Winter White (27 page)

Mira didn’t understand what Izzie was talking about. This is how it was with Izzie—one moment Mira wanted to strangle her, the next she wanted to give her a big hug. Having her around left Mira with such a mixed bag of emotions. She thought about how she could make things right, once and for all. “Look, we don’t have to like each other, but let me help you. I’m sorry about the stores, okay? I’ll book catering. Just say the word. But watch yourself with the DJs.” Izzie’s eyes narrowed. “Wave Machine is going to call you. Savannah told them to cancel on you right before the event.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because I’m telling the truth,” Mira insisted. “I know how Savannah works. That’s why I’m warning you about the DJ and about hanging out with Brayden—”

“Forget Brayden!” Izzie sounded exasperated. “Worry about your own screwed-up relationship!”

“Excuse me?” Mira said, the anger kicking in again.

“Your relationship with Taylor is sweet, but it lacks substance. Just like you,” Izzie said smugly. It was the first time Izzie had ever said something cruel to her, and Mira did not like being on the receiving end. “You’re like a puppy, always at Taylor’s and Savannah’s beck and call. You never stand up for anything, not even yourself,” she kept going. “The world has been handed to you in a pretty Tiffany box and you have no idea what to do with it. You have no guts, and no guts means no glory.”

“I have plenty of guts!” Mira snapped. She pulled her coat tight as the rain fell harder.

“I know what I see,” Izzie said, her tone changing from anger to sadness. She pulled her sweater hood over her head and without another word disappeared down one of the alleys behind a shop, leaving Mira alone with her thoughts.

She was still shaking when Taylor’s mom’s BMW pulled up to the curb, sending water splashing in every direction. Mira jumped back to avoid getting mud all over her new jeans. Taylor slid out of the front passenger seat and grinned at her. Mira hadn’t seen him in three days. She’d stayed home sick ever since their fight.

“Babe, why are you out here without an umbrella? You’re going to get sick again.” He opened an umbrella and held it over them as the rain pelted down on the plastic. Mira leaned into his chest, feeling dazed.
You’re like a puppy, always at Taylor’s and Savannah’s beck and call.
Was that really how she behaved? She couldn’t get Izzie’s voice out of her head. “Are you okay?” Taylor asked.

“I just had a huge fight with Izzie,” she said. “It was awful. I came down here early to make things right with her, but it blew up in my face.” She sighed. “Twice. Before that, I had a fight with Savannah, too. She said I was conspiring with Izzie and Brayden behind her back.”

“Were you?” Taylor rubbed her shoulders.

Mira pulled away. “No. How could you even ask me that?”

He hesitated. “It’s just… You’ve been a little off lately. Making amends with Izzie? Why would you do that?”

“She’s my cousin, Taylor,” Mira said as if it should have been obvious. She stepped into the rain, away from the shelter of the umbrella, almost as if she couldn’t stand another second by his side.

“Okay, forget it.” Taylor pulled her hand. “I don’t want to fight. Ryan is saving a booth for us at Corky’s. We should get going.” They began walking down the street as if the matter were resolved, but she felt annoyed. Why was she letting Taylor dictate again? And why was she listening?

“I thought we were spending tonight alone,” Mira said, hearing the sound of a lone car as it splashed through the puddles. “I really wanted to talk to you in private.” She stared at his blue eyes. She had messed things up with all the boys she cared about, including Hayden. He was still mad at her for what had happened to Izzie on Tryout Day. Taylor was her boyfriend. She had to try to fix things.

Taylor kicked at a puddle near them. “Seriously, Mira. More talking? We tried talking after I found you with those art geeks, and look where that got us. Can’t we just go out with the team like we used to and have a good time tonight?”

