She Drives Me Crazy(21)

She laughs bitterly. “Clever. Love the metaphor.”

“Right? It just came to me in a burst of inspiration.”

Irene shakes her head and combs her fingers through her hair. For the first time, it reads to me as a nervous habit instead of vanity. I expect her to deny everything, or to threaten me, but her response is something else entirely.

“If you’re planning some sort of payback for what I did to your car, then just get it over with.”

I’m so surprised I sputter out a laugh. “What?”

She searches my eyes. “What do you want, Zajac?”

“Do I strike you as the blackmailing type? That is seriously fucked up. I’m not talking about that at all. I would never out you.”

In the moonlight, her eyes relax the slightest bit. “So what are you talking about?”

“I think we can help each other. How much is your car insurance deductible?”

“What?”

“Just answer the question, Abraham. How much?”

She sets her mouth. “A thousand.”

“Wooooof.” It’s higher than I expected, but still within range for this plan to work. “And how much do you have right now?”

“Not enough. Why do you care?”

“I have a fat wad of cash from my summer job. Enough to cover your deductible.” It’s true: I worked hours and hours at the Chuck Munny Cineplex, the vintage movie theater in town, sweeping up popcorn and watching old films. I’d been keeping the cash as extra spending money, especially since I’m planning to attend college in-state for free, but now I have a much better way to use it.

Irene narrows her eyes. “And why would you give that money to me?”

“Okay, listen.” I clear my throat. This is the part that could either go beautifully or disastrously. Once I put this out there, she’ll be able to put me on blast if she wants to. But I have an instinct that she won’t.

“Everyone at Grandma Earl and Candlehawk thinks my team is a joke,” I say. “That I’m a joke. But you have the clout to change their minds. I want to get the team some attention so we’ll start playing better and beat Candlehawk in the Christmas Classic.” I pause, remembering Tally’s tinny laugh on my phone while I sat by myself in that empty hallway. “And as you have no doubt realized, Tally Gibson did a number on me. I want to make her jealous and I think I know how. The most she’s paid attention to me lately was when she heard I was giving you rides. If she sees me hanging out with you for real, she’ll lose her mind.”

Irene hikes her eyebrows. “So you want to pay me to hang out with you?”

My heart thumps wildly beneath my suit jacket. “I want to pay you to date me.”

There’s a swell of silence.

Then Irene laughs into the cold air. “Date you?” she says shrilly, like I’ve just suggested the craziest thing in the world. “As in, pretend to be your girlfriend? You’re not serious right now.”

“I absolutely am.”

“Is this some kind of Can’t Buy Me Love fantasy?”

I’m momentarily stymied. “You know that movie?”

She rolls her eyes. “God, you really do think you’re unique,” she says under her breath. “You’re telling me you actually want to pay me to make you more popular? You do realize that’s not a thing anymore, right?”

“Bullshit it’s not a thing. Or are you telling me the cheerleaders and basketball guys have been showing up to my practices out of the goodness of their hearts?”

“So you’re trying to use me.”

“I’m manipulating a situation so we both benefit. You need the money if you want to keep cheerleading and win SAOY. This might get your mom off your back, don’t you think?”

She breathes. I can see the wheels turning in her head.

“So you do want to out me, in a sense,” she says flatly. She sounds the least bit vulnerable.

This is the part I was worried about. “Only if you want to. You don’t strike me as the kind of person who lets others determine her narrative. If you want to do this, great, we’ll announce it however you want to. If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I’ll walk away and never bring it up again. I won’t even tell my best friend.”

She wraps her arms around her calves. “I wouldn’t care if you told Danielle.”

I blink. “You know that my best friend is Danielle?”

She stares at me like I’ve grown another head. “Yes? Everyone knows your best friend is Danielle. I voted for y’all for ‘Class Inseparables,’ for fuck’s sake.”

I’m at a loss for words. I was sure she knew nothing about my life—at least not until we got in that fender bender. “Oh. Well … I voted for you and Charlotte Pascal.”

Irene snorts. It’s the first time she’s appreciated one of my jokes.

“You should know that I don’t take coming out lightly,” I say delicately. “But I do think you can use it to your advantage, especially when it comes to getting more votes for SAOY. People are all about the queer trend right now. They’d bottle our hormones and sell them if they could.”

Irene side-eyes me. “You’re more cynical than I realized.”