P.S. I Loathe You (3 page)

The LBRs who shared the trailers with the soccer boys ignored him. Instead, they mounted the metal steps to their portable classrooms like court-bound celebrities determined to escape the swarming press.

“
Magawd
, he’ll do anything to get my attention,” Massie muttered to herself. “What did I ever see in him?”

Alicia shook her ponytail from side to side like she had no idea.

“Thank Gawd I like Dempsey now. Double thank Gawd that he’ll be in the main building with us. And triple thank Gawd that he’s not into soccer.”

“You hardly even
know
Dempsey.” Kristen kicked a rock with her black moccasin.

“Hey, Claire!” Layne called from an open window in Trailer No. 1. “Look!” She stuck out a red fingerless–gloved hand and pinched Derrington’s butt-shadow. Claire and Dylan cracked up while Massie searched Kristen’s green eyes for an explanation—something that might explain why she was so anti-Dempsey. But Kristen’s lashes fluttered innocently, revealing nothing.

Massie was the first to break. “Um, are you the OCD Sirens’ goalie?”

“No! I’m the
captain
,” Kristen snapped.

“Then why are you trying to block my shot?”

“I’m nawt.” Kristen side-glanced at Layne, who was now spanking Derrington’s butt-shadow. “It’s just that Dempsey used to be an LBR.”

“So was Leighton Meester.” Massie shrugged. “She was born in jail.”

“He’s friends with Layne,” Kristen tried again.

“So is Kuh-laire.”

“You called him Humpty Dempsey for an entire year.
Re-mem-ber
?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Massie waved the argument away like the smell of burnt microwave popcorn. “But he was cured of his LBR-thritis.” Her body purred recalling the day she had first beheld Dempsey 2.0.

He had just returned from summering in Africa. Rugged safari-colored clothes clung to his new muscles like a hug, each crease on his distressed leather messenger bag probably representing an orphan he had read to. And confidence seeped from his tanned skin like two thousand–dollar Clive Christian cologne. His caramel blond highlights were natural. His army green eyes were supernatural. And she could feel his smile as if it were inside her belly. Dempsey Solomon was the ultimate comeback story. She was his ultimate comeback prize. And if Kristen had a problem with—

“You always told us LBR-thritis couldn’t be cured, only treated,” Kristen hissed.

“Um, are you forgetting the J.T. clause?” Massie hissed back.

Kristen folded her arms across her gray sweater, turned toward Trailer No. 2, and sighed. “Guess so,” she huffed.

Alicia, Dylan, and Claire were starting to inch toward the boys. A few more seconds and they’d be mingle-flirting without her. This conversation had to end. Now.

“TheJ.T.clauseistheJustinTimberlakeclauseremember?”

Kristen shrugged.

Massie took a deep breath, held it for five seconds, then exhaled slowly. “We never thought Justin was hot until Cameron dated him. And we
never
thought he was a ten until he dumped her. And now he’s an alpha male for life.”

“So you’re Cameron? Is that what you’re saying?”
Kristen folded her arms across her chest.

Massie shrugged in a “you said it, I didn’t” sort of way.

“Derr-ing-ton! Derr-ing-ton! Derr-ing-ton!”

And then it hit her. “
He
put you up to this, didn’t he? He’s jealous of Dempsey and scared he’ll never get me back and—”

“Dylan! Dylan! Dylannn!”

Massie whip-turned toward the shouting.

Dylan was standing below the maple, poking Massie’s ex-crush’s butt with a stick, like a marshmallow over a campfire. Everyone was laughing, but no one found it funnier than Derrington. Massie searched for Claire and Alicia, wondering why they didn’t have the good sense to stop Dylan. But they were with Cam and Josh, playing some soccer video game on Trailer No. 2, pretending to care about their scores.

“Dylan, stop!” Massie shout-ran toward the stick in Dylan’s hand. “We don’t like him anymore.”

“Ms. Marvil, what are you
doing
?” shouted an angry female voice that wasn’t Massie’s.

“Getting the stick out of his butt.” Dylan snickered at Derrington’s boxers, ah-bviously not realizing who she was talking to.

The boys burst out laughing while Derrington yanked up his Volcoms.

“
Excuse
me?” the voice screeched.