That was not the response Mira was looking for. “I just thought—”

“You thought.” He shook his head. “You think this relationship is all about you and your feelings.” He sounded more annoyed than she would expect. “Well, it’s not. My life is football. You used to watch me play, hang with the guys’ girlfriends, be with the team.” He ran a hand through his hair, which she used to like so much. Now she thought it looked oily. “But now, you’d rather hang out with those art geeks. What were you doing in there, anyway? Ryan’s girlfriend says—”

Mira wished she could knock him on his butt so hard that he couldn’t get up. But she was too much of a lady to do that. “I don’t care what Ryan’s girlfriend says!”

Some of the guys’ girlfriends were okay, but it was their life’s mission to worship the team. They were the first at every pep rally, the first to make posters for the games, the first at every victory celebration at Corky’s. Didn’t any of them want their own lives? Mira had been wondering a lot about that lately. She liked having space. If Taylor wanted to be that suffocating, then maybe, she realized, she didn’t want to be with him.

“I’m not Ryan’s girlfriend,” she said, her voice softening. “I’m yours, and I should be allowed to do what I want, too. You’re right. I have been hanging out with the art geeks,” she admitted as he looked at her strangely. “I’m taking art classes. Two, actually, and I haven’t told you because I didn’t know what you’d say, but you know what? Now I don’t care.” If she had to tell him about it on a street corner before they met the team of annoying pep squad girlfriends, then fine. “Mr. Capozo says I’m really good, and if I work at it, I could someday make a career out of it.” She was getting pumped up. “Maybe I could illustrate children’s books! There’s so much I haven’t thought about before.” If that wasn’t guts, she didn’t know what was.

“Who are you?” Taylor asked, letting his arm drop and the umbrella in the process. They both felt the rain pelt their faces and Taylor quickly held the umbrella up again. “You’ve been taking art classes and you didn’t tell me? What does that say about our relationship?”

“Um, well, you’re the one who keeps throwing around the words
art geek
,” Mira said, her voice tight. “Can you see why I would be afraid to tell you?”

“God, Mira!” He walked around in a huff, and Mira flinched. Boyfriends were not supposed to yell at their girlfriends that way. “I have enough stuff to deal with,” Taylor growled. “I don’t need the guys ribbing me about you now, too.”

“You’re not the only one who has stuff going on,” she said, getting upset. “It hasn’t exactly been easy having a new person live with us, especially when my dad is getting ready for the biggest campaign of his life. But of course, we don’t talk about that stuff because you don’t come to any of my family events.” She couldn’t resist the jab. Her heart was racing. This conversation was spiraling out of control. She felt like she was on a train and she couldn’t signal the conductor to let him know it was her stop.

She exhaled deeply and tried to clear her head. When she looked at Taylor again, she felt like she didn’t know who he was anymore. “Maybe we should take a break,” she admitted to him and to herself at the same time. It hurt saying the words out loud. “This isn’t working.”

“This isn’t working for me, either,” he said stiffly, even if he did look a little wounded.

“Dude! What are you doing out here?” Kyle Warnes, the team’s second-string quarterback, and his girlfriend, Riley Danford, walked up behind them, cuddling under a polka-dot umbrella. Both Mira and Taylor were startled. “Ryan’s got us a booth and he says it’s jammed. You guys coming?”

“Yeah,” Taylor said, staring at Mira. He at least handed her his umbrella. “I’m coming alone.”

Kyle and Riley looked back at Mira questioningly, but she stared straight ahead and watched the back of Taylor’s football jacket disappear down the street. Her heart was pounding and she was still shaking, but for the first time in a long time, she finally felt like she had done the right thing.

Twenty

“Iz, I think I have feelings for you,” Brayden had said.

Two seconds before that they had been laughing so hard that her milk shake was coming out of her nose, and then Brayden had stopped laughing and had said
that
: “I think I have feelings for you.”

Izzie’s head was still spinning a day later. Brayden was all she could think about. She kept playing the evening over and over again in her head and wondered if there could have been a different outcome.

Corky’s was Brayden’s idea. Izzie had purposefully avoided going there after Violet had told her the diner was a popular EP hangout, but Brayden had insisted, saying they had to celebrate.

