Todd led her around the corner and up to the gate. He peered out, and she looked over his shoulder as much as she could. She couldn’t see very far, but that was okay.
“There’s nobody out there,” Todd said aloud. He stood up straight and dropped her hand, leaning forward to peer farther out the gate. “Huh. Oh well.”
Jill stepped up beside him, feeling braver now. He was right; the hallway and commons were completely deserted. “Huh,” she echoed. “Weird.”
Todd shrugged, then sank down with his back against the wall beside the gate. “Well, what now?”
“I don’t know.” Jill remained standing. “Hmmm. Let’s play a game.”
“What game?”
“I don’t know. I’m trying to think.” It was just starting to sink in that she was with Todd in the boys’ bathroom during code green lockdown…whatever that was. She couldn’t believe she’d gotten this lucky. She hoped lockdown lasted the rest of the day, or even past when school was supposed to get out. Could that happen? Of course, she only wanted it to last that long if it wasn’t for something too serious. She hoped everything was okay.
“Let’s play no-cards strip poker,” Todd said.
“No-cards strip poker?”
“Yeah. Since we don’t have cards, we just take turns taking our clothes off.”
Jill laughed and kicked at him, rolling her eyes. “Oh, okay,” she said sarcastically.
“Hey, then you think of something better,” Todd said.
Just then Mr. Madden came back on the intercom. “Attention, BCHS. This ends our code green lockdown. At this time you may unlock your doors and uncover your windows and return to your classrooms, if you are not there now. What you’ve just experienced is a lockdown drill. SRT teachers, please go ahead and go over the lockdown information sheets with your students. Thank you.”
Jill and Todd looked at each other, and Jill breathed a sigh of relief. It had just been a drill.
Todd was grinning at her teasingly. “Oh, I’m so scared. Help me, Todd. Help me!”
Jill kicked at him again just as the gate started to rise. “Shut up, you jerk!” she laughed.
“Help me, help me, Todd, hold my hand.”
“Shut up! I did not ask you to hold my hand!”
Todd grinned wickedly, then reached out for her to pull him to his feet.
Jill crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her nose in the air. “No.”
“Well fine then.” Todd stood up and waited. “Well, you leaving, or you gonna stay here forever?”
“I’m staying here forever. I don’t wanna walk back with you now,” Jill said airily. She kept her nose raised and tried as hard as she could not to laugh.
“All right, see ya sometime.” Todd left the bathroom and started across the commons.
Jill darted after him and shoved him as hard as she could, causing him to trip a little. “You dork!”
When they walked back into their SRT room and took their seats, Hilton grinned at Jill with wide eyes. Jill grinned back, but then quickly made a straight face, not wanting Todd to see. She turned her attention to Mrs. Jenner, who was explaining that code blue lockdowns would be used next year on random days for drug dogs to come in and search the school. She said a code green lockdown would be used for drills or in the case of an emergency, such as if someone had a weapon in the school or if someone was seriously injured in gym class and an ambulance had to come. The only difference was that during code blues teachers could continue with class like normal, but during code greens they had to get everybody away from the doors and windows and shouldn’t continue with class. Today’s had just been a preliminary drill to test the procedure and make sure it was going to work.
Todd looked over at Jill and held his hand out to her.
Jill burst out laughing and shoved his hand away. “Leave me alone,” she giggled.
chapter 18) oceans apart
Ever since spring break, school had been more relaxed for Jill because she wasn’t in a sport, yet time seemed to fly by faster than it had all year. Between teachers cramming stuff in to get it done before the end of the year, Hilton’s tennis matches – she was playing varsity already! – Todd’s baseball games, and weekends out at Bennett’s now that the weather was nicer and they could sit comfortably around a fire, Jill was shocked to realize it was almost the end of her freshman year.
