Drive Me Crazy (11 page)

It was the exact same marshmallow kiss they had shared at the end of last summer, but this time when Kate closed her eyes, all she could see was Adam’s face looking back at her.

Kate pulled back and pushed her arms against Lucas’s chest to stop the kiss. When she turned, looking for Adam again, he was gone. Lucas was staring at her, clearly awaiting an explanation.

As Kate looked at him, then back at the spot where Adam had been sitting with his banjo just moments before, Kate wondered if it was too late to back up and get on a different path in her choose-your-own-adventure fairy tale. This one was all wrong.

As often happened with true romantics, Kate’s late-night confusion did not transform into daytime clarity.

She woke up superlate the next morning feeling absolutely awful. Her head ached, and her stomach felt ill. Whether it was from the mushrooms on the pizza or her emotional upheaval, she wasn’t sure. But one thing was certain: She’d visualized her summer so clearly in her head, and nothing was going according to plan.

By afternoon she’d made herself insane thinking through her situation. It didn’t help that it was a gloomy day and she was stuck inside. Of course, she’d heard the waterskiing boat motoring off early that morning. Only thunderstorms kept them off the lake, it seemed. Luckily, Gina had decided to join the guys in the boat that day, so she wasn’t around to harass her sister.

The longer Kate sat staring at her open book, the more she realized she had completely lost perspective, and needed her friends to help sort things out. She threw her jeans on in place of her sweats, just in case, and rifled through the cupboards for a package of Oreos to bring along to Alexis’s cabin.

Kate was fully aware that going to Alexis for romantic advice was about as reliable as picking the name of your future husband out of a hat—but at least Alexis was always honest, and introduced a little humor into situations. Sierra was as levelheaded and practical as anyone, so she’d surely have some solid suggestions.

Just as she was texting Sierra to ask that she meet up at Alexis’s cabin, the door to Kate’s cabin burst open and her two best friends came crashing in.

“Dish,” Alexis declared bluntly, fixing Kate with a stern gaze.

Sierra threw a bag of Swedish Fish onto the futon and settled in next to it. “
Why
is Little Miss Romantic glooming and dooming in her cabin all by herself?”

“Hi, guys,” Kate laughed. “I was just coming to find you.”

“I’m sure,” Alexis responded sarcastically. “You’ve been holed up in this cabin all day. Annnnd, you were acting really weird last night at the bonfire.”

Sierra nodded. “You took off without even saying good night. Not to mention the fact that the stars hadn’t come out before you left. Our Kate never finishes her night before she can wish upon a star, right?”

“I’m not Pinocchio!”

“No, you’re Snow White—waiting for your prince to come and sweep you away.” Alexis snorted. “In the meantime, you’re stuck with Grumpy and Dopey.”

“As if that’s going to happen,” Kate muttered, grabbing an Oreo out of the bag. “You guys, I don’t know what to do about Lucas.”

“You mean, you don’t know how to dump him?” Alexis grinned, bursting with pride.

“Hang on,” Sierra cut in. “Which of us is Dopey? The other option is Grumpy?”

“They’re the only two dwarves I can remember.” Alexis shrugged.

Kate flopped back against the futon. “This is so not the point.”

“You’re right.” Alexis settled into a cross-legged position on the floor and rested her chin in her hands. “We need to get back to the matter of you dumping your so-called prince.”

Kate sighed dramatically. “Is that really what I’m supposed to do?” Hearing Alexis say it so certainly was depressing. Kate really did want to make things work with Lucas—she’d spent a whole year planning it out. “Why isn’t it working?” she whined.

“He’s kind of an ass,” Sierra stated plainly. “To put it bluntly.”

“You don’t have anything to talk to him about,” Alexis continued.

Sierra chimed in, “He brought friends on his date with you last night.”

“And I saw Turbo’s naked tushie,” Kate said, and giggled. “Such a romantic way to end our date.”

“You didn’t tell us that!” Sierra covered her mouth with her hand. “Gross!”

“Listen, Kat,” Alexis said, and fixed Kate with a firm gaze. “In all seriousness, if you’re looking for romance and a Mr. Right that’s going to treat you like Cinderella at the ball, you’re looking down the wrong rabbit hole, so to speak.”

