Dating: On the Rebound

by Stephanie Street

  I was a little surprised myself, but far be it from me to discourage book talk.

  “Vampires are sexy, Noah,” I said, addressing his first comment.

  “Pfft.” He rolled his eyes. “How is a guy that wants to suck your blood until you’re dead sexy?”

  “It’s not the fact that he wants to kill you, it’s the fact that he loves you enough not to in spite of his nature. Who doesn’t want a guy like that? That’s some freaking awesome devotion if you ask me.” I looked at the last slide while he processed what I just said. “Metaphase.”

  I glanced up and caught Noah’s expression. He was really thinking about what I said and I had to hide my smile.

  “Okay, so what about the other one? Jacob?” Noah asked, completely abandoning his pencil and our assignment. I wasn’t complaining.

  I leaned my hip against the table and devoted all my attention to our conversation. I explained that Jacob was a werewolf and Bella’s best friend and how they all became this love triangle.

  Noah’s brow pinched. “If Jacob and Bella were just best friends, then how was it a love triangle?”

  “Well, Jacob was in love with Bella,” I told him.

  “But she loved the vampire.”

  I nodded. “But he ran away because he was afraid he wasn’t good enough for her and she’d end up hurt or dead if he stayed with her.”

  Noah thought about that for a second before rolling his eyes. “This is the dumbest story ever. So, let me get this straight. Edward is this scary vampire while Jacob is a protective werewolf and they both love her, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And she chooses the vampire. Why would she do that?”

  I was loving how into it he was getting. I could tell he was really thinking about the story and I wondered what it would take to get him to watch the movies or even read the books.

  “Girls always choose the bad guys, Noah. In stories, at least.”

  “What? No, they don’t,” he scoffed.

  I nodded. I’d thought about this a lot. “In every story, it’s the good guy that’s really bad and the bad guy is good.”

  “But Edward can’t be all that bad if he left her because he loved her. Even if he did want to kill her.”

  It was an insightful comment. “Right. But that’s what I’m saying. Edward started out as the bad guy, but once Bella got to know him, she realized he had a good heart. Or maybe she just brought out the good in him. It’s always like that. Nice girl meets bad boy. Bad boy reveals soft underbelly by being nice to little old ladies or working nights to help his single mother raise his younger siblings. Bad boy isn’t really so bad, but he’s still a sexy vampire.”

  Noah shook his head, trying to make sense of what I was saying. “Yeah, I don’t even know how to respond to that one.” He picked up his pencil again and wrote the last answer on the quiz before asking, “What about Jacob? He wanted to protect Bella, too. Why didn’t she fall in love with him?”

  I waved my hand, dismissing his question even as I answered it. “Jacob was too good, too perfect. His character wasn’t compelling enough. That’s probably the biggest flaw in the whole thing in my opinion. His character should have become the villain somehow.” And I guess, he kind of did in the end, but I wasn’t a big fan of the whole imprinting thing, and that didn’t really make him bad. It just made Bella and Edward annoyed.

  Noah’s eyes lit with amusement. “You’re saying perfection isn’t compelling?”

  “Oh, well.” Shoot. I’d walked right into that one. Noah was Mr. Perfect after all. “Maybe in your case-”

  “So, you’re saying I’m not compelling?” He was grinning ear to ear now.

  I pushed his shoulder. His extremely muscly shoulder. Whew.

  “Tierney?” Noah’s voice was full of laughter.

  “What were we talking about again?” Goodness, he was distracting.

  “Good guys really being bad guys,” he reminded me. “Bad guys really being good. And the fact that perfection isn’t compelling.”

  I gave him the stink eye for that last comment and decided to focus on fiction. “Jacob isn’t really a bad guy, he just isn’t compelling enough for Bella to chose him. Anyway, Twilight is just one example of that. There are plenty more.”

  “Like what?”

