Authors: Julianna Keyes
“Well,
he’s not here.”
Now he
sounds annoyed. “I heard you. Let me come in and grab the game.”
I don’t
care enough right now to try to hold the game hostage. “Fine. Whatever.”
I step
aside and he comes in, kicking off his shoes. “Why are you so angry?” he asks
as I follow him up into the living room.
“I’m
busy.” I’m the polar opposite of busy, but I’m not about to admit I got stood
up. Especially when I’m pretty sure Crosbie Lucas never gets stood up.
“What are
you doing?”
“Studying.”
It’s the first thing that comes to mind, and the most believable. Even if it is
Friday night.
“Huh.” He
hunts through the stack of games on the console, finding the one he’s looking
for. “It’s quiet here.”
“It’s
supposed to be.”
“Right.”
He hesitates. “Do you mind if I hang out for a bit?”
“I don’t
feel like listening to you blow things up right now.”
“Not to
play. To study. It’s pretty crazy at my place, and I’m behind on my reading.”
I snort.
“Try the library.” I did
not
mean to say that. Saying “library” in my
most snide tone of voice only gives more weight to Tuesday’s incident, and I’m
supposed to be pretending not to care. Hell—I’m supposed to be forgetting not
just the encounter, but Crosbie Lucas altogether, and here he is in my living
room. As always.
Crosbie
winces. “I wanted to apol—”
Oh fuck.
I cannot handle an apology right now. Not when I’m hanging onto my composure by
the very edge of my fingernails. “You know what?” I interrupt. “Do whatever you
want. Just don’t bother me.”
I turn
and stalk back into my room, slamming the door. I’m not doing a great job of
keeping my feelings under wraps, but at least I’ve put some distance between
us.
I’m sorely tempted to hide under the covers
until this whole dreadful night passes, but I’m wide awake, my empty stomach
won’t stop grumbling at me, and every word I write for my English essay is
garbage. I feel like a tiger pacing in its cage, desperate to get out, not
quite sure where I should go, and pretty confident I’d like to rip off
someone’s head.
A soft
tap on my bedroom door has my head whipping around like the girl in
The
Exorcist
, and even though I planned to ignore him, I still call out,
“What?”
“I
ordered pizza.” His voice is muffled by the door, but he doesn’t turn the knob.
My
stomach jumps joyfully at the news. Food! Sustenance! And then it sinks,
because Crosbie and Kellan order in their fair share of pizza, and they load it
up with ground beef, anchovies and olives, all of which I find revolting.
“I don’t
want your disgusting pizza,” I mutter. “Thanks anyway.”
“It’s
only half disgusting,” he replies. “The other half is boring.”
My
stomach perks up again. We’ve had this discussion before: I like pepperoni and
extra cheese, which Crosbie and Kellan unanimously declared the dullest pizza
on earth.
I get up
and pull open the door, making Crosbie jump back like he’s been zapped. I look
around suspiciously. “Is there really pizza?”
“Yeah.”
He points at the coffee table where a closed box awaits.
“Are you
lying about the boring half?”
“I wish.”
Even as he speaks I see his eyes flicker over my shoulder, and I know he sees
the crumpled dress at the foot of the bed, the forgotten red heels toppled over
beside it. Let him think whatever he wants.
I shut
the door and trudge out of the bedroom, grabbing a plate from the cupboard in
the kitchen. There’s a two-liter bottle of Pepsi sitting next to the pizza and
that looks good, too. I grab a glass and handful of napkins from some of
Kellan’s leftover takeout, and head to the couch to take a couple of slices.
I open
the box and confirm Crosbie was telling the truth: one half is blissfully
untarnished by his horrible toppings. I grab two pieces and stick them on my
plate. He approaches, almost shyly, and sits on the couch with his own plate
and takes a piece for himself.
“Are you
going to stay?” he asks when I pour a glass of Pepsi without sitting down.
“Take a break and watch TV with me.”
I glance
at him from the corner of my eye. He’s got a smudge of tomato sauce on his
upper lip and licks it away as he reaches for the remote.
“There’s
nothing on,” I say, if only to be disagreeable.
“There’s
always something.”
Though
this is the very opposite of my “avoid and forget Crosbie Lucas” plan, I’m not
exactly eager to return to my room, so I take a seat on the far end of the
couch and curl up my legs, tucking my bare toes between the cushions. My first
bite of pizza makes my eyes roll back in my head a little bit.
