Hot Mess (15 page)

“Yo, I’ll grab us some beers,” Jake volunteered.

“See if they have any chardonnay, would you?” Jayla demanded.

“I’m sorry.” Jake cupped his hand to his ear. “Did you say Bud Lite or just Bud? Talk into my good ear this time.”

“Neither, chardon—” Jayla started to yell. But her face changed when she got the joke. “Fine.” Her mouth broke into an unwilling smile. “Bud Lite.”

Jake waited expectantly, hand on hip.

“Please,” she added.

He turned to head out on his beer hunt.

I called after him, “Bud Lite for me too.” But he shot me his “But you’re a minor” look. “Fine, nothing,” I muttered. “I’m not thirsty anyway.”

I glanced around the room and tried not to be bothered by the girls looking me up and down. I knew my dress was cute, but in a room full of older, cooler hipster chicks who could actually go into a vintage store and not come out looking like Captain Jack Sparrow, I could’ve been wearing a garbage bag and felt less conspicuous. One scrawny American Apparel–draped girl whispered something to her equally Kirsten Dunst–y friend and pointed at Jayla’s Manolo heels. Jayla glared icily at them and turned to me anxiously.

“Do I look okay?” she said nervously, tugging at her dress and looking at me intently for an honest answer.

“Jayla, please. You look amazing! You always do.” She nodded tensely, throwing her shoulders back and thrusting forward her perfect cleavage. It wasn’t like her to ask. I couldn’t imagine her as one of those “Am I fat? Am I pretty?” sort of girls. When Jayla looked great, believe me, she knew. But she just chewed her lip and furrowed her brow, scanning the crowd. After a smelly subway ride and the choice between Skunk Beer 1 or Skunk Beer 2, I was worried she was just looking for an exit so she could ditch me.

I took her hand. “Let’s go find my future summer boyfriend, okay?” I tried to lead her through the crowd, but no one would move out of my way. I had to get a little pushy, nudging through the sea of sideswept bangs. I was trying my hardest not to spill anyone’s drinks, but I totally got some sneers from a group of girls who all had nose rings and cartilage pierces. “Should I ask where Colin is?” I shouted above the Mark Ronson remix playing.

Jayla looked at me like she’d seen the ghost of Christmas Moron. “No way. And try not to be so obvious that you’re looking for him. Pretend that you’re having a good time at a fun party and that he just happens to be here,” she said.

I stopped my forward march and turned to look at her. Now I was totally confused. This wasn’t some random field kegger that I heard about on a flier or something. “But I don’t just happen to be here. I mean, he invited me.” I’d look crazy if I came to his party and didn’t say hi or anything.

She rolled her eyes at how not-boy-savvy I was.

“Fine.” I crossed my arms. “I’ll stop looking for him. Let’s just stand here and look like we’re having a good time. Now you fake laugh so that if he sees us, he’ll think I’m funny.”

Jayla threw her head back and laughed as directed. “That’s my girl,” she ventrilo-muttered through her flawless smile. “Let’s check out the roof deck.”

Jayla grabbed my arm and started leading me through the crowd. The dangly-earringed and skinny-jeaned folks of course easily parted for Jayla, and we made our way up the stairwell to the roof.

The outside party was a lot less crowded than the indoor soiree—just a bunch of people sitting on patio furniture, looking very New York casual.

I spotted Colin immediately. He was manning the grill and looking impossibly fine in his “Backyard Gourmet” apron. I spent a solid fifteen seconds staring at his butt. It would have gone on longer, but at second sixteen I was interrupted.

“Hey, you came!” Colin walked over to me, spatula and tongs in hand. Should I hug him hello? Were we at that point? I didn’t know, so I just stood still, arms at my side like an ROTC cadet at attention. Ugh. Why was I being such an awkwardbot about this? He gave me a huge hug, ignoring my stiffness. Just feeling his manly warm chest against my (nonwomanly, flat) body sent tingles up and down my spine. Of course, instead of just letting a hug be a hug, I had to lean in more. But by then the window for normal-length hugs was over and I pretty much looked like I had a peg leg and was leaning on him for support. Real sexy! He pulled away, but his arms were still on my sides.

“You have to try my burgers. They’re the best in the five boroughs, I’ve been told.” I nodded and we headed back to the grill. He lobbed a burger onto a toasted bun. Why was he so supercasual and not totally awky around me like I was around him? Was that just an adult thing or maybe he just wasn’t nervous because he didn’t
like
like me. Wait,
like
like? Why was I perma-stuck in middle school when I was trying to be an adult?

