CAIT WAITED OUTSIDE THE Bear’s classroom. It was on the fourth floor, the junior/senior floor, where she had no business being as a ninth-grader. But she had to know. She had convinced herself that TF was someone in this school, and she had to know who. This new obsession was almost as bad as the first. Almost.
The bell rang, and she stood against the wall just down the hall. They shuffled out, talking and laughing, boys and girls, there were too many to take in. TF had said her ass was the size of Texas, but there wasn’t a legitimately fat girl in the Academy. She’d mentioned being a size 10, but that could mean she was tall, or busty. Size 10 wasn’t exactly the size of Texas. Hair color, length, breast size, shoe size—it was all a mystery. It could be any one of those girls.
Studying their faces, she looked for someone out of place, someone who felt like a nobody, because that was what TF had said. That she was a senior nobody. But no one fit that profile. They all seemed happy; they were all talking to someone. Even losers could fake it here, and Cait knew first-hand how easy it was to hide in a place like this. The second bell rang. Shit! She had to get to class. She started walking for the stairs when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
She knew that voice like her own. She could feel the energy from his body surging through the hand and into her core.
“Hey,” she said casually, turning around.
He was as beautiful as ever, and her mind was instantly back in that car. She could not stop the flushing of blood through her cheeks.
“Heard there was some trouble at your place over break. You didn’t say anything.”
Cait waved it off. “Not really. My brother and I were partying and had a little mishap with my dad’s car.”
“The orange Corvette? No way.” Kyle seemed impressed.
Cait went with it, shrugging her shoulder and smiling. “Yeah, afraid so. It’s cool.”
“Damn. Who would have thought. You’re full of surprises.”
Cait was silent. This was a good moment, and she was certain anything that came out of her mouth now would ruin it completely.
“Got a class to get to?”
Cait shrugged again. “It can wait. What’s up?”
“So I’ve been thinking about our rain date. Got any plans next Friday?”
Her heart stopped pounding. It stopped altogether. “Nothing I can’t break.”
“Good, ’cause all the parents are coming to some school assembly. That leaves a lot of open houses.”
Some assembly? Could he really not know? Was there a chance that he had not been told the assembly was her mother’s brainchild, that they would all be discussing the hallway blow job she had given him in the fall? It seemed impossible, and yet his face was dead serious.
“Sounds great. Should I get a ride with someone?”
Kyle gave her a smile that she would remember forever. “No, silly. Just you and me. A rain date from before. We never got a chance to be alone over break. My bad, I know. I called so late that night.”
“No, forget about it. I went out with my brother anyway.”
“So Friday? I’ll text you when I come up with a plan.”
Cait nodded. “Sounds good.”
“Okay. Later.”
As he walked away, Cait turned for the stairs on shaky legs. This was it. There was no more doubt. He wanted her. She wanted him. She was ready.
She hurried down two flights to her history class. Amanda Jamison was already inside waiting for her along with the rest of the class. “You’re late,” she whispered.
Cait mouthed back I know, then looked up at the board, where their teacher was too busy scribbling out an assignment to notice her slip into her chair.
She tried to focus on the board, pulled out her notebook, and began to write. Soon there was a buzzing from her phone. It was a text from Amanda, which she read from beneath her desk.
Have you talked to Kyle?
Cait replied. Why?
The response came back a few seconds later: Did you say yes to Friday?
Cait looked at the phone, then back at Amanda, who was trying to seem happy for her but getting it all wrong.
Cait wrote back: How do you know?
Everyone knows.
Cait wanted to throw up, right then and there, but her stomach was empty. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, all the while fighting to keep a steady expression as Amanda watched her. It was early payback, she imagined, for capturing Kyle’s attention, for making him choose her over Amanda or Victoria Lawson—or any of them, for that matter. Still, it stung like a bitch.
Cait deleted the last entries. What was she, some kind of prisoner who was about to be subjected to scientific experimentation? The date had been set. All the parties had been notified. Caitlin Barlow would lose her virginity next Friday night. And although she would be alone somewhere with Kyle, the rest of them would be there with them in spirit, waiting for the full report.
Was it a conspiracy? Is that what it was? Was she a big fucking joke? It was back again, that feeling that life was nothing but chaos, cruel chaos where nothing was what it seemed, not words or feelings or the looks on people’s faces. She wanted to run from this room right back home to her computer where she could IM TF. Only TF was probably two stories above her struggling through her class with the Bear. More deception.
She closed her eyes hard, then opened them again. Fuck it. This was high school. People talked. Surely not everyone knew. If everyone knew, then her mother would know, and then her father, and she would be wearing a metal chastity belt with the key locked in a vault at their Swiss bank. Maybe Kyle was as nervous as she was. Maybe he had confided in a few friends and they had told a few more and now Amanda knew and was making her feel like shit because that was what Amanda did. She hadn’t called once over break, not even after returning from her trip. So screw her, and screw everyone who knew and couldn’t keep a damned secret. She closed her eyes and saw Kyle’s face. She remembered the smell of him, the way his hand had electrified her. And then she opened them again and talked herself back into the only version of the story she could stand to live with.