The Way to Game the Walk of Shame(8)
Her dark eyes brightened with excitement. “All the best stories start off that way. Spill it.”
I let out a halfhearted laugh. No matter how hard the day was, I was glad to have Carly by my side. Loud and bossy as she was. “Well, it all started when I woke up and didn’t smell any apples…”
3
-Evan-
“McKinley!”
Figures. I’d been here for less than an hour, and Aaron had already found me. Did he have some sort of sensor on me or something? Usually I would be happy to see him, but lunch with Mom and Brandon had made me want to punch someone, and I was pretty sure Aaron wouldn’t want to be that someone.
Pretending I didn’t hear him, I ducked my head lower and wove my way through the crowded hall. But he wasn’t Nathan Wilks’s second-string running back for nothing. He could have easily been on the first string if he gave a shit about the team and went to practices like he was supposed to.
He dove between Lucy Kim and her group of flag-team members to grab the back strap of my bag, yanking me backward. “Sorry, ladies. We’ve got urgent business to talk about. Where were you all morning, man?”
I glanced at the group of girls, who were obviously eavesdropping, and brushed him off. “Just busy,” I said, deliberately sounding mysterious as I winked at Lucy. She grinned and motioned for me to call her before walking away.
Hmm, did I even have her number? At least she thought I did. Maybe she’d given it to me before and I forgot.
“I’m sure you were.” He shoved my left shoulder. “So tell me, what was it like?”
“Huh?” Great, now I sounded like an idiot. So much for being mysterious.
“You know.” Instead of explaining, he wiggled his eyebrows and grinned down at me.
Not up for another one of Aaron’s guessing games, I walked toward the vending machines by the cafeteria. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Look, I don’t know why you’re trying to be noble. Everyone saw you leaving the party with her the other night.” I didn’t have to look up to know he had a sneer on his face. It was evident in his voice. He moved forward until he blocked the drink machine in front of me with an outstretched arm. “Don’t be shy.”
“I’m not being shy, I just don’t know what the hell you’re—” An image of Taylor smiling up at me as we swayed to the fast-paced music popped in my head. My hands were wrapped tightly around her waist. Us laughing and plastered against each other as we walked around the block to my house. It had been like this all weekend—just brief flashes of us in my head. But as much as I tried, I couldn’t figure out what happened once we got to my house.
Judging by the dopey smile on Aaron’s face, I can imagine what everyone assumed happened. “You’re an *. Now either move or buy me a drink.”
He laughed and dug into his pockets for some change. “Fine, I’ll just imagine it on my own.” Aaron snorted and shook his head. “Dude, I still can’t believe you were able to hit that Ice Queen. You, my man, are a god. A modern, womanizing Zeus.”
At his words, a broad smile crossed my face. It was wrong, since technically I didn’t “hit that,” but who didn’t like being called a god? On any other day, I would have happily obliged Aaron’s request. Hell, I was usually the one to start bragging about the chicks I hooked up with. In detail. But lunch with Brandon earlier still left a sour taste in my mouth. I shouldn’t have taken up Mom’s offer and had lunch with them. I didn’t know what I was thinking. Usually I’d rather mow the lawn with my teeth than eat a meal with my stepdad.
It was bad enough that they showed up unannounced for my drug test, something Brandon—the dickhead—insisted on when he found drugs in my room once. They weren’t mine, but he didn’t believe me.
Mom knew the drugs weren’t mine. I would never touch the stuff after my cousin Stacey died from an overdose. We were pretty close. She used to watch me whenever Mom went to work after Dad went to jail. That was before Mom met Brandon Willard.
But instead of sticking up for her own son—and, god forbid, getting in a fight with her saintly new husband—Mom would rather make me suffer the embarrassment of getting a professional monthly drug test. Brandon suspected I would somehow tamper with the home tests. Mom even spoke to the principal and the office about my “appointments” so I could be excused.
Someone deserved the Best Mom of the Year award.
I was tempted to fail the drug test on purpose just to piss off Brandon even more, but I settled on cutting school whenever I could. The school calling him at work to tattle on me always embarrassed the hell out of him, and that was more than enough satisfaction for me.
I had almost chugged down half the can of Sprite when hoots and wolf whistles filled the air. “What’s going on?”
Aaron shrugged and stepped toward the cafeteria. I followed him and stopped when I spotted Taylor sitting with her friend Carly a couple of tables from the entrance. There was a crowd of jocks surrounding them.
“Well, look who it is. Anyone ready to party?” some dude asked. I think he was a junior or something. He braced his hands on the edge of the table and sneered down his pointy nose at the girls. “Dang, Simmons, I should have introduced you to tequila a long time ago. Especially now that you dropped your good-girl front and acting like you’re better than us all the time.”