Hey sexy
Brooke grinned and quickly hit Reply.
Hey there, what’s going on
She waited for the reply, and it came momentarily.
Not much, just thinkin about how hot you are. When you wanna get together to work on our project?
anytime this week. my parents usually go out to dinner on wednesdays, so tomorrow night maybe?
I don’t know if I can wait that long. Damn just thinking about it’s making me horny
Brooke grinned giddily, then looked around to make sure no one was watching her. She quickly typed back.
well maybe we should go somewhere then
Like where?
um, i dunno...like that one time we parked behind that pool supply place
That was in Logan. Too far. Let’s go to the Brinkley mall after they close. Tonight?
sounds good to me.
Seriously???
hell yea.
Damn. I’m getting really turned on right now.
well lets go do it right now
That’d be awesome. Where?
um...someplace down by the gym.
Are you fuckin serious? Let’s go. Meet me in the hallway on the far side of the varsity gym.
hell yea i’m serious. see you there.
Brooke couldn’t believe it. This was incredible. She was so excited she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to act casual when she went up to ask for a pass. She’d been half joking when she suggested it, because she hadn’t expected Brady to take the bait. She quickly closed out of her email account and logged off her computer, hoping he was actually serious. She walked slowly up to Mr. Grayson’s desk, taking deep breaths on the way to calm herself.
“Um, can I go to the bathroom? I don’t feel well,” she added, thinking that’d make it more plausible for her to be gone a long time.
Mr. Grayson quickly wrote out a pass and handed it to her without really even looking at her, then looked back down at his newspaper.
“Thanks,” Brooke said pointlessly, then hurried to the door. Once she was out in the hallway, she walked as fast as she could toward the gym, which was about as far away in the school as you could get from her SRT room. She hoped Brady would be there before her. She’d picked the gym because the hallways around it were usually pretty deserted during class, and no SRT sections met down there that she knew of.
When she entered the hallway on the far side of the gym, Brady was standing against the wall about halfway down.
“I didn’t think you were coming,” he said with a grin. “What the hell took you so long?”
“My freaking SRT’s all the way on the other side of the school!” Brooke protested as she walked up to him. “I told you I was coming.”
“Well, I’m glad you did,” Brady said, grabbing her shoulders and pushing her lightly back against the wall. He leaned in, his mouth hovering inches from hers. Brooke drew in her breath in anticipation. “ ‘Cause I’m really fuckin’ turned on right now,” he finished, then kissed her suddenly and forcefully, pinning her against the wall with his body.
Brooke gasped in delight. This was so hot. She loved the recklessness, the feeling that he wanted her right here, right now.
“Where do you wanna go?” she asked breathlessly.
“Right here’s good.” Brady kept kissing her.
“Brady!” she hissed as his hand snuck up her shirt. “We’ll get caught!”
“No we won’t. Nobody’s down here.” He backed an inch away from her, and his hand was suddenly down the front of her jeans. Brooke jerked and inhaled in surprise, then moaned in pleasure and leaned her head back against the wall. He kissed her again, and she used her knee to rub up and down the inside of his thigh.
All of a sudden the door at the far end of the hallway opened, and Brady stepped quickly back, yanking his hand out of her jeans. Brooke jumped away from the wall and tightened her ponytail, looking from Brady to Coach Stetson in panic as Coach Stetson came down the hallway toward them. She knew her face was flushed, and she licked her lips quickly, hoping they weren’t obviously swollen.
“Well, that sounds good,” Brady was saying. Brooke quickly flicked her eyes back to his. “I’m in a hurry to get a snack for Mr. DeHaven, but I’ll call you tonight about working on that project. You think like nine?”
Brooke, flustered, took a second to respond. “Yeah, sure, nine. Call me.”
Brady turned and casually walked toward Coach Stetson and the vending machines in the lobby at the end of the hallway, and Brooke turned and practically sprinted in the other direction, praying Coach Stetson wouldn’t stop her. She held her pass by her side so he could clearly see she had one.
