“Whoa, slow down a sec.” Jeremiah rubbed his hands up and down Brett's sides. “Let me get a chance to see how gorgeous you look.” He stepped back and appraised her, and Brett felt her whole body heating up. “Wow.”
“I like a man of few words.” Brett pulled him to her again and this time pressed her lips squarely against his. Their bodies seemed to melt together as he tightened his hold around her waist. “Congratulations on the game today. I listened on the radio.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jeremiah placed one hand on the nape of Brett's neck and massaged it gently, exactly where she liked it. “That's sweet of you.”
“Mmm.” Brett pressed her face into his chest and breathed in. He smelled like pine and fresh deodorant and the AXE shaving cream he always used. Having him here, in the flesh, after wanting him so badly all day, made Brett feel a little like she was in a dream. She couldn't help herself from unbuttoning the top button of his black Ralph Lauren shirt.
“Babe, what are you doing?” Jeremiah murmured in her ear, not exactly sounding alarmed.
“I can't help it… .” Brett tore the next few open a little faster, the glimpse of his bare chest driving her wild. There were so many buttons! “I've been dying to see you.” She finally pulled open his shirt and was greeted with the words, in bright body paint, GET GOOSED, St. Lucius's slogan. “Oh my God.”
Jeremiah grinned sheepishly. “Yeah … uh … all the guys painted our chests. We didn't realize that it doesn't really come off in the shower.” He scratched his fingers across his pecs.
“You're kidding?” Even the silly slogan on his chest made him look sexy, and she slowly leaned in and pressed her lips to it, tracing the first G with her mouth as she slid Jeremiah's shirt off his arms. Maybe this was something she and Jeremiah could always have between them—knowing that the first time they did it, his chest said GET GOOSED in big red, goofy letters. That was kind of romantic.
But just as she started to push Jeremiah toward the bed, the door popped open and Tinsley, wearing a flowy pink dress and a long double strand of freshwater pearls—exactly like the ones Brett had been planning on wearing out with Jeremiah's family—barged in. “Oh, Jeremiah! I didn't expect to find you here.” As if she was expecting Brett to be with some other guy.
Considering it was only a few short weeks ago that Brett was sneaking onto Eric Dalton's yacht, Brett felt stung. You passive-aggressive wench, Brett cursed. Couldn't Tinsley just let things go? Jeremiah glanced at Brett, and she could see in his blue-green eyes a touch of sadness, like Tinsley had just reminded him of the horrible way Brett had dumped him not all that long ago. Brett rubbed her hand up and down Jeremiah's bare back.
But Jeremiah grabbed his shirt off the floor, giving Brett a quick kiss on the cheek and mouthing the word “Later.”
Tinsley strode right past Jeremiah's half-naked body and gave him her sparkly smile. “Congrats on the win. I heard it was a really good game.”
“Thanks, Tinsley.”
Brett glared at Tinsley as she fumbled around with a few things on her desk before grabbing her sleek black phone, humming the whole time.
“You guys hanging in here all night?” Tinsley asked brightly, looking directly at Brett, as if she hadn't not spoken to her for the past two weeks. Tinsley never wanted to reveal her true megabitch self in front of members of the opposite sex.
“No, we'll be out there, don't worry,” Brett replied, keeping the nastiness she was feeling out of her voice. Jeremiah pulled on his shirt.
“Good,” Tinsley said, leaving the door open behind her. “I wouldn't want you to miss anything.”
17
A WAVERLY OWL KNOWS WHEN TO CONFIDE IN HER ROOMMATE AND WHEN TO KEEP QUIET.
On the second-floor landing, Jenny pressed her body against the wall to allow Celine Colista and Verena Arneval, who shared a room down the hall in Dumbarton 309, to pass. Verena, who Jenny had never seen in anything other than elegant dresses and heels, was looking like a club girl in a pair of skintight black leather pants and a white tuxedo-inspired Badgley Mischka halter top, and Celine, who loved anything formfitting, looked classy in a turquoise long-sleeved, off-the-shoulder blouson dress and a pair of off-white ballet flats.