Crosbie
flips through the channels until he finds an old true crime show, one that
reenacts a decade-old mystery and its eventual conclusion. I tell myself I’m
only going to stay until I finish the pizza, but the story of a young wife and
mother murdered in her home on a sunny Sunday afternoon keeps me glued to my
seat, my morbid side unwilling to leave without answers.
“Totally
the husband,” Crosbie says at the first commercial break. “He was having an
affair and didn’t want to pay child support, so he killed her.”
“It’s the
helpful neighbor,” I counter. “The way he started that volunteer search
party—he totally knew she was in the attic. Murderers always try to be
involved.”
“You know
a lot about killers, huh?”
I give
him a look. “You’d be surprised.”
He laughs
and grimaces. “Jesus, Nora.”
I don’t
want to, but I smile. By the time the show ends, I’ve eaten three and a half
pieces of pizza and I feel like a bloated, satisfied whale.
“I can’t
believe it was the kindergarten teacher,” Crosbie says, turning off the TV and
looking at me. “What a psychopath.” She’d developed a dangerous infatuation
with the oblivious husband and viewed the wife as unnecessary competition.
“Yeah.”
We fall silent, staring at the dark television screen. I pick at a loose thread
on the hem of my pants and Crosbie drums his fingers on his knees.
“Nora,”
he says eventually.
I don’t
look at him. “What?”
“I’m
really sorry about the library.”
Even
though I half-expected him to bring it up, I still feel an uncomfortable
tightening in my chest, all the stinging memories of that night surging to the
surface. “Forget about it,” I say, though the instructions are more for me than
him.
“That was
the guy from the coffee shop, right?”
“So?” I make a move to stand, which seems to
prompt him to ask, “Is he your boyfriend?”
I try not
to look to disdainful. “Nate? No. He’s in love with Marcela, like every guy who
sees her.” I think of Kellan asking about her that night at the coffee shop.
How every head turns when she walks by. How even though I live here and we had
plans, Kellan still managed to forget about me. And how I suddenly care less
about his absence than Crosbie’s unexpected company. How this keeps happening.
“Oh. I
thought maybe you were together.”
“Not in
the way you and your…friend were together.”
“We’re
not together.”
“Whatever.”
This time I do stand up, snagging my glass and plate from the table and
bringing them to the kitchen. After a second, Crosbie follows with his plate,
standing next to me as I rinse mine and stick it in the tiny dishwasher. Kellan
didn’t lie about this—he really does do dishes and take out the trash. He’s a
decent roommate, just a terrible date.
“I feel
like a jerk about it,” Crosbie blurts out. “I saw the look on your face and I
just—”
The hurt
I’m feeling about Kellan’s rejection twines with the burn of the reminder of
Crosbie’s makeout session and when he doesn’t finish the sentence I snap, “You
just what?” It’s possible I’m jealous and a little sexually frustrated.
He
blinks, startled. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” he says awkwardly. “I’d had
a bad day and she was a friend of a friend and…I don’t know. I thought I’d
forget things for a bit. But I made them worse.”
“It
didn’t seem like you felt ‘worse’ when I saw you.”
“Not
then,” he says, meeting my eyes. “But after.”
I realize
I’m clenching my hand around the dishwasher door and I force my fingers to
uncurl. “You don’t owe me any explanations.”
Neither
one of us moves, and the kitchen is small enough that it feels crowded with two
people. “I think I do,” he says, scuffing his foot on the floor. For a long
moment, we both watch our feet, his gray wool socks, my nails painted red in
anticipation of tonight’s date. As much as I want to close the short distance
between us and feel something—anything—besides this rejection and frustration
and sadness, I don’t move a muscle. Because maybe my “forget Crosbie Lucas”
plan has failed, but my “don’t fuck up, Nora” plan hasn’t, and messing around
with someone who
only
knows how to mess around isn’t on the agenda.
He’s
about to say something else when we hear the front door open, a car horn honk,
and Kellan’s slightly drunk laugh from the entryway. Crosbie shoots me one
last, meaningful look before retreating to the living room and grabbing his bag
from the floor, putting plenty of space between us before Kellan comes up.
“Hey,
guys,” he says with a grin. The smile falters a little as he looks between us.
“What are you two doing here? Together? Alone?”
“Together
alone’s not a thing,” Crosbie says, hefting the satchel over his shoulder and
snagging his jacket from the back of a chair. “And I came over to get
Target
Ops: Fury
.”
