High School Hangover (21 page)
Read High School Hangover Online
Authors: Stephanie Hale
“I’m sorry about everything,” I blurt out. Jack responds by putting one of his fingers against my lips.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he replies, not taking his eyes off me.
“You didn’t take me out of that truck because you wanted to be with me, didn’t you?”
“Guilty as charged. And I hid your cell phone battery and money so you couldn’t get away,” he confesses.
I gasp, shocked. I hadn’t even thought about that stuff. “Jack McAllister, you are bad,” I tease. I throw my arms around his neck. He runs his hands through my hair then kisses me again.
“The gang is going to be so happy to see you. It’s all they’ve talked about the whole way here,” Jack tells me.
“Wait a minute. Why are you here? Did Arnie have an episode?” I panic.
“Everything is fine,” Jack tells me, gripping my shoulders reassuringly.
“But I saw everyone rushing in.”
“It was Bernie. He got upset when we stopped by your house and you weren’t home,” Jack explains. “I think he was faking because he thought we were going to leave town without seeing you.”
“Can I see him?” I ask, knowing I’ll feel better if I see Bernie with my own eyes.
“Sure,” Jack says, lacing his fingers through mine and guiding me down a corridor into a bank of curtained off rooms. Jack holds his finger to his lips as we approach Bernie’s curtain. I can hear Ginger and Milly bickering over whether or not he should be wearing the hospital-issued booties. Kris tells them both to shut up and I stifle a giggle. As I peek at their feet under the curtain-Milly’s stilettos, Ginger’s sturdy Rockports, Kris’s weird looking Jesus sandals, and Dom’s Nikes- I realize I could stand here listening to them all day.
“Knock, knock,” Jack says, pulling the curtain back partly. I’m still hidden and so is Jack’s hand, entwined with mine. “The doctor says you are fit as a fiddle and we can be on our way,” Jack teases.
“I feel like I could flatline any second,” Bernie tells Jack, even though we both heard him tell Trudy that he would kill for a Big Mac.
“What if I took you to get a Big Mac?” I offer, peeking around the corner.
“Laney,” the group yells. Even Milly looks excited to see me, especially when she notices me holding hands with Jack. Everyone is scrunched into a very small area. It helps that Ginger is sitting on Dom’s lap and Milly is on Kris’s. I grin knowing that my plan to get these four together worked.
“Aren’t you too busy to take time out for a bunch of old folks?” Bernie grumbles, not meeting my eyes.
“I’d never be too busy for you, Bernie,” I tell him. He jumps off the gurney and starts pulling his clothes on over his hospital gown.
“Let’s get going then, time’s a wasting,” he says.
We all laugh as we back out of the room to give him some privacy. It takes a bit of convincing to get the doctor to sign him out but we finally promise to keep Bernie off the bus for a few days. I know Mom won’t mind the seniors bunking with us for a while. Arnie agrees to settle for a Cardinals-Cubs game at Busch Stadium instead of Wrigley Field.
It’s a welcome sight seeing all of them pile back on the bus with their walkers and oxygen tanks, in a cloud of Ben-Gay. Kris starts the bus up, gives me a wink, then shuts the folding bus door to give Jack and I some privacy.
“I better ride with them so Kris doesn’t get lost,” Jack says, watching my mouth.
“What if I said I didn’t want to be away from you for that long?” I ask him.
He pulls me close and lowers his face to mine. He stares deep into my eyes then brings his perfect lips down on top of mine.
I don’t have a clue what is going to happen with college, my relationship with Dad, or if Leo’s family will end up getting into trouble, but I do know that I want to spend a lot of time kissing Jack.
*****
Jack looks adorable as he guiltily hands me back my battery and money.
“You don’t have to kidnap me anymore to spend time together,” I assure him.
He kisses me gently on the lips and every nerve ending in my body buzzes uncontrollably. I wonder if I will ever get used to that? I sure hope not.
Everything is so right in my world at this moment. Jack is draped across my bed gazing adorningly at me. Mom is downstairs fixing dinner for everyone while my grandparents are organizing a Wii bowling tournament for the Primrose peeps. I even talked to my dad and he promised to get help for his addiction.