One afternoon as she sat behind home plate during a freshman baseball game, bored because Todd wasn’t playing, her mind wandered off to how much things had changed since last year at this time. Hillary, her best friend since preschool, was sitting beside her cheering for a boyfriend who had become her whole world and with whom she had probably gone all the way to third base now, and although things were better between Jill and Hillary since Florida, there was still an ocean between them even as they sat next to each other today. Lorylyn, the perky, naive little girl who had never kissed a boy, had fallen in love and had her heart broken and her innocent, idealistic views of romance destroyed, yet she had come out of it happier than ever before, with a gorgeous boyfriend who doted on her and had told her for the first time just a couple weeks ago that he loved her. Jill herself had fallen in love and had her heart partially broken several times, although the fall was never as hard as Lorylyn’s. She had gone skinny-dipping, drunk a little bit of beer, seen porn, and overall, come out of her shell quite a bit and learned a lot about how things and people really were; in the past she’d lived in a protective little bubble like Lorylyn. She’d grown apart from her oldest friend but made two new best friends, one she was head-over-heels in love with and one she endlessly admired and desperately wanted to be more like. Overall, it had been a good year. She smiled to herself, lost in her thoughts.
Hillary nudged her in the side. “Todd’s coming in!”
Jill blinked and came out of her reverie to see Todd walking to the pitcher’s mound. “He has such a cute butt,” she sighed to Hillary as she watched him bend over to pick up a ball. In his green jersey, gray baseball pants, and green socks, with his blondish-brown hair sticking out the bottom and sides of his white baseball cap, he looked hotter than Jill had ever seen him. She stared, unable to take her eyes off him. “I wish I had binoculars.”
Hillary laughed. “You guys so need to hook up this summer.”
Jill made a glum face. “I almost don’t want school to end, you know? ‘Cause I’m afraid I won’t see him that much.”
“Do you ever write Jon anymore?”
“Oh my gosh, I haven’t even thought about him in forever.” Jill had had every intention of writing Jon when they got back from Florida, but when she’d gone back to school the first Monday after break and seen Todd, Jon no longer held any interest for her. She’d forgotten about him in a split second. It was weird, she thought now, how she’d been so infatuated with him in Florida, when she’d been away from Todd, but once she was back around Todd, no one else mattered anymore.
“Alec’s coming to Logan this weekend. He wanted me to hang out with him, but I told him I couldn’t.”
“What?! You kept in touch with him?”
“Yeah, well he wrote me first, so I thought I might as well write him back. I mean, why not? But I don’t really wanna go hang out with him, and I know Dirk wouldn’t be happy about it.”
Jill shook her head with a small laugh. She couldn’t believe it; of course the girl who had the boyfriend had gotten a letter from the guy she met, but Jill, the single one, apparently hadn’t been anyone with whom Jon really cared about keeping in touch. How ironic. And that was just so like Hillary now, to keep in touch with Alec even though she was inseparable from Dirk...another weird thing she did that Jill couldn’t begin to understand.
But whatever. Jill looked back at the baseball field and smiled dreamily. Who gave a shit about Jon or Alec? Because there was Todd...and it didn’t get any better than him.
chapter 19) the icing on his cake
“I’m so glad you ca
me over,” Brooke whispered, a satisfied smile on her face. She ran her fingertips down Brady’s bare chest and across his stomach and felt him shiver.
“I’m so glad your parents went out to dinner.” Brady grinned mischievously and rolled back on top of Brooke. Just as he leaned down and kissed her neck, there was a light knock on the door.
Brooke’s neck whipped around in panic and she stared at the door with wide eyes.
“Brooke? You wanna go get some ice cream?” The door opened and Lindy peered in. Brooke’s eyes locked with Lindy’s as Lindy’s flew wide in horror.
“Holy shit! Ohhh...my gosh.” Lindy slammed the door.
“Brady, get off me! I have to go talk to her!” Brooke cried, pushing him away and jumping out of bed, pulling her comforter around her as she went. She opened the door and ran into the hallway. “Lindy! Wait!”
She caught Lindy at the stairs. “Lindy, please, please don’t tell anyone,” she pleaded desperately.
“Brooke, what the hell are you thinking?! How long have you guys been hooking up?”
