As I approached the truck, Sawyer, blond hair dark from a shower, looked up from talking with Noah, also freshly showered after the game, and Quinn, dressed completely in black. “What’s up?” Sawyer asked me.
“Brody just left in his truck with Grace. They are probably having sex or whatever. Tia says you and I should find them and make out in front of them. Revenge kissing.” I laughed like I’d gone insane.
“I think you should go home and go to bed,” Quinn said.
“I think you should do the revenge kissing,” Noah said.
“Wait a minute,” Sawyer said. “If they’re having sex, why can’t we have sex too? Revenge sex.”
“That would make me uncomfortable,” I said.
“I guess I’ll take what I can get.” Sawyer opened the door of his truck for me. It screeched on its hinges. “Hop in.”
As Sawyer started the engine, Will cruised up, stopping so that Tia could talk through the passenger-side window to Sawyer. They decided that we would swing by Brody’s house and Grace’s house near downtown before ending at the harbor. It was a common place for teenagers to park and cops to harass them. Irate old men wrote about the harbor’s parking lot in their letters to the newspaper about the downfall of today’s youth.
“You look nice,” Sawyer said as he crossed the high school campus and pulled onto the road through downtown. “I’m not just telling you that because we’re about to revenge-kiss.”
“Are people saying I stopped wearing contacts and started dressing like Grace just to get Brody?”
“No,” Sawyer said, “and I hear everything. Who told you that?”
“Kennedy.”
“Kennedy,” Sawyer repeated, low and husky, like Tia cursing in Spanish. “Why do you care what he says? Why don’t you just wear what you want?”
“I guess I don’t know what I want.” I paused. “But everybody dresses the way they do for a reason, right? Even you.” I gazed doubtfully at his beat-up flip-flops.
“Not really,” he said. “I only have four shirts.”
I blinked against the passing streetlights. “And you don’t eat anything you want. You’re very strict about that.”
“I’m a vegan because I don’t want to cause the death of an animal,” he said. “I mean, I’m not so strict about it that I’m going to insult other people for eating what I don’t. I serve what I’m told to serve at work. But I’m not personally going to eat it.”
“It’s an anticruelty thing?”
He glanced over at me, seeming to consider this for the first time. “Yes.”
“You didn’t seem concerned with cruelty when you made fun of Kennedy’s eyebrow piercing.”
Sawyer’s glance turned to a glare. “When I first moved to town two years ago, Kennedy ribbed me for one solid hour of PE because my dad had just gotten out of jail. You should have heard all the jail jokes. Oh, he was a fucking laugh riot, right up until I punched him.”
I’d known Sawyer got suspended for fighting on his first day of school. I hadn’t heard why.
“So fuck Kennedy and his eyebrow,” Sawyer finished.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Sawyer heaved an exaggerated sigh. “It’s crazy for you to apologize, Harper. You didn’t do anything.”
“I know. I just don’t think Kennedy deserves to be made fun of. Like when you made that joke about him the day Noah and Quinn came out.”
“I made the same joke about Brody,” Sawyer pointed out, “and he didn’t mind.”
“Kennedy’s dad puts a lot of pressure on him,” I said carefully.
Sawyer rolled his eyes. “If you want to know what people are saying about you, they’re saying you’re hot.”
“Really?” I asked skeptically.
“Yes.”
“I felt like I needed to wear glasses so my face would have something in it. It just looks kind of blank to me, not pretty.”
“We all have issues,” Sawyer said, almost kindly.
I nodded.
“But that is the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever heard. You thought you weren’t pretty, so you wore glasses? That’s pathological.”
“Sawyer!” I protested. “Why are you so mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
He slowed as we cruised past Brody’s house. A car was there—probably his mom’s. The outside lights were on, waiting to guide Brody safely into the house after his date with Grace.
“You should have gotten Most Original,” Sawyer said. “You would have, if you hadn’t been elected to that couples thing with Brody.” Satisfied that Brody’s truck wasn’t parked anywhere around his house, Sawyer drove on down the dark, palm-lined street. Will was right behind us. The headlights of his Mustang shone through the back window of the truck cab.
