The Secrets of Boys (12 page)

She shook her head and refocused her attention on the situation at hand. She pointed toward the Hidden Jungle pavilion. “Let’s try that one.”

As they pushed aside the long plastic strips hanging in the doorway, Cassidy had to pause to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. Almost immediately, sweat began to bead on her forehead. Lush greenery poked through the net overhanging the wooden path that led through the pavilion, and small, lighted signs informed them about what might be lurking in the darkness.

“Wow,” Cassidy said.

“This reminds me of South America.” Zach sighed.

“Have you ever been?”

Cassidy was astounded. Zach had seen so many things that she hadn’t, and every time she learned of some exotic place he’d traveled to, he became more and more interesting to her.

“No, not yet,” she replied.

“I like that you said ‘not yet.’ I had a feeling that there was an explorer inside you too.”

Cassidy got so flustered by how his gaze was steadily fixed on her face that she changed the subject. “I guess they’re somewhere else,” she said. “It’s way too quiet for Madame Briand and Cecilia to both be in here.”

“Or maybe they got eaten by
that
.” Zach pointed at a sign picturing a black leopard.

Cassidy peered through the rain forest, looking for the leopard, but could only see more ferns. She caught a quick, darting movement out of the corner of her eye and her heart thudded in her chest, but when she whirled to face it, all she saw was a blue-tailed skunk rac-ing up the trunk of a palm tree.

“Don’t be scared,” Zach whispered.

She wasn’t sure if he meant of him or the leopard.

“Me? Never.” Cassidy’s heart was beating double time. Zach was merely two feet away from her, and the way his hair was getting damp from the humidity was making her imagine him in the shower… .

“I think it’s there,” Zach said, pointing over her shoulder. She turned and saw two small, silvery disks glinting from behind a low-hanging plant. A pair of eyes. They were staring at her deeply, and she was rendered motion-less. She wasn’t terrified by it at all. In fact, she was invig-orated and thrilled at being in direct contact with something that was so much out of her world. But she didn’t feel like an outsider for once. It was as if this animal were telling her to come closer, inviting her into its lair.

The only thing that stood between them was this thick wall of glass. She wished that it would just melt away so that she could get closer and find out what would happen next.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Zach asked softly. “That something so beautiful would want to stay hidden.”

Cassidy knew that if she turned around, she’d be close enough to kiss him. “Maybe it’s for protection.”

“From what?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice was so faint, she wasn’t even sure she’d said anything.

“What?” he asked again.

Cassidy spun around and Zach was within reach. She looked him right in the eyes, just as the leopard had done to her. She took a step toward him. Zach put his hand on her shoulder as if to stop her, and his touch burned through the fabric of her shirt and into her skin. Her arms seemed to wrap around his back naturally as she breathed in his sexy scent of Ivory and books, squeezing him as if he might turn into a cloud of vapor and disappear at any moment. Energy coursed through her body, pooling in the space below her stomach. She knew she should let go right away or else she would do something that would ruin everything between her and Eric forever.

But she closed her eyes and just felt everything—the sweat rolling down her cheeks, his lips brushing hers, the heat radiating from his body as he drew her in closer, their tongues slowly meeting as his hands roamed over her back.

Kissing Zach was like nothing she’d ever experienced.

It was such a far cry from the fun, comforting kisses she shared with Eric. Zach’s mouth moved slowly and pas-sionately. Cassidy felt herself starting to quiver. She had never wanted anyone so badly in her life.

“Oh, my!”

Cassidy leapt back and found herself face-to-face with two elderly ladies, both wearing floral dresses and orthopedic shoes.

“Well, this really
is
the jungle pavilion, isn’t it!” one of them said. The other suppressed a giggle.

Cassidy’s hand flew to her mouth. She looked quickly at Zach, whose eyes were glazed with shock, before running away through the pavilion, ferns and netting brushing her bare arms, her footsteps pounding on the slatted wooden pathway. She pushed open the door under a glowing Exit sign and kept running, stumbling blindly in the summer light, not stopping until she’d reached the parking lot and was safe in her mom’s old Volvo. She slammed the door shut behind her and locked it for good measure, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her head between them. She was shaking and couldn’t seem to stop.

