Most Likely to Succeed (14 page)

“You don’t know that,” Sawyer said, “but it makes an excellent excuse not to try.”

I eyed him. “You’re daring me.”

“I’m definitely not. You’d be wearing next to nothing, and men would leer at you. I wouldn’t encourage you to do it, except that you obviously want to. I think you understand the leering aspect and accept it, even want it. And that’s okay.”

“You wouldn’t be jealous about the skimpy uniforms and the leering men?” My tone was teasing, but suddenly I wanted so badly for him to acknowledge that the thought made him crazy.

“Your body belongs to you,” he said solemnly, “not any guy, and not your mom. You really don’t seem to understand that.”

Across the aisle from me, Cathy shifted in her sleep and
nearly fell off her seat. Instinctively I dodged away from her, cupping my hands over my phone screen.

“It’s not a joint,” Sawyer said.

“I feel awful even looking this up, like my mother is watching me and doing calculations about how much money I’m wasting if time is money.”

“Anything making you feel that guilty is definitely worth doing.”

I looked over at him, at his sharp nose and soft mouth coming in and out of focus as the van moved through the interstate lights. My lust for him had grown as the ride went on. I wondered if he meant we should indulge our own guilty pleasure. I’d reached the point that I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight, or ever, if I didn’t find out.

I bent to slip my phone back into my bag. Then I moved toward him.

His eyes widened, but he didn’t back away.

I cradled his chin in my hand, his blond stubble scratching across my fingertips.

His lips parted. He looked a little outraged, honestly, like this was unseemly behavior for a future valedictorian.

If I’d thought about the expression on his face, I would have backed away. But I was sick to death of thinking. I kissed him.

He opened his mouth for mine. I swept my tongue inside. He didn’t pull away, but he didn’t reciprocate, either. I knew I could kiss. Aidan and I had had plenty of practice. But I felt as if I was initiating Sawyer in a decidedly unsexy way, like when DeMarcus had taught me to French kiss in front of an audience of our peers at his Halloween party in seventh grade, directly after Tia had taught DeMarcus.

I broke the kiss and pulled back until I could see Sawyer. His face was mostly in shadow. I wished yet again that I could gauge the look in his eyes. “I feel like I’m taking advantage of you, which is no fun at all. You don’t want to kiss me?”

“I do.” He swallowed, and he actually looked like he was in pain as he said, “I don’t want to get hurt.”

“This won’t hurt.” I slipped my hand into his hair and kissed him.

Again I felt that I was leading the dance. I was about to give up on him. That lasted about five seconds.

Then he was kissing me back. He pulled me closer, deepened the kiss, and explored my mouth. He bit my lip, almost hard enough to hurt. As I opened my mouth wider to protest, he gave me a taste of what other girls were talking about when they said Sawyer turned them on. In one minute he had controlled me completely.

He took his hand out of my hair and placed it on my
breast. I broke the kiss to gasp at the intensity of tingles racing through me.

Just as suddenly as he’d started, he let go of me and backed away, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly as he panted. He said hoarsely, “We just can’t. I want to, but I know this isn’t going to work out.”

I gaped at him. I could not
believe
, after everything we’d been through to get to this point, that he was dumping me when we’d hardly gotten started.

I’d heard so many reports of him having trysts like this with different girls. Strangely, those accounts included the beginning, and the good stuff, but never the ending of those relationships. Maybe that’s because they all ended like this.

I jerked my pillow out from behind him, then grabbed my bag from the floor.

“Kaye.” His hand circled my wrist.

I glowered at him. I wasn’t sure he could see my face in the dark, but he knew what the sharp jerk of my head meant. He let me go and put his hand up, surrendering.

I stood and shuffled to the back of the van. Normally I was the one who told the other girls to treat their pompons right, leaving them in clean places rather than in pools of half-dried Coke on the concrete steps of the stadium. This time I was the one who unceremoniously knocked Sawyer’s
costume bag and a pile of pompons to the floor in a hiss of plastic streamers. I lay down with my pillow underneath my head and closed my eyes, listening for Sawyer over the drone of the van motor, and hating him.

What I heard was a grunt near the floor. After a few seconds I realized it wasn’t a rogue bullfrog that had found its way onto the van but my phone vibrating in my bag and bouncing against the van’s carpeted bottom. I snatched the phone out. I knew Sawyer was texting me.

Sawyer:
I never had a chance to tell u what ur stupid abt.

I waited. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of prompting him:
What’s that, Sawyer?
But he’d heard me take my phone out. He knew I was hanging on what he would say next.

Sawyer:
Me.