  “It happens in movies all the time.” I thought for a second. “What about that prince in Frozen? Whatshisname? Hans. He seems great, right? Perfect for Anna. Singing that ridiculous song about sandwiches and open doors. But in reality, he was the villain. And the snarky Christoff who seemed selfish and arrogant in the beginning was the real hero.”

  “Hmm. Yeah, okay. I can see that.” Noah nodded. “What about that book you were reading the other day?”

  “Which one?” I read a book a day almost. That meant I’d read several since becoming Noah’s lab partner. I had no idea which one he was referring to.

  “The one I read the back of with the half naked lady and the ripped old dude with the eye patch?” He folded his arms on the table and leaned toward me.

  “The ripped old dude?” I giggled in spite of myself.

  “Yeah. It was Lady something and she was bored with the drawing room or whatever,” he went on and I was finished.

  Doubled over with laughter, I remembered Noah reading the back of my book on the first day of school. I couldn’t believe he remembered, though, and it cracked me up the way he summed up the synopsis. “Bored with the drawing room?” I busted up again.

  Noah was fighting a grin now. He pushed my shoulder. “Stop. You’re going to get us in trouble.”

  I glanced up to see Mr. McGowan frowning in our direction and tried to calm down. “Oh, my stomach hurts. That was too funny.”

  Noah rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t that funny.” He was so adorably handsome.

  I patted under my eyes with my fingers. “Yes, it was.”

  Noah crossed his arms over his chest again. “Are you going go tell me or not? I don’t really have time to read it myself.”

  That set me off again. I had this image of Noah laying on his bed just like I do, reading a romance novel and the image in my head was just too much.

  “Oh, my gosh. Will you stop it? What’s with the giggles?” He got down from the stool and blocked me from view of Mr. McGowan. He put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a little shake. “Tierney. Stop. You’re going to get us kicked out of class.”

  “Can’t. Breathe.” Trying to stop laughing made me laugh harder.

  Noah’s shoulders shook with suppressed amusement. “Okay, I’ll stop asking about ripped old dudes if you will stop laughing.”

  Laughter pealed from my mouth. My stomach hurt so much I thought I was going to be sick, but I couldn’t stop laughing. Noah finally gave up and soon we were both laughing so hard we were doubled over. Thank goodness the bell rang and everyone around us began moving out of the room. It wasn’t until it was empty except for a frowning Mr. McGowan that we finally got control of ourselves. Noah picked up both of our backpacks and turned in our worksheet before towing me out of the classroom. My whole body was so weak from laughing, I sagged against Noah and let him lead me down the hall.

  “You are one crazy chick, you know that.” Noah shook his head and rolled his eyes a little but his lip twitched so I knew he didn’t really mean it.

  I swatted at his arm. “Well, that was fun. I’ll have to tell you about Lady Clarissa and Dirty Jack some other time.” I started laughing again. “Or maybe I’ll bring the book to school and let you borrow it.”

  With that Noah left me to my giggles.

  8

  Noah

  Tierney was turning out to be way cooler than I would have thought at first. My initial impressions were that she was smart. Shy. A bookworm, for sure. But I’d had no inkling of what her personality was really like and these first two weeks of school had revealed someone who was fresh and funny and a heck of a lot of fun to hang out with. I’d caught myself smiling several times duri
ng the day after our vampire discussion first period.

  It made me wonder why she hid herself away from the rest of the world?

  As I turned the corner onto my street, I realized I had more important things to worry about. For the second time in less than a week, Dad had made it home before I got home from basketball practice. The fact that he was home should have made me happy, excited. Instead, it filled me with dread. Things had been tense around the Jacobs household for a couple of weeks now and I could only hope my parents were going to put me out of my misery and tell me what was going on.

  I grabbed my bag out of the backseat of my car and made my way into the house through the garage. I stopped in the laundry room before heading into the kitchen where I heard low voices under the sound of dinner preparations. I emptied my bag into the washer and started the load then headed into the kitchen, wondering what the heck I was walking into.

  “Hey, what’s going on?”

