CHAPTER 34
Nastya
I’ll take control any way I can get it now. I may not be able to prevent some random psychotic from finding me in some random location at some random time, but I can control what I do to him when he gets there.
I’ve taken enough self-defense classes over the past two years to know that there were several things I could have done that day. I’m no martial arts expert. Not even close. All I really know are a couple of difficult, but seriously awesome takedown maneuvers, along with some key dirty street-fighting moves; but even those may have been enough. I could have gouged his eyes or crushed his windpipe or boxed his ears or kneed him in the groin or employed the always classic gold standard—scream and run like hell. I didn’t do any of those things. Know what I did? I smiled and said hi. Because I was polite. And stupid.
***
Drew’s driveway is empty when Josh
and I pull up. Josh picks up the cupcake carrier—a gift to me from Margot for no particular reason—and carries it in to the house while I follow. I try not to smile, because I’m used to seeing him carrying lumber, so a pink plastic cupcake carrier is something different entirely. Drew and Sarah are in the kitchen where Mrs.
Leighton would usually be. I can smell dinner immediately. Italian.
“Josh,” Sarah bites out as soon as we walk in. “Aren’t you supposed to reheat food no higher than three hundred-fifty degrees?”
“It’ll heat faster at four-fifty,” Drew argues.
“It’ll dry out,” Sarah lilts in a sing-song voice. It seems like this argument has been going on for a while. She glances over at me and I get the disgusted look she seems to save just for me.
“Depends on what it is, but yeah, it’ll probably dry out,” Josh says, moving around them to put the cupcakes on the counter. The kitchen is stifling from the heat coming off of both compartments in the double oven and I wonder if the meticulously-piped Swiss buttercream on those cupcakes can survive. My hand didn’t freak out at all while I was doing it, so they look perfect.
“See!” Sarah says in Drew’s face, triumphantly walking over to the oven to lower the temperature. I guess Josh’s word holds when it comes to reheating food as well.
“Suck it,” Drew says.
“Your girlfriend’s here. Ask her.” Sarah smiles overly sweetly at me before disappearing down the hall towards her bedroom.
“I hate her,” Drew says, but he lets the girlfriend comment go.
I look around the kitchen at the number of bowls and dishes littering the countertop. Mrs. Leighton must have known it would end up being more than the four of us because she made enough food for an army.
Within the next fifteen minutes, the doorbell rings four more times. Piper walks in first, dressed in an outfit she must have coordinated with Sarah. She says hi to Drew and Josh before she heads to Sarah’s room without acknowledging me.
Her arrival is followed by Damien Brooks and Chris Jenkins. Chris I know from hammer-wielding shop fame. He looks at me awkwardly and says hi. Ever since the hammer incident, he’s tried to ignore me even more. I wasn’t sure that was even possible, but he’s been doing an admirable job. Damien I’ve seen around but never met. He looks at my chest but doesn’t say anything. Chris has a case of beer in each hand. Damien has a twelve pack in his left and a bottle of tequila in his right. Clearly Drew gave them a very different description of Sunday dinner, and now I get why he moved it up to Friday. Of course, I may also have been a little more creative with the invitation I issued to Tierney Lowell in the bathroom a few days ago. When the doorbell rings for the third time, I’m the only one who’s expecting her.
***
I was in the girls’ restroom at the far end of the foreign language hallway on Wednesday. Tierney must have seen me and followed me in, because she obviously wasn’t using the facilities. When I got done washing my hands, she handed me a paper towel with a gesture so full of menace that I had to respect her, because anyone who can make handing you a paper towel look like a threat, is impressive. Of course, she still hadn’t stopped glaring at me, and I didn’t want to seem rude, so I glared back.
It was so completely absurd that I wanted to laugh. It took a serious amount of throat clenching to keep from erupting, but I had invested myself in that particular stare-fest and I don’t like to lose. She obviously had something to say, so I wished she would just get on with it, because she wasn’t going to intimidate me no matter how many rumors I had heard about her: drug dealing, illegal abortions, knife wielding. I even heard she brings glass to the beach.
I didn’t believe any of it and I was kind of hoping she would stop looking at me like I poisoned her grandmother. I really kind of like Tierney and I wish she’d like me too, because to be honest, it would be nice to have a female friend to not talk to sometimes.
“You must know a lot of tricks for him to keep you around this long.” Mystery solved. Drew. I’d say, of course, like I should have gotten it all along, except I couldn’t have known, because, even now, I’m just not seeing it. If she and Drew had, in fact, hooked up like Josh said—and with Drew anything is possible—she doesn’t seem like the type who would be much for sticking around, either. I don’t see Tierney Lowell being the kind of person who’s going to let anyone, much less Drew Leighton, take advantage of her. I so wished I was more in the loop on things because I wanted the rest of that story.