I texted back so angrily that my thumbs pressed rogue characters and my message was full of )[email protected] I had to take a deep breath. I wasn’t going to send him an answer that was less than perfect. Finally I got it cleaned up and texted this:

Me:
I’m not stupid about u. YOU lead me on and then shut me down. U have done that for the last time. 3 strikes and ur out.

I turned my phone off, threw it in my bag, and rolled over with my back to the van.

As soon as I’d done this, I regretted it. “3 strikes and ur out”? That was the kind of draconian statement my mother would make, setting limits and sticking to them no matter what, even if they had no meaning later and caused everyone misery.

But I wasn’t wrong, was I? Showing Sawyer how much I liked him was hard for me. There were only so many times I could go out on a limb like that, only to have him cut off the limb at the trunk and watch me fall. I’d been worried at lunch that his problems were too serious for us to get over. Well, I was done. Now he could start worrying about
my
problems.

I pictured my life as I would start living it tomorrow: single. I wouldn’t go after Sawyer. I wouldn’t worry what Aidan was up to. I wouldn’t try desperately to find a date for my nonexistent homecoming dance. I had great friends and lots to do my senior year—too much, according to my mother—and I could enjoy it all by myself.

I sat up and peered around the seat in front of me only once to see what Sawyer was doing. His worried face was lit clearly by the glow of his phone. He was still typing.

* * *

An hour later, the instant I arrived home and escaped to my room, I turned my phone back on and opened his texts.

Sawyer:
3 strikes makes it sound like ur playing a game w ME.

Sawyer:
Kaye

Sawyer:
We need to talk abt this. You can’t just pretend I’m not here. I’m RIGHT HERE & if u don’t answer I will do something inconceivably cruel to ur pompons.

Sawyer:
Kaye

Sawyer:
Kaye.

11

THE NEXT NIGHT HARPER CALLED
me after dinner. “What’cha doing?” she asked.

“My next paper for Mr. Frank.”

“Oh, shit. On Saturday night? Have I missed something? I thought it wasn’t due for another two weeks.”

“It’s not,” I said. “My mother is making me write it early, because she doesn’t trust me anymore. Like she ever did.” I wished Harper hadn’t asked. I hated the bitter sound of my voice. “What’s up?”

“I was wondering if you would help me buy a car.”

I waited for Harper to explain what the hell she was talking about. When she remained silent, I said, “What?”

“Remember my cheapskate granddad’s birthday present for me?” she asked. “The
use
of his car? Well, he’s taking it
back. Now that he’s dating, he’s using his car more.
I
need it more too, because I’m getting photography jobs on weekends. I told him he couldn’t take back my birthday present. He gave me a thousand dollars basically to leave him alone.”

“Nice!”

“Yeah. And I have a thousand of my own saved up, so I’m going to buy a car tonight. I have one picked out, and I looked up the blue book value. All I need is you.”

“Why me?”

“Because your mom made you haggle for your own car.”

“But you should haggle for
your
own car,” I pointed out. “That’s why my mother made me do it, so I’d have that adult experience under my belt and I wouldn’t get taken to the cleaners later.” At least, that’s what she’d
said
. Actually, she’d made me do it because she’d brought me up in a comfortable suburban environment, and periodically she decided she needed to toughen me up by throwing me to the sharks.

“Why in the world would I do that when I have you?” Harper asked reasonably. “You’re so much better at hanging tough than I am. You’ll get me another two-fifty off.”

“Harper.” I sighed. “You’re basically telling me I’m your bitch friend.”

“Kaye, I would
never
tell you that.”

I rolled my eyes so hard that Harper could probably hear it through the phone.

“Spin it however you want,” she said, “but come pick me up.”

Truthfully, I was glad to have an excuse to get out of the house. Dad was back from Miami, but he wrote a lot on weekends, so he wasn’t available to save me from homework by inviting me to watch football with him or taking me out for ice cream. My Saturday had been full of nothing but my disapproving mother and research on Stephen Crane’s
The Red Badge of Courage
. Mr. Frank had a thing for white male protagonists who whined and waffled.

Which made me angry all over again at Sawyer. Until the past week I would have said he was the
least
likely guy in the world to seem to want a girl, then back out.

He’d never had a problem like that with girls before. He had a problem only with me.

Fifteen minutes later I cruised into the parking lot behind the B and B. Stepping into my car, Harper flashed me her wad of hundreds, which I told her was very gangsta. We chatted about the football game last night and Brody’s stellar performance. Finally I asked, “Why aren’t you with Brody tonight?”

“He went out with some friends,” she said, seemingly fascinated with the scene out her window, the parking lot of the movie theater.

I glanced where she was looking. “There’s Chelsea’s car. She must be at the movie with DeMarcus.”

“With Tia,” Harper corrected me.