That is
most definitely not the game he mentioned when he first arrived, and if I had
any doubts about my memory,
Fire of Vengeance
is still sitting on the
coffee table. I’m contemplating this when Kellan says, “You should have come to
the game, Cros. It was epic. Huge brawl on center ice.”
At the mention of “ice” I remember seeing
posters around campus touting a pre-season game between Burnham’s top-ranked
hockey team and some other college. And that’s when it finally dawns on me:
Crosbie didn’t come here looking for Kellan.
As though
he knows I’m piecing this together, I see Crosbie’s ears turn red and he jogs
down the stairs. I hear the rustle of clothing as he puts on his shoes and
shrugs into his jacket, then the creak of the door as it opens.
“Dude,”
Kellan calls. “We can play right now if you want. Don’t be mad.”
The only
response is the front door slamming shut, an ominous chill wafting up the
steps.
“Wow.”
Kellan runs his hands over his hair. “Can you believe this? That guy has not
been himself lately. I’m getting kind of worried.”
His eyes
are glazed, his shirt is buttoned incorrectly, and suddenly I’m exhausted.
Whatever heat had been brewing in this kitchen was extinguished by Kellan’s
untimely arrival, and I don’t know if I’m relieved or disappointed. When I look
at him, however, I feel nothing but tired.
“I’m
going to bed,” I mutter, rounding the breakfast bar and heading for my room.
“Do
you
want to play
Target Ops: Fury
?”
he calls. In all the countless hours he’s spent playing that stupid game, he’s
never once asked me, and no part of me wants to join him now. Plus I’m pretty
sure that if I agreed he’d find some way to disappear, anyway.
“No,” I
say, tugging my bedroom door closed. “I don’t.”
The next morning I emerge from my room to find Kellan sitting on the
couch, studying. “Hey,” he says.
I frown
and swipe a self-conscious hand over my tangled hair. “What are you doing
here?” Kellan never comes home on Friday night—or Saturday, for that matter—so
even though I’d seen him, I’d somehow assumed he would vanish again before
sunrise.
I shuffle
into the kitchen, rubbing my bleary eyes and wishing my hair didn’t look like
it had exploded over night. My plan was to grab a glass of water and some
crackers—prison fare, or a perfectly normal breakfast if you’re a college
student who doesn’t know how to meal plan—then trek to the grocery store before
heading to work at three.
“Nora.”
I close
the fridge door and turn to see Kellan standing at the entrance to the kitchen,
clutching a small bouquet of flowers wrapped in pink cellophane. “What’s
happening?”
“I’m so
sorry,” he says earnestly, my second kitchen apology in twelve hours. “I
totally fucked up last night. I absolutely forgot we had plans—I made the
reservation and everything—and I feel like such an asshole. I’m so, so sorry.
Please forgive me.”
I stare
at the flowers like they might be covered in anthrax. How many girls would die
to get flowers from Kellan McVey? Okay, fine—a tiny part of me still wants to
raise her hand. But standing here holding my crackers, the position is a stark
reminder of last night’s disappointment and a few flowers aren’t going to fix
it.
“That was
really rude,” I say.
“I know.
I’m so—”
“I waited
for you.”
“I—”
“And I
felt like an idiot.”
“Please—”
“And I
was starving.” Because I wasn’t expecting to see Kellan for a while, I really
hadn’t decided how to handle this confrontation. It looks like I’m going with
the direct approach.
He rubs
his free hand over his face. “I was drunk when I got home and I didn’t even
remember. I turned off my phone at the game and this morning I saw the call
from the restaurant asking about the reservation and it all came back to me
and—I’m sorry, Nora. Really. Truly. Please forgive me. I like you and you’re a
good roommate and I’d never hurt your feelings on purpose. Or make you hungry,
for any reason.”
I try to
hold onto my anger, but even though I’m offended to have been
forgotten—again—the truth is, Crosbie’s visit took away a lot of the sting of
Kellan’s disappearing act. I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“Forget about it,” I tell him. Unlike my “whatever” to Crosbie last night, this
time I mean it. Those two events hurt on two wholly different levels, and I’m
not about to risk taking the time to figure out why.
Kellan
looks relieved. “Thank you,” he says, stepping in and folding me in an awkward
hug. Apart from our initial handshake and one high five he insisted on after
achieving a top score in
Fire of Vengeance
, I’m not sure we’ve ever
actually touched. Except for that time we had sex and he forgot about it.
“No
problem,” I say when we step back. “Now if you’ll excuse me…” I hold up the
crackers. “I’m going to have breakfast, then take a shower.”
