He's With Me (2 page)

same simple black one-piece that she’d had for two years.

The doorbell rang.
Be boop bee booop…bee booop beeeeee boooooooop
.

Lexie liked the weird chimes it played. Besides, it was the sound that usually

meant Jake was there.

“That’s Jake,” Colin said. “He called and said he has some major problem

and needs out advice. Although why he’d want to ask a moron liked me is the real

question.”

“Oh, Colinn,” Mrs. Willis said. “Don’t talk about yourself like that.”

“It’s probably another girl crisis,” Lexie said. Jake was always having girl

crises – either someone wanted to date him, or there was someone he wanted to

date, or his current girlfriend was acting weird because he wasn’t the 100 percent

perfect boyfriend that she’d been expecting.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” Lexie called as Colin thumped down the stairs.

She sat up and saw that her mom was still hovering.

“Don’t you want to try it on?” Mrs. Willis said, gesturing at the bathing suit.

“Um,” Lexie said.
With Jake in the house? I’d rather eat lizards.
“Maybe

later.”
Like in my next life, when I come back as a ditzy supermodel.

“All right,” Lexie’s mom said with another sigh, and finally left the room.

Lexie ran over to the mirror and put on the necklace Jake had given her for

her birthday the past November. She always wore it around him, for good luck. It

was just a strand of small red glass beads, but she liked it.

She brushed her hair – dark brown, down to her shoulder blades, and way

too fluffy – and scrunched her nose at the reflection. Well. She looked pretty

much the same as she did every day, so if it hadn’t worked yet, it probably

wouldn’t now.

Lexie found Colin and Jake, as usual, in the basement. Colin was playing

with the zoom on the secondhand video camera he’d borrowed from Dad. Jake

was still standing by the door, and when Lexie walked in, he threw open his arms

and went “Lexie!” in this big dramatic excited voice.

This was their new joke. The week before, Colin had asked them to act out

a scene for his camera and when Jake started doing everything all over-the-top

and melodramatic, Lexie had followed along. They thought this was the most

hilarious thing ever, and they couldn’t get through three lines without falling over

laughing. Colin didn’t think it as quite so funny.

“Jake!” she cried now with the same dramatic enthusiasm.

“Oh, shut up,” said Colin.

Jake held up his hand and Lexie high-fived him. As he walked back to the

couch, she curled her fingers over her palm, holding in the warm, tingly feeling his

hand had left behind.

“So what’s the new crisis, Jake?” Colin said, setting the camera on the

coffee table and kneeling to peer through it. He never seemed all that interested

in Jake’s girl problems, but Lexie thought it made Colin feel better to hear that

even if you could get a girlfriend, it wasn’t always easy after that. He still hadn’t

dated anyone, and as far as she knew, he’d never liked anyone, either. At least

she’d dated Dave Mitchell for a week in seventh grade, if you could call holding

hands and awkwardly slow-dancing at one party “dating.”

“It’s the end of the world,” Jake said as Lexie sat down on the other end of

the couch from him. “I’m totally doomed. Hey Lexie, did you know that Ewan

McGregor, Brad Pitt, and Will Smith were all offered the role of Neo in
The Matrix
before Keanu Reeves got it? They turned it down. Isn’t that crazy?”

“It would have been much funnier with Will Smith,” she said. Some days

Jake’s eyes were really blue, but today he was wearing a mossy-green T-shirt that

made them look a cool stormy green colour.

“Colin, you should make a movie like
The Matrix
,” Jake said. “Lexie could

play Trinity.”

“No problem,” Colin said. “I was wondering what to do with that two

hundred million dollars just lying around in my bank account.”

“Oh, but,” Lexie said, snapping her fingers, “I’m afraid my leather catsuit is

in the laundry. Too bad.”

“That
is
too bad,” Jake said earnestly. “I had this whole series of you-in-

black-leather movies planed.
X-men, Catwoman, King Kong…
I’d be Naomi Watts

and you’d be Kong, of course.”

“Shut
up
,” Lexie said, flinging a throw pillow at him.

