Miss Mayhem (Rebel Belle #2)(22)

That’s what I’d thought when Ryan first called, and it had been the scenario I’d spun out in my head on the short drive over. But Ryan seemed okay, if shaken up, and now he shook his head at me, waving a hand toward the front door.

“Upstairs,” Ryan said, scrubbing a hand over his hair. “It’s MB.” Misery was etched in every line of his body, and my heart took a sudden plunge as I started up the staircase.

There was a part of me expecting to see Mary Beth lying on his floor with a scimitar through her stomach or something, so I was actually relieved to see her sitting on the edge of Ryan’s bed, seemingly completely okay, if a little . . . spacey.

“Hi, Mary Beth,” I said, already trying to formulate a reason for being at Ryan’s house. He’d called me to work on a school project?

But she didn’t reply. In fact, she didn’t even seem to hear me.

I shot a glance at Ryan over my shoulder. He was leaning against the doorjamb, nearly crying, his hazel eyes red.

Kneeling down at the edge of Ryan’s bed, I snapped my fingers in front of Mary Beth’s face. Her eyes slowly blinked once, then twice, but other than that, there was no sign that she’d heard me. Groaning, I turned back to Ryan. “What the heck did you do?”

The last time I’d seen Ryan this miserable was when he’d missed a free throw at a game against our rivals, the Webb Spiders. Now, like then, he was fidgeting, his arms crossed tightly across his chest. “I don’t know. She was still pissed about me ditching her at lunch, so I wanted to . . . fix it.”

“Ryan,” I groaned, and he held up both hands.

“I know, I know. Anyway, I used some of that lip balm stuff on her. That stuff Saylor had.”

Now that he mentioned it, there was a distinct rose scent wafting up from Mary Beth. “You kissed her with it on?” I was pretty sure my eyebrows were in my hairline, and when Ryan looked down at me, he scowled.

“Well, yeah. She’s my girlfriend. And that seemed the easiest way to . . . apply it.”

Still crouching in front of her, I studied her face. “Maybe she wasn’t meant to ingest it,” I mused. “How much did you put on?”

Ryan knelt down next to me, and while he wasn’t quite wringing his hands, he was close. “Not a lot,” he said, a dull flush creeping up his neck. “I mean, I’m a dude, it would look weird if I slathered my whole mouth in a bunch of rose lip gloss, you know?”

There was nothing funny about this situation, but I couldn’t stop a brief smile. Seeing it, Ryan smiled, too, giving a nervous laugh. “I need to go through Saylor’s things, see if there’s anything else that works for mind control, since I can’t keep carrying lip balm everywhere.”

“Maybe there’s something you could work into an aftershave?” I suggested. “Or that gross boy body spray they’re always advertising?”

He sniffed, shoulders rising and falling. “I don’t wear that crap,” he reminded me, and I nodded.

“I know. Trust me, you wouldn’t have lasted long as my boyfriend if you had.”

That made Ryan smile again, and he looked over at me with squinted eyes. “What is it you call David? That word he hates?”

“Boyfie,” I answered, and Ryan laughed.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t have lasted long as my girlfriend if you’d said that.” He was still smiling, just the littlest bit, but then he looked back at Mary Beth and all the humor left his face. “She’ll be okay, right?”

I leaned in closer to Mary Beth. Her eyes met mine, and I could tell she was trying to focus. “Mary Beth?”

Another blink, but nothing else. Next to me, Ryan stood up, chafing his palms against his thighs. “Oh God,” he groaned. “I’ve lobotomized her. I’ve lobotomized my girlfriend with a—an effing potion.”

He didn’t say “effing,” but I didn’t bother admonishing him. We were in F-word territory for sure.

Crossing the room in two long strides, Ryan moved to his desk and snatched up the little pot of lip balm. “Screw this stuff,” he said, and before I could stop him, he’d opened the window and thrown it out as hard as he could.

Now I shot to my feet. “Ryan!” I said sharply. “So you screwed up using it once. That doesn’t mean you won’t use it again. And what if someone else finds it?” Moving to the window, I ducked my head out, even though I knew I wasn’t going to be able to see it.

“I suck at this,” Ryan moaned, dropping his head into his hands as he sat down heavily on the bed. “I screwed up the spell with Bee, and now I’ve screwed up with MB, too.”

I don’t think I’d ever heard Ryan admit to being bad at something in his entire life. I wasn’t sure he actually had been bad at anything in his entire life, now that I thought about it. Things had always come pretty easily to Ryan. It was one of the few things we’d had in common, and now, as I remembered how awful and confused I’d felt when I’d first learned I was a Paladin, I couldn’t help but sympathize.

“Hey.” My hand hovered over his shoulder as he slumped forward, elbows on his knees. Was I allowed to hug him? Even in a totally platonic, comforting way? I wasn’t a hundred percent sure, so I did what seemed safest and patted his back a few times before clasping my hands in my lap. “You don’t suck. You just don’t know all the ropes yet.”