Izzie had just booked a venue for the Falling into You Fest. Make that a
second
venue as an alternative to the school arts center. After all the problems she had the day before with booking vendors, Izzie suspected Savannah would mess with the event location, too. She had been played in the past and she wasn’t going to let it happen again, which was why she was determined to find somewhere cool to hold the party even it killed her. Trouble was, she didn’t know many places, Violet had left that afternoon to visit family in New York, and Nicole had her zillionth family party (she was one of five kids). So Izzie had gone to one of the only other people she trusted.

“I need to find a barn,” she had said to Brayden, stopping him at his locker. He smelled like coconut, which reminded her of summer, his suntan lotion, and surfing all in one. The effect was dizzying.

Brayden’s mouth twitched. “A barn? Let’s rewind. ‘Hey, Brayden, how are you?’ ”

“Sorry, but I need help and fast.” She looked away as a few football players walked by and stared at her. “I have a feeling the arts center is going to fall through, and if I don’t have a plan B, then those cute Butter Me Up cupcakes will have nowhere to be served.”

“That would be tragic,” he agreed. He put his history and math books into his backpack and looked at her oddly. “Does the arts center falling through have anything to do with Mira and Savannah?”

“Friends rule number one, remember?” She leaned against his locker. “No discussing the S word.” They’d agreed to that after what had happened at Butter Me Up. Brayden was pretty upset when he realized Savannah had been sabotaging Izzie, and Izzie still felt bad for questioning his choice in girlfriends. It seemed easier to avoid the topic completely.

Brayden ran his fingers through his hair and grinned. “Forgot our friends rules already. So a barn, huh? What about the one on campus? EP has its own farm, you know.”

“You guys have your own farm?” Izzie was incredulous. Her new school got stranger and stranger by the minute.

“We have a garden, too.” Brayden picked up Izzie’s book bag, which she had dropped at her feet. He slung it over his shoulder along with his own, and she didn’t protest. It felt kind of nice having him hold her stuff. “They use the milk, lettuce, et cetera, in the cafeteria. EP is all about being ecofriendly.”

“This I’ve got to see,” she said, and then they walked for what felt like miles, past all the buildings, past the soccer field and the Bill Monroe Sports Complex, and over a hill where there was the nicest barn Izzie had ever seen. It looked like it had been ripped out of a catalog—it was a large, new building with oak floors, big windows that overlooked a pond, and a massive, high ceiling with exposed rafters. The cows were munching happily on hay in a corner, but the bulk of the space was empty, as if the rest of the animals had found better lodging. She wondered where that would be. The barn looked as five-star as a cow could get.

“Can I help you?” a man asked. He didn’t look like a farmer. He was wearing the male EP teacher standard—dress shirt, dress pants, and oxfords. He did have on an apron, though.

“Hi, my name is Brayden Townsend, and this is my friend Izzie Scott, and we were wondering if we could book this place for a school function,” Brayden said so effortlessly that Izzie was jealous.

“Mark Baker. I oversee the farm.” He frowned. “I didn’t think EP held events in places like this.”

Brayden nudged her to jump in, but she was afraid of screwing things up like she had the other day on Main Street.
Act friendly, be truthful, talk fast
, she told herself. “They do now,” she said with a smile. “The Social Butterflies are raising money to redo a community center, and our first event is a hoedown. What better place to have a hoedown than in an actual barn?”

“I like hoedowns,” Mark said. “Used to have them all the time when I was a kid.” He cocked his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in this town, though.”

“This will be the first,” Brayden told him. “We need the space for a Saturday night, so we’d have to find someplace to put the cows on Friday so we can clean it out and then we could have the place back to you on Sunday.”

Izzie tried not to focus on the word
we
. Did that mean he was going to help her with all this? He had so far. What would she do without him?

Izzie tried not to laugh. “The event is still under wraps,” Izzie added, “so we just ask that you don’t mention it to anyone till the invitations go out.” She was going to keep this location a secret till the last second. Anything to keep Savannah from stealing it away.