“What?” he said with a grin. “It’s the grandest love story ever told.”

Luckily Colin interrupted before Lexie had to respond to
that.

“Hello?” said her brother. “Crisis? Aren’t we here for a reason? You don’t

sound all that doomed.”

“I am,” Jake said. “I’m totally doomed.”

“Why?” Lexie asked. As far as she knew, Jake had been single for a couple

of months, ever since Amy Sorrento had broken up with him for not calling her

every single day. So it was probably a girl-he-wanted-to date category of problem.

“Bree McKennis.” said Jake.

Lexie’s heart sank. Bree was the classic popular girl – blond, beautiful, and

blissfully mean. Once she got her hooks into someone, they stayed hooked, even

after she dumped him. If Jake had fallen for someone like her, Lexie didn’t stand a

chance. In fact, if Jake had fallen for someone like her, maybe Lexie didn’t know

him that well after all.

“Bree McKennis?” Colin said. “She’s… isn’t she kind of out of your league?

She’s, like,
really
popular.”

“Sadly, apparently not,” Jake said. “She wants to go out with me. Maybe

she sees some untapped popularity potential in me. If so, I vote for not tapping it.

It can stay right where it is, thanks.”

“
Bree
wants to go out with
you?
” Colin said. Lexie was relieved, but she did not appreciate Colin’s chocked tone of voice. Why wouldn’t anyone want to go

out with Jake?

“Yup,” Jake said. “She informed me of this in an e-mail.”

“No way,” Lexie said.

“See for yourself.” Jake pulled a piece of paper out of his back jeans pocket,

unfolded it, and slid it over to her.

Jakey,

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to date the hottest girl in

school? I bet you have. I could tell you were thinking about it when I got

lemonade from you at my sister’s graduation ceremony. You were thinking, “If

only Bree would ever date ne.” Well, it’s your lucky summer. I have decided

that I need a boyfriend and here are the reasons we would be the perfect

couple:

1. Our heights would match perfectly,

2. We’ll both be at Summerlodge this summer,

3. We’re both cute and popular,

4. And so we’d be like the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt of Summerlodge,

only without the smelly orphans

I imagine this feels like winning the lottery, doesn’t it? Not that I’d notice if I

did, since I’m already so rich, but I’m guessing you would, and it would be like

just as way exciting as this. I’ll meet you tomorrow at the front fate of

Summerlodge so we can make our entrance together. Then I’ll also debrief you

on the Rules of Dating Bree. How awesome will this be?

Kisses,

Bree

“Oh, Jakey,” Lexie said, passing it on to Colin. “How can you resist?”

“I know,” Jake said. “It’s better than winning the lottery. It’s like winning

the lottery and falling down a well and being vomited on by a llama all at the

same time.”

Lexie laughed. “So she’s going to be at Summerlodge, too? Does she play

tennis?”
Lord, please don’t let her be in the Beginners class with me. Please find
some other horrible way of torturing me instead.

“Nope, she’s working at the pool – training to be a lifeguard. So hopefully

we won’t have to see her too much.”

Colin flattened out the printed e-mail on the table and videotaped it. “This

is crazy,” he said. “I didn’t know girls ever did this kind of thing.”

“Bree McKennis does anything she wants,” Jake said. “Which is why you

guys have to save me. I can’t date her! First, it’ll be painful and agonizing. She’ll

make me carry all her things and bring her sodas and buy her stuff, and then she’ll

tell at me when I do anything wrong, and then she’ll make fun of me to all her

friends behind my back, and
then
she’ll dump me and tell
everyone
what a dork I am and I’ll never get a date in this town ever again. I may not be the world’s most

popular guy, but this will ruin me for the rest of high school. Remember what she

did to Kevin Barkett? Or Alvaro? No, you don’t, because once she was through

with them, they disappeared from everyone’s minds.
Forever.
”

“However,” said Colin, “she is really hor. Like Angelina Jolie-type hot.”

“Ew, Colin!” Lexie said, smacking his shoulder.

“She is!” Colin said. “Right Jake?”