“Hey, Coach Stetson,” she heard Brady say.
“Hey, Cash,” Coach Stetson replied, and Brooke breathed a sigh of relief, but didn’t really relax until she was at the end of the hallway. She turned back and saw that Coach Stetson had disappeared; he must’ve gone into the locker room. She rolled her eyes thankfully, then pushed open the door and headed back in the direction of her SRT classroom.
As she got farther away from the gym, she decided to stop in the bathroom and make sure she looked okay. Her ponytail was a little to one side, but her face was no longer flushed. Her skin still felt warm where Brady had touched her, and she grinned at herself in the mirror. That was definitely the most exciting thing she’d ever done at school. She couldn’t wait till tonight when they got to finish what they’d started. It was sure to be extra hot now, because he’d be wanting her really badly.
She grinned at herself one last time, then turned on her heel and walked confidently out of the bathroom.
***
“Do you wanna finish this tonight?” Brady asked two weeks later. “I’m so freakin’ bored out of my mind. Let’s get on email.”
Lorylyn glanced at the clock. There were only about five minutes left till the bell. “Okay,” she said, closing her chem book and pushing her notebook away. “This lab next class is gonna suck.”
“Yeah, no shit. You know it can’t be good when the pre-lab takes a whole freaking class period. And if I hear her bitch one more time about how we have lunch in the middle of class and it shortens our fucking lab time...”
Lorylyn giggled. “Yeah, we’re almost done anyway. Let’s just do it tonight.” She shoved her books in her bag and followed Brady to the computers in the back of the room. As she logged onto her email account, she glanced absentmindedly at Brady’s screen. Her eyes immediately widened, and she felt jealously bubbling up in her throat. His whole inbox, as far down as she could see, was full of messages from Brooke. She tried to look closer. The most recent one said Reply 54. Lorylyn felt like she might throw up. “Why do you have so many emails from Brooke?” she snapped.
Brady looked up in surprise. “Oh, it’s ‘cause we’re working on that Spanish project together.”
“Fifty-four emails about a Spanish project?”
“Well, we’re usually both on in SRT, so we just email back and forth. It’s no big deal. Don’t worry about it.”
“I wish I could get on in SRT,” Lorylyn said bitterly. She was so jealous she could barely handle it. Now every day while she was sitting in SRT being forced to be quiet, she’d know Brady was probably online talking to Brooke. She couldn’t let that happen! What if he started liking Brooke again because they were talking so much? Lorylyn knew they’d been meeting a couple times a week to work on their project too, and she hated it. She had tried to act like she was fine with it, because she knew the partners had been assigned, so it wasn’t like Brady had chosen Brooke, but still, it killed her to think of them spending so much time together...
“Yeah, well it’s not like I’m on every day,” Brady said dismissively, turning back to his computer.
Lorylyn was practically shaking. She wanted so badly to know what those emails from Brooke said. What the hell did they talk about when they were just emailing back and forth? Or what did they talk about when they were working on t
heir project? Suddenly she had a horrible thought….What if they talked about her?! It seemed like they were getting to be pretty good friends again…
The bell rang then, and Lorylyn quickly grabbed her bag and left the room with Brady. She walked beside him silently, holding her backpack straps with both hands so he couldn’t grab one. When they reached the hallway where they had to turn opposite ways to go to their lockers, Lorylyn let him kiss her quickly, then she practically ran to find Hilton and Jill.
“You guys!” she said, running up to them as soon as she spotted them at Jill’s locker. “Oh my gosh. I was just in chem, and Brady got on his email, and he had fifty-four emails from Brooke.” Lorylyn glared. “I have to know what they say! I’m going crazy!”
Hilton’s eyes widened, then suddenly they sparkled. “Ooohh, let’s go to the library during SRT and try to get on his email account! Do you know his password?”
“No,” Lorylyn said helplessly.