“Enough with the Disney metaphors!” Kate cried out. “It’s painful.”

Alexis shrugged. “It’s funny. But truly, Kat, I think we have a pretty good idea of what you’re looking for, and you’re just going to be disappointed if you keep trying to find it with Lucas. He just is not an even match for you. He treats you like you’re fragile, a baby or something, when really you’re the one who has to tiptoe softly around
him
. You can’t be yourself with him.”

Kate looked at her best friends. Sierra nodded. Alexis was right. Her analysis was spot-on, and she hadn’t even made any sarcastic comments while delivering her message. “Unless”—Alexis’s eyes gleamed—“you’re just looking for a guy to hook up with, in which case Lucas is your perfect choice.”

“No, Lex, that’s you.” Kate giggled, grabbed a couple of Swedish Fish, and then got serious again. “I need more than that. I want a future. I
do
want a prince.”

“You’re not animated, so a real prince is unlikely.” Sierra grabbed an Oreo. “But you can find someone who wants a relationship, not just a set of lips.”

“I need the emotional connection,” Kate confessed. “I want a boyfriend who I also respect as a friend. One who is willing to give up waterskiing for, like, ten minutes to hang out doing something fun together.” She looked down, studying a pinkish stain on the futon cover. It was shaped like a heart. Kate covered it with a Swedish Fish so she couldn’t see it anymore. Adam’s face suddenly flashed through her mind, and Kate was struck with the same sickly feeling she’d been suffering from all morning.

When Kate looked up again, she could tell that Alexis and Sierra had been watching her. “You’ll find him,” Sierra said quietly.

“I know,” Kate agreed. Then she stopped. She wasn’t ready to tell her friends what she was feeling about Adam, because she still didn’t know what it all meant. And before she could think about a silly and unlikely crush on a guy she’d disliked for years, she had to deal with the relationship she was already in.

“So…what? No more hooking up?” Lucas looked at Kate blankly.

That night at the bonfire was the first time Kate had seen Lucas all day. She had finally managed to pull him away from a burping contest with Turbo and Harris to talk to him about what she was feeling. Kate had carefully thought through the way she was going to word her breakup speech, but he’d cut her off right after she’d said, “I don’t know if we’re looking for the same thing with this relationship.”

“Um.” Kate was taken aback by Lucas’s question. “Yeah, I guess no more hooking up.”

“Too bad. You’re still really hot.” Lucas pushed Kate’s hair behind her ear and looked at her with the same expression he had so many times before. For some reason the look had a lot less of an impact on her after those words.

Kate pushed his hand away from her head. She started to say something snippy, then realized that Lucas did have kind intentions. It was just that Kate had envisioned a very different summer romance than he had. That wasn’t his fault. “It is too bad,” she said finally. Then she leaned in and gave him one last hug. She breathed in the smell of sunscreen and lake water, letting the familiar scent take her back to that first kiss one last time.

As she stepped away, she noticed Adam near the bonfire with his banjo, but when he spotted Lucas and Kate together, he turned and walked back toward his cabin. Kate was relieved, since she didn’t think she could handle anything more that day. Her emotions were in a rapid tailspin, and she had to get her head in order before she could let her heart lead her anywhere. And Adam seemed to have an ability to meddle with her emotions more than Kate was usually willing to allow.

Late that night, long after the last embers of the bonfire had died down and most people were in bed, Kate was startled awake. Gina was standing over her with her hands on her hips, her hair a tangled mess. “
Lucas
is at the window,” she hissed.

“What?” Kate muttered groggily. “What window?”

“The window in
my
bedroom,” Gina whispered. “He said he’s looking for you.”

Kate stumbled out of bed, quietly padding behind her sister toward the small second bedroom in their cabin. There was a tiny trail that ran behind their cabin, but no one ever used it. Frankly, it was sort of a creepy little path, and the fact that someone
had
used it made it even creepier. The lights were all off inside their cabin, so when Kate and Gina plodded into the bedroom, they could see Lucas illuminated outside by the silvery moonlight.