“Hey, Jenny! You look great in my dress,” Verena cried as she and Celine flew down the stairs in a fit of giggles. “But you're going the wrong way! The party's in the lounge!”
Jenny wasn't used to wearing a strapless dress—she thought they'd just slide down below her boobs, exposing their enormousness to the world. But she'd splurged last week on an expensive strapless bustier bra that promised to lift up as it squeezed in, and it actually seemed to work. She even felt kind of sexy. “Just, um, gotta brush my teeth.” Jenny smiled awkwardly at the two girls, who disappeared down the stairs with their tan arms playfully linked.
Suddenly Jenny missed having Brett as a roommate, and she missed even more being on friendly terms with Callie. Not that they'd ever exactly been there. From the very beginning, Callie had merely tolerated her until suddenly she became useful, and only then was she half nice to her. But Jenny didn't care—she knew Callie wasn't really as cold as Tinsley, and she felt like they might have ended up being really good friends if the Easy thing hadn't come between them. Was it completely naive to think that Callie would eventually get over that?
Back in her room, Jenny felt even lonelier—and the room wasn't even empty. Callie was standing in front of the mirror, applying mascara. A pair of Rock & Republic jeans hung loosely around her hips, as if she hadn't been able to find anyone with clothes small enough to fit her, and though they bagged a little around her nonexistent butt, she looked fabulous. On top, she wore a sheer white cami with tiny pink rosebuds from Betsey Johnson, and her newly short hair was pulled back into two stubby pigtails.
Callie turned around, the open mascara wand in her hand. Her eyes were lined thick olive, and her lips were covered with clear gloss. She looked like the epitome of the California girl—thin, natural, and playful. She'd never looked prettier.
Callie smiled nervously at Jenny. “I'm not, like, insane for wearing jeans, am I?” She fumbled with the zipper, making sure it was flat. “I know everyone's wearing, like, evening gowns and looking fabulous … like you do,” she added. “But I tried these on from this girl Ashleigh? Down the hall? And they just felt so good.” She paused to catch her breath.
Whoa, Jenny thought. I guess after being silent for so long, Callie finally bad something to say. She certainly wasn't going to let that opportunity pass. “I think you look awesome,” Jenny gushed, because she really did. “You look like Cameron Diaz.”
“Well, I'm glad I don't have her acne problem,” Callie answered wryly, reaching for a gold bangle bracelet on the top of her dresser. She glanced over her bare shoulder at Jenny.
“She has an acne problem?” Jenny asked curiously.
“You didn't know that?” Callie seemed surprised, as if everyone knew about Cameron's acne woes. But then she softened a little. “Yeah, it must totally suck. When she gets nervous, her entire, like, face breaks out.” Callie opened a tiny pot of lip gloss. “It's why she doesn't go to premieres.”
“Oh.” Jenny was grateful that flawless skin ran in her family. Not being able to go to premieres would kind of suck, especially if you were famous.
“Everything okay with you?” Callie glanced over her shoulder. “You seem kind of… out of it.”
Callie Vernon was asking her how she was feeling? Two hours ago the girl wasn't speaking to her, and now she was sharing celebrity gossip and acting all concerned about why Jenny was quiet? But maybe that was Callie's way of getting over things—one day she woke up and moved on? Or maybe she met a new guy? “Well …” Jenny hesitated, trailing off.
“Is it Easy?” Callie asked softly, kneeling down by the stack of new shoe boxes, searching for the right pair. She bit her lip. “I mean, look. I'm sorry I've been kind of … a bitch.” She glanced up and Jenny was surprised to see she actually was blushing
. “It's just been, you know, kind of weird.”
“Hey.” Jenny felt something heavy in her throat. “You don't need to say anything. I completely understand.” She could see that Callie was uncomfortable apologizing, and even if the last few weeks had been more than uncomfortable, Jenny was still the one with Easy. She could afford to be generous. “Really.”
Callie glanced up at Jenny and gave her an incomprehensible look, then grinned. “Okay.” She pulled a gold Calvin Klein collection ankle strap sandal from the top box. “Too fancy?”
Jenny cocked her head. “No. I think it's a perfect balance to the jeans.”