She tried to think if there was a chapter in Sandra Jones’s book about what to do when you cheated on your boyfriend of two years with a guy you barely knew—and enjoyed it—but her mind went blank, except for every detail about that kiss. She could still feel the imprint of his chest on hers, the slight sting where his stubble had brushed her cheek. She was a horrible person. That’s all there was to it. Nothing she could do would ever make up for what had just happened.

She reached into her purse and pulled out her cell, speed-dialing Larissa’s number and clenching her teeth through two endless rings.

“Hey, Cass,” Larissa said, picking up the phone.

“What’s up?”

“I’m … Well, we just went to the zoo… .” Cassidy didn’t even know where to begin.

“The zoo?” Larissa asked. “No, make it a little shorter.”

“What?!” Cassidy asked. Was Larissa really telling her to hurry up?

“Not you,” Larissa said. “Dina. We’re working on the collection.” Her voice grew muffled. “It’s Cassidy. Yeah, definitely alligator print.”

“Larissa, I … I don’t know what to do… .”

“Oh, Dina says hi. No, even shorter than that. Legs are
in
this season! Don’t know what to do about what?”

Cassidy was still trembling and wondering if she should even tell anyone about this. Once she did, it all became real. She was only able to stammer out a few fragments of sentences. “Well, things just got totally out of hand with Zach. And I really like him, but I’m still with Eric and I …”

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” Larissa asked. “Dina was just explaining something and I kind of got distracted.”

“That’s a first,” Cassidy said sarcastically.

Larissa sighed in frustration. “What crawled into your panties and died?”

“You know what? Forget it,” Cassidy said. “You’re not even paying attention to me.”

“Okay, cool,” Larissa said so amiably that Cassidy was pretty sure she was either talking to someone else or hadn’t heard what she’d said.

“Good-bye, Larissa,” Cassidy said icily.

“Oh, bye, hon,” she replied cheerfully. “Listen, call me later; I’ll be less distracted. Promise!” She made a kissy noise into the receiver before hanging up.

Cassidy snapped her phone shut with disgust. Could things be worse? She was a cheat, her best friend was being a total flake, and she’d have to see Zach again in class the next day. How could she face him after what had just happened? For that matter, how could she face
Eric
? She was sure that the moment she saw him, he’d know, and she couldn’t bear the thought of hurting him. Just the thought of his sweet, trusting smile made her feel sick with guilt.

Cassidy started the engine but quickly turned it off again. There was no way she could drive—her eyes were too full of tears.

It was Monday morning and Zach was looking at her again. It seemed like every time she glanced up from the grammar quiz she was supposedly taking (and would probably fail miserably), her eyes caught his. She glanced back down at the page. How was she supposed to conjugate
avoir
with the sexiest guy in the universe sitting twenty feet away? How could she concentrate on
anything
when they had shared this fantastically erotic moment and they’d barely acknowledged it? If this stuff was the norm in France, Cassidy wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to visit her aunt Geraldine.

She had to remind herself that she was no longer allowed to think of Zach as sexy. After a long weekend of isolation, crying, and soul-searching, she’d decided that there would be no more kisses: Eric was her boyfriend, and Zach was just her TA. As she’d waited for the coffee to brew in the empty kitchen before she left for school that morning, Cassidy had made a vow to re-dedicate herself to Eric. After all, their second anniversary was coming up, and it just might be her chance to hear the three little words she’d been waiting for. She’d come to the conclusion that hearing those sentiments from Eric would change everything. Her feelings for Zach would just evapo-rate into the air and her life would go back to normal.

She’d convinced herself that the reason she was so enamored with Zach was because there was this big thing missing with Eric, and once she got it, she’d stop thinking about Zach in nothing but his boxers.