Badly.
Crap. I was going to have to write a note. It was rule breaking, but I chalked it up to absolute necessity; life-threateningly unavoidable,
because
otherwise
my
curiosity would kill me. I grabbed the notebook she was holding and pulled a pen out of my purse. I decided to jump off a cliff with this one and go for broke because there was only one reason this girl was cornering me in the bathroom, and it was pure, undiluted jealousy. Do you still love him? I wrote on the paper and shoved it at her, feeling seriously melodramatic.
She gaped at me, her eyes narrowing and her voice laced with forced venom, “I never loved him.”
She didn’t laugh like it was the most absurd suggestion on Earth, so I grabbed the paper back and scribbled down the invitation. Bunch of us hanging out at Drew’s Sunday at 6. That was a logistical note, so it was totally acceptable.
She read it and looked back at me with unveiled skepticism, clearly familiar with the Leighton family tradition. “They do Sunday dinner.”
I shook my head and pointed back down at the note again, hoping that would convince her. I knew she wasn’t totally buying the fact that I wasn’t trying to lure her into some plot involving pig’s blood and public humiliation, but I could tell she was interested, too. I walked out wondering which part of her would win out.
***
Unlike everyone else so far, Tierney is the only one who waits to be let in. I wasn’t sure she’d show; I shoved another note in her locker yesterday after Drew changed the plans, but I didn’t know if she’d even seen it. When Josh opens the door, she looks almost nervous, standing on the porch, wearing a short denim skirt and two purple spaghetti strap camisoles layered one on top of the other. She really is a pretty girl; she just always looks mad, but maybe that’s just when she’s looking at me.
“Tierney?” Josh asks, because it’s not like he doesn’t know who she is, but he’s certainly wondering why she’s here. I watch to see how he reacts but it’s Josh, and as usual, he gives nothing away. He could have opened the door to two hyenas having sex and he wouldn’t have changed his expression.
I would have pressed him for more details about Drew and Tierney the other day, but he gets weird when I ask questions about Drew, so I figured I’d have to be patient and wait until tonight.
“I was invited,” she says, not wanting to look pathetic, like she just showed up at Drew’s house hoping to see him because his parents were out of town and I feel kind of shitty for putting her in this position. Josh doesn’t say anything else.
He just opens the door further and lets her walk in. She catches me watching from the dining room but does nothing more than check out my outfit before heading back to the kitchen. Tierney knows exactly where she’s going in this house.
I try to nonchalantly catch up with her before she gets to the kitchen. I want to see Drew’s reaction. As soon as she walks through the doorless entryway, I hear Damien Brooks yell, “T-Lo in the house!” removing all doubt as to his immense douchery. “What’s up, sexy? Didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Neither did I.” She shifts her attention as Drew returns from putting the rest of the beer in the garage refrigerator.
“Tierney,” Drew says, tamping down his initial surprise.
“Drew.”
“Were we expecting you?”
“Your,” she pauses and motions toward me, “she invited me.”
I knew that was coming. Drew walks over and puts his arm around my waist and pulls me up against him. I’m used to his possessive displays by now so I just go with it. Josh’s eyes shift to Drew’s hand around my waist before he walks away.
“Funny, she didn’t mention it,” Drew says, but it doesn’t sound like he thinks it’s funny. His fingers tighten just slightly against the bare skin on my stomach where my shirt’s ridden up. I push him away and flip him off, trying to play it off like this is just something we do, which I guess it kind of is, but he still needs to watch it and I make sure my expression tells him so.
“Later, Nastypants. I promise.” He’s talking to me but he’s still looking at Tierney. “Right now I have a dinner to host!” He claps his hands dramatically to get everyone’s attention which he already has anyway. “You know the rules.
Everybody helps!” Within moments, this mish-mashed group of us, from preppy and prissy to slutty and scandalous, is doing just that. We are all pulling out dishes, pouring drinks, and making trips back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room. Damien Brooks is standing at the counter slicing loaves of garlic bread and Tierney Lowell is hovering over the dining room table making flawless napkin fans.
It’s surreal. Mrs. Leighton would be proud.
By the time Clay and Yearbook Michelle show up, no one is shockable anymore.
“Something you want to tell me?” Josh whispers so only I can hear as we walk side by side into the dining room, carrying plates and silverware. Is he angry? I can’t tell. I know I was out of line with the Tierney thing, but if anything, Drew is the one who should be upset about that. I don’t answer, grateful for the fact that we’re surrounded by other people so I don’t have to respond. Who knows how this whole evening is going to turn out anyway? It’s like The Breakfast Club in a powder keg in here and I’m wondering who’s going to light the match.
