Out with the In Crowd (7 page)

“Hey, I’m glad you called back.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. Guess who I just got off the phone with? Jodi.”

“Yeah. Guess who I just got off the phone The back of my neck tingled. “Oh yeah?”

“She called to ask me some questions about church. Isn’t that great? I mean, it’s at least a step. When we dated, I could never get her to talk about anything deep, and now . . .”

Connor’s voice faded away as I pulled the phone from my ear. He continued yammering as I hung up on him.

At home, Dad stood in the kitchen with a variety of takeout menus. “Hey, kiddo. What sounds good for dinner?” I glanced at the sleeping computer, the dark living room. “Where’s Abbie?”

“Resting, but don’t worry about her. She said whatever we choose is fine.” The corners of his mouth quirked in a smile. “Actually, she made kind of a scene about not caring so long as she didn’t have to decide. You’d have enjoyed it.”

“I doubt that,” I muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.” I took a deep breath. “So Abbie’s upstairs?”

“Mm-hmm. I thought it’d be nice if when she woke up, dinner was here.” He grinned. “You know how she gets these days when she’s hungry.”

“I just had coffee with Mom.”

The smile drained from Dad’s face. “Oh . . .”

“I can’t believe you did that to her. To us.” My hands trembled with anger, with disgust.

Dad turned away from me, his fair skin burning crimson. “I know.”

Seeing his stooped shoulders, his obvious shame, brought on a rush of tears. “I always thought you were crazy about Mom.”

He looked back at me, his eyes brimming as well. “Of course I am, Skylar. And I was then too, I was just . . . frustrated. I don’t know how to explain it to you—or if I even should—but as a man, when your wife is unhappy—”

“You cheat with her best friend?”

Dad clamped his mouth shut.

We stood there in silence as the remaining sunlight faded to gray.

“I could’ve kept it a secret,” he said in a broken voice. He kept his gaze trained on the countertop. “I managed to do that all these years. But your mom and I have a chance for a fresh start, and I didn’t want to hide it from her anymore.”

“Even if it means losing her?”

He frowned. “Your mom’s mad, but she’ll come home.” I thought of Hawaii, of the determination in Mom’s eyes. “Will she?”

“Your mom has always done what’s best for this family.” Dad’s normal confident tone returned. “Even when it didn’t exactly line up with her emotions.”

But what if she thought the best thing was to end it?

8

When Connor pulled into the driveway to pick us up for school, Abbie had been awake only a few minutes. The challenge of coaxing her out of bed grew each morning.

As I jogged down the front path to meet him, Connor lowered his window.

“What’s going on?” he asked, taking note of my socked feet and lack of backpack.

“We’re running a little behind this morning.” I shielded my eyes from the morning sun. “We’ll drive separately, okay?”

Connor hesitated. “We can wait.”

“No, go ahead. She just now got in the shower. It could be awhile.”

Chris leaned forward from the backseat. “What’s happening?”

“Abbie’s kinda slow this morning. We’re gonna drive ourselves.”

Chris hiked a leg over the center console and wiggled his way to the front seat. As he settled in, Connor studied my face. “I tried calling you back last night. I never could get you.”

“Yeah, sorry.” I shrugged, hoping to look casual. “Just bad timing, I guess.”

The way Connor looked at me, I could tell he knew something was up. He lowered his voice even more. “You know, I’m not interested in Jodi.”

Okay, so he even knew
what
was up. Why should that surprise me? He’d always been able to pinpoint things about me—traits, feelings, circumstances—that even I couldn’t put a finger on. His deep understanding of me had made me fall for him. Now it annoyed me.

I raised my eyebrows. “I never said you were.”

Connor massaged the bridge of his nose. “Ice princess voice. Look, Skylar, what was I supposed to do? Hang up on her?”

“Of course not.” I took a couple steps back. “See you guys at school.”

With a wave, I turned and walked away, even though Connor’s eyes begged me not to. What he didn’t seem capable of understanding—okay, what I’d never really told him—was how eerily similar this whole situation with him and Jodi felt. It didn’t matter if he denied interest in Jodi. Even if he felt it, would he really tell me? Eli had denied it. “That’s crazy,” he’d said when I suggested it. “You’re just being paranoid.”

Five minutes later, I’d caught them.

