The Color Of Grace (14 page)

“Yeah, it was built in—”

“Grace,” Kiera called out, interrupting her boyfriend. “You
haven’t friended Ryder on Facebook yet.”

Spinning away from the posters, I gaped up at the second
level where she now sat in front of the computer with three other people
perched over her shoulder, studying the screen.

“I…uh…” I glanced, panicked, toward Ryder before looking up
at his girlfriend and saying, “He never sent me a request.”

“Oh.” She smiled and turned back to the computer. “Well,
then I’ll send you one for him right now.”

“Hey, how do you know my password?” Scowling, Ryder moved
away from me to climb the ladder and crawl up into the second level where Kiera
sat at his desk.

“I don’t,” she answered. “You never logged out.”

“So you’re on
my
Facebook page right now?”

Kiera grinned and blew him a kiss. “Of course.”

He groaned but didn’t demand she get off as he stood,
staring over her shoulder, watching her send me a friend request.

A few seconds later, Kiera took her hands off the keys and
smirked down at me. “There. I’ve sent you a request from him.”

I sent her a sick smile. “Great.”

“Thanks for accepting my friend request, by the way,” Mindy
said from the couch. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to befriend all of us so soon
after just meeting us.”

I nodded and finally slumped down onto the couch next to her
since her boyfriend was off, clustered over with Todd in front of the
television.

“I still don’t understand how I had so many requests as soon
as I got home from school. You guys work fast.”

“Na. We just sent them
from
school.”

“Really?” I lifted my eyebrows. “That’s cool. They blocked
social networks on our computers at Hillsburg.”

“Oh, they block them at Southeast too.”

I crinkled my brow and sent her a disbelieving look. “Then,
how did you get in?”

“Easy.” She shrugged. “You just type S after the HTTP part
of the web address.”

“Huh?” I said, blinking.

“Add an S. You know, S for secure.”

Above us on the upper level of the room, Kiera snorted.
“Yeah, kind of like L for—”

“Kiera,” Ryder hissed, grabbing her hand and yanking down
the L she was forming off her forehead as she smirked directly at me. “Cut it
out.”

“What?” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and sent him
an innocent, choirgirl smile. “I was just teasing.”

I really did not like that girl, and it wasn’t just because
somewhere deep inside me I was jealous she’d stolen my man. Kiera was simply
evil. That’s all there was to it. It was petty, spiteful girls like her who
gave nice, hard-working cheerleaders a bad image.

As Ryder scowled suspiciously at his girlfriend, Todd
clapped his hands to gain the room’s attention. “Okay, we’ve decided on
tonight’s activity. We’re going to bowl. Who wants to play?”

“Bowl?” I repeated, ever being my clueless self.

“Yeah, on the Wii.”

Ryder had a Nintendo Wii, too? It was official, I decided;
the boy had everything.

So we Wii bowled. I fully planned to sit out and watch, but
somehow Todd sucked me into joining the game. I’d never played any game on a
Wii before and was shocked I even needed to create my own Mii person before
starting.

It felt strange, realizing a Mii Grace would forever more
dwell on Ryder’s Wii. But I had little choice in the matter as Todd created my
avatar for me.

Turned out, I was a natural at Wii bowling. On the first
game, I hit three strikes in a row, with Ryder following at a close second
place.

He scowled at me after the final scores tallied.

“One more game,” he announced, and the two of us openly
competed against each other as we took our turns. Everyone in the room
encouraged it, having fun as they cheered against Ryder and rooted me on.

I won again, hitting five strikes in a row and four spares
on the second game.

Ryder demanded yet another replay, his competitive streak
shining through. But Kiera wanted to play something else. So the Wii was put
away and Ryder’s Xbox Kinect—which I’d never even heard of until then—was
dragged out. Yeah, yeah, I know. I was sadly behind in the gaming world.

On Kinect, we played Space Pop. I totally sucked at Space
Pop because I felt like a total moron jumping around in front of a television
without any kind of controller in my hand. Motion censored games were so not my
thing.

Todd won all the Kinect games we played and gloated
mercilessly in Ryder’s face, which didn’t really win him brownie points in my
book. A smug winner was worse than a sore loser.

By the time everyone grew tired of him chanting, “You lose,
sucka,” it was a quarter after eleven. A couple people had already left and
Mindy and her boyfriend were digging their coats out of the pile we’d made on
the floor.

“Man, I still have to study for that history test in the
morning,” the boy who’d ridden with Todd announced as he stretched his arms
over his head and let out a resounding yawn.

“I do too,” one of the cheerleaders said. She glanced
meaningfully toward Todd.

Happy I wasn’t the first to poop out, I nodded when Todd
gave me a look, silently asking if I was ready to leave as well.

We climbed up and out Ryder’s window, the girls making jokes
and giggling as everyone piled back into Todd’s Jeep. The seat under me felt
extra cold as we waited for the engine to warm. I huddled deep into my logger’s
jacket as exhaustion stole into my body and fuzzed my brain.

I didn’t talk much as Todd drove the three in the back seat
home first. As we dropped off the last girl, however, he grinned over at me.
“Still half an hour before your curfew,” he reminded. “What do you want to do?”

“Go home.” I yawned and wiped at my dry eyes. When I
realized how rude I sounded, I dropped my hand. “I’m sorry, I mean, I’m really
tired. If you don’t mind…”

His shoulders had slumped but he nodded as he pulled out of
the cheerleader’s drive. “No problem. I can take you home.”

“Thank you. I live close to the school on—”

“I know where Dr. Struder lives,” Todd cut in, sending me a
knowing smile.

“Oh.” I swallowed, wondering how the people around Osage
knew so much about Barry.