Turns out, dinner is amazing, at least the eating part. The food is so good and there’s so damn much of it that most of us spend the entire time with our mouths full, which
leaves
little
opportunity
for
conversation and that can only be a good thing. My first impression was that Mrs.
Leighton had gone a little overboard with the amount of food she left, but watching how much teenage boys can put away is starting to make me wonder if there’s enough. I’ve seen Josh and Drew eat and I thought that was something, but they’ve got nothing on Damien and Chris who are inhaling everything on the table. I almost feel like pushing my plate of half-eaten food over to them lest they walk away hungry. I’m wondering if I can sneak into the kitchen unnoticed and hide half of the cupcakes now, because I’m going to need the sugar to get through the rest of this night.
***
Josh
Everyone ends up on the couches in the family room once dinner has been cleaned up. The beer already has a good dent in it and the bottle of tequila that piece of shit Damien Brooks brought is looming over the coffee table like a bad omen.
Sarah drank two beers during dinner and she’s already acting ridiculous. Two more and she’ll be face first on the carpet.
The good thing about Sarah drinking is that, when she does, she stops being such a bitch for a few minutes and I remember why I actually liked her once and why I hate how she’s become.
I look around for Sunshine and see her coming out from the kitchen, passing Damien who grabs her arm for some reason to stop her. I don’t even know what happens, except that about one point five seconds later, Damien is face first on the ground with her knee pressed into his back.
Then, just as quickly, she’s off him.
“What the f*ck was that?” he whines, pushing himself up from the ground and acting like nothing hurts, but it’s obvious that something does. I’d think it was funny if I hadn’t seen her face. But I did, and I know there’s nothing funny about it. She’s backed against the wall, and I can’t tell if she’s terrified or enraged. I try to catch her eye to see if she’s ok, but I think she’s purposely not looking at me. I’m wondering if there’s a way for me to get her out of here for a few minutes, but I don’t even get a chance to come up with anything.
“You have got to teach me how to do that!” Sarah’s eyes go wide and she looks at Nastya for the first time with something other than disgust. It’s pure awe. I’m kind of in awe myself. Damien is bigger than all of us and everyone is bigger than Sunshine.
Tierney looks sideways at Drew. “I’d like to get in on that, too.”
The next hour becomes an impromptu self-defense
demonstration.
All
the
furniture is pushed against the walls and we’ve padded the floor down as well as possible.
I get to play the role of predator and get the crap kicked out of me while Sunshine points out every vulnerable spot on my body, from eyeballs to lower ribs to groin—which I like the idea of having her hands on, but I won’t even let her pretend to hurt—to feet. There’s no doubt that I got the shit end of the stick here. Thankfully, she doesn’t really want to hurt me, but she does seem extremely serious about making sure they get what she’s showing them to do. There’s no question that she doesn’t think it’s a joke.
“I’m afraid I might break you,” I say when she makes me come at her again.
Really I’m afraid she’s going to break me.
She’s freakishly strong.
She snatches a piece of paper from the counter, scribbles on it and shoves it at me. Her eyes are narrowed in challenge and I try not to smile.
You’ll have to try harder than that to break me. Quit being a p-ssy!!!!!
She’s daring me because she thinks I’m not really trying to hurt her. She’s right; I’m not. Every time, I plan to go at her full force, but I can’t and I pull back some. She has to be mad if she’s actually writing it down, so I try harder. Finally, I go at her like I really want to take her down. The only person who ends up down is me. She must have practiced this move a thousand times; I have no idea how she even did it. The sad part is, I think that time she pulled back for me.
Then, before everyone scatters, she picks up the paper and starts writing again.
I think she’s writing something to me, because it’s odd for her to be writing at all. But when she’s done, she hands it to Sarah and the other girls, then immediately turns away to start picking up the pillows off the floor.
We try to put the room back together, but it’s a half-assed job. Once the couches are back in place, we figure it’s good enough. Sarah lays Sunshine’s note down on an end table when she goes back to the kitchen for another beer, and I finally get a look at it. She’s written the name of the martial arts studio she goes to and a phone number and then underneath that, only a few words, written in all caps –
RUN FIRST AND RUN FAST.
***
Drew sits down on one end of the couch and pulls Nastya into the seat next to him. I settle on the other side of her. My leg presses up against hers when I sit, but she doesn’t pull away and I don’t either.
I’ve spent the last hour with her hands all over me; you would think that would be enough. But it’s not even close to enough.