“Ketchup? Mustard? What do you feel like, Emma?” Hearing him say my name made me tingle all over again.

“The more the merrier, chef.”

Did I really just say that?

“Ha-ha. That’s the kind of girl I like.” He loaded up my burger with a little bit of everything. I didn’t know what I was salivating over—him or the food. It had to be him. I swear, he was making relish look sexy.

My cell started to vibrate and I frantically fished around to get to it before “Canned Heat” started blaring. Too late. A polyphonic
“you know this boo-gie is for reeeeal”
echoed out of my—fine,
Jayla’s
—bag.

“Love that movie,” he said, arranging my tomatoes. “I’d do the whole dance, but I don’t know if I can trust you yet. If word of my sweet moves gets around the office, my stock will plummet.”

He eyed me in mock suspicion. How could someone this smoking hot be flirting with me? And how could I not think of a comeback?

Finally, I found my phone. As I went to silence it I saw that it was Jayla calling. I was wondering where she’d gone off to. It wasn’t even that crowded up on the roof. Could she seriously not just walk across the party to find me?

“Give me one second, I’ve got to get this.”

“Okay, fine. But don’t pull that ring-and-run thing you did last weekend,” he joked, his green eyes bright through his smile-crinkled eyes.

God, the last thing I wanted to do was walk anywhere but right onto his lap, but if Jayla was calling me while at the same party, it must be kind of important. I walked toward the other side of the roof, where a group of drunk girls in Nicole Richie–esque headscarves were dancing.

“Jayla?” I said, flipping open the phone. “Where are you?”

“In the bathroom,” she hissed in a low, frantic whisper. “Oh my God! You’re never going to believe this.”

“What’s wrong?”

“You know fake-bipolar Carter? That little limp-dick is here.”

I gasped, envisioning an unexpected run-in with Brian. I got that sinking-stomach feeling. I really couldn’t think of anything worse.

“And I think he’s with his new girlfriend.”

Oh, that was worse.

“His new so-plain-she-can’t-even-be-considered-ugly girlfriend.”

“Oh, Jayla. Oh, babe, I’m so sorry!”

“Emma, what do I do?” she squeaked, and I could tell she was about to ruin her Dior mascara. But I was silent and useless on my end.

“I wish this had happened just a little further down the road,” she said, and sniffled. “I’m so not ready now. In a few months or whatever, I wouldn’t care if we ran into each other while I was standing on line to have my copy of
It’s Called a Breakup Because It’s Broken
autographed. Or even if he saw me at the pharmacy asking the clerk if they had any extra-strength Monistat in the back. But now”—her voice broke into high-pitched whimpers—“I just look stupid and overglossed and not fabulous. I feel like the wound is so raw, you know?”

“Oh God, I’m so sorry. Do you just want to go? You sneak out and I’ll meet you downstairs in a few.”

I silently cursed myself—and yes, I’ll admit it, poor Jayla, too—the moment the words hit the air. Leave? I’d just gotten here! Colin would think I was a total bitchy snob if I left now. I thought guiltily about the “chicks before dicks” mantra and how sweet it was of Jayla to come with me in the first place. The least I could do was save her from the unimaginable hell of running into her ex with his new tramp girlfriend. If I were in her shoes, I’d totally drag Rachel or Kyle out of a party. But still, I hoped she wouldn’t take me up on the offer.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” she protested, steadying her voice. “I’m wallowing in
self
-pity now. I’m not deep enough into this woe-is-me puddle to soak the whole world with me. You go and flirt your flip-flops off with the Burger King. I’ll figure this out myself.” I heard her click End on the call and closed my phone.

I was being a bad friend, I knew it. But I still shut my phone and trotted back over to Colin, who was holding my burger and one for himself.

“Perfect timing,” he said as he handed me my paper plate. “Shall we retire to the dining room, Ms. Freeman?”

Bad friend, huh? Chicks before what now? All I could see was a perfect smile shining at me.

I followed him to a set of plastic patio furniture. Between bites of beef, we picked up right where we left off last Saturday night, minus the blaring Rihanna. He was funny and cool and not afraid to be a dork. Well, anyone that foxy couldn’t really be a dork, but it was cute that he tried.

“You’re right. This totally is the best burger I’ve had in New York,” I said a few bites in.

