Kiss & Sell (24 page)

“Hello? I’m waiting for an answer that’s good enough to warrant you backing out of these plans,” McCartney said, beyond annoyed.

I read back over Ryder’s text, before putting my phone away. As it disappeared, I made a decision.

“McCartney, you know there’s nothing I’d rather do than take the limo with you guys, but Ryder just told me he has this whole thing planned out, and we won’t be finished with whatever it is until after you guys leave for the dance,” I answered, feeling guilty as the words passed my lips. It wasn’t totally a lie, but it wasn’t totally the truth either.

McCartney just looked at me skeptically, excitement and disdain on her face. The silence between us grew as I waited for her to let me know where we stood. Finally, she turned back to survey her image huffily and I knew this wasn’t going to blow over quickly.

“Whatever,” she said finally, before stomping back to her room to change. “It was going to be crowded in the limo anyway.”

THE NEXT WEEK
passed by in a blur of dance frenzy. Every conversation had to do with Homecoming. It was all about what people were wearing to the dance, who they were going to the dance with and whether or not they planned to give it up to their dates afterward (and I don’t think they were talking about kisses). And if the person wasn’t going to Homecoming, they were complaining about how stupid the dance was, what they were doing instead, who
didn’t
ask them, or making fun of the rest of us who were excited about it.

It was dance mania.

During this time I tried to keep my focus on my classes, which I’d been neglecting since we’d started project G.a.a.K. But not because I wasn’t excited about the dance—actually, it was quite the opposite. I was
so
psyched about going to my first high school dance with someone as cool as Ryder, I was afraid that if I talked to anyone, I might spill the beans. And then, I was pretty sure MTV would sue my mom. Meaning, this would be my first—and last—high school dance.

So, I spent all my free time actually doing the reading assignments, completing my homework and studying for tests that weren’t happening for weeks. I ate my lunches in the library and headed straight home after the last bell (except for those days I had Dance Committee meetings).

You know how people say that time flies when you’re having fun? Well, it goes painfully slow when you’re looking forward to something. Trust me, I learned this the hard way.

By the time the dance finally rolled around, I was officially ready for all the hoopla to be over. But before that could happen, I had to help decorate the gym.
then, I could hang up my committee shoes and never agree to get involved in a school function again.

“How have we been here for three hours already and only have half the place decorated?” I asked, huffily.

Down on my hands and knees in the gymnasium, I rolled out strips of plastic turf over half of the smooth floor. As I held it down, Cade secured each piece with electrical tape. I wrinkled my nose as the smell of the recently spray-painted fake grass permeated my nostrils.

“Couldn’t we have spray-painted this
after
we put it in the gym?” I complained, starting to feel a headache coming on.

“Sure. If you don’t mind people getting high off the fumes,” Cade said with a smirk. “Actually, that might’ve made the whole thing a lot more interesting. You should’ve said something earlier.”

I couldn’t help but smile at his sarcasm. Cade had been the one bright spot during this non-stop week of stress. It was like he understood how silly the whole thing was, and had made it his mission to get everyone else to lighten up. We’d even started a little contest between the two of us to see who could get Bree to scowl the most. Cade was killing me on this one, as no matter what I said or did, she just wouldn’t get mad at me. I could tell I was wearing her down, though.

“Why did we make everything so complicated, again?” I whined, stopping to look around us.

A handful of students were tying dozens of black and white balloons to every table set up throughout the gym. Paper lanterns had been hung from the ceiling, with half the room drenched in red lights and the other lit up in blue. Cade had thought of this as having a sort of heaven and hell vibe.

The rest of the committee members were setting up life-sized cardboard cutouts of famous couples around the room. Jake’s uncle was the manager at Kinko’s and had scored us a dozen of them for wicked cheap. My favorite couple was Brad and angelina. nobody knew it yet, but I fully intended to take Mr. Jolie home with me after the dance.

I focused myself on what Cade and I were doing, and lay out the remainder of the turf. When we were finished, I stood up and rubbed at my prickly knees until the feeling began to come back to my legs. I felt a little light-headed as I straightened, and closed my eyes to steady myself.

“You okay?”

“Um, yeah,” I answered, rubbing at the pain behind my eyes. “I think the paint’s just getting to me.”

“Have you had anything to drink since we started?” Cade asked.

I gave him a surprised look. “I don’t do that kind of stuff.”

Cade looked at me confused. Then, he broke into a smile before taking a small step toward me. “I meant…have you been
hydrating
.”

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed. He hadn’t meant alcohol. “No, I guess I haven’t had any of that either.”

He reached over and grabbed hold of my elbow lightly and began to pull me away from the middle of the gymnasium. “Well then, let’s take a break. Grab some water and a little air.”

I nodded and allowed myself to be guided away from the noise of everyone setting up behind us. The fact that Cade’s hand was touching my arm was something I was well aware of. It was a nice feeling and I wondered how I could get him to do it more often.

As soon as we’d made it through the double doors at the back of the gym, Cade instructed me sit down on the school stairs as he jogged over to the vending machines to get us something to drink. He propped open an emergency exit door allowing the evening air to flow through the hall. I closed my eyes and let the cold hit my cheeks, and blow my hair back over my shoulders.