It never is. Not like it matters, she’ll probably be in Drew’s lap by the end of the night anyway.
“I know,” Sarah slurs, putting another empty beer bottle on the counter and throwing herself onto the loveseat. “Let’s play truth or dare.”
“Lame,” Damien yells from the kitchen where he’s opening every cabinet looking for shot glasses.
“That game sucks ass,” Chris seconds.
“I’d play truth or dare,” Drew says, running his fingers down Sunshine’s arm and making me want to punch him.
“You would?” Sarah’s already too far down the road to plastered to be skeptical.
“Yeah, if I were thirteen and a loser.” Before Sarah can tell Drew to shut up, Tierney leans over the counter from the kitchen. “Afraid of a game, Drew?”
“Fear is coursing through my veins, T.
Remind me again why you’re here.” He picks up Nastya’s hand and kisses the back of it and then puts it down on his leg. I’m hyperaware of every time he puts his hands on her and it’s making me feel like some sort of obsessed stalker.
“To play truth or dare,” she contends matter-of-factly, coming around the counter and grabbing the shot glasses from Damien’s hands. She puts them on the table and fills them with tequila. “Everyone plays. You cop out, you do a shot.
Simple.” She tops the last glass off and rights the bottle without losing a drop.
I’d half expect Clay and Yearbook Michelle to be a little shell-shocked, but they look more amused than anything. I imagine if you’re just a spectator here, this whole evening would be pretty damn entertaining.
***
“OK, Drew. Truth or dare?” We’re four rounds in and this one comes from Chris. Things started getting ugly after the first round and the tension in this room is starting to wear on me. I’m ready to go home.
Sunshine is three shots down and way past half-lit. She picked truth every time and wouldn’t even write the answers to anything. They asked her how many guys she’d had sex with, how old she was when she lost her virginity, and the strangest place she’s ever had sex. She took the shot every time. By the last round, when Piper switched off the sex topic and got bold enough to ask why she doesn’t talk, I stood up and took the shot for her.
“Truth,” Drew answers.
“How long did it take to get her to—” Chris looks in Nastya’s direction and cuts himself off.
“To what? Why ask the question if you can’t even say it,” Piper laughs mockingly.
“I think he’s scared,” Sarah giggles.
“He knows she can kick his ass.”
“That’s such a waste of a question anyway. Everyone knows she screwed him. Who cares when?” Damien says.
“Doesn’t matter,” Tierney counters.
“Question was asked. Answer it or shoot.” Drew looks at Nastya, and if I wasn’t paying attention I might miss the exchange that goes on between the two of them, but I know that there was something unspoken happening that no one else picked up on.
The whole thing bothers me and that bothers me even more.
“Trevor Mason’s party. Second week of school.”
“That was a couple months ago. Isn’t that like a record Drew?” Tierney asks, but she can’t seem to force the malice she’s going for into her tone.
Everyone is still talking, but I’m not listening anymore. Trevor Mason’s party is the one Drew got Sunshine so shit-faced at that she spent most of the night on my bathroom floor, and I got so scared that she had alcohol poisoning that I almost took her to the hospital. He f*cked her and I cleaned up her puke.
There’s a part of me that wanted to believe that he had never touched her; at least not really touched her. But I didn’t ask, because only a part of me believed that. The other part of me knew that there was still a possibility that it had happened, and if it had, I didn’t want the confirmation.
“Drew,” I say, not giving a shit how pissed I sound. “Truth.”
“Drew just went and you have to give him a choice anyway,” Piper whines, but no one else gets on the rule-enforcing train because they all want to know what the hell this is about. Except for Drew and Nastya, who look like they want to tell me to shut the hell up. It would be good advice. Too bad I don’t listen.
“Truth, Drew.” I haven’t taken my eyes off of him and I can feel the tension rolling off of Nastya. She pulls her hand away from Drew and subtly presses her leg against mine, but I don’t want any part of it.
“Fine,” Drew says.
“Did you f*ck her before or after the party?” He knows exactly why I’m asking.
“Pour the shot, T,” he says, not looking away. Maybe I’m an idiot for thinking he wouldn’t screw her when she was that drunk.
“Hey!” The voice breaks me out of the stand-off I’ve got going on with Drew, and I freeze, watching Leigh walk in. None of us even heard the front door open. I start racking my brain. Was I supposed to meet her? Did I even know she was coming? All of a sudden this room is a hundred times smaller and I feel very trapped. There’s something about having Leigh and Sunshine in a room together that makes me imagine two
planets
colliding.
World-ending
destruction. I reached my drama threshold hours ago. This is the reason I avoid this kind of crap.
Leigh smiles, completely clueless about what she’s walking into. It was bad before she got here, and this is just worse.
