun it was to hang with him. Or how cute he was when people bragged about him.
He pulled his hat down more, hiding his eyes. “See you guys later.”
“Later, kids,” Mil-D said, flashing the peace sign before he ambled off after Blake.
Horace leaned over and kissed Raven on the lips. “I missed you,” he said, that secretive smile lighting his face. He didn’t even pause to ask about Blake or Mil-D or why Raven had failed to mention her new neighbor was a guy their age.
She loved him for that, for his unflinching trust in her.
She just hoped she could live up to his expectations.
Raven parked outside Bershetti’s. “Hungry?” she asked, arching a brow at Horace.
“As a matter of fact, I’m starving. Airplane peanuts aren’t very filling.”
They got out and Raven went straight to Horace’s side, taking his hand again in hers. She hadn’t been able to let him go since the airport.
“It’s my treat.” She held the door of the restaurant open so Horace could go in ahead of her.
“Ray, you don’t have to do that.”
She shook her head. “I already made reservations for lunch. Besides, I want to make you feel special today.”
Rule 6 of the Crush Code said: Make him feel special, like he is the only guy in the world!
For her, Horace was.
They went inside and were seated near the windows, sunlight playing over the table. It was so bright that Horace left on his aviator sunglasses, and Raven put on her white oversize ones.
“I bet everyone is looking at us like we’re insane,” she said, laughing.
Horace shrugged. “So what. Celebrities do it all the time.”
“Yeah, but we’re not celebrities.”
He sat forward, folding his arms on the tabletop. “Speaking of celebrities. Did you check out that contest I told you about? With Kay-J?”
Raven made an apologetic face. “Umm…no.”
“Ray.” Horace sighed. “Why not?”
“I don’t want to win some American Idol-like contest. I want to stay with you guys. I want to stay with October.”
“October will always be there. You can come back to us whenever. If you got this job, think of the experience you’d get. It’s an opportunity that you’d be stupid to pass up.”
Raven’s expression softened, seeing the seriousness on Horace’s face. He wasn’t usually so…well, persistent. Or blunt.
“It almost sounds like you want me to leave October.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. She wished she could see his eyes now. “I just don’t want you waiting around here for something that might not happen. October might not ever go farther than Birch Falls, Connecticut, and I don’t want you stuck here because of me.”
Raven frowned. He was starting to sound like her mother. “What’s this about?”
He sighed again, ran his fingers throug
h his hair. “Just promise me you’ll at least check the Web site out.”
“Okay,” she said quickly because she didn’t like seeing him so agitated. “I’ll check it out when I get home.”
He leaned over the table and kissed her. “Thanks.”
With that, he picked up his menu, commenting on how he missed the food in Birch Falls.
Raven put on a cheery face because she wanted to enjoy the afternoon, but in the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but wonder if Horace was keeping something from her.
Did he want to break up with her? Was that why he was pushing her to try out for the contest? This was his easy way of getting rid of her?
No, that didn’t seem like something Horace would do. She trusted that if he ever had doubts about their relationship, he’d talk with her about it first before making any crazy decisions on his own.
So what was this all about, exactly?
TWENTY-FOUR
Rule 3: Wear raspberry body splash—it drives boys wild!
Rule 26: Do not feel you have to tell your friends who you are crushing on!
Friday morning, on her way to work, Sydney pulled into the drugstore on the corner of Mulberry and Danner streets to grab some lip balm. She couldn’t find hers, and she liked having it at work because it was cold in the hospital. Her lips were always dry.
Inside the store, the assistant manager, Tammy, waved to Sydney from a display of new body sprays.
“How are you today?” Tammy asked, ripping open a cardboard box at her feet.
“Fine, thanks.” Sydney went straight to the lip balms and took a package of two vanilla tubes off the rack. Better to have a backup. She decided she’d grab a bottle of water, too, while she was here and went over to the coolers on the far wall.
When she passed Tammy at the front of the store, Sydney paused, her nose picking up the scent of something sweet. “What’s that smell?”
Tammy straightened and pushed up the sleeves of her floral blouse. “Raspberry body splash. One of the bottles was leaking in the box. Smells nice, though, doesn’t it?”
Sydney nodded, eyeing the display Tammy was putting together. There were bottles of cucumber melon spray and McIntosh apple, something called Hawaiian ginger and another called Japanese cherries.
Raspberry body splash…why was that setting off bells in her head?
The Crush Code. There was a rule about raspberry body splash driving the boys wild. That was one of Kelly’s additions to the new code. She had an entire shelf of body sprays in her bedroom. Sydney typically didn’t use sprays or perfumes or anything really, for that matter.
Did raspberry body splash really drive boys wild or had Kelly made up a useless rule because she hadn’t wanted the Crush Code in the first place?
Well, the spray did smell good, either way. And Sydney wasn’t adverse to trying something new. Would Drew like it? Would it drive him “crazy”? Despite her best efforts, Sydney had yet to reignite the spark in their relationship, and she was almost frustrated with trying at this point.
Trying to save a relationship with body splash was such a dumb idea, but there she was, grabbing a bottle off the shelf anyway.
After paying, Sydney went out to the car and sprayed the raspberry body splash on the underside of her wrist. She didn’t want it too strong. She didn’t want to choke out the kids at the hospital, but a little bit couldn’t hurt, right?