“Really?” I asked. “I wonder why Tia isn’t with Will. It must be another girls’ night out.”

“Must be,” Harper said vaguely, as if she was thinking about something else.

“We’ll probably be done with your car about the time Tia and Chelsea get out of the movie. We should come back by and show them.”

“Okay,” Harper said absentmindedly.

Well, I had a question that would wake her up. “Do you think Tia and Will are doing it yet?”

Harper huffed out an embarrassed laugh. “Why don’t you ask her?”

“Anytime I ask her about sex, she thinks I’m calling her a slut.”

“That’s because you
are
calling her a slut,” Harper pointed out.

“I am
not
. I may have intimated in the past that she would get in trouble involving herself in such casual escapades with—” I stopped, realizing what I was about to say.

“Sawyer,” Harper finished for me.

I felt all the blood rushing to my face.

To gloss over the uncomfortable moment, Harper hurried on. “I haven’t asked Tia, but my sense is that she and Will haven’t done it. They’ve done everything but. There’s a lot of other stuff you can do if you’re really into each other.”

“It sounds like you speak from sexperience.”

She laughed self-consciously. Bright pink spots appeared on her cheeks, noticeable on her porcelain skin. “I guess. I never expected dating someone I loved to be so . . .” She held up her hands. “Free. Dating Kennedy, I felt strapped down. Brody makes me feel good, and like there are more possibilities, bigger ones.”

I envied her. But I supposed that’s what she got when she and Brody were dating after a long, vague friendship, unlike the intense baggage that plagued Sawyer and me.

We reached the used car lot and peered into Harper’s clunker of choice. The salesman didn’t bother to come out of his little building to help two teenage girls. We obviously didn’t have the money to buy anything. I understood now why my mother always dressed professionally in public. I should have gussied up tonight and made Harper do the same, but always doing everything the right way was too much hassle. I wanted to be seventeen sometimes, even if that meant doing things the hard way.

I hiked into the office with Harper behind me and told the
salesman we wanted to go for a test drive, carefully listing the make and model rather than saying “that red car.” I sat in the back while Harper drove and the salesman rode shotgun. It sounded like a car to me. I couldn’t vouch for the engine, but at least the sale included a warranty. Around closing time Harper and I drove back toward downtown in separate cars.

We both pulled in to the movie theater parking lot just as Tia and Chelsea were walking out. They oohed over Harper’s new ride
and
over how smart she’d been to ask me along. Despite myself, I beamed with pride. My mother might not think I had much sense, but
somebody
did.

“We’re glad you came by.” Chelsea grabbed my arm. “Aidan is in the movie,” she said in a stage whisper, “with . . . guess who.”

“Angelica!” I said.

“I have a theory about what old Angelica’s up to,” Tia said conspiratorially. “She dated DeMarcus last summer. Then Xavier. Now Aidan. She’s systematically cycling through all the likely candidates for valedictorian. She even hedged her bet by going out with Will once, just in case he comes from behind and pulls off a long shot. So you know who’s next!” She looked pointedly at me.

I said in my best redneck accent, “Shee-yut, I ain’t wasting no time with that girl. I hear she don’t put out.”

“Is sex all you care about?” Tia shrieked, putting the back of her hand to her forehead and pretending to swoon, at the same time Chelsea said, “You are a shallow, sexist person.” Harper snorted.

“Speaking of putting out,” I said, “why are all of your menfolks missing at one time?”

“They’re with
your
man,” Chelsea said. “Didn’t you know that?”

“What?” I asked, glancing from Chelsea to Tia, who was giving me shifty-eyes, to Harper, who looked downright alarmed. I prompted them, “DeMarcus and Will and Brody are all with Sawyer?”

“Well, you’re obviously not supposed to find that out,” Chelsea said self-righteously. She slapped the back of Tia’s head. “Thanks for warning me before I blabbed.”

“You already blabbed it to Aidan and Angelica,” Tia said. “Could I have stopped you?”

I raised my brows at Tia, waiting for an explanation.

Exasperated, she said, “Sawyer is so in love with you.”

Harper nodded vigorously at me. “He is.”

Again I looked from one of them to the other. I’d been to this movie theater and stood in this parking lot a hundred times in my life, but suddenly the everyday scene seemed foreign because my heart was pounding and my life was shifting
around me. I put one hand up to my face and repeated, “He’s in love with me?”

“That’s why he moved out of his dad’s house in the first place,” Tia said. “His dad said something about you that Sawyer didn’t like.”

I didn’t ask what that something had been. I knew. For a white person insulting a black person, that something was always the same. The only part of this revelation making no sense to me was the timing. “Sawyer moved out before Aidan even broke up with me.”

