Tease(7)

Brielle broke up with Rob right after she caught him flirting with Emma Putnam at the holiday dance. Emma went to the dance without a date and wore this crazy low-cut red dress, so half the room was staring at her already. I mean, everyone knows the holiday dance isn’t that formal. It was kind of sad to see her show up like it was the Oscars or something.

Honestly I don’t think Brielle minded it that much when Rob spent too long at the soda table with overdressed Emma. It gave her an excuse to dump a cup of Coke on Rob and call Emma a whore, loudly, and that’s the kind of scene Brielle lives for.

“Can we get another taco?” Alex whines. I realize I’ve been staring out the window, watching the sky get dark and completely ignoring my brothers.

“Sorry, little dude,” I say, standing up and grabbing my coat. “All out of cash. But it’s cream-of-mushroom chicken night at home!” I say this part as enthusiastically as possible, but both boys are groaning as they put their coats back on.

It’s fully dark outside and the wind is brutal. For a second I’m too cold to remember what I was worrying about, and then, two cars over, I see a flash of red. Emma Putnam is getting out of the passenger side of a dark SUV. I can’t see who the driver is, but I see Emma’s hair right away, lit up like a fire under the streetlight.

Suddenly Emma turns and looks over at me. At first I think she’s going to wave, but that would be weird, since she knows I’m Brielle’s best friend. And, um, Dylan’s girlfriend. She doesn’t wave, though. She looks confused for a second.

And for no reason I could ever explain in a million years, I flip up my middle finger at her. I’ve never done that before—not for real, not in a non-joking way—and it feels really strange. And kind of cheesy. But at the same time it feels really, like, powerful.

I hold it up so I’m sure she sees, and watch as her mouth drops open in surprise.

Then I duck into my car and drive my brothers home.

And I can’t stop smiling.

“So what was that text about?”

“Mmmph.”

“I just”—pant—“It’s not that”—oof—“I mean, I totally trust you—”

“Wait, what? What’s going on?”

Dylan pulls away from kissing my neck and looks at me like I have three heads. His lips are red and a little puffy and his eyes are heavy, like he just woke up—or, I guess, like he’s been wrestling me in the back of his SUV for twenty minutes, because he has. He’s gotten my shirt off and the button of my jeans undone, and I feel ridiculous, sitting there in my bra. But at least we’ve slowed down for a second.

“What’re you talking about?” he says. Not meanly. Just confused. Which makes sense. I mean, what am I talking about? Why did I think this would be a good time to get all insecure and bring up the Emma thing?

“I’m sorry,” I say. I sort of pet his forearms in what I hope is a cute, sexy way, and smile. “I just, you know, I didn’t know you and Emma were . . . friends.”

“We’re not,” he says simply, and I guess that’s all he has to say on the subject, because he lunges at me again, pinning me back onto the seat. For a second I feel warm and fluttery, and then the pulling-at-my-pants action starts again, and I kind of tense up and go limp all at the same time.

Dylan’s mouth leaves mine suddenly, because he’s looking down, trying to figure out why my favorite pair of jeans, which are bright pink and practically glow-in-the-dark on this cloudy winter afternoon, aren’t going where he wants them to go. This makes it possible for me to take another deep breath and say, “God, she’s just the worst. I’m so sorry she’s, like, bothering you.”

That’s the right thing to say, right? A pathetic girl who gets insecure about every little thing and drives her boyfriend nuts would never say that, would she? I’m not the jealous type. I’m not. But Emma Putnam is . . . stunning. There, I said it, whatever. The bitch is freaking gorgeous. She has all this long red hair with the perfect amount of curl; her skin never seems to break out into anything but a pinkish blush when someone is nice to her (which is always a boy, and therefore never a girl); her boobs are big but not too big. She’s always laughing or smiling or flirting with someone. It’s not really a surprise that I can’t stop thinking about that damn text I found on Dylan’s phone. Even if she weren’t also a total skank, I’d still be worried.

He’d handed his phone to me so I could write to his friend Kyle that we were on our way to his house last Friday. Dylan is super careful about not texting and driving, partly because he knows it’s not safe, but also (probably mostly) because you get suspended from sports if you get caught doing it. And you don’t even have to be actually arrested, just get caught by a coach or something.

So anyway, I’d turned on the phone and the last message had popped up and I blurted out before I could think better of it, “You got a text from Emma? Emma Putnam?”

“I guess,” he said, and then he went, “Oh, dude, call Kyle and put him on speaker, I need to ask him something about practice.” And we’d never gotten around to talking about it for real.

At the top of the screen it just said EMMA. The text was LOL! with one of those dumb laughing emoji faces.

Which meant there was a text before it. But I didn’t have time to see the earlier one, and it’s not like I could go snooping through Dylan’s phone, right there in the car, to look at the rest of the conversation.