“Who’d you vote for in the couples thing?” I asked Sawyer. “I still haven’t found anyone who admits to voting for Brody and me.”
“I voted for myself,” Sawyer said.
“And who?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Sawyer!” I exclaimed. Sawyer voted himself Perfect Couple That Never Was with a mystery woman? I was dying to know who.
“It’s a secret ballot!” he protested.
I took a different tack. “Are you going to ask her out?”
“No,” he said quickly. “It’s just a fantasy.”
“You never know until you try.”
“This I know,” he said ominously. He was after a girl he thought he couldn’t have. And I was afraid he was right, if I’d guessed correctly which girl he had in mind.
“Is it Kaye?”
I watched blush creep into his cheeks. He asked evenly, “Why would you say that?”
“You wanted to be in the Superlatives photo with her and Aidan, but only in costume. You bug her constantly and taunt her. You act like a seventeen-year-old with a crush, or a twelve-year-old with borderline personality disorder.”
He winced, but that was the only indication he heard me, or that I was right about Kaye. The blush slowly drained away, leaving him looking pale.
“I keep secrets,” I told him.
“Good.” He slowed in front of a house that must have been Grace’s. Several cars were parked in the driveway, but not Brody’s truck. Sawyer turned the corner and headed for the harbor.
“Brody told me you’ve started working out with the football team instead of the cheerleaders,” I said.
“Yeah,” Sawyer said. “Not the plays, of course, just the drills. I want to be able to run a 5K without having to sit down.”
“You’d just been in the hospital that week, Sawyer.”
“I want to be able to wear a pelican costume without passing out from heat exhaustion.”
“It was, like, ninety-five degrees that afternoon, wasn’t it?”
“I guess I just want to feel . . . worthy.”
“Worthy!” I laughed. “Sawyer, that doesn’t make sense. Everybody loves you.”
He eyed me skeptically across the cab.
“They do!” I protested. “In a love/hate sort of way.”
“Thanks for not making me feel any better.”
It surprised me that Sawyer felt bad in the first place.
He pulled his truck into the harbor’s parking lot. No streetlights shone here this late at night, which made it perfect for teenagers parked in clusters, blasting music and sitting on tailgates. They squinted into Sawyer’s headlights and shielded their eyes. We drove slowly until we saw Brody’s truck.
Sawyer parked in front of Brody, about twenty yards away. Sawyer’s headlights shone straight into the cab. Brody was behind the wheel. Grace was on the other side of the seat. They weren’t touching, as far as I could tell, but who knew what they were doing behind the high dashboard? They blinked like deer.
Sawyer switched off his engine and the headlights. We could still see the dark forms of Brody and Grace. In a few moments, when their eyes adjusted, they would be able to see us, too, and everything we
were about to do.
“No tongue,” I said quietly.
“No tongue!” Sawyer exclaimed. “That’s like saying we’re going to have sex with no—”
I was already sliding toward him across the seat as he spoke these words. I slapped my hand over his mouth and gave him a stern look. “Did you just say that to me?”
“No, I did not,” he said through my hand.
Cautiously, I took my hand away. And then, before I could think this through any further, we were kissing. The strange, sleep-deprived vibration I’d been feeling all day pushed me against his chest.
He whispered against my lips, “Just a little tongue.”
I cracked up. I was so giddy and nervous that I couldn’t stop laughing.
“Come on, just a little,” he coaxed me. “You’ll love it. You’ll be saying, ‘Sawyer, stud, I am sorry I ever doubted your tongue.’ ”
“O-kay, use it.”
As the openmouthed kiss began, I hung on to his shirt with both fists, bracing myself until it was over. Quickly I found myself saying, “Mm,” and kissing him back. Tia and other girls Sawyer had been with said he was worth the trouble. Now I knew why. I leaned forward.