I found a piece of paper I took from the pawn shop that had imprints on it that we were able to decipher by shading with a pencil. It ended up being a shorthand list of exotic animals and it matched a list given to my mom by her clients of animals that were stolen. We gave everything to Josie’s family. Its doubtful criminal charges will ever be filed, but Leo’s family’s moving company will be ruined by word of mouth.
“I need to tie up some loose ends about Friday night,” I say.
“Dimples, do we have to keep going over this?” Jack replies teasingly.
I ignore his teasing and press on, trying to fill in any blanks in my memory. “I drank my weight in energy drink, which pretty much made me lose my mind. I took off my dress and went swimming in my underwear and bra. You hit me in the head with a hot dog. I followed Leo to his house where he and his evil henchwoman tried to shave my head. Then I passed out,” I finish.
Jack picks up where I left off. “I saw Leo and Amelia stick you in the truck and go back to the party. I snuck in the truck to save you,” he adds, grinning like a mad man. “Then I realized I’d been trying to get you alone for two years and this might be my only opportunity before you leave forever. We wake up in Texas. You finally realize how wonderful I am and fall in love with me. The end,” he concludes, giving me a peck on the lips.
“You secretly paid the diner bill but made me think we had to wash dishes?”
“I couldn’t have you thinking we had enough money for a bus ticket. I was trying to stretch out our time together. It wasn’t a perfect plan by any means.”
“Okay, but how did we get in the fancy clothes?” I ask, still confused about my gown and Jack’s tuxedo.
Jack’s cheeks immediately start to turn pink. “That was your idea,” he answers without elaborating.
“So I woke up?” I ask, surprised.
“Oh yeah,” Jack says in an exaggerated tone.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, almost afraid to hear more. I’m not quite sure how much more humiliation I can handle.
“You saw the rack of fancy clothes and you told me you wanted to pretend we were going to a ball,” Jack says with a laugh.
“Oh, no,” I groan.
“Actually, it was really sweet. We slow danced, like I wanted to at prom, but never had the courage to ask.”
I nearly swoon from his sweetness even though I’m sitting down.
“I still feel bad about peeing in that vase,” I confess, but I figure Leo’s family will get blamed for it and they deserve it. That’s what he gets for leaving me in a dark, toilet-less place.
“Wait, so we did all of this in the pitch dark?” I ask, remembering how terrifying it was to only have that flashlight beam to see by.
Jack hesitates for a beat then comes clean. “There was a light in the truck but I shut it off when you fell asleep,” he tells me.
I remember one last crucial detail about Friday night. Somewhere along the way, I lost my bra and panties.
“Jack, were you watching when I changed into the evening gown?” I ask, knowing that I would have been completely naked.
“Dimples, this is the part where my memory gets kind of fuzzy,” he teases, topping off his answer with a grin so mischievous it tells me everything I need to know.
The End
Acknowledgments
Thank you to everyone who picked my book, out of millions, to spend time with. If you enjoyed this book, I hope you will tell your friends or leave a review. I hope that I can continue creating stories and making people laugh for a long time.
Thank you to Tina Ferraro who has been my critique partner and cheerleader for a few years now. I can honestly say that I don’t think this book would have left my hard drive if it wasn’t for you. You believed in my work when I didn’t. You were that sweet little voice in my ear telling me to write when all I really wanted to do was watch Lifetime movies and bake cookies. Thank you for everything! (You can find out more about Tina’s amazing books at www.tinaferraro.com).
A special shout-out goes out to Juli Alexander for always answering my annoying emails and always volunteering to help a fellow author in any way she can. You rock! (Juli’s adorable books can be found at www.julialexanderauthor.com).
Thank you to my husband, and our adorable boys, for loving me and giving me my happy ending.
About the Author
Stephanie Hale is the author of High School Hangover, The Alpha Bet, Revenge of the Homecoming Queen, Twisted Sisters, and Spring Breakup. When she isn’t writing funny stories, she is usually daydreaming about where she wants to go on vacation. She lives in Illinois with her family. You can visit her at
www.stephaniehale.com
,
www.twitter.com/stephaniemhale
, or
www.facebook.com/BooksByStephanieHale
.
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