“Hello, Carl,” Sydney said as she entered the boy’s room in West Two. “How are you today?”
Carl, an eleven-year-old who’d just had surgery on his heel, shrugged and flipped through the meager fifteen cable channels on the TV.
“I’m bored. Like really, really bored.”
“Where’s your mom?”
“Getting lunch.”
Sydney thought for a second, then, “How about I bring in an Xbox?”
Carl stopped flipping through the channels to look over at Sydney wide-eyed. “There’s an Xbox here?”
Sydney nodded. “With lots of games, too.”
“Do you have Madden?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll check.”
“Cool! Thanks.”
Sydney went to the media room and stopped just inside the doorway. Quin was there organizing the movies.
He looked up at her through his glasses. His hair was down today around his face and wavy, too, as if he’d washed it and let it air dry.
“Hey,” he said, straightening.
“Hi.” She entered the room, going to the video game shelf. She scanned the titles, running her finger along the spine of each game box. There were so many, more than any video store she’d ever seen.
“Looking for something?” Quin asked.
“Umm…Madden something?”
Quin went to the third shelf, pulling out a football game. “Here you go.”
“You know where everything is, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “Oh, hey, by the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you I saw your picture the other day in the art hall. I was really impressed.”
A smile spread rapidly over her face. “Yeah?”
Quin nodded. “The light composition was great, and I loved the fluid motion of the runner.”
Sydney didn’t even pretend to know what he was talking about. “I’m afraid I don’t know much of the technical side of photography.”
“Well, you have a good start on instinct. You can learn techniques. If you want, I can take you out sometime. My schooling has to be good for something, right?”
“Really? You wouldn’t mind?”
“No. I love photography, and people like talking about the things they love.”
Sydney laughed. “That’s true.”
But what would Drew say if she hung out with another guy? There was nothing romantic about Quin’s invitation, but that wouldn’t matter to Drew. Guys didn’t think like girls did. It wasn’t okay for a girl to hang out with a guy she wasn’t romantically linked with.
It was such a double standard because Drew hung out with Kelly all the time and Sydney never said anything about that.
“I’ll keep the invitation in mind,” Sydney said to Quin. “It’s just, I have a boyfriend and I don’t know if he’d…you know, be okay with it. But I appreciate the offer.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
She grabbed the TV cart and headed back to room 412, regret and disappointment settling in her stomach. She didn’t want to hurt Drew, but she really wanted to go with Quin on a photo excursion. Was that so wrong of her? She hated that she had to decide between her boyfriend and a hobby that she loved. The fact was, she could learn something from Quin. He was enrolled at the Brooks Institute!
It just disappointed her that she had to miss such a great opportunity.
TWENTY-FIVE
Rule 10: Have a sense of humor! Guys like to laugh!
“God, I love you,” Ben said, squeezing Alexia to his side as they hung out on her bed. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me since my brother peed his pants in that carnival fun house six years ago.”
Alexia laughed because Ben’s twin brother, Will, often held himself as if he were above everyone else. And Alexia had gone into that fun house. She hadn’t peed her pants.
Ben kissed her forehead, his fingers running over her ribs through her T-shirt. An excited shiver teased her back. She bolted upright. “I think I’m going to check my Email.” She went to her desk and shook the computer mouse.
She, Alexia Bass, was no longer a virgin, but she’d only had sex that one time and it’d been over a week now. She was still a little freaked out by what had happened.
Ben sat on the corner of her desk. He was wearing his usual cargo shorts and a blue T-shirt. The only skin Alexia could see was his legs and his arms, but her brain filled in the rest using the night of the Fourth as reference.
“Alexia? What are you doing?”
A blush spread across her cheeks, and she looked back at the computer screen. “I’m just checking my Ema
il.”
“Except you’ve been staring at the screen for about five minutes. Are you trying to check your Email using mind control?”
She shook her head, barely cracked a smile.
“What is it, Lexy?”
She sighed and rubbed at her forehead. Could she tell him what she was thinking? Of course she could. He would never make fun of her.
“The other night,” she began.
“Are you regretting it?”
“No.” But that wasn’t entirely the truth. Still, that’s not what she’d wanted to talk about. And besides, she couldn’t go back and change her mind. It was done. What she could control was what happened from here on out.
“I know we used something,” she muttered, looking at her hands in her lap, “but…”
“I know. Look.” Ben pulled his wallet from his back pocket and showed her two condoms slipped inside. “Take one. So you always know you have it.”
She shook her head.
“Take it.” He put it in her hand, closing her fingers around it. He leaned over, put his finger beneath her chin and kissed her. “I love you, Lexy. All I want is for you to be happy.”
She nodded, butterflies flapping satisfied wings in her belly.
Despite everything with the sex issue, she loved him, too. And she felt like the luckiest girl in the world to have him. She knew he cared for her, that sex hadn’t been his goal right from the start.
She was just happy that the stress of making the decision was over. Now she just had to deal with the aftermath of having made that decision.
It would be okay, she thought. As long as she had Ben, it’d be okay.
Later that night, after Ben left, Alexia called Raven to hang out. Alexia wanted to talk to one of her friends about the sex thing because she needed to tell someone, and Raven seemed the obvious choice. Alexia and Raven had always been closer than the other girls. Not to mention, Raven wasn’t a virgin, and Alexia hoped Raven would make her feel not so stupid for having lost her virginity.