We both jumped at a knocking on the driver’s-side window. Brody, taller than the truck, glowered at us through the glass.
Sawyer reached toward the door.
“No,” I said, putting a hand on Sawyer’s arm. I could tell he was about to desert me.
“Sorry,” he said. “My man is serious.” He cranked the window down and asked Brody, “May I help you?”
“Yes, please,” Brody said in the same polite tone with a threat underneath. “I would like to talk to Harper alone for a minute.”
“Sure,” Sawyer told him, “if I can ‘talk’ to Grace alone for a minute.” He made finger quotes.
“If you can catch her,” Brody said.
We all looked toward Brody’s truck. It was empty. I could barely see Grace in the darkness, leaning through another truck’s window. She opened the door and got inside. The truck roared off.
Brody looked back at us with his brows raised like Grace’s departure vindicated him.
Sawyer rubbed my nape and told Brody, “Listen. This here’s my girl.”
He meant, I thought, that we were friends, and he was looking out for me. I’d never viewed Sawyer as anything more than an entertaining basket case, but he was standing up for me.
“Got it,” Brody said.
“Seriously, Larson,” Sawyer said. “Even Will thinks this business is shocking.”
“O-kay,” Brody said, ticked off now.
Sawyer turned to me. “Go,” he said. “I’ll wait here for you.”
14
I GOT OUT AND FOLLOWED Brody to his truck. He started to open the door for me, but I shook my head. I wasn’t going to sit where Grace had just been sitting, like I was her temporary replacement. I leaned against the hood. He leaned beside me.
He swallowed audibly. “I felt bad about leaving with her as soon as I did it.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “You know what would have been better? If you’d felt bad about it before you did it.”
He nodded. His nearly dry curls moved against his neck. He said, “I really wasn’t trying to get together with her again, because we really were never together in the first place.”
Suddenly I was back at school, one week ago, lamenting my boring high school experience. This was my foray into the high school party lifestyle? Cross-eyed from lack of sleep, head over heels in lust, and resentful of my gorgeous boyfriend for cheating on me while he claimed he hadn’t been cheating?
I stood back, closed my eyes, and put my hands in my hair—something I hadn’t done for years, ever since I got on my careful-coif kick. I murmured, “This is some dumb shit.”
“Harper,” he said. “Are you okay? You’re blinking like you can’t keep your eyes open.”
“I think . . . I’ve never worn my contacts this long.”
“Do you have a case for them, and solution, like I told you?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In my purse.”
“In Sawyer’s truck?”
“No, in Will’s car.” I gestured vaguely to the Mustang, which had prowled to a position near both trucks so that Will and Tia could watch the show.
Brody hiked across the parking lot to the Mustang. The driver’s door opened. I could hear them talking, but not what they were saying. Then came Brody’s echoing shout. Everyone sitting on tailgates turned to look: “. . . shocking? What did you say that to her for, Will?” Will’s voice was firm. Tia’s rose above it: “This is Harper we’re talking about, Brody. Harper Davis. You can’t do this to Harper.”
Brody returned across the asphalt, carrying my purse but not my laptop or camera bag. “Get in the truck, Harper. You’re about to fall down.”
I shook my head. “Only if I can sit in the driver’s seat.”
“Fine.” He rounded the truck and opened the driver’s door for me. It was my first time inside Brody’s truck, where Grace and countless other girls had had all sorts of experiences I’d thought I wanted. I sniffed deeply, trying to detect perfume, but all I smelled was cleaner.
He got in the passenger side and closed the door, then offered me my purse. I dug out the contact solution. He held the case for me while I took out the lenses. Then he put everything back in my purse. My dad had made this sort of sweet gesture toward Mom, too, after he’d started a new affair and she’d caught him.
“I see where you’re coming from now,” I said. “On Wednesday night, you told me you didn’t have to break up with Grace in order to go out with me, because you weren’t with Grace.”
“Right,” he said warily.