“Well, maybe we can guess it!”
Lorylyn smiled weakly, feeling sick to her stomach. “I’m almost scared. But I have to. I’m seriously going crazy not knowing what they say.”
“Okay,” Hilton said. “I have to go say hi to Landon real quick, but meet us in the library as soon as you can.” She and Jill hurried off down the hallway.
Lorylyn followed slowly, stopping at her locker. She felt better now that they were going to go try to read the emails, but seeing that in chem had just been a huge slap in the face, and her spirits had completely sunk. Even if the emails were totally innocent, as Brady claimed, it was still going to drive her nuts knowing he and Brooke spent SRT emailing back and forth all the time.
By the time Lorylyn got to the library about five minutes into SRT, Hilton and Jill were already there waiting for her. They were both logged into computers in the back of the room, far away from the desk and any staff members. Lorylyn took the computer beside Hilton and quickly logged onto her account with her student ID.
“They can’t tell if I get into Brady’s email from my account, can they?” she asked, suddenly nervous. She glanced around the room to make sure the librarians were still at their desk up front.
“I doubt it,” Hilton said. “I mean, it’s not like someone’s monitoring that all the time, just sitting there watching who’s logged into their school accounts and who’s logged into what email from what school account.”
“Okay,” Lorylyn said. “Well, I might not be able to figure out his password anyway.”
She opened email and started trying things. She tried his middle name, his middle name with his baseball number after it, his first and last names with his number, then just the word baseball. She sighed. “It’s probably something I don’t even know about,” she said, feeling hopeless.
“Ha, I got it!” Hilton said suddenly.
Lorylyn looked over in surprise. She hadn’t even realized Hilton had been trying.
Hilton grinned at her. “It’s your name.”
Lorylyn’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
Hilton logged out and did it again. “Aww, that’s so cute!”
Lorylyn grinned, feeling a little bit better. She and Jill both leaned over Hilton’s shoulder as Hilton opened Brady’s inbox.
Lorylyn, expecting all the emails from Brooke to be right at the top, stared blankly. “Scroll down,” she said, frowning. Hilton had already started to do so. “I thought they were right at the top, ‘cause they show up alphabetical by first name.”
“They’re not there,” Jill said as Hilton quickly scrolled back to the top. All three girls looked at each other suspiciously as the realization sank in.
“He deleted them,” Lorylyn said slowly, stating what they’d all already figured out. She stared at the table in front of Hilton, not seeing anything. “I can’t believe he deleted them. He must’ve done it as soon as he got to SRT.”
“I can’t believe he thought you were gonna look,” Jill said, her eyes wide.
“Well, he was right. But I can’t believe it! That must mean they were bad!” Lorylyn felt the jealousy in her throat again, as well as the scary sense of having no control over this situation. “And I can’t even say anything to him about it, ‘cause then he’ll know I looked!”
“Damn it!” Hilton said. “I wish we could’ve gotten here sooner! He must’ve gotten on the computer right away! Fast bastard.”
Lorylyn sank back in her chair, feeling like she might cry. “What should I do, you guys? ‘Cause he obviously had something to hide, but there’s nothing I can even do! He’s obviously talking to her about me.”
“Well, maybe he just deleted them ‘cause he knew it upset you to see them, so he didn’t want you to be upset next time you’re there when he checks his email. Maybe he did it to be thoughtful or something,” Jill said, but Lorylyn could tell Jill didn’t even really believe her own words.
“You should just keep checking his account,” Hilton said. “She’ll write him again, and maybe you’ll see it before he deletes it.”
“Yeah,” Lorylyn said, but then suddenly a new thought occurred to her. “But what if it does say something bad about me? I still can’t do anything about it! ‘Cause he’d know I checked his email!” Her voice was shaky, and she could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. “I never should’ve checked it at all!”
“Yeah you should’ve,” Jill said. “ ‘Cause if you hadn’t, you’d just be sitting in SRT right now going crazy about it. And that’d be just as bad as this. Now at least you know he deleted them. You know to be suspicious now.”
