The Lost Boys (36 page)

Harry, Josh and Sam were oblivious to what was happening on stage; they looked happy with their performance and the reaction of the audience.

Caroline jumped on stage and hugged Tristan, and at first he didn’t respond. But then he seemed to remind himself of his act, and he reluctantly put his arm around her, glancing sideways at me. Seth came over, worry filling his eyes. I stood up and walked out from behind the piano, giving him a hug.

“That’s okay, Seth. Everything’s fine. Don’t you worry about me, okay?” I said, parting the hug and smiling softly at him. “It was a beautiful song. Tristan should be proud of it. It’s one of our best songs, if not the best,” I said sincerely. “I wish I’d had a little time to practice it, though, but we can rehearse it more later.”

Seth looked at me in relief. “Really?”

“Yes. It’s really great. And the part when you and Tristan sang together was the best bit! You two were great!” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder.

“Thanks, Joey.” He smiled. “You are so amazing. I wish he could see that too,” he said, glancing Tristan’s way.

Tristan was watching our exchange with an indecipherable expression. I shrugged and went to hug the other boys. I wasn’t really upset over the song. Tristan was still trying to push me away, the best he could. I knew he didn’t mean it. It was time for a few more rounds of my master plan until I landed my final blow.

That night we all went celebrate the success of Tristan’s new song in a small bar in Saint Pete, the small town close to school grounds. Seth had inside connections with the owner of the bar (I told you that boy knew everyone, everywhere!) and since the place was fairly empty, the owner let us in to celebrate there that night, with the condition that we didn’t drink anything alcoholic. Tristan brought Caroline along, and Sammy invited a girl named Melinda to come with us. I debuted one of my new dresses that night, a low-cut little black dress. I felt really fancy in it. Tiffany lent me a pair of her high-heeled black sandals. They were tremendously sexy, but equally painful. I let my hair down too, and put on a dark-red lipstick. I got a lot of compliments from everybody, but none from Tristan.

I had an amazing time, laughing and dancing with my boys. Sammy was courting Melinda all night long, and Josh couldn’t stop flirting with lots of girls in the bar. Seth had Tiffany in his arms all night, and Tristan just hunched in his chair and sulked the whole time, while Caroline tried to get him to dance with her, to no avail. A few guys I didn’t know even came to flirt with me and asked to buy me drinks, but the boys always intervened at that point, pulling me away. They were awfully over-protective of me, which was sweet of them, but a bit annoying as well.

On the ride back to the school, I got in the back of Sammy’s car with Harry and Caroline, who sat between us, since she was the shortest and wouldn’t block Sam’s rear-view mirror. Tristan sat in the passenger seat while Sam drove, chatting and laughing with me and Harry, both boys teasing me about how good I looked. But Tristan and Caroline just sat there in silence, sulking in their seats. Caroline was fuming over the way Tristan had been treating her all night, and I even felt kind of bad for her. He was being a real lousy date tonight. Guilt gnawed at me, because Caroline didn’t deserve to be treated like that, and it was my plan that was putting Tristan in such a foul mood; but then I remembered it was his idea to fake-date her in the first place, and I pushed the guilt down until I couldn’t feel it any more.

When we arrived back at school and Sam had parked the car, Tristan was the first to get out, acting like he had a thunder cloud over his head. He banged the door and stalked off. He didn’t even wait for Caroline. She rushed after him.

“Jeez, what’s up with Tristan tonight, man? He was a serious pain!” Harry asked, and Sam just shrugged his shoulders, clueless. “I guess Caroline isn’t putting out, man, the way he’s all tensed up like that. That’s some major sexual tension there. He seriously needs to let off some steam, if you know what I mean!” Sam sniggered at Harry, and then he caught my frown and coughed loudly to cover it up. Boys!

I bade them goodnight and walked back to my room barefoot, having slipped off the killer high heels. I was glad I was getting under Tristan’s skin like that. It meant my plan was working. When I stepped inside the dorm room, he was already there, slouched on his bed alone, playing one of Sam’s portable videogames. Thank God he’d managed to wriggle free from Caroline’s grasp. He clearly wasn’t in the mood for cheerleading tonight. I smiled to myself as I walked to my bed.