Callie collapsed on the bed and started tugging on the shoes. “You can talk to me, you know. I won't bite.”
Feeling a rush of roommate love, Jenny had the urge to spill everything to Callie. “Well … it's just that he said he might try to sneak in tonight. But I haven't heard from him all day.”
Callie nodded sympathetically. “He can be bad about those things. He was always standing me up or showing up like an hour late. It's totally frustrating.”
“It's just kind of nice to know what's going on, you know?”
“Yeah. But when he was growing up, his parents were super-strict and made him tell them whenever he was going somewhere, exactly where he was going, and when exactly he would be back.” She held out her right foot and waggled it back and forth, examining how it looked from different angles. “By the time he got here, I think he just couldn't deal with that anymore, and now it's sort of impossible for him to be on time or tell anyone where he is.”
“Oh.” That answer was an unavoidable reminder of the enormity of Callie and Easy's relationship. It was like pulling a tooth—at first, it looks kind of tiny, but then you see how far and deep the roots go back. Jenny and Easy were just starting to know each other, but Callie had been a part of his life a lot longer. “I guess I didn't realize all that.”
“I'm sure he'll be here,” Callie said, deliberately not mentioning that Easy had also IM'd her that he'd be sneaking in tonight. “He'll find a way to get in.” There was no way Easy would miss out on something as legendary as sneaking into the girls' dorm when it was on lockdown. Please.
Jenny unzipped her pink Sephora travel bag and spread her makeup in front of her. Callie watched as she opened her Benefit Dandelion highlighting powder and brushed a little bit onto her face, making her skin look even more radiant than usual. In that deep brown strapless chiffon dress, with her long, wild curls, she looked like someone who would frolic barefoot in a wildflower meadow and not worry about stepping on bugs. In other words, the kind of carefree girl Easy would fall in love with.
“I guess you're right. I really can't imagine Heath letting all of us girls get dressed up and drink his beer without him.” Jenny closed one eye and swept her wand of clear mascara over her already-long lashes, her mouth opening as a reflex. Her hand was right above her Altoids tin of hair bands, which was—shit—half full again. So she must have realized that Callie flung them all over the room?
Callie suddenly started to feel like a bad person, and not just because of the hair bands. Jenny looked so innocent and vulnerable that Callie started to have regrets about going out to dinner with Easy and his dad last night. Maybe it wasn't the smartest move for anyone involved? Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth, and she wondered if she should just tell Jenny about it while they were being open about all things Easy.
But she couldn't. She had told Easy that she wouldn't, and even though she felt bad about it, she kind of liked having a special secret with him.
“I think I'm going to go up to the roof and get some air.” The room felt crowded, and Callie needed to get away from Jenny, whose sweetness only made her feel more and more guilty. “I'll, uh, see you downstairs.”
Callie opened the door and the sound of the Red Hot Chili Peppers wafted up the stairwell.
At least someone was having fun.
18
A WAVERLY OWL KNOWS THAT EVERY DOOR HAS A KEY.
At seven twenty-five sharp, five minutes before closing time, the boys had all congregated in the locker room at Lasell gym. And waited.
“I don't know if I should be doing this,” Lon Baruzza said as he locked the front door of the gym and switched off the last of the overhead lights. “But I miss all the hot girls.” He jangled the keys and grinned. “And it serves ’em right for making me lock up every freaking Saturday night.”
Brandon grinned, feeling much more daring than he usually allowed. He'd been hanging around the squash courts this afternoon, practicing his backhand, when Lon Baruzza walked by with a stack of fresh towels for the boys' locker room. Brandon saw him working everywhere—in the dining hall, the library, Maxwell—doing all sorts of odd jobs for his work-study program. Brandon had always admired him for that—there weren't too many kids at Waverly, himself included, who knew what it was like to have to work for their first-class educations. But this time, Brandon was admiring him for a different reason: the enormous set of keys hanging from a belt loop on his dark wash Abercrombie & Fitch jeans.
“I don't have a master key or anything that cool,” Lon admitted when Brandon asked him. “But there are a bunch of old keys on here that open a lot of strange doors. And yeah, one of them opens the Lasell access door to the tunnels.” He shrugged.
