Don't Kiss the Messenger (Edgelake High School, #1)(46)

“What’s the usual stuff?” I asked.

“I said he was hot.”

“You want to elaborate?” I asked.

“That’s exactly what he wanted me to do!” Her voice rose again. “So I said he was really, really hot.”

“Oh God.” How could someone Bryn’s age completely lack descriptive language?

“And then I said football was hot.”

“Oh shit.” Bryn could talk circles around every other guy. Why not Emmett?

“And then I did stuff under the table, you know, kind of aggressive? Most guys really get into that.”

“But he didn’t?” I figured. I tried to hide the part of me that was actually pleased by the first ever failure of Bryn’s massive sex appeal.

“He just got really polite. And he said he needed to be somewhere, and he asked if he could take me home. I told him I wanted to come here instead, and that seemed to make him even madder.”

“Oh fuck.” He was mad about dropping her here. Did that mean he was starting to piece things together?

“Do you think he knows?”

“He can’t know.” I was trying to convince myself as much as anything. I went to the kitchen, got out a juice glass, and poured some J?germeister for myself. I handed the bottle to Bryn. “We’ll fix it. We have to fix it.”

“What’s the plan?” Bryn asked as she poured herself another glass and slammed it with a grimace.

I heard the thumping of the opening bars of “Heartache Tonight” on the speaker. Tuba brandished her music like a weapon and glowered at me portentously. Somebody’s gonna hurt someone before the night is through.

…

CECE

Two hours later it was 10:00 p.m. on a Tuesday night. We had a plan, and we had a Bluetooth headset borrowed from Kelsey. She had things like a Bluetooth, an interview suit, and a LinkedIn profile.

The alcohol had lent me courage and optimism and had given Bryn confidence. Tuba, it had imbued with a spirit of adventure, so she was tagging along as well. Like some collegiate Wizard of Oz, except we were straying way, way off the yellow brick road. In my head, I imagined Dorothy’s wide-eyed, “We’re not in Kansas anymore” dubbed over with “Toto, this shit just got real.” The mental image set off a bout of giggles, inexplicably joined by Bryn, and firmly shushed by Tuba.

We ran down to Vilas Street, cutting through the woods behind campus buildings. Though the air was chilly and damp, there was a chance he would be outside.

The mansion was just off a busy commuter path, so there was noise and scant privacy this early in the night. Stealth dictated a route through piles of leaves, a chain-linked fence, dog poop, and stinging nettles. We crept around the side of the house and listened beneath Emmett’s balcony. The faint strumming of an acoustic guitar drifted down to us. He was there. Bryn wore the Bluetooth earpiece beneath her blown-out date-hair. She stepped into view in the front yard. I stayed out of sight.

“Emmett,” she said in a breathless whisper he couldn’t possibly hear.

“Louder.” My message traveled unknown miles from the phone in my hand to a cell tower and back to the Bluetooth in her ear fifteen feet away.

She overcorrected. “Emmett!”

The strumming stopped. Bryn waved her arms like a castaway trying to flag down a plane. I wanted to throttle her.

I stared up at the balcony as Emmett stood up and peered over. I swallowed and adjusted the Blue Tooth. Was I actually going to go through with this?

…

EMMETT

What the hell? I looked over the edge of my balcony.

“Emmett. It’s Bryn!”

I peered through the leaves but I could barely see her, just the outline of her jeans and a gray sweatshirt. She had a lot of nerve to come here tonight. I just accepted the fact that it was over between us. Nothing she said was going to change that. I had tried everything with this girl, but she always put up a front around me. I was so sick of the act.

“What do you want?” I asked, my voice hard. I sat back down on the stool and propped the guitar on my knee.

“I’ve come to tell you…to tell you I’m sorry!”

Her apology almost made me laugh.

“Sorry for what?” I asked.

“I…I want to explain why I acted like that,” she stammered like she was trying to piece words together. I resumed plucking the strings on my guitar. I was playing it cool. If she knew me at all, she would know this was a bad sign.

“What do you have to say that you couldn’t just say at dinner?” I asked.

I thought I heard whispering in the bushes below me. I stopped strumming.

“I want you to understand me,” Bryn said.

“You don’t know what you want.”

“I know exactly what I want,” she said. “It’s you. I can’t leave things like this.”

I blew out a sigh. That’s not how she acted at dinner. She acted like she couldn’t get away from me fast enough. She acted like sitting across from me in a restaurant was torture.

“Then why were you so weird tonight?” I asked. “If you’re not interested, fine, just tell me the truth. I can take it. But the mind games are getting really annoying.”

A siren blared off of Monroe Street. I swore I could hear Bryn mumbling below, like she had to practice out what she was saying. I peered through the leaves again.