He was still in a foul mood, a huge scowl plastered on his face. I bet myself he would start picking a fight with me any time soon, as he had been attempting to do all the previous nights of the week. “Didn’t want to spend the night over at Harry’s?” he sniped at me in a mocking tone.

“Nah, he was tired. He wasn’t going to satisfy me the way I deserve, tonight!” I said teasingly. “So I thought it would be best to leave him to rest for now. Maybe tomorrow,” I said suggestively.

He grunted and stared at his computer game, punching the buttons with vengeance. He was rubbish at videogames, a real modern novelty in his eyes, but he continued trying to understand how the things worked, no matter how many times he died in the game.

I walked over to him and sat right by his side on his bed. “Tris, would you help me get out of this dress? I can’t reach the zipper,” I said, turning my back to him.

He paused his game and muttered something under his breath, betraying his irritation with my request. I pretended I didn’t understand all his quiet growling and grabbed my hair, pulling it all to the front, leaving the back of the dress clear to him. One of his hands reached over and rested against my lower back, putting a gentle pressure on the fabric of the dress, and his other hand tugged at my neckline, next to the zipper.

I had never been so aware of his touch as I was at that moment, the heat of his hands hovering over my back. He grabbed the zipper and gave a slight tug, sliding it down. I could feel the palm of his hands brushing softly over my skin, so slowly, hesitantly, like he was afraid of what he was doing. The faint tingling sensation spread wherever his hand touched my skin, sending shivers down my spine. I had forgotten how his touch made me feel. Suddenly my plan didn’t seem so safe any more. I was feeling way out of control here. I felt his hand give the final pull, and the zipper slid fast down the last remaining inches of the dress, exposing my entire bare back to him.

I heard him catch his breath and then silent tension filled the room like a thick fog. I stood up slowly and turned around, clutching the front of my dress so it wouldn’t slip off me. Tristan looked like he was still holding his breath.

“T-thanks,” I managed to stutter shakily.

It took a while for him to respond. “No problem,” he said, in a low hoarse voice, lust filling his eyes. Then he grabbed his videogame like it was a life-saver on a sinking ship, and then he resumed his game. Literally and metaphorically speaking.

I mentally cursed. I had almost slipped up there, and he was still playing his silly act, still in control. I went to the bathroom with wobbly legs and changed into my short white cotton PJs. When I came out, he didn’t even acknowledge me. So I just shrugged and decided to call it quits for tonight. I stopped trying to look sexy, lost the hip-swaying moves and just walked over to my bed, getting ready to go to sleep.

Man, I was so tired! I yawned loudly, arching my back and stretching out my arms, feeling the tension in my muscles disappear. I relaxed and dropped my arms, blinking lazily at the floor. My stretching had made my tight top lift up a little, showing off my belly and hips. I was about to push my top back down, when I glanced up at Tristan.

He had stopped playing and was staring me down. His look was so intense that it had caught me off guard, his eyes burning with a fierce hunger. “Tris … are you all right?” I asked, before I could stop myself.

He took a sharp intake of air in raw agony, and my heart filled with pure satisfaction. There was so much need and desire in his eyes. Then he blinked a couple of times and tossed his videogame onto the bed. “I’m fine,” he snapped. “I just need … a shower. That’s all.” He stormed off to the bathroom. Lately he seemed to be needing a lot of long showers. I’ll bet they were all cold ones. So … Stretching, huh? How about that … I needed to tell Tiffany about this new discovery. I also needed to push Tristan a little harder; I needed to step up my game. I needed to land my last punch. Saturday was going to be knock-out day!

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Poker Game

On Saturday I put the last part of my evil plan in motion. Well, I hoped it would be the last, I didn’t know how much longer I could endure this silly game. I had convinced Tiffany and all the boys to participate in our own poker game night. Tristan and some boys usually had a poker game once a month, but it was a boys-only type of event, and it was mainly engineered by Bradley. That fact alone made me shiver and run away from it as fast as I could. Spending a night of gambling with Bradley and his moronic friends was definitely not my definition of a good time. Plus, girls were not allowed at Bradley’s poker nights.