The window was open. Kate sat on the twin bed and said, “What do you want, Lucas?”

“Want to come out with me?” he said, with no further explanation.

“To do what?” she asked. Gina cleared her throat, suggesting that she knew full well what Lucas was looking for.

“I just thought maybe we could go down to the lake…. It’s beautiful tonight.” Kate wasn’t stupid. She knew he just wanted to hook up. But it was sort of a romantic gesture—or would have been, if they’d still been together.

“Lucas, I can’t,” she whispered. “You need to go before you wake up my parents.”

“Please?” he begged. The desperation in his voice made her feel sorry for him…and more confident about her decision that he definitely wasn’t the right guy.

“It’s just not going to happen,” she said bluntly. “I’m looking for a relationship, not a booty call.”

Lucas shrugged, then turned to Gina, who was still lurking in the background, observing their conversation. “Do
you
want to come out and see the stars with me?” he offered hopefully.

“Ew!” Gina cried, covering her mouth as Kate slid the window closed and lowered the blinds.

The two sisters giggled hysterically on Gina’s bed until their mom appeared in the doorway, demanding to know what they were doing up at that hour. Kate finally fell asleep in her sister’s bed just before dawn, slipping into a dream where she was Cinderella at the ball. She woke up just as the glass slipper fell off her foot.

“Your parents are cute, Sierra.” Kate squinted at the shoreline from her seat on the dock, watching Sierra’s parents stroll along the beachfront holding hands. Sierra’s mom ran playfully into the lake and splashed her husband with the cool water.

“I guess,” Sierra said wistfully. “This is better than the fighting, right?”

“Of course it’s better than the fighting. It seems like these few weeks at the lake have really helped them out.”

“They’ve been going on so-called dates pretty much every night,” Sierra said, rolling her eyes. “My dad keeps packing picnics to take on a hike, or taking my mom to the quarry to eat peanut butter sandwiches, or they go for milk shakes in town. It’s like they’re thirteen.”

“I think it’s great,” Kate declared. “We can only hope we’ll get that kind of romance with someone someday.”

“Maybe
you
wish for that,” Alexis said sourly. “I’d be horrified if someone tried to take me to the freaking quarry for peanut butter sandwiches. It’ll take sushi in Tribeca—at a minimum—to win me over.”

“Isn’t it about the company?” Kate asked, leaning back in her beach chair. “Who cares where you are or what you’re doing, as long as you’re together?”

“Blah, blah, blah,” Alexis said. “If it doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, then why wasn’t the waterskiing boat enough for you, dear Kat?”

“Come on, Lex.” Kate smiled. “You know what I’m saying.”

“I do, I do.” Alexis lifted her sunglasses slightly so her eyes were peeking out from under the bottom of the lenses. “Speaking of waterskiing…”

Kate looked up. Lucas and Zack were ambling toward the boat dock, carrying their life jackets under their arms. It was already almost noon, so they were getting a late start. Lucas looked over at Kate and her friends but said nothing.

“What’s that all about?” Alexis muttered.

“I hope he’s a little embarrassed about last night,” Kate said. She had told Alexis and Sierra about Lucas’s attempted late-night booty call. “I feel bad about the breakup,” she said, subtly watching Lucas load up the boat. “I really think I caught him off guard. I hope he’s not too upset.”

As soon as she’d said it, Kate wanted to reel her words back into her mouth and swallow them down again. Because Harris and Turbo had just walked onto the dock with a gorgeous brunette in a teal bikini—and Bikini Girl immediately wrapped her arms around Lucas’s neck as though she’d been practicing for weeks.

“Didn’t take him too long to move on, eh?” Alexis was clearly trying not to laugh.

“I guess not,” Kate muttered. She was torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to cry. She’d spent so much energy over the past year planning out her romance with Lucas. She couldn’t believe it could all shift, just like that. Of course, Kate had deliberately given up her spot inside those arms, but she hadn’t thought Lucas would recover so quickly. He had moved on—without even a glance back.