How could I trust Connor on this? Guys could be really stupid when it came to beautiful girls. And Connor didn’t know Jodi like I did. He didn’t know how she obsessed over, thirsted for, revenge. He didn’t know I used to help her plan her assaults. Fine by me. Connor knew about a lot of my junk, witnessed some of it firsthand, but I told him things strictly on a need-to-know basis. Surely even he had limits on how much of my past he could overlook.

Abbie paused the blow-dryer when I returned to our bathroom. “Was Connor mad?”

“No, he was fine.”

She sighed. “He’s so nice.”

Yes, he was. Maybe too nice.

During American History, I focused every mite of my attention on Mr. Huntley’s lecture about the cotton gin. I never even glanced at Connor, though in my peripheral I often caught him watching me.

“Are you mad at me?” he murmured halfway into class. “I’m focused,” I said.

I didn’t mean to be snotty, or an “ice princess,” like he’d said. I just lacked the energy for dealing with him. I had a mom who wanted me to move with her to Hawaii, a dad who thought she’d still come home, and a sister deciding whether or not to keep my niece. That left very little time to obsess about who my boyfriend might be crushing on.

“So are we gonna talk or what?” Connor asked as I packed away my history textbook.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

He sighed. “Don’t do this.”

“I’m not doing anything.” I looked at Eli and John, who blatantly eavesdropped. They turned away at my glare.

Connor, of course, didn’t allow them to inhibit him. “What happened to the girl who used to yell at me every two minutes? Who told me everything she felt? Everything she thought
I
should feel?”

I hitched my bag over my shoulder. “She sounds kind of obnoxious.”

“I liked her.” He brushed my chin with his fingertip, a strangely intimate gesture for him, especially at school. “Please. Let’s just talk about this so we can move on.”

I headed for the door, away from Eli and John. Connor fell into step with me. I weighed my options as we walked— if I didn’t talk to him about this, it would fester and we’d break up. The results of talking about it couldn’t be any worse than that, could they?

“Jodi just makes me nervous.” I squeezed my binder against my chest, hoping to conceal my trembling hands. “I mean, I hope she’s being sincere with all this church stuff, but I can’t shake my fear that somehow this is all . . .”

“All what?”

“All some plan to get back at me.”

Connor’s forehead wrinkled. “Get back at you for what?”

“For dating you.”

“But why would she care about me? She’s dating Eli.”

“But why would she “It’s complicated.”

“Sounds like it.” He laced his fingers through mine. “You know what I think?”

I cringed. “What?”

“Now, why would you make that face? Why do you assume what I’m going to say is bad?”

“Instinct.”

He slowed to a stop as we reached our parting hallways. “All I was going to say is that I think you’re being a little paranoid because of what happened with Jodi and Eli, but that’s a totally different situation. Okay, why the sour face?”

“Do me a favor. Don’t use the word
paranoid
.”

He cocked his head. “Why not?”

“Just . . .” Nope. Not ready to talk to him about Eli. “Just don’t.”

“Whatever you want.” He brought my hand to his mouth and brushed it with a light kiss. “See you in PreCal.”

When I entered English, I found Jodi and Alexis huddled together same as last week, only this time, Jodi grinned and waved. “You can sit with us if you want.”

She appeared sincere. Alexis narrowed her eyes. Understandable. When I left the group, everybody bumped up one step, Jodi to my former spot as queen and Alexis into Jodi’s role. So of course Alexis didn’t want Jodi and me getting chummy again. It might mean a downgrade.

“It’s okay.” I plopped my stuff on the desk I’d used all last week.

I thought Jodi would let it drop, would return to her conversation with Alexis and accept that we’d parted ways. Instead she walked over to me. “Are you going to youth group tomorrow night?” Her fingernails danced on my desk, so I knew she felt nervous.

“I don’t know.” I pulled
Wuthering Heights
from my bag. “Why?”

“Eli said he doesn’t want to go, and I’m afraid to go by myself.” She shrugged. “I thought it’d be nice if you and Connor were there.”

Seriously? She was inviting me to my own youth group event?

“I don’t know what Connor told you, but I’ve been going to youth group.” Okay, I couldn’t stand to blatantly lie. “I mean, not always, but I plan to this semester.”

“Great.” Jodi turned her smile on Madison as she approached. “Hey, Madison. Great sweater.”

Madison gave her a wary look. “Thanks.”