I stand, out of instinct, as she approaches me. I can see Drew pull Nastya into his lap and whisper something in her ear. Her eyes just barely shift, and I haven’t forgotten that I want an answer from him before I leave here.
“What’s going on?” I ask, trying not to sound as annoyed as I am, because Leigh hasn’t done anything wrong, but I really, really don’t want her here.
“I came down last minute,” she explains. “I stopped by your house but you weren’t there. Home Depot is closed,” she smiles knowingly at me, “so I figured you had to be here.”
“You don’t have to cover for the fact that you wanted to see me, Leigh, but subtlety is always appreciated.” If Drew thinks he’s lightening the mood, he’s an idiot.
“You haven’t changed at all, have you?” She smiles at Drew.
“You have. I think your tits got bigger.” He lifts his chin towards her and then switches gears before she can respond. “Too bad you missed an awesome game of truth or dare. We just finished.” Maybe he’s not such an idiot.
His survival skills are kicking in. Leigh walking in gave him an out and he’s taking it.
“I haven’t played truth or dare since I was in middle school,” Leigh laughs, sitting on the couch with Drew and Nastya and pulling me down with her so that there’s not an inch of space between us.
Nastya’s eyes keep darting to Leigh but she won’t look at me.
“Wish we could say the same,” Damien groans.
“You didn’t seem to mind when you were daring Piper to jerk you off in the closet,” Sarah spits back.
“What-the-f*ck-ever.” Tierney lets out an exaggerated breath. “There’s way too much drama in this room. Enough with the tequila; it’s just making you people worse.” She tosses a bag of weed onto the coffee table and turns to Drew. “I need a two-liter soda bottle, something to cut through plastic, a screen and a pitcher of water.”
Dali has nothing on the scene that unfolds next in the Leighton living room.
People who were trying to sabotage one another thirty minutes ago are now collaborating on a bong-making scavenger hunt. They keep bringing things to Tierney for approval like she’s their ant queen or something. She checks out the pile of stuff in front of her. “There isn’t a screen.”
“I didn’t know where to get one,” Sarah says.
Tierney
leaves
the
room
and
disappears down the hall. When she comes back a few minutes later, she’s holding a small, round screen in her hand.
“Where’d you get that?”
“Bathroom faucet,” she answers, kneeling down in front of the coffee table and setting to work on building a gravity bong.
Halfway
through,
Piper
eyes
Tierney’s progress suspiciously. “I’m not putting my mouth on that thing.”
“You’ll put your hands on Damien’s dick, but you won’t put your mouth on this?” Tierney looks almost disgusted by the waste and we get treated to another exasperated exhalation. “Your loss. You get a bigger hit, but whatever.” She looks around and her eyes settle on Damien.
“Here.” She throws some rolling papers at him and tells him to roll Piper a joint, but he doesn’t get far before she pushes him away because he’s destroying it.
“If you can’t roll a joint, don’t try,” Tierney snaps.
“It’s not like it’s that hard,” he says defensively, but he doesn’t fight her when she repos the papers.
“It’s an art, jackass. Get out of my way.” Tierney proceeds to roll the tightest joint I’ve ever seen. She’s right about it being an art and she’s more than talented. I suck at rolling joints, not that it’s something I do all the time, but it might be nice to have the skill.
“Everybody’s gotta be able to do something with their hands,” Drew says, idly running his fingers through Sunshine’s hair while Tierney glowers at him before resuming bong construction.
It’s hard to watch her and not be impressed. She’s completely focused, as if this is a high-tech operation she’s in charge of, and she has total respect for it. Clay hasn’t left her side and is making her explain every part of the process. He kind of reminds me of Sunshine in my garage.
Tierney talks him through every step, instructing him not only what she’s doing but the science of it as well. It’s like watching the illegal substance version of physics class.
I try to focus on watching their progress so I don’t obsess over the fact that Leigh is running her fingers up and down my thigh, and Sunshine is sitting right next to her with a front row seat.
When Tierney gets done, she hands the bong to Clay and looks almost proud of him. “You go first. You worked for it.” Then she turns to the rest of the room and tells us we better lighten up because she’s sick of all the angst and she’s not wasting good weed on a*sholes.
Leigh leans over and whispers something in my ear about finding a bedroom and then we’re up and walking down the hall before I know what’s going on. I make the mistake of turning back around to fortify myself with the picture of Drew all over Sunshine on the couch, but when I do, she’s watching me. Unflinching.
Making sure I have to answer for what I’m about to do. Drew looks from her to me and tightens his arm around her waist so that she looks away just before I’m out of her line of vision.