But Tristan was the golden boy of the team now, and he had to attend the games every month. He sometimes took Sammy and Josh with him. Seth refused to go because he had his ongoing feud with Bradley. Harry was forbidden to attend poker nights since
The Incident
. They didn’t like to talk about it much, but from what I could gather, the major problem with Harry and poker was that he was totally unpredictable. He was the master of bluffing, mostly because he didn’t pay attention to what was going on around him, and had no clue about the rules of the game.

And the other big problem was that, despite this, he had an almost supernatural lucky streak. Harry usually bankrupted everyone at the table. And to top it all, he made fun of the sore losers quite vehemently. After some hours of relentless money loss, things had gotten out of control on the night in question. It had all ended in a fist fight, with Harry banned from poker nights permanently. So I convinced everyone to have our private, special poker night, Lost Boys only! And Tiffany could come too, because she was a Lost Boy’s girlfriend, and she was the only one who could arrange to get the key for the recreation room. Now, the special thing about our night was that we were going to play strip poker. Yep. You heard me right. As in, poker with stripping!

Josh was the first to accept. He was awfully competitive, and I knew he would immediately accept anything involving a dare. Sam and Seth tried to protest a little, but they caved after a few minutes of Josh calling them chicken. Harry just shrugged, like it was no big deal for him about the poker or the stripping. The boys had stripped Harry so many times before that it wasn’t big news for him to end up naked any more. He was just thrilled about being allowed to play poker again.

The winner of the round got to pick the person who was going to have to take off a piece of clothing. The best part was that, with so many boys playing the game, the opportunities for getting to strip would be many, increasing my chances of succeeding with my evil plan because:

1. I could tease Tristan with my nakedness, piling on the pressure.

2. I could make Tristan rage with jealousy over the boys ogling me naked, and me admiring them.

3. Then I could make him crack, lose his precious self-control and stop with the stupid pretending.

Of course, I was planning to stop playing before I got down to my underwear. But Tris didn’t know that. He was going to flip when he saw me losing items of clothing, one after another! I was sure as hell he was going to crack tonight.

I was kind of nervous about it, though. If someone caught us there, it was a sure-fire way to be expelled. Being out of the dorms at late hours, gambling and a bunch of half-naked kids locked up in a room … Tiffany reassured me that we wouldn’t get caught. They had Bradley’s poker nights at the school all the time, and no one had ever caught them.

When we arrived at the rec room that night, the boys were already inside, talking excitedly. Tiffany was all perky and pretty, wearing a scarf, earrings, a small cute beret, a jacket, bracelets and so many pieces of clothing that it was kind of funny. Josh caught on at once.

“No way that’s going to count, Miss Worthington! You have to be wearing the same amount of clothes as all of us!” he said, walking towards us. “Otherwise it’ll take a week to get you naked. See Joey here? She’s wearing the same thing as us: jeans, shirt and shoes. Three pieces is more than enough!”

“Oh, all right!” Tiffany snapped at Josh, pouting.

I didn’t remind Josh that girls also wore bras – he didn’t know I wasn’t playing to win. Evil plan required a lot of skin showing. If Tristan didn’t cave tonight, then … I didn’t know what else to do any more …

Tristan was slouching on the old couch next to the game table, playing Sam’s videogame again. He was plugged into that thing lately like it was his life-support machine.

“Come on, Tristan! It’s time to play some strip poker!” Josh bellowed to him. Tristan glanced up quickly and frowned.

“Strip poker? I thought you said this was going to be a normal poker night.”

“It is a normal poker night. But with stripping,” Josh replied smugly, and when he saw the glare Tristan was shooting his way he added quickly, “Come on, if I’d told you about it, you would never have come. Stop being so prudish, man. Let’s have some fun!”

“Strip poker’s not for me. Sorry, Josh. I’ll pass on this one. The ladies should have the decency to do the same,” he added, giving Tiffany and me a pointed glare before staring back at the videogame while everybody took their seats around the game table.

“Aw, come on, you play with that idiot Bradley and not with us?” Seth complained, offended.

“Yeah, what’s that all about?” Sam joined in the protests. “You’re always saying life’s too short and that we should make the most of it while we can, and now you won’t even play a little game with us?” Harry pointed out, pulling out a chair out for Tristan. I walked behind Tristan’s couch and leaned over him, wrapping my arms around his neck and resting my hands on his broad chest. I felt him tense instantly beneath my hands.