Lisa snapped back, “Yeah, in front of everyone, trampoid. Too bad you skipped first, probably because he couldn’t risk taking the bag off your head.”
Margie’s jaw dropped open, but she didn’t dare say anything back. She knew she’d been outmatched. She just gave a huff and stormed out of the room, leaving Lisa and me to look at each other in disbelief.
I would have laughed, but I was still too taken aback to find any humor in the situation. I mean, Margie and I didn’t hang out every other minute, but we were sociable enough in school, and even if that weren’t the case, I thought she had acted entirely out of line. I didn’t know where the nasty streak was coming from.
Two hours later, we saw her making out with Rymer in the hallway, so Lisa and I figured she must have just been completely drunk. Or on drugs. Or had survived a massive blow with a blunt object to her head.
How else to explain not only the bad attitude toward me, but the fact that she was hooking up with Rymer?
Speaking of hooking up... Sargento and Heather seemed to be hitting it off, without any intervention from me or Lisa, so it was like they were meant to be. But even more unexpected was watching Cooper lavish attention on Heather’s friend Becca all night. I knew she’d had a crush on him forever and I couldn’t help thinking that if Coop hadn’t spent the better part of the past six months nursing my broken heart, those two could have gotten something going a lot sooner. Now, with only a summer left before we all went our separate ways, I felt like I’d robbed both of them the chance to actually give the relationship a real go.
Standing there watching them gave me the smallest attack of jealousy. Not so much that Coop had finally gotten over me, but more because I’d spent my entire senior year basically single, in love with someone who would never see me as more than a friend. It was agony, but I was learning to deal with it, because I knew it was even more tortuous when Trip was totally cut out of my life. After half a year in that state, I’d already decided that having him as a friend was better than not having him at all.
I felt an arm slip around my waist and turned my head to see Trip smiling behind me. How did I live the past months, not seeing him smile at me like that? I gave his arm a quick squeeze as he asked, “Having fun yet?”
I could feel the length of his body pressed right up against mine from my shoulder to my calves. Yeah. I’d say I was having fun.
“Yep. Another Rymer party. Fun, fun, fun.”
He laughed and released me from our hug. “Jeez, Lay. That dress is something else. I almost feel like I should take you out of here to ah, you know...” then he leaned in to whisper, “go dancing.”
Such a tease.
I was thinking of calling him out for being a big flirt, but instead, the words that came out of my mouth were, “Actually, you think we could find somewhere to go talk?”
He raised an eyebrow, almost mocking me for suggesting we “go talk”, which in high school world, was a euphemism for “make out”. But he saw the serious look on my face and must have decided not to bust my chops. “Yeah, sure. I kinda figured you’d want to eventually. Let’s start saying goodbye while we polish of our drinks.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Chapter 26
GUILTY BY SUSPICION
We’d decided to head back to his house, knowing that we’d have the place to ourselves. His sister and parents had gone into the city to have a late dinner in Mr. Wilmington’s new TRU hotel, which was slated for the grand opening in a few weeks.
Since we only had about a three-minute ride, I decided not to get into any in-depth conversation until we hit the house. I was looking forward to getting rid of the awkwardness between us, hash out any lingering kinks about our standoff and get up to date on what we’d both been up to in our lives since then. As great as it was to have him back in my life, there was still this implicit unease that hung like a cloud over our friendship.
When we pulled into the driveway, I couldn’t believe the house I was looking at. It was a huge, stone mansion with oversized windows and a steeply pitched roof, the sheer size of the massive structure dwarfing the surrounding pine trees.
Trip’s voice broke my gawking. “Oh, shit. They’re home.”
I noticed the Mercedes parked in front of the garage doors and wondered what the big deal was. I didn’t really see too much of a problem. The Wilmingtons lived in a mansion. I was sure we’d be able to find some privacy somewhere in the humongous house.
I got out of the truck, saying, “Yeah, so?” and started to walk up to the front door, Trip asking, “Hey, you want to go to the diner or something instead?”
I tossed over my shoulder, “What’s the matter, Chester? You don’t have anything to eat here?”