As she sat at her desk, Cassidy tried to lose herself in the fantasy of her first time with Eric: there’d be an expensive hotel room, satin sheets, champagne, and candlelight. But Zach kept edging his way into the scene and pushing Eric right out the window. While thinking about fooling around with Eric gave her a warm, vague sense of pleasure, every time she recalled the kiss with Zach at the zoo, a jolt of pure lust made her stomach flip. She wished she could just turn off her attraction to Zach so maybe she could get a moment of peace. This was how people felt about serious addictions. She wondered if they had a Camp Crackhead somewhere for girls who just couldn’t get over boys.

“Cinq minutes!”
Madame Briand cried from the front of the room. Cassidy sighed and leaned over her quiz, trying vainly to push both Eric and Zach out of her mind.
Avoir
meant “to have.” Why couldn’t she just have both?

She struggled to focus on the quiz in front of her, wishing her parents had never heard of the California International Language and Culture Institute. Then she wouldn’t have gotten into this whole mess in the first place. Then she could have worked at Seersucker with Larissa and had sex with Eric on their second anniversary without any second thoughts. Maybe they’d have stayed together forever and she’d go through life without ever knowing that a kiss could make you feel like you’d been kicked in the stomach with a Manolo Blahnik stiletto heel.

“Arrêtes!”
Madame Briand cried, and Cassidy struggled to fill in the rest of the answers, finally cutting her mind off from every thought but verb tense as she watched her pen fly over the bottom of the page.

She looked up to see Zach standing over her, waiting to collect her paper. His face was expressionless, but his eyes seemed very stormy and brooding. She felt her face go scarlet and quickly looked down at the marks someone had scratched into her desk: MH + CW = < 3. She wondered how long she and Zach were going to avoid each other. A few days? A few weeks? Forever? She was just so confused inside. She was scared that if they were alone again, she would leap on him, rip off all his clothes, and do something with him that would change her whole life irreversibly. At the same time, she was just as scared at the thought of that never happening at all.

Cassidy looked up again to see Zach shuffling away and moving on to the next student. The clock on the wall ticked loudly past 4:31 P.M., so she hurriedly stuffed her textbook and pen into her bag. She brushed past him out the door, trying to ignore the tiny catch in her heartbeat as she glanced briefly back at the golden curve of his neck. She reminded herself not to think about how sexy Zach was, especially because she was on her way to meet her boyfriend.

* * *

Cassidy arrived at Point Dume just in time to see Eric dragging two surfboards up from the water. One was his: she’d recognize those familiar red-and-blue flames anywhere. But the other must belong to the blonde girl in the tiny purple string bikini walking alongside him on the sand, flipping her hair back and turning her tiny button nose toward him as she laughed at something he had said. Cassidy felt the back of her neck knot with distrust when she saw the way Eric smiled at the girl. Then she caught herself. Who was
she
to be distrustful when she’d

had a hot zoological make-out session with her TA just the day before?

Still, Cassidy couldn’t help but feel like this girl was invading her territory and she had to protect it somehow. She quickly slipped off her shoes and ran down the beach, throwing her arms around Eric and squeezing him tight. She felt his wet board suit press up against her and inhaled the salty smell of his skin in hopes it would have the same effect on her as Zach’s musty, bookish scent. As Eric laughed and picked her up off the ground, she surprised both of them by wrapping her legs around his waist and planting a big, fat kiss on his lips.
What the
hell am I doing?
she thought.
This is a textbook Larissa
move.

Eric seemed surprised too. He held her at arm’s length, laughing. “You’ve never greeted me like
that
before. I like it!”

Even though it seemed to make Eric happy, Cassidy felt so deflated. She’d thought that forcing herself to be more into Eric would make her thoughts of Zach go away, but it hadn’t. When Cassidy slipped her arm around Eric’s waist and rested her head on his shoulder, she secretly wished that she was at the beach with Zach.

Luckily, Eric and the blond couldn’t read her mind. The girl bit her lower lip and looked down at her pearly pink toenails as if she’d just been yelled at.

“This is Dee, one of my surfing students,” Eric said.

“And Dee, this is Cassidy, my girlfriend.” His face glowed with pride as they politely reached for each other’s hands. Cassidy winced slightly as Dee’s fingernails dug into the flesh of her palm.

“Yeah, listen, I have to run.” Dee was obviously pissed that Cassidy had ruined her moment alone with Eric.