“Stop, I’m blushing.” I think he really was. “But you just graduated, right? You haven’t really been here that long?”

I opened my mouth to say that no, I wouldn’t be graduating until next year—then I realized he meant from
college,
not Bridgefield High. Or any other High for that matter. Now was so not the time to come clean. Soon, though. But this was going way too well for me to ruin with messy details like me being eighteen, living with my parents, and looking forward to my senior year of high school.

“No, just a few weeks, I guess.” I tried to flash a sexy smile, but instantly wondered if I had lettuce in my teeth and quickly changed to a closed-mouth grin that looked more like I’d just eaten a rat than come from Brite Smile.

“So you probably haven’t had anyone else’s burgers.”

I was going to tell him that my Chinese delivery friend didn’t deliver burgers and I couldn’t really betray him by ordering some other ethnicity’s cuisine after we’d invested so much emotionally—but I stopped myself. Even Rachel thought my relationship with the delivery guy was weird. Impressing Colin with that story would be like trying to sell Eau de Bacon at the Chanel fragrance counter. So I just shrugged and giggled.

“Well, then I’ll need to show you around town. How about we put my grilling skills up against some of the big dogs? I’ll take you to one of New York’s supposed ‘best burger joints’ and you can see how I stack up.”

He did those supertrite air quotes around “best burger joints,” but I was willing to overlook that. I was blinded by a bigger issue, one I’d read about in magazines, seen in chick flicks, but never thought really existed. I’d always thought this was just the Loch Ness Monster of girly folklore. But Colin was proving this myth true. He had just asked me on a date—a real live, not over-the-computer, not even school-dance, date, without me making out with him or considering him my boyfriend first.

With surprisingly un-Emma-like coolness, I looked him right in the eye and said, “Yeah, I’d like that. It’ll be like our own burger throwdown.”

I managed to get the entire sentence out before feeling my face turn red and having to look away. This was progress.

“All right.” And he said it with a happily surprised tone. As if any woman could ever say no to those dimples. “So, Tuesday night work for you? You, me, and the Corner Bistro?”

I didn’t want to tell him that I was free every night from now until Thanksgiving. I twirled my hair nervously and through a mouthful of burger said, “Sounds great.”

I felt his eyes move down to my chest.

“So, new topic. I’m intrigued. What’s Domino?”

“Oh.” I grabbed at my necklace. “It’s just this Manhattan alias-name thing I have with my friends. Like, what we’re supposed to say to guys in clubs or whatever.”

I froze when I realized the total idiocy of what I’d just said.

“So, you lie to guys you meet in clubs?” He was giving me what I thought was a jokey flirty look, but I could feel guilt pulsing through my body.

“No!”
I yelled, and he jumped. “I mean, no. No, I do not.” I smiled nervously and fingered the necklace. “It’s just a joke thing. Not really lying.”

Cool, calm, collected Emma had melted into hot, sweaty, nervous Emma. I was spitting the words out fast and defensive. “I’m Domino Frost. My best friend is Bitsy Onassis. And our roommate is Jinx.” That reminded me, what the hell had happened to Jayla? I should go find her. No, I
should
tell Colin the truth. Before I could even make a decision about alerting Colin to my near-jailbait status, Jacob came bounding over to our al fresco alcove, his shaggy hair poufy with humidity and stress.

“Em, I’m taking Jayla home,” he said in a panic. “She’s on a speedboat to Drunk Disaster Island.”

I glanced nervously at Colin, who was obviously confused at who this sweaty, jittery starfish boy was.

“I’ll come. You’ll need help,” I said, grateful to escape before I said too much more about lying and boys and clubs and cheap necklaces.

I got up to bolt, which seemed to be my signature with Colin.

“I’m sorry,” I said in a low voice as I turned away from an antsy Jake. “He’s not a guy.”

Colin looked curiously over my shoulder at Jake, “Uh…he’s not?”

“Oh! No! I mean, he
is
a guy—he’s just not, like,
my
guy or anything. He’s a cousin. My cousin. And, like, I’d never date my cousin. At least, not a first cousin.” Help! I’ve fallen into a downward spiral of awkward blathering and I can’t get up.

“I mean”—I sighed with exasperation—“you know what I mean, right? Anyway, my roommate Jayla is kind of, um, sick, so we need to take her home.”

He laughed and put his hand on my knee, warm and heavy. “Yeah, I gotcha. No worries, my friend Pete is always drinking himself into a coma.”