“Ms. Dunkel?” Dylan’s cheeks turned so purple they clashed with her red hair. The matronly trailer teacher finger-pushed her big round glasses against the bridge of her nose. Tapping one square-toed, square-heeled pump, she folded her arms across her wheat-colored cardigan and nostril-sighed.

Quickly, the boys began gathering their backpacks. The Pretty Committee raced to Massie’s side. And while Ms. Dunkel’s head was turned, Dylan giggle-poked Derrington one last time. Then . . .

Crack.

Snap.

Thud.

The branch suddenly broke, and Derrington plummeted six feet, landing ankle-first on the yellowing grass. Like in a CSI chalk drawing, his left leg was bent and his right was straight.

Everyone gathered around.

“Give him room!” Ms. Dunkel pleaded.

The concern-furrow in her brow became an anger-furrow. The dent in her forehead was deep enough to store loose change.

“Dylan and Derrick.” The teacher stood, wiping her knees. “You know what else starts with
D
?” She tapped her chin reflectively.

“Dunkel?” Derrington peeped from the ground.

Dylan cracked up.

“De-tention!” she barked. “Meet me in the faculty parking lot after school for a very special assignment.” The corners of her mouth curled with delight. “Now, the rest of you, get to class.” She checked her silver-plated Fossil watch. “The bell is about to ring.”

The crowd dispersed, and the Pretty Committee made their way back to the main building like famished, blistered supermodels after New York’s Fashion Week.

“Looks like shopping at Dylan’s after school is canceled,” Massie groaned. The Coach BFFWC key chains knocked against the girls’ handbags as they hurried to keep up with Massie’s agitated pace.

Dylan sighed. “I’m so sorry, you guys. I didn’t mean to—”

“Does this mean we get to go to the soccer game?” Claire’s blue eyes widened with hope.

“Opposite of yes,” Massie snapped.

“You can come to my place,” Kristen offered.

“Why?” Massie raised her right eyebrow. “Did you just get five computers?”

“No.” Kristen shifted her weight from one moccasin to the other. “But we can share. It’ll be fun.”

“
Cher
is something my mom works out to, and it doesn’t look like
fun
.”

Massie picked up her pace even more as they entered the bird-infested parking lot.

“You never come to my house,” Kristen whined.

“Because it’s nawt a
house
,” Massie insisted. “It’s a condo.”

Just then another load of fly-arrhea fell from the sky.

“My sleeve!” Kristen gripped her soiled gray sweater.

The girls giggled in spite of themselves.

“Why so sad? Pigeon poo is good luck, right?” Massie smirked.

Kristen lifted her chin and forced a smile. “Right.”

“Good.” Massie triple-patted her on the back. “Maybe that means you’ll get a house soon.”

Kristen gasped. Alicia, Claire, and Dylan glared at Massie like she had gone too far. But so what if she had? All morning, she’d felt her alpha-grip slipping. And when that happened, the only thing to do was force it back into place.

CURRENT STATE OF THE UNION

BOCD

FACULTY PARKING LOT

Monday, September 21st
3:56 P.M.

Despite everyone’s best efforts to get her to stay for the soccer game, Massie convinced them to go to Pinkberry. And that meant Dylan would be missing the day’s gossip download
and
Cap’n Crunch–covered fro-yo.

But once the rest of the Pretty Committee pulled away in the Blocks’ Range Rover, a teensy part of Dylan felt free. After all, it wasn’t every day she had a date with a boy in the faculty parking lot.

So what if the “boy” was Massie’s ex-crush? Double so what if their “date” was really a detention. And triple so what if Ms. Dunkel would be there too? C-minuses can’t be choosers.

Derrington was sitting on the hood of a cherry red Subaru Forester listening to his black iPod nano when Dylan arrived. The laces on his left sneaker were untied and the tongue had been lifted, like a CEO who loosens his tie after a stressful day at the office. The guy was so hawt he made a foot injury look cool.

“Is Dunkel here yet?” she whispered, just in case.

Derrington shook his head and drummed on his thigh. An ah-dorable mess of dirty blond hair flopped against the green frames of his Ray-Bans.

Dylan grinned. Their sunglasses were the same color.

Then she frowned.

Why hadn’t she put on a fresh coat of lip gloss? Why hadn’t she swapped out Kristen’s ugly cords for something more flattering from the lost-and-found? Why had she eaten chive cream cheese for lunch when it repeated on her like a senile grandmother?