“How the fuck did you keep that a secret?” Brandon swiped at a bead of sweat running down his forehead.
“Well.” Lon grinned proudly. “It's not exactly a secret—a few girls know about it too.” Lon was reputedly a ladies' man, although he wasn't one of the guys that talked about it much. Or emailed lists of all the girls he'd hooked up with out to his dormmates. In other words, he was no Heath Ferro.
“Do you know how far they go?”
“I haven't really explored them. But they have signs on the walls—apparently they go to all the main buildings.”
“Dorms included?”
Lon nodded. “Dorms included.”
Bingo.
Brandon filled in the stealth group of explorers by email, though even he wasn't sure what he meant by “come prepared.” Flashlights and dark clothes, maybe. But then Walsh showed up wearing a yellow hard hat with a giant light on the front of it.
“Spelunking.” Easy shrugged and set it on his head. He looked like a miner. If the girls were here, they'd be falling all over themselves trying to tell him how cute he looked. How creative and artsy it was that he was wearing a fucking spelunking helmet. Brandon just thought he looked like a dweeb.
Alan St. Girard started pulling a thick rope from his bag and wrapped it around his waist.
“Fuck's that for?” Ryan Reynolds asked, stroking his nose ring and looking a little self-conscious about the tiny LED penlight he'd brought.
“In case anyone needs pulling out.”
“Whoa.” Heath Ferro held up a hand. “No one needs to be talking about pulling out. Yikes.”
“These aren't caves, you know.” Brandon pulled on a black V-neck Armani sweater over his faded gray Ben Sherman T-shirt. He glanced at Julian, who had hung what appeared to be binoculars around his neck. “Binoculars?”
“Night vision goggles,” Julian corrected. His hair, normally flying all over the place, was sticking out the bottom of his black knit cap. He looked like a really tall Kurt Cobain—maybe it was a Seattle thing.
“Lemme see.” Heath Ferro grabbed at them, but Julian, about six inches taller, pulled them off his neck and held them above his head.
“I don't trust you with expensive toys.”
“Where'd you get those?” Brandon asked, curious. This Julian kid was an enigma. “My mom.” He held them up to his eyes and pretended to focus on Brandon. “She was CIA.”
“Really!?” Ryan Reynolds jumped up and down with excitement. Everyone knew Alias was his favorite show.
“No.” Julian smiled.
“Fucker,” Ryan mumbled.
Brandon tapped his black Camper bowling sneaker impatiently agai
nst the linoleum floor. “Are we ready? The girls are waiting.”
Lon led them to the basement of the old gym building, where the ceilings were low and all sorts of outdated gym equipment was stored. He stopped suddenly in front of an innocuous-looking door, right next to the football coach's dingy office. He flicked through his keys expertly before sliding one into the lock and twisting it back and forth. Everyone held their breath. Someone hummed, “Dum da dum dum DUM!”
The door opened with ease. “Lon, I love you. Let's go!” Heath clapped and grabbed his flashlight from his pocket. He shone it on the walls, illuminating a sign that looked like a directory. He paused at the name Dumbarton. “Ladies, here we come.”
Easy clicked on his spelunking light, and Brandon hated to admit it was incredibly helpful in lighting the way. Still, the tunnel was much wider, more navigable, and less Edgar Allan Poe-esque than Brandon had expected.
“This way.” Julian pointed, the other hand holding his night vision binoculars to his eyes. Where the fuck did you get something like that? Brandon started to think that maybe Julian's mother was in the CIA after all.
“This rocks!” Alan exclaimed when they came to the first turnoff that led to the library. “Why would anyone deal with the fucking snow in winter if they could be all warm and snuggly down here?”
“Maybe that was the problem.” Brandon's flashlight slid over some writing scratched across the walls—Madison Oliver gives good head, I Masterful Johnson, Taylor loves Michael 4 ever, Duran Duran rocks my world. Guess Waverly Owls had never been terribly creative with their graffiti. Brandon shone his light on one: Marymount has a teeny weeny. He nudged Heath in the ribs. “Sounds like you guys should be buddies.”