Stalk Me (The Keatyn Chronicles, #1)
Jillian Dodd
This book is for my kids, Kenzie & Connor.
Thanks for pushing me to succeed.
You are both an inspiration in all you do.
Friday, May 6th
Come play with Cush.
3am
“Keatyn baby, come see The Cushman,” a tipsy Brandon Cushman says to me.
I stay where I am.
He walks over, slings his arm around my shoulder, and surveys the mess that is his house.
“Another epic party delivered. Saw your bff was hooking up in the guest room. Watched a little before they kicked me out."
“Would that be Vanessa or RiAnne?”
“Vanessa. I don’t know why she got so pissed. It’s not like I haven’t seen it all before.”
I nod my head. Vanessa has been with pretty much everyone.
“So where's your boyfriend?"
“Bathroom.” I roll my eyes. “Puking.”
“Sander’s the man. You crashing here?"
“No, I’m taking him home. I’m supposed to go surfing in, like, three hours.”
Cush flashes me a grin so sexy it ought to be trademarked. “You looked hot dancing on the bar tonight. When you gonna dump The Sandman? Come play with Cush?”
Cush is a total player, and he doesn’t try to hide it. He’s good looking and popular, so his standard pickup line of Let’s hook up works on most girls. And why wouldn’t it? He’s six feet tall, has a soccer-toned body, and bright blue eyes. During soccer season, his dark blond hair gets buzzed, and he rarely shaves. Tonight there is a fair amount of stubble on his cute face.
He puts his face close to mine, like he’s going to kiss me, but instead he scratches his scruffiness up the side of my cheek and laughs.
I rub my cheek. “Gee, thanks. Now I have Cushburn.”
Cush gently pushes my hair behind my ear and studies my cheek. “It is a little red. Why don’t you come up to my room? I’ll kiss it and make it feel better.”
I roll my eyes at him again and point toward the bathroom. “You wanna make me feel better, go check on The Sandman.”
On cue, Sander, my boyfriend of over a year, stumbles out of the bathroom. He drank too much tonight, as usual.
Cush grabs a bottle of water out of the mini fridge and tosses it to him.
Of course, Sander misses, and it goes skittering across the tile.
Cush and I try to hide our giggles as we watch him drunkenly chase it.
“Fuck you, Cush," Sander says, after he finally corrals the bottle. The guys do the drunken guy hug but skip the I love you, man. Cush isn’t drunk enough for that.
I survey the room littered with all the popular kids from my school and think back to how I imagined my life just a few years ago. How I begged my mom to let me stay in Malibu. How, for the first time in my life, I was going to put down roots. How I dreamed of being popular. I dreamed high school would be like what I'd seen in the movies. I wanted to live out one big high school musical.
I can honestly say, I never imagined a scene like this.
My best friend, Vanessa, is drunk, high, and hooking up with some guy she just met, but thought was hot.
RiAnne was making out on the couch with a guy from the lacrosse team, but a few minutes ago they headed into one of the bedrooms.
Cush's parties used to be fun back when there were about ten of us. Spin the bottle, beer pong, movies, some mild hooking up, all of us thinking we were so cool to be topless in the hot tub.
The more fun we had, the more people came, and the more wild the parties got. Tonight there were close to a hundred people.
“When’s your mom back?" I ask Cush.
“Saturday night,” he says with a frown, eyeing the beer bottles strewn all around.
"I'll come over after surfing to help you clean up. Cleaning ladies come Sunday?"
Cush gives me a hug. “You know it. You’ve got the code. Wake me up when you get here.” He flashes his sexy grin at me again. “Or, better yet, join me in bed.”
I help Sander stagger out to the gaudy purple Lamborghini he bought himself for his eighteenth birthday. He falls asleep the minute I start driving. I look at him, softly snoring in the seat next to me. With his hazel eyes, great smile, and hair that usually has more product in it than mine, the former child star has grown up quite nicely.