Dylan scanned faculty parking. School had ended almost thirty minutes ago and the lot was still full.

“Were the teachers abducted?” she joked, then immediately hated herself for not being funny.

Derrington continued drumming.

Dylan plucked the thin wire from his ear and—

“AHHHHHH!” he screamed in her face.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” She jumped back.

He burst out laughing, waving his nano to show it was never really on. “Gotcha!”

“You scared me!” Dylan smacked his foot.

“AHHHHHH!” he shouted again. Only this time he was biting his lower lip and grabbing his ankle.

“Ehmagawd, I’m sooo sorry.” She covered her mouth with two hands, realizing she’d just smacked his bum foot.

“S’fine.” He winced.

“Here.” Dylan pulled the poo- and coffee-stained henley out of her bag and began wrapping it around his swollen ankle.

“OW!” he shouted again. “What are you dooo-ing?”

“Applying direct pressure. Now stay still.” She swatted his hand away, imagining they were characters in a movie. He was the testy, wounded tough guy, about to realize he needed the touch of a beautiful woman to complete him.

“I’m not
bleeding
!” He shouted like he was mad but smiled like he was charmed. “I have a sprained—”

“Off my car!” Ms. Dunkel hurried toward them, waving her hands like she was walking through spiderwebs.

Derrington slid off the SUV, landing on his good foot. The other one hovered above the asphalt, like Heather Mills in a high heel. “Sorry.” He snapped his head, flipping the blond shaggy hair off his face. Dylan inched to his side, feeling electricity pass between their fingers, which were almost touching. Could he feel it too?

“As you can see, pigeons have had their way with our vehicles.” Ms. Dunkel surveyed the streaked cars like an army general assessing casualties. “Sewwwww”—she put her hands in the pockets of her navy Dockers and rocked back on her square heels—“for the next two days, while the faculty attends a BOCD overpopulation summit, you will scrub our cars clean. And in the future, you will do your best to fight all urges to climb trees, drop your drawers, and poke each other with sticks on school property.”

Dylan and Derrington exchanged side-glances, fighting the giggles as the details of their mission were explained.

“Understood?”

They nodded yes.

“A member of the custodial staff is on the way with bio-degradable soap, water, cloths, buckets, and paper hats.”

“Paper hats?” Dylan smoothed her red curls, apologizing to them in advance.

“Yes, paper hats.” Ms. Dunkel pointed at the gray sky as if that should explain everything. “There is a fair amount of disease in bird feces. If it seeps into your scalp, it may have unfavorable consequences.”

“Good ta know.” Derrington lifted his brows in faux fascination.

“Yes.” Ms. Dunkel turned toward the squeaking wheels of the incoming janitor’s cart.

“Here?” grunted a pale, freckle-faced man with a tight blond Afro the same color as his wannabe–Stella McCartney flight suit.

“Thank you, Russell.” Ms. Dunkel nodded dismissively. “And good luck, students.” She double-tapped the supply cart like it was a horse, then turned and hurried off toward the main building, her square heels scraping across the pavement.

“How are we gonna do this?” Dylan whined. “Should we sub it out and hire someone?”

Derrington snickered as if she were joking. “You have an iPod?”

“New iPhone,” she bragged.

A pigeon phlegm-cooed above their heads.

“Y’ave Nickelback?” Derrington grabbed two paper hats.

Dylan shook her head no twice: once for Nickelback and again for the paper hat. Fashion trumped feces.

“Coldplay?”

She shook her head again. Derrington shuffled through his songs.

“Chris Brown?” he hoped.

“Nope.” Dylan sighed, wondering if Massie kept boy music on her iPod for moments like these.

“What about Jonas Brothers?” Dylan squeezed her eyes shut, afraid of his reaction.

Derrington turned red. “Uh, whabum?”

“
What
?” Dylan giggled.

He inched closer, then mumbled, “What album?”

Dylan smiled. “
A Little Bit Longer
.”

He thumb-spun the dial, then pressed. “Tell anyone I have this and you’re more busted than my ankle.”

“Pinky-swear.” Dylan held out her pinky and he reached for it with his. They shook once but held on a half-second longer than friends usually did.

Derrington handed her a soap-filled bucket. “Cue up to ‘BB Good,’ and when I say go, hit play. If we each do two cars per song, we should be done in an hour.”