“No, it’s not what you think. I mean, I’m not trying to break them up. He said he just liked hooking up with me for fun, and I feel the same way about him. So what’s wrong with that?”
“What’s WRONG with that?! Brooke, are you completely insane?! Besides Lorylyn, don’t you realize you’re giving him exactly what he wants?! You can’t tell me you aren’t doing this ‘cause you think he’ll eventually choose you! That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Brooke shrugged and looked away.
“Brooke! He said he didn’t want a girlfriend who was easy! What do you think you’re being now?! You’re just gonna get hurt again!”
“No I’m not. ‘Cause he’ll eventually realize he should be with me. She’ll never have sex with him, and he’ll realize he needs that in a relationship.”
“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t be sleeping with him! He’ll never realize he can’t go without it, ‘cause he’s getting it! Don’t you get it? He has the best of both worlds! He has an innocent girlfriend, just like he wanted, but he still gets to have sex too! You’re like, the icing on his cake!”
Brooke’s stomach twisted into a knot. She hadn’t even thought of that. But Lindy was right. She was giving Brady exactly what he wanted. She’d been so stupid. She’d thought she was putting them on an even level, but she was really just letting him use her more than ever. He probably knew it too. He probably knew she still liked him and was laughing at her behind her back.
But...if she confronted him, she’d essentially be admitting she still liked him. No, that wasn’t what she wanted to do. She couldn’t let him know he’d fooled her. And despite how used and pathetic she felt, she didn’t want to give up what she had with him, and she knew that to stop the sex or confront him would be to lose him completely. She needed to make him think she was really just using him too. Suddenly she smiled as an idea came to her.
“You know what, Lindy? You’re right. You know, I didn’t realize it before, but you’re so right. Thanks. I’m gonna tell him to go fuck off.” She smiled and touched Lindy’s arm. “Thanks so much. But please don’t tell anyone, okay? I’d hate to ruin things with him and Lorylyn now.”
Lindy gave her a dubious look. “Just like that?”
Brooke smiled assuredly. “Yep. Don’t worry. I’m gonna go take care of it right now.”
“Okay, then...well, good luck, I guess. You’re doing the right thing, Brooke.”
Brooke smiled again and then turned and headed back down the hallway, her comforter trailing behind her. She stopped beside the window and waited to make sure Lindy was leaving. She heard the front door slam, then a minute later she saw Lindy’s blue car back out of the driveway and speed off down the street.
Brooke continued down the hallway to her room. When she opened the door, Brady was dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed tying his shoes. He looked up apprehensively.
“Don’t worry,” Brooke said. “She won’t tell. I told her I was gonna end it. That I’d realized what I was doing was wrong.”
“So are you?” Brady asked. “Gonna end it, I mean?”
Brooke hesitated a moment, then dropped the comforter from around her body and pretended to look thoughtful. “I don’t know,” she said. “Do you think we should?”
Brady grinned and grabbed her hand, pulling her toward him, and Brooke fell on top of him giggling.
###
Next, in Spin the Bottle...
Wrong All Along...
*Jill and Todd grow closer and closer, involved in a complex relationship only the two of them can understand, or maybe only Todd...
*Brooke appears to have moved on from Brady at last, convincing even Lindy she’s over him, but things aren’t always as they seem...
*Hillary fears she may have made a huge mistake involving Dirk...
*Hilton divulges shocking information about her relationship with Reed...
*Lorylyn is torn between her knowledge of Brady’s past and her desire to go further with him...
*Kara Darson, a girl Jill and her friends have always blown off, becomes a force to contend with...
*Landon’s parties and spin the bottle continue to draw everyone together for better or worse...
*and much, much more! Look for it soon, and live out sophomore year with Jill, Hilton, Lorylyn, Hillary, Todd, and everyone else!
Check out Daisy Jordan’s Spin the Bottle website for updates and to see the characters’ individual webpages!!!
https://spinthebottle.daisyjordan.com
Also, check out Daisy’s Twitter!
https://www.twitter.com/DaisyJordan06
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