  They both stopped what they were doing to look at me with startled expressions. I knew they’d heard me come in the house, so they were reacting to the edge in my voice and not my appearance. I didn’t care. They were hiding something from me, something big and I wanted to know what it was…now.

  Mom glanced at Dad before putting on a cheerful smile I knew was fake. She stepped toward me with her arms outstretched.

  “How was school, honey?” I accepted her hug to my side, but I wasn’t fooled.

  “Fine. Now what’s going on? I know you guys are hiding something from me.” I watched them both. Mom was wound tighter than bow string and Dad’s shoulders weren’t as square as usual.

  “Nothing’s-” Mom began, but Dad interrupted with a hand on her arm.

  “Nic. Stop.”

  Mom opened her mouth, about to say something more, but the look on Dad’s face stopped her.

  “Guys, come on.” I glanced between them, a weight settling in my chest. “You’re scaring me.”

  They froze and for a second, the kitchen was completely silent.

  Then Mom’s face crumpled. She buried it in Dad’s chest and his arms came to rest around her waist. He held her while she cried, his lips brushing against her hair.

  Well, I wasn’t getting divorce vibes, so that meant it was something else. I wracked my brain. They would have told me days ago if someone had died. Both sets of grandparents were already gone. Dad had one sister, but she lived close by. We saw her and her husband and kids regularly. They were all doing fine.

  That meant-

  Oh.

  “It’s back. Isn’t it?” I held my breath, waiting for one of them to answer.

  Mom’s tears began in earnest, while Dad nodded.

  My breath left my lungs in a long exhale that deflated my whole body. I sank into one of the chairs at the table.

  How had I missed the signs? They were there. Days off work. Their pinched expressions. The pall of sadness that had hung over the house for days. How had I not thought of that first? It had been so long, I’d almost forgotten.

  My dad’s cancer was back.

  “Dude, that sucks.”

  “Yeah.”

  I had to tell the guys. It had been two days since my parents dropped the bomb that my dad’s cancer, which had been in remission for the last ten years, was back.

  “He’s been taking days off work for treatment.” That’s why he’d been home those days. I had no idea why they decided to wait to tell me, but his hair was beginning to fall out and so they’d been given no choice in the end. There would be no hiding his bald head.

  Grayson shook his head. “Man, I’m sorry.” We were all sitting in the locker room before our second League game. I didn’t want to put a damper on things before the game, but the guys could tell something was off with me and I couldn’t put them off any longer.

  “Yeah. It is what it is. He’s beaten it before.” That’s what I kept telling myself, anyway. I didn’t remember much about the last time he’d fought a battle with cancer. I just remember feeling uneasy a lot of the time back then and I remember the celebration we had when it finally went into remission. There had been some tense times for a year or so after that, but gradually life went on and I’d kind of forgotten about it.

  Luke clapped a hand on my shoulder and I appreciated the support from my friends. But what I really needed was a distraction.

  I clapped my hands once in front of me and stood. “Let’s play.”

  They were better than us. We beat them by the skin of our teeth. It sure wasn’t because we played better, but because of pure determination and our coach’s ability to play the clock that made it so we were up by one when the buzzer sounded at the end of the game. It was close. Too close. The game exposed our weaknesses.

  “Man, we need to get Drew to play.” Mateo tossed his towel into his locker and sat down on the bench with a groan. We were all beat. The game. The emotions. It was too much.

  “We can’t rely on him. It’s not his fault we almost lost, it’s ours.” Luke stepped into his jeans before sitting down next to Mateo to put on his socks and shoes.

  “I’m sorry for being such a downer. I should have waited until after the game to tell you guys about my dad,” I said, my head hanging low.

  Several balled up articles of clothing hit me in the head.

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Your dad is way more important than a game, man.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  I barked out a laugh. “Okay. Okay.” I cleared my throat. “Thanks, guys.”

  Will stepped closer and held out his fist. “We got your back, Mr. P.”

  I shook my head, but tapped his fist with my own. Mr. Perfect. It didn’t seem like anything in my life was perfect at all. More like it was all falling apart.