“I assumed that, afterward, you would be with me.” He opened his mouth, but I kept talking. “I was mistaken. What you meant was, you weren’t with Grace, and you weren’t with me either. You’re not with anybody, and that gives you the freedom to be with everybody.”
“Well,” he said, clearly not liking where this was going, “not everybody.”
“Sure, because you’re not a slut. You’re just a free spirit. You’re an individual. Like you explained to me in the pavilion, everybody in your family’s divorced. Couples aren’t meant to be permanent. You get into a couple—a coupling, like a train car—with one girl and then another.”
“Exactly,” he said. His shoulders relaxed, and he popped his neck, relieved that I understood where he was coming from.
I nodded. “That is fucking ridiculous, Brody. It’s rifuckulous.”
His brows knitted. “Are you drunk?”
“No,” I yelled, “I am operating on almost zero sleep because my ex-boyfriend moved my deadline because I broke up with him so I could be with you!”
He huffed out a sigh. “I know, Harper. It’s just that you said you were going home after the game, and Grace and I have been friends for a long time. She asked if I wanted to hang out. We came here and talked about that guy from Florida State, and I told her he’s too old for her. I said guys from college trolling for girls from high school are usually up to no good. She got mad. That’s when you drove up. She spotted some guys from the University of Miami and left with them. The end.”
I wanted to believe him. I sort of did believe him, but I felt like I shouldn’t. I felt like I was being taken advantage of, and that he’d been taking advantage of me the whole week, and everybody at school knew it but me.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “I’m just . . . friends with people. I’m not with girls. I figure we can go out, or sometimes make out, and later we can still be friends and hang out. It’s the girls who don’t agree to that plan.”
I understood now why there always seemed to be a girl shouting at him in the hallway.
“I knew you were different,” he said. “When Grace wanted to hang out, I said okay because that’s what I’d normally do, but we hadn’t even reached the edge
of the school campus before I realized I’d done the wrong thing. I’ve worked on this—my mom made me go to counseling after my dad left—and I have this checklist in my mind and these things I’m supposed to say to myself, but they take a few minutes to kick in. I have an impulse-control problem.”
“You sure as hell do,” I grumbled.
“Harper,” he pleaded.
“No,” I said. “I came here with Sawyer because Tia was mad at you and egging me on. I was trying to make you jealous, but not because I want you back. I don’t. When you cheated on Grace with me and said you didn’t owe her anything, I should have known you would treat me exactly the same way you’d treated her.” I reached for the handle of the door.
He put his hand on my arm—gently, or I would have bashed the shit out of him. When I glared at him, he put up his hand in surrender.
“Harper,” he said, “give me another chance. We haven’t even been on a real date.”
“What does it matter, when you say people aren’t meant to be in exclusive couples? I don’t want to be with a guy who thinks that way.”
He opened his hands. “I thought that because of who I was with. Harper, I don’t want this to be about Grace. I want it to be about you, and me. I don’t want to lose you. You—” His voice broke. He cleared his throat. “You make me feel smart, and funny, like there’s more to me than a good arm.”
I drummed my fingers on my bare knee, halfway to a delirious decision. “You have to understand something. If we date, we’re a couple. We’re not the Perfect Couple That Never Was. We are a couple. There’s no never. And it’s not okay for you to go out with Grace.” Hearing myself, I shook my head. “No, never mind. I shouldn’t have to spell that out for you. I’m done.” I reached for the door again.
“Hey,” he said. Wisely he didn’t touch me this time. His voice was quiet. I paused to listen.
“You said we would catch each other tomorrow,” he said. “I’d really like to come over then. That can’t hurt anything, right? We can talk again when you’ve had some sleep.”
I gazed out the windshield. I couldn’t see well enough to discern Sawyer, but I could see his truck, still waiting for me. Sawyer had my back. He’d acted like Brody and I had a claim on each other. Even Tia, in her warped way, had led me here to Brody. Somebody in our school—a lot of people, apparently, though I didn’t know who—thought Brody and I were perfect for each other. And because my feelings for him were so strong, I wasn’t ready to throw away that possibility just yet.