“See you later.” Jodi waved, then bounced back to a sulking Alexis.

“So, that was weird,” Madison said as she took her seat.

So Madison could see it too! Victory surged through me. “I know, right? She’s up to something. It’s obvious.”

She shrugged. “Or maybe Jodi’s changing. After all, I never believed you would.”

Madison had a point. I returned to my book, deflated.

“So your mom actually thinks there’s a chance of you and Abbie packing up and moving? Maybe . . .” Connor paused for a breath. He opened his mouth, then shook his head and closed it. “Nope. Can’t think of any way that could possibly make sense. She thinks you should finish school over there? That Abbie should find a new doctor?”

I shrugged and tipped back my water. “Guess so.”

“That’s crazy. You told her that, right?”

“Yeah.” Hadn’t I? It all seemed a little hazy after she dropped the Kauai bomb.

Connor grinned. “I wish I could’ve been there when you told Abbie. I bet she was furious.”

“I didn’t tell her.” I stabbed at my salad. I didn’t have to look at Connor to know this confused him. “Abbie’s kinda . . . well, she’s wrestling with some big stuff right now. It seemed insensitive to tell her about Mom.”

I looked up and found him studying my face.

“What?” I asked.

“You’re not . . .”

“I’m not what?”

He placed his sandwich on the tray and folded his arms on the table. “You’re not thinking about going, are you?” “Of course not! Start a new school second semester senior year? That sounds horrible. How can you think I’d do that? I mean, I’d never even consider it.” I forced myself to clamp my jaw shut. How’d that Shakespearean thing go, about protesting too much? I might as well have waved a huge banner saying,
Part of me wants out of here!

Connor shrugged. “You’ve been talking a lot about fresh starts and getting away from everything.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” But a sense of dread filled me. What if that was truer than I’d like it to be?

He picked up his sandwich. “I just wondered, is all. Thought your mom’s offer might have been a little appealing.”

I rolled a couple cherry tomatoes to the side of my plate, where I’d be sure not to eat them. It also kept me from having to look at Connor as I asked, “Would you miss me?”

“You kidding?” I peeked up in time to see his face bloom into a smile, slow and sweet. “I’m starting to wonder how I lived without you.”

My stomach flip-flopped. All that awkwardness of the last week—prompted by my weird freak-out to the news of Eli and Jodi getting back together—melted away.

“I wonder how you did too,” I said with a wink.

And we were back to being us. Skylar and Connor, so mismatched it somehow worked.

“You guys mind if we sit here?”

I looked up at the couple invading our moment. What can you say when there are five empty spaces at your table?

Even as I said, “Sure,” Jodi and Eli had already claimed a couple chairs. I imagined they couldn’t conceive of a Shawnee Mission High student who wouldn’t welcome them at their lunch table. How embarrassing that I’d been like them not so long ago.

“I nearly fell asleep during English class. What about you, Skylar?” Jodi unscrewed the cap on her juice bottle. “
Wuthering Heights
is, like, so boring.”

“You think anything that’s not
People
magazine is boring,” Eli said.

Jodi giggled and elbowed him in the ribs. “Shut up. I do not.”

John took the seat next to Connor. Great. We had a full invasion on our hands. I inched closer to Connor.

“I hate that blonde cashier,” John said, his tray clattering to the table. “She always gives me attitude.”

“You think everyone gives you attitude,” Jodi said.

“You think everyone gives “Well, she really does.”

Eli nodded at Jodi. “She does. I’ve seen it firsthand.”

I glanced at Connor and found him already looking at me, an amused smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Beneath the table, he pressed his knee against mine.
We’re
in this together
, he seemed to say.

Alexis had already set her tray on the other side of John when she spotted me. “Oh.” She blinked her heavily shadowed eyes. “Hi.”

My smile might not have been friendly, but at least I smiled. “Hey.”

She pressed her freshly painted lips into a line as she took a seat.

“Where’s Lisa?” Jodi asked, pretending not to notice the tension between us.

Alexis made her characteristic
humph
. “Probably harassing one of the cafeteria workers about the lack of nonfat salad dressings.”

Jodi and I weren’t the only friends who’d broken up last semester. Alexis and Lisa used to be the perfect picture of bff, but all that changed when Alexis started dating John on the sly. Lisa and John had been together off and on since junior year.