  “Hey, how are things going with Trina? I haven’t heard anything lately. She still giving you a hard time?” Grayson asked the question, but everyone stopped what they were doing to listen to the answer.

  “Well, I blocked her from my phone and all of my social media. She’s tried to corner me a couple of times, but I’ve avoided getting caught. I don’t think she’s given up, though.” Which was annoying. I had enough on my plate without having to worry about psycho girl.

  “We got your back, man. Don’t worry.”

  “Thanks.” I knew they did, too. I would do the same for them. We were a tight group. I would do anything for any of them and I knew they felt the same.

  My phone rang in my pocket. Damn. It was my mom. “I gotta take this. I’ll see you guys in a little while.” We’d played the second game this time and we were all planning to go to Drew’s house to play video games and chill in the basement of his mansion. The guy’s family was loaded and his house was our new favorite hangout.

  I swiped my thumb across the phone screen as I jogged out of the locker room and found a quiet corner to talk to my mom.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “I need you to pick up some stuff at the store.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  9

  Tierney

  “Come on.” Hannah was not happy with me. “I can’t go if you don’t go. Mom and Dad have some dinner and nobody can come pick me up.”

  I buried my face under the covers on my bed. I was already in my pajamas. My hair had been scraped back into a messy bun and for the last hour I’d been lost in the make believe town of Briar Cove, the setting of the novel I was working on for the scholarship I was applying for. I was twenty thousand words in and I had thirty thousand to go. I’d outlined the scenes and filled a folder on my desktop with notes. But I still had to write the thing and edit and I only had eight weeks left to do it.

  “Hannah, I have to work on this.”

  My sister frowned. “It’s one night! You don’t even have to stay. Just give me a ride and pick me up when it’s over.”

  I sighed. “You know it’s too far for that.”

  I had this feeling she was going to wear me down. I didn’t want to dis
appoint her. Hannah was one of the only bright spots left in my life and I hated the thought of her being angry with me. But I did not want to go to the basketball game, which was crazy. I used to live for game night. I loved the energy in a school gymnasium during a game. I loved the music, the cheering, the band. All of it.

  I hadn’t been to a game since I moved here.

  It was too much of a reminder.

  “I don’t want to go.” Maybe being honest would make her listen.

  Hannah growled, throwing her hands in the air. “Why? Everyone is going to be there.”

  She wasn’t going to win any points with that one.

  “What is your deal?” She pinned me with a glare. “You never want to go anywhere. I notice much last year, but now that I think about it, you didn’t then, either.”

  There was a question in there, but she hadn’t come out and asked it.

  I shrugged, unwilling to offer up anything.

  “Come on!” Hannah dropped dramatically onto my bed. “I have to go. I promised Chelsea and Milo I’d meet them there.”

  “Well, just tell them you can’t make it.” Seemed simple enough to me. I turned back to my laptop.

  Hannah sat at the end of the bed staring at me. I pretended not to notice until she got up with a huff and stormed out of my room.

  The door across the hall slammed with enough force it would have rattled the windows in a less well made house.

  I tried to focus on the scene I’d been fleshing out.

  Blaring music pulsed from Hannah’s room.

  Rubbing my eyes with the palms of my hands, I groaned. Why were the people in my life conspiring against me? I just wanted to be left alone. I didn’t want to go to dances. I didn’t want to have lab partners that made my pulse race. I didn’t want to go to basketball games. Especially basketball games starring said lab partner.

  I closed my eyes.

  We hadn’t had any lab assignments since the cell division worksheet. I’d been tempted to bring both Twilight and the other romance novel we’d joked about, but something was going on with Noah. He wasn’t his usual happy self. He’d been quiet and seemed stressed most of the time. I wanted to ask him what was going on, but we weren’t really friends like that. I’d been keeping an eye on him from a distance thinking Trina was still giving him a hard time, but even she seemed to sense his bad mood and was keeping her distance.