The funny thing was, Kate felt completely disconnected from Lucas as well. It was clear, watching him with this gorgeous new girl, that she and Lucas were never meant to be together…not in the way she would have wanted them to be. Despite that realization, Kate still felt heartbroken somehow. Bizarrely, she was able to watch Lucas caress this girl’s hair and nuzzle her cheek without even an ounce of jealousy. She just didn’t care.

But Kate still felt hollow inside. There was something tossing around inside her stomach, and she couldn’t make it stop.

“Kate, are you okay?” Sierra leaned over Kate, blocking the sun and getting right in her friend’s face. “You’re all white.”

Kate nodded wordlessly.

“Do you want to go up to your cabin? Maybe we should get some lunch?” Sierra looked over at Alexis, the concern evident on her face. “Kate, seriously, you’re freaking me out.”

Alexis stood up, holding her towel out like a cape at her sides, blocking Kate’s view of the boat dock. She was clearly trying to keep Lucas and his new girl out of Kate’s line of sight. “I’m thirsty…. Let’s go,” she said, stretching her towel out farther.

“You don’t have to block my view,” Kate said quietly. “I don’t care about Lucas and that girl.”

“Why the hell are you acting like such a psycho, then?” Alexis whispered. “It’s as though you just took a bite of the evil queen’s poisonous apple and you’re falling under her spell.”

“No more Disney!” she cried, remembering her dream from the night before. “It’s not Lucas,” she repeated, watching carefully as Lucas got into the waterskiing boat and motored off with Bikini Girl and his ski crew.

Sierra and Alexis exchanged a look again. Sierra eventually said, “Do you feel like your romantic issues are still a little…unresolved?”

Kate blinked, caught off guard. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe it’s time to figure out what’s going on with Adam?” Sierra said this simply, without a hint of pressure.

“Adam?” Neither Alexis nor Sierra had mentioned Adam in that way since they’d first arrived in Love…. Had she been that transparent?

“Girl, my cousin has been waiting for you to get rid of lame Lucas the whole time we’ve been at the lake,” Alexis said, and ran her hand through her hair, twisting the bottom into a spiral. “You
have
noticed, right?”

Kate was suddenly covered in goose bumps, despite the heat of the sun beating down on her. “But the idea of me and Adam…It’s nuts, isn’t it?”

“It’s perfect.” Sierra smiled, nodding.

“You guys are hilarious together,” Alexis seconded. “Not to mention the fact that he clearly worships the ground you walk on. Without being a total doormat.”

“But he drives me crazy!” Kate declared. “And all we do is fight.”

“It’s romantic banter,” Sierra said, and giggled. “You love it.”

Kate flopped back onto her lounge chair. “But I’ve totally blown it with him!”

“I don’t think so,” Alexis disagreed.

“I have…. You guys, he told me he was interested in me, and I ran.”

Sierra frowned. “You ran?”

“Literally ran,” Kate said. “We were out on the island, and he said he was falling in love with me, and I turned and ran like hell. I got out of there as fast as I could. It freaked me out, because I was pretty sure I was starting to feel something for him, too.”

“Oh, Kate.” Sierra sighed. Alexis was laughing, but covered her mouth as she always did when she laughed at inappropriate moments. “Have you said anything to him since?”

“Not really. He saw me before my pizza date with Lucas a few nights ago and told me I looked cute, but I told him not to say things like that to me.”

“Oh, Kate.” Sierra sighed again.

“Stop sighing!” Alexis demanded. “It’s depressing. Kate, it’s not a big deal…. If you and Adam had had a foundation built on politeness and appropriate responses, these little things would matter. But you’ve been completely honest with each other about everything, so it’s not like he’s expecting you to treat him like a porcelain doll emotionally.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

“Go get your guy!” Sierra declared. “Tell him you screwed up.”

Alexis looked a little misty-eyed. “Do you really think you might want to get with my cousin? There’s something sort of sick and sweet about that, all at the same time.”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen…but I know I need to talk to him to figure out if we’re supposed to be together. When I see him, I’m pretty sure I’ll just know.”

“So stop sitting here and go find him,” Alexis instructed. “You’re a mess, and you’re not going to feel any better until you get your issues with Adam sorted out.”