“Yeah,” Hilton agreed. “I don’t know what to tell you though...this is a tough one. If it was me and Landon, and we were actually together, I’d kick his fucking ass.” She laughed a little. “I think what you need to do is come up with some other way to get at the same issue, like without letting him know you checked his email. ‘Cause if there’s anything bad in the emails, it’ll probably come up some other time too. Like just ask him if he ever talks to Brooke about you, and tell him that you don’t mind him talking to her, but you really hope he doesn’t talk about you, ‘cause that’d make you feel weird. He should definitely understand that. If he’s talking to her about you, then he’s a fucking dick.”
“Yeah, but I still just hate it that they talk all the time during SRT and I’m never allowed to be on the computer then! So it’s like she gets all this time with him that I don’t.”
“Oooh, I know,” Hilton said with a grin. “You should send him a sexy email before SRT sometimes, or just say something to him in the hall right before that class about how you can’t wait to hook up with him or something. ‘Cause then he’ll go into that class thinking about you, and even if he talks to her, he’ll be thinking good stuff about you the whole time.”
“Oooh, good idea!” Jill said.
Lorylyn smiled a little. “That is a good idea. Maybe I’ll try that.”
Just then Hilton’s computer gave a familiar beep, and all three girls swiveled to stare at the screen. Their eyes widened. Brady had just received a new message from Brooke.
“What should we do?” Lorylyn asked.
“Oh, I’m opening it,” Hilton said without hesitation, quickly double-clicking on it.
“Wait!” Lorylyn said too late. “Now when he logs on, he’ll know we read it already!”
“No he won’t,” Hilton said. “Trust me.” She leaned forward slightly to read the message, and Lorylyn and Jill looked over her shoulder again.
Wanna work on the project tonight?
Lorylyn and Jill sat back, and Lorylyn breathed a sigh of relief. She’d been expecting the worst, even though she wasn’t really sure what that would be.
Hilton quickly closed out of Brooke’s message and clicked on the Who’s Online list. “Oh, shit,” she giggled, pointing. Brady’s name was listed twice.
“Oh, shit!” Lorylyn whispered anxiously. “We have to get off! What if he sees that and figures out I’m on his account?!”
Hilton
clicked back on Brady’s inbox, highlighting Brooke’s message. Then she clicked on Message up at the top of the screen and scrolled down to Mark as Unread. When she clicked, a red flag popped up next to Brooke’s message again, making it appear unopened.
Lorylyn smiled excitedly at Hilton. “How’d you know about that?”
“Hurry, close out of his account!” Jill said anxiously, looking around the library. She didn’t want Brady to figure out Lorylyn had been on it.
Hilton signed off with a smile. “I had this email from Mrs. Castle about English that I read and didn’t wanna forget about, so I was looking around to see if I could do that, and I figured out how,” she said.
“So since that message from Brooke came up as new on this computer, do you think it did the same thing on the one he’s on?” Jill asked nervously. “You don’t think he could tell we were on, do you?”
“I don’t think so,” Hilton said. “We couldn’t tell he was on till we looked at the Online list. I think it came up as a new message on both computers. Here, let’s try.” She logged in to her own email account, then reached for Jill’s keyboard and logged in again. “Lorylyn, send me a message.”
“I don’t wanna get on, ‘cause if Brady did realize he was logged in twice, and then he sees me online, he’ll know it was me!”
“Oh, shit. Jill, sign into yours on Lorylyn’s computer.”
Jill walked around Hilton’s chair and signed in to her own email account. Lorylyn opened a new message to Hilton and typed, shit i hope this works. Then she pressed Send and held her breath.
Jill’s and Hilton’s computers beeped simultaneously, and the new message from Jill popped up on Hilton’s account on both computers. Lorylyn rolled her eyes and sank back against her chair in relief, one hand over her heart. “Oh, thank God.”