He
eyeballs the crackers. “That’s breakfast?”
“It’s grocery
day.”
“Do you
want some mac and cheese instead? I have lots.”
My
stomach roils. “I’m all set.”
Suddenly
he points at me. “That’s it,” he announces, like he’s just solved all the
world’s problems. “I’ll take you to the grocery store. I have a car, so we can
go to Carters, not the place on campus.”
As much
as I don’t want to rely on Kellan for anything right now—even something as
simple as a trip to the grocery store—the campus shop is tiny and overpriced,
which might account for my meager food supply. Carters is a huge chain store
and a much better bet, but it takes three buses to get there and is too much of
a pain to manage. “Are you sure?” I ask, narrowing my eyes doubtfully. “I’m not
going to get out of the shower and find you missing?”
“Cross my
heart,” he says, tracing an X on his chest with his index finger. And for once
I don’t find myself admiring what a beautifully muscled chest it is—I’m
wondering how much weight his words hold.
I guess
we’ll find out. “Okay,” I say. “Give me twenty minutes.”
“I won’t
move a muscle.”
My mind
instantly fills with images of a sexy, muscled torso—but it’s not Kellan I’m
picturing. “Make it ten,” I say, hightailing it out of the kitchen. No way I’ll
be able to withstand a cold shower for longer.
* * *
Going to the grocery store with Kellan McVey is a lot like what I
imagine it’s like to go to the grocery store with Zac Efron: it’s crazy.
Everybody stares. It’s like no one has seen a handsome college kid before. And
don’t get me wrong—Kellan’s super hot. But he’s wearing a ratty old T-shirt,
sweatpants, sandals, and a baseball hat. He’s not trying whatsoever and yet
every pair of eyes seems to follow him through the parking lot, into the store
and down each aisle.
I can’t help but wish I’d dressed a little
better for the outing. Because we were only coming to the grocery store, I’d
opted for skinny jeans, ballet flats, and a baggy white button-up shirt. My
hair is tied back and the only makeup I’d bothered with is mascara and tinted
lip gloss. None of my clothes have holes in them, but you’d swear I was wearing
garbage bags from some of the disapproving looks I get.
We’re in
the cereal aisle when Kellan’s phone rings. He tugs it out of his pocket and
glances at the display. “It’s Crosbie,” he says, then answers. “Yo.”
I can’t
make out the words, just the muffled sound of Crosbie’s voice.
“Yeah,”
Kellan says, scratching his ass and adding a box of granola to the cart. “I’m
just at the grocery store with Nora. She was eating crackers for breakfast.”
A mumbled
answer, then Kellan looks me over from head to toe. “I know,” he says. “I’m
going to fatten her up.”
I make a
face and he makes one back, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Actually,”
he continues, “I’m trying to win my way back into her good graces. Remember how
I told you I was taking her to dinner last night? I totally forgot about it and
went to the game instead, so—”
I hear
Crosbie’s frantic tone as he tries to interrupt. But it’s too late—I’d started
to suspect as much last night, but now it’s confirmed: Crosbie knew Kellan
stood me up. He knew we had dinner plans, he knew Kellan decided to go to the
game—and he came over with some lame excuse about a video game then stuck
around to “read” and order pizza. He saw the abandoned dress and heels in my room;
he saw everything.
Maybe I
should feel outraged or embarrassed. Maybe I should feel manipulated or fooled.
But I don’t. Because despite how much I wish I could be invisible at this very
moment, I’ve been complaining about how easily overlooked I am all the time,
and last night Crosbie did his very best to make sure I wasn’t.
I’m
horrified when my sinuses tingle and my eyes start to sting; it must be my
period. There’s no way I’m about to cry in the middle of Carters because
someone made up a reason to hang out with me.
“Okay,
man,” I hear Kellan saying as I struggle to compose myself. “I know, I know.
Want me to pick up anything for the bus ride? Yeah? What flavor? Okay, will do.
Bye.”
He hangs
up and though my heart is still galloping around my chest, I’ve managed to head
off the embarrassing crying jag. “What, uh, what bus ride is this?” I ask,
trying to act like I didn’t just connect the dots about what I overheard.
“Huh?”