We pulled into my new driveway five minutes later. “I’ll see
you to your door,” Todd said as he killed the engine.

It was dark, cold, and foreign, so I didn’t argue. I opened
the passenger side door and waited for him to come around to me since the
sidewalk to the front porch sat on my side.

He walked close; our arms bumped occasionally as we dodged
icy spots before finally stepping under the overhang of the porch.
Someone—probably Mom—had left on the light by the entrance, so when I turned to
Todd to thank him, I could see his face clearly.

He really was an attractive boy. His hazel eyes glittered in
the porch light. I found myself eye level with his goatee. There was a bare
spot on his chin, just under his lip, where no hair grew. Thinking back on that
moment, I have to wonder if Todd thought I was staring at his mouth, while
honestly, I was wondering why that tiny little space was bald.

“Did you have fun tonight?” he asked.

I lifted my face. “I like bowling,” I had to admit. Actually,
I liked beating Ryder. He hadn’t pouted about losing, but he’d been just
competitive enough to make me feel awesome about winning.

“Good.” Todd’s smile was pure pride as he added, “Maybe
you’ll like this too.”

My eyebrows wrinkled in question, and I opened my mouth to
ask,
like what
? But he swooped down
and pressed his lips to mine so quickly the words muffled in my throat.

I’d like to say shock froze me those two—or three, possibly
four, okay,
five
—seconds we stood
there kissing. I was shocked; there was no doubt about that. But curiosity held
me motionless as well. I’d never been kissed, felt lame for being so
inexperienced. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about, wanted that little
item checked off my life’s to-do list.

Been kissed?

Check.

But as I realized I really wasn’t thrilled by the sensation,
I grew a little indignant.

I mean, what the heck was he doing? He hadn’t even asked.
This was my first kiss; shouldn’t I have had some say in who got to be the boy
to deliver such a memory?

Guess not.

Todd seemed to think he had every right because after those
frozen five seconds of mashing our mouths together in a most uncomfortable
fashion, he stepped closer and wrapped his hand around my jaw, tilting my face
up so he could keep on kissing me.

That’s when I jerked away with a gasp.

“G’night.” I spun away from him, reaching blindly for the
front door.

For a split second, I feared Mom might’ve locked me out and
I’d have to stand outside with him as I dug my key from my pocket. But thank
goodness, the handle gave under my fingers. I twisted hard and shoved my way
inside, shutting Todd out as he opened his mouth to say, “Grace—”

Once I was safely tucked inside, I
licked my tingling lips, then grimaced as I tasted Todd’s foreign flavor.
Frantically scrubbing at my mouth with the back of my hand, I wished for the
umpteenth time I could have a rewind button to start the entire day over.

Chapter 12

Like the third room in Edgar Allan
Poe’s
The Masque of The Red Death,
I’m overwhelmed with green. A new bud on a
spring tree, awakened to the world and beginning to grow or a baby puppy,
learning to walk through tall grass, I can only stumble along because I’m inexperienced,
a tadpole with new gills as I take my first breath of womanhood. Is every first
kiss so awkward? Does every girl feel disappointed afterward…as if she just
pressed her mouth to the wrong boy?

* * * *

Mom and Barry hadn’t waited up for me, thank goodness. I
hurried through the dark house to my new room and quickly shut the door,
flipping on a light. As I did, I continued to scrub at my mouth. Though no one
could see me, I blushed.

Honestly, the whole messy business was plain embarrassing.

I kept wondering why Todd had kissed me, why I hadn’t liked
it, why I’d let him continue so long.

My mind wandered to Ryder. Of course. After asking myself if
it would’ve felt the same to kiss him, I immediately banished that question
from my brain and decided I shouldn’t be thinking about him at all.

Too keyed up to sleep, I flopped onto my bed and pulled my
laptop out of my book bag that lay cushioned on a pillow. After booting up, I
logged into Facebook, hoping maybe some of my Hillsburg friends were online. I
needed a good dose of the nerd herd after the night I’d just had. Craving
conversation with people more like me, I typed in my password and logged on.

I should’ve known better. At this time of night, they were
no doubt sleeping peacefully in their beds. But the little red number 1 in my
friend requests box reminded me of Kiera’s request from Ryder.

Biting my lip, I stared hard at that number. If I ignored
it, everyone would know, especially after Kiera had made such a big deal of
sending it, and they’d think I didn’t like Ryder. Or maybe they’d know I did
and was too mortified to friend him. Then again, Ryder hadn’t bothered to tell
Kiera to stop, so he must not care whether we were Facebook friends or not.

I was seriously over-thinking this, so I decided to just do
it. Letting out a shaky sigh, I clicked on the red number and then slid the
cursor over the accept button. I hovered on top of it a moment before holding
all the air in my lungs and quickly pushing down.

And Ryder Yates became my friend, on Facebook anyway.

Temptation was impossible to resist, I clicked his link and
checked out his profile. He had two hundred thirteen friends, twelve of which
we shared. His profile picture showed his truck, the new extended cab I’d seen
parked in his driveway. In the text box under that, he’d written, “Yeah, I’m
that one guy who goes to that one school.”

I rolled my eyes but sucked in a breath when I saw how his
relationship status read,
In a
relationship
, with Kiera’s link under that. I clicked back to my own
profile before I could open any of his photo albums and torture myself further
by staring into his gorgeous green eyes.

Bridget had invited me to a party in Farmville.

As I began to reply, I noticed a new friend had logged on.
Hoping Bridge couldn’t sleep either, I checked to find out who was online with
me and gasped.

Ryder was on Facebook.

Ugh.

I was about to disconnect when my chat box popped up and, yes,
he wrote to me.