Tia and Harper nodded solemnly. And that meant Sawyer had been into me, intensely enough that his mean dad knew about it, before we’d even doubled down on toying with each other.

“Why doesn’t he
act
like he’s in love with me?” I cried. “I threw myself at him last night, and he dissed me.
Again!
”

I must have sounded hysterical. Harper put a hand on my shoulder. Tia said as gently as she could, “He’s terrified, Kaye. He doesn’t want to start something with you. He’s certain it won’t work out.”

“Well, it’s too late. He’s already started it!” I exclaimed. “And why are y’all keeping me in the dark about this?”

“I promised him,” Tia said solemnly.

“I promised him too,” Harper chimed in.

“I had no knowledge of any of this shit,” Chelsea said.

“Where are the boys?” I demanded, turning to Harper. “Are they at your granddad’s beach?”

Harper looked at Tia hopelessly. They were at her granddad’s beach, all right.

I headed around Harper’s car to reach mine.

“Don’t go to the beach,” Tia pleaded.

“Why not?” I asked, opening my door. “Are they drinking?”

“Will’s not.” She was stalling. Will didn’t drink.

“Is
Sawyer
drinking?” I clarified. “Because that would be a great way for me to get over him. Problem solved.” I started my engine.

I already knew I wouldn’t be catching him by surprise, though. Before I’d driven out of the parking lot, Tia was on her phone.

As I drove the few short blocks down the main road through town, my mind raced with everything that was happening behind my back. I could hardly comprehend it all. Sawyer was in love with me. He wanted to be with me. But he was afraid I would break his heart. All my best friends knew. He’d gone drinking down at the beach to find solace with his guy friends. And he was content to leave me at home, out of the loop, innocently obsessing over
The Red Badge of Courage
. Was he even worth the trouble?

I pulled onto the sandy road that led to Harper’s granddad’s property, punched in the combination to open the gate, slowly drove through, and pulled the gate shut behind me. My car crept through the palm grove. No trucks were parked ahead of me. Possibly the boys had left when Tia sounded the alarm. More likely, especially if they were drinking, they’d walked here from their houses downtown.

I swung my car around to park exactly where Aidan and I had parked all three times we’d had sex. My headlights caught Sawyer waiting for me.

He stood on the threshold. The dark palm forest was in front of him, and behind him, the open beach, bright with moonlight. He wore his usual flip-flops and shorts, plus his blue polo shirt that matched his eyes exactly. This shirt didn’t make an appearance as often as his madras one, presumably because it was so old that the collar was turning white at the edges.

His arms were folded across his chest. His blond hair played across his forehead in the ocean breeze. His eyes were on me, and he looked miserable.

Good.

I turned off the engine and the lights, got out, and slammed the door. His expression didn’t change as I stomped toward him as best I could in slick flat sandals on mounds of
sand. I stopped right in front of him and poked him on the forearm he was using to protect himself. “Why does everybody in the senior class know about this except me, huh? Am I just a big joke to you?”

He looked over his shoulder. The other guys—I recognized the three I’d known about, Will, Brody, and DeMarcus, plus Noah and Quinn—sat in a circle about halfway down the beach. The sound of the ocean must have muffled my voice, but they still heard me and turned. Will’s dog thumped her tail in welcome.

Sawyer faced me again. “No!” Eyes wide, he sounded almost desperate. “It’s just that I’m going to ruin your life, Kaye.”

“Don’t you think that should be my choice?” I shouted. “Do I get a say at all? In
anything
?”

He bit his lip, frustrated. “Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand. He pulled me into motion down the beach.

We passed within a few yards of the other boys and the dog, but I was too mortified by this entire fiasco to say hi. I did notice a beer bottle next to Brody, and across the circle, the tiny orange glow of a cigarette or a joint. I called to Sawyer, “Are you stoned? Getting stoned because of me is not the way to win me over.”

He stopped so suddenly that I smacked into him. He
grabbed me by both arms to keep me from sliding down. “I told you, I quit all that,” he said over the roar of the tide. “You don’t believe anything I say.”

“I
have
believed you,” I snapped. “That’s the whole problem. You’ve acted like you wanted us to get together. I bought it. I tried to follow through, and you decided on your own that you don’t want me anymore.”

“I
do
want—” He looked over my shoulder at the guys behind us. “Come over the hill.” He took my hand again and led me up and over a rise in the beach, where we were hidden. Now we could see the pier and the pavilion of the public park. It was closed for the night. We were alone.

He pulled me toward the ocean until the water lapped at my toes and made the bottoms of my sandals slimy.

“You’re getting my sandals wet,” I said.

Toeing off his flip-flops and kicking them up the beach, he said, “For once in your life, kick your shoes off.” He made it sound like a challenge.