Kellan tosses in another box of cereal and resumes pushing the cart. “Oh, we’re
heading out tomorrow for a week of ‘mock meets.’” We round the corner where two
girls in dresses and heels—at the grocery store! In the morning!—giggle and
wave, and Kellan smiles and nods back. Before my mind can start coming up with
its own definition of “mock meets,” Kellan explains. “It’s for track. Like,
we’ll travel around to different colleges just to square off against their
teams. It’s not official; it’s more like practice. And motivation. We see what
they’ve got; they see our stuff. Then we all know what to work for.”
I think
of Crosbie. “
We
means the track team?”
“Yep.”
An
absolutely gorgeous blonde strolls down the baking aisle, shooting Kellan a
dazzling smile. “Hey,” she says.
“Hey,” he
replies.
They
smile at each other, just two beautiful people being beautiful.
I sigh.
And
that’s when it hits me: I’m not jealous. And I don’t really care that Kellan’s
leaving for a week. It’s Crosbie I’m going to miss. Which is totally contrary
to my plan. I should be ecstatic that the track team’s schedule is lining up
with my agenda to forget him, but I’m not.
“You all
right?” Kellan peers at me with concern.
“Totally
fine,” I lie. I smile at him, but I feel like a dim bulb compared to the
blonde.
“I
thought you’d be stoked.” He considers a bag of flour, then, for some reason,
puts it in the cart. “You get the place to yourself all week.”
“You’re
not there that much as it is.”
“No way!”
He laughs. “I’m there. You’re the one who’s always gone. You go to class, you
go to work, you go to the library. You’re go-go-go. When do you just kick back
and have fun?”
“I have
fun.”
“Yeah?”
He looks interested. “When?”
I bite my
lip. “Okay, fine. I
had
fun.”
He shakes
his head. And I have to give the guy credit—half a dozen other women have walked
past, and now that we’re talking, his attention is undivided. “Had fun? Like,
in the distant past?”
I laugh a
little, feeling like a moron. “It feels that way.” I study the back of a box of
cake mix, hoping he’ll drop the subject, but when I next look up he’s just
staring at me with a look that says, “I can wait all day.”
I sigh
and put the box back on the shelf. “I don’t study so much because I love
school,” I admit, tugging the cart around the corner into the dairy aisle. “I
study because I have a scholarship and last year I didn’t study—like, at
all—and nearly lost it. In fact, I lost half of it. So this year I have to
buckle down and do better. A lot better.”
He looks
surprised. “Me too.”
I grab yogurt and add it to the cart,
then follow that up with some eggs. Plenty of breakfast options now. “And I
don’t go out to party or whatever because I did too much of that last year, and
I don’t really seem to have an off switch. It’s just all or nothing. All
partying, no studying.” I’m not going to mention getting arrested. “And if I
didn’t stop, it would be ‘all living with my parents, no job prospects.’”
“I
totally hear you,” Kellan says, nodding. “That’s why this arrangement is
perfect.” He gestures between us. “You’re like this awesome role model. I come
home and see your door closed, and I know you’re in there studying so I’m like,
‘Better study, Kellan, if you want to graduate.’ And then you go to work and I
think, ‘Time to work out.’”
I squint
at him. “Seriously?”
“Yeah.
That’s why I posted the ad that I did. I wanted somebody like you; I just never
thought I’d find it.”
You
found me at the May Madness frat party
, I think. But what I say is, “I’m
glad it worked out. For both of us.”
He grins.
“I’ll keep up my end of the bargain from now on, too,” he says. “Now that I
know why studying is so important to you. And I’ll tell Crosbie to stop
dropping by unannounced—he totally could have played one of his own games last
night. He didn’t need to bother you.”
Wrong
game, Kellan.
“Crosbie’s
not a problem.”
“You
don’t have to be nice about it. He’s my best friend, but we can hang out at his
place.”
Another
slice of disappointment at the thought of seeing less of Crosbie. Who could
have predicted this?
“Really,”
I say. “He’s fine.”
And
that’s the understatement of the year.
* * *
Unfortunately, Kellan is true to his word. I don’t see Crosbie before
they leave for the road trip, and when they get back it’s mid-October, and I
don’t see him then, either. He’s around—I hear Kellan talking to him on the
phone, or sometimes he’ll tell me about something Crosbie said or did when they
were hanging out that day, but he doesn’t come to the apartment. Not when I’m
there, anyway. He doesn’t come to Beans, either, and though I try not to, I
start to obsess. What did Kellan say to him?
Stay away from Nora, she needs
her education?
Or does it have nothing at all to do with Kellan and
everything to do with what didn’t happen in the kitchen that night? Is he
embarrassed? Does he regret it? Does he hate me?