“Do you want us to come?” Sierra offered.

“Would you?” Kate looked at both Sierra and Alexis, hopeful. It wasn’t that she was afraid to talk to Adam on her own, but it was really awkward to have to go to his cabin, and potentially run into his parents, and then what if he had changed his mind and she had to walk back to her cabin all dejected and alone and…“Yes, please come with me. I need you.”

“Well, let’s go, then. We need to make this shit happen.” Alexis snapped her towel at Kate and strode down the dock.

Kate jumped up and followed. She finally felt like she was back on the right path.

“Serious warning,” Alexis said as they hiked up the rocky, slanted trail that led to Adam’s cabin. “My aunt is chatty.”

“Lex, I know your aunt,” Kate responded. After all, they’d been coming to the lake with Adam and his family for years. She’d been around Adam’s mom—Alexis’s aunt—a million times at barbecues and down on the dock.

“You know my aunt publicly, where she understands the rules of social conversation.” Alexis nodded. “On her own turf, she’s something else.”

When they got to Adam’s cabin, Kate immediately understood what Alexis had been warning them about. Michelle, Adam’s mom, welcomed the girls in with a wave of her arm and a mouth that was moving a mile a minute. She told them to “sit, sit, sit” at the table in their little kitchenette, and almost immediately had a cup of Kool-Aid poured for each of them.

Kate quickly surveyed the cabin, and surmised that neither Adam nor his brothers were there at the moment. It pained her to have to sit there and make idle chitchat with Adam’s mom when all she wanted to do was find her guy and figure out where things stood, but she bit her lip and smiled while Michelle gave them her point of view on national politics. It was completely random, and Kate wanted to scream while sitting there patiently.

Eventually Alexis managed to squeeze a word in. “Aunt Michelle, you don’t know where we can find Adam, do you?” Kate shot her a grateful look.

“Oh, of course you’re looking for Adam, girls.” She winked at Sierra. “But you knew he went home this morning, didn’t you?”

Kate’s stomach dropped straight down onto the ground beneath her feet. It felt like there was just a giant rotting hole where her insides used to be, and what was once her stomach was now just a pile on the floor of the cabin. “Home?” she squeaked out.

“Well, yes.” Adam’s mom nodded. “Adam’s dad dropped him off at the bus station in town this morning. Apparently Adam got a text message from one of the other boys on the soccer team, and it sounded like they changed the practice schedule to start a bit early. Adam wanted to be prepared for the season, so he headed back to New Jersey.”

“You sent him back alone? On the bus?” Alexis asked angrily. Kate appreciated her friend’s obvious frustration.

“He just decided to go last night—a spur of the moment sort of thing. You know Adam…. Boys will be boys. He caught a bus to Madison and will transfer to the express bus to New York later this afternoon. He’s staying with the Blacks until we go home in a few weeks.”

“What time did you drop him off at the bus station?” Kate whispered. Her voice sounded hollow, much like she felt. “Do you think he’s still there?”

Michelle shook her head. “Well, no.” She looked at the old classroom clock on the cabin wall, then down at her watch. “The bus left early this morning. He should be in Madison, if he isn’t already on the bus to New York.”

Kate stood up and thanked Michelle for the Kool-Aid. Sierra picked up their empty cups and set them in the sink.

Michelle followed them to the door, and called out after them, “Did you need to talk to Adam about something, girls?”

“Apparently not,” Kate muttered. She looked through the trees and out to the lake. Kate could see her island poking out of the water, reminding her of the day when everything had changed. But Kate had blown it, and now she’d missed her chance to tell Adam that she was falling in love with him too. By the time they got back to New Jersey, too much time would have passed. “Let’s get in the car,” she said suddenly.

“The car?” Sierra queried.

“We’re going on a road trip,” Kate declared. “Let’s finish this thing where it started. We’re going to catch Adam on the road.”

“That’s my girl!” Alexis whooped. “But you know we’ll have to drive faster than fifty-five if you want to catch his bus, right? Buses go slow, but not Kate-slow.”

“If that’s what it takes.” Kate nodded, smiling. “True love takes sacrifice.”