Jake shrugged. “I guess she’s okay. Not my type.”

“Not your – seriously?”

“Personally, I would’ve stayed with Jennifer Aniston,” Jake said. “And did

you miss the part about the ‘Rules of Dating Bree’? Does that sound like fun to

you? Man, I
knew
I shouldn’t have met her eyes when she came up to get

lemonade. I shouldn’t have agreed to work the concessions stand at graduation in

the first place. Now it’s going to be the worst summer ever.” He slid onto the

floor, lay down, and crossed his arms over his face.

“Can’t you just say no?” Colin asked.

“Even I know the answer to that,” Lexie said. “Nobody says no to Bree.”

Lexie understood exactly what Jake was worried about. She’d been avoiding Bree

since elementary school. If you stayed far under her radar, you could slip by

unnoticed and unharmed, but if you popped into her line of sight in any way, she

would rip you to shreds with one flick of her French-tipped nails.

“Doomed,” Jake muttered. “Doooomed.”

“All right,” Colin said. “Tell her you already have a girlfriend.”

Jake thought for a minute. “Like, long-distance? I don’t think she’ll buy that.

Plus it’s only been a week since school ended. Where would I have picked up a

girlfriend in a week?”

“I dunno.” Colin shrugged. “You could tell her you’re dating Lexie.”

Lexie was so, so,
so
glad that Colin had his eyes glued to the camera

controls and didn’t see her expression. Jake kept his arms over his face, so he

didn’t notice, either. She felt like she might faint. There was a really awkward

pause, and Lexie wondered if she was supposed to make a joke here.

She started to say, “As if-“at the same time as Jake said, “Well, I-“ and they

both stopped.

“What were you going to say?” he asked. He put his arms down and tilted

his head back to look at her.

“Um, just…as if she’ll believe that.”

“Why?” Colin said. Lexie wished Jake would say something, but he just kept

looking ar her.

“Well, if you think Bree is out of his league, then I’m in another solar

system, aren’t I?” she tried to joke.

“Actually, it might work,” Jake said. Lexie bit her tongue, she was so

surprised.

“Sure it will,” Colin said. “Lexie will be at Summerlodge, too, so Bree can

see you’re together. And it’s only for a little while, until Bree gets over you. And

it’s not like there’s anyone Lexie wants to date, so you’re hardly putting a dent in

her love life. Right, Lexie?”

That’s nice. Thanks, Colin.

“What do you say, Lexie?” Jake asked, rolling over onto his stomach and

propping his elbows on the floor and his chin in his hands adorably. “Want to be

my pretend girlfriend?” His eyes were like storm clouds, big and unstoppable and

irresistible.

Lexie, this is what you’ve been dreaming about. Correction: This is a strange

parody of what you’ve been dreaming about. Is this really what you want? Being

Jake’s pretend girlfriend?

Yeah, sure, okay. Close enough!

“Okay,” she said, feeling dizzy. “I mean, it’ll be tough pretending to like you,

but I guess I can take one for the team. Right?”

“You’re my knight in shining armour,” Jake said, getting up and kneeling on

the couch next to her.
Right
next to her. “My hero, my warrior princess,” he said, taking her hand. “My King Kong.” He pressed her hand to his heart. She could

actually feel it beating through the soft fabric of his shirt. It was going really fast.

Nearly as fast as hers, but he was an athlete, so it probably went that fast all the

time.

“Okay, here are the Rules of Pretend Dating Lexie,” she said. “You need to

stop
comparing me to a giant gorilla.”

“What are the other rules?” he asked. He was still holding her hand against

his chest.

“That’s the only one,” she said. Was her voice shaking? Could he tell? “So

far. I’ll keep you posted as others come up.”

He grinned. “I’ll look forward to it.”

“Okay,” Colin said, standing up. “I think I’ve figured out how to change it to

night recording. Let’s go test it in the shed.” He picked up a flashlight and headed

for the stairs. Lexie couldn’t believe her own twin hadn’t noticed how much she

was blushing. She wanted to stay where she ever forever, but she pulled her hand

free and scrambled off the couch.