“Water okay?” Cade asked as I calmed under the drop in temperature.

“Is there seltzer?” I asked.

Cade didn’t respond, but I listened as two drinks dropped into the bin below. A few seconds later, he sat down beside me, our bodies connected at the knees. I jumped a little as he pressed the cold can to the back of my neck.

“Oh!”

“You cooling down yet?” Cade asked me quietly. Without opening my eyes, I could tell his face was only inches away from mine. Even with the air moving around us, I swear I could feel his warm breath on my skin.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said, feeling flustered by our proximity to one another. I accepted the drink he was holding and popped the top, taking generous gulps of the bubbly water.

“You actually like that stuff?” Cade asked.

I nodded. “It’s like water, only fancier.”

He shook his head as he watched me down it. My headache started to subside from the fresh air and liquid. I nudged him lightly. “Hey, thanks. I needed that.”

“No problem,” he shrugged. Then he nodded over toward the gym. “Can you believe how crazy people have been acting over this thing? it’s like invasion of the body snatchers or something. Come on people, it’s just a stupid dance.”

“I know what you mean. After a while I had to tune it all out. I was afraid my brain would turn to mush and ooze out my ears,” I said, chuckling.

Cade raised his eyebrows at me, questioningly. “You mean, you haven’t been dreaming of this night
all
your life? Won’t they revoke your girl card for not obsessing over every little detail?”

“Ha, ha,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “I
am
excited. I just have other things going on, too. Like, the fact that my friend, McCartney, is pissed I had to cancel our plans to share a limo to the dance. And when she finds out why I really had to skip out, she’s gonna go all Hulk on me.”

“Ah, well, she’s your best friend. I’m sure she’ll get over it,” he said.

I burst out laughing. “You don’t know McCartney.”

“Are you still going with that vampire guy?”

“Yes. And his name’s
Ryder
.”

“Of course it is,” Cade said under his breath.

“Huh?”

“Nothing. So, why
aren’t
you guys sharing a limo? is your date too cool to go to the dance with regular people?”

I didn’t understand why everyone assumed that just because Ryder was a big-time celeb, he had to be stuck-up. In all the time I’d known him (and yes, I realized that had been less than a month), he’d never pulled a diva move or acted like he was better than anyone else.

“It’s not like that,” I answered, frowning.

“So then, what’s the deal?” Cade asked.

I paused. “I can’t really tell
you
.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Cade blinked at me in surprise. “Okay. Well, I was just making conversation anyway.” and with that he got up and began to walk back toward the gymnasium.

Was I hallucinating or did he seem a little…upset?

“It’s not like I don’t
want
to tell you. In fact, I’m dying to tell someone. Anyone, really,” I said, standing up and following him.

“Then tell me,” he said, like it was that simple.

Only it wasn’t.

“I signed a contract swearing I wouldn’t say anything. So, no matter how much it’s killing me—” I mimicked hanging myself, “—I’m
legally
not allowed to talk about it. And if you were a teenage girl, you’d realize it’s practically impossible for us to keep our mouths shut when it comes to things like this. So, yes, if I could tell you, I would. Happily.”

Cade studied me as I finished my speech and then scratched his head as if I’d just tried to explain rocket science. He shook his head and turned away from me again.

“This dance is making everyone freaking nuts,” he muttered.

I watched helplessly as Cade disappeared into the gym, and fought the urge to run after him and apologize. But what good would that do, if I still couldn’t explain everything to him?

A week ago, I’d been bordering on euphoric over being asked to go to Homecoming by my biggest crush. I never thought that saying yes would cause this much drama. now, my best friend was giving me the silent treatment, the only person on the dance committee that I could stand, thought I was headed for the loony bin, and I couldn’t talk to anyone about any of it for fear that I’d get sued.

To top it all off, even if Ryder and I ended up having an amazing night, and realized that we were totally into each other…we couldn’t even
do
anything about it. Because the last official day that people could bid on my first kiss was the day
after
the dance.

Which brought me to the other thing that had me freaked out: in two days I was going to be kissing someone.
My
lips would be touching someone else’s. A boy’s.

Holy sundays at church. How did I get myself into all of this?

Groaning, I trudged back to finish setting up for the dance, wondering if I should be going at all.

I SLEPT UNTIL
11:30 the next day, feeling zero guilt over losing my whole morning to extra rest and non-complicated dreams. I couldn’t even convince myself to get dressed, opting to stay in my pajamas as I padded around the house looking for something to calm my noisy stomach. Popping two frozen chocolate chip waffles into our toaster, I leaned against the counter and thought about the night before.

I hadn’t gotten home from decorating the gym until well after one o’clock. And while there, I’d been doing some serious manual labor, so it wasn’t surprising that I was still exhausted this morning. Between lifting props, hanging lights and streamers, assembling tables and carrying supplies in from Bree’s mom’s van, my body had gotten a serious workout. In fact, I felt a little like I’d been hit by a truck.

And that wasn’t even the painful part. After Cade and I had our little talk out in the hallway, things hadn’t been the same between us. By the time I’d made my way back into the gym, he’d wandered over to a girl I didn’t recognize, and had immediately started chatting her up.