“Cute,” Casey commented, grinning at the shoes. “Who got them for you?”
“Daddy,” Angela answered, stroking the toe of her purple shoe. “He and Mom are competing for my love now. At first it was kind of annoying, but I’ve decided to take the high road and have fun with it.” She crossed her legs and tossed back her dark hair. “I’m hoping for Prada next.”
Everyone laughed.
“I didn’t get anything cool out of my parents’ divorce,” Casey said. “My dad didn’t really care if I loved him more, I guess.”
“That’s sad, Case,” Jessica murmured.
“Oh, not really.” Casey shrugged and started picking at her orange fingernail polish. “Dad’s an ass. I was thrilled when Mom kicked him out of the house. She cries a lot less now, and when Mom’s happier, the world is happier. Sure, we don’t have as much money anymore, but it wasn’t like Dad spent his checks on us, anyway. He offered to buy Mom a car she didn’t want, but that’s about the extent of his good nature.”
“Divorces are depressing,” Jessica sighed. “I’d be heartbroken if my parents split up. Wouldn’t you, Bianca?”
I felt heat rush to my face, but Casey was switching the subject, so I pretended I hadn’t heard Jessica’s question. “Hey, Vikki, what happened on Homecoming night? You never told us how that went down.”
Jeanine giggled knowingly. “You haven’t told them yet, Vikki?”
Vikki rolled her eyes and twirled a strand of her curly strawberry-blond hair around her perfectly manicured finger. “Oh my God. Okay, so Clint is totally not speaking to me anymore, and Ross…”
Her voice drifted into the background and my mind wandered. As much as I wanted to stop thinking of Jake, I couldn’t bring myself to be interested in Vikki’s boy troubles. On any other day, I would have found mild amusement in her story, like she was my own personal soap opera, but at that moment her drama seemed so vague and unimportant. So vapid. So indulgent. So empty.
I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty for thinking this. That made me just as self-absorbed as she was. So I halfheartedly tried to listen to the woes of Vikki McPhee.
Then something she said caught my full attention.
“… but I did fool around with Wesley for a little while afterward.”
“Wesley?” I said.
Vikki beamed at me, proud of what she viewed as an achievement. Didn’t she know more than two-thirds of the girls in school had accomplished the same thing? Including me… but, of course, she didn’t know that part. “Yeah,” she said. “After the fight with Clint, I wound up out in the parking lot with Wesley. We messed around in his car for a while, but my mom called, so I had to get home before we could do anything. Sucks, right?”
“Sure.”
My eyes moved across the cafeteria, searching for a few seconds before they located the back of a curly brown head inches above those around him. He sat with a group of friends-mostly girls, naturally-at a long rectangular table on the other side of the room. He was wearing a tight black T-shirt that, while not really appropriate for the frigid temperatures of early February, showed off his perfect muscular arms. Arms that had twined around me… arms that had helped erase my stress…
“Did I tell you guys that my brother is coming to town?” Jessica asked. “He and his fiancée are visiting for the week.”
Casey’s worried eyes immediately turned on me and widened when she realized I was on my feet. “Where are you going, B?”
Everyone at the table looked at me then, and I tried to sound convincing. “I just remembered,” I said. “I need to go talk to Wesley about our English project.” Screw avoiding him. I had a better, more helpful idea.
“Didn’t you finish that on Saturday?” Jessica asked.
“We got started on it, but we didn’t finish the paper.”
“ ’Cause you were too busy making out,” Casey teased, winking at me.
Don’t look guilty. Don’t look guilty.
“Making out?” Vikki raised an eyebrow at me.
“Didn’t you hear?” Jessica laughed, smiling good-naturedly at me. “Bianca is madly in love with Wesley.”
I faked a gagging noise and everyone laughed. “Yeah, right,” I said, making sure that my voice was full of irritation and disgust. “I can’t stand him. God, I’ve lost so much respect for Mrs. Perkins since she made me work with him.”
“I’d be ecstatic if I were you,” Vikki said, sounding a little bitter.
Jeanine and Angela nodded in agreement.
“Anyway.” I was feeling a little jumpy. “I need to talk to him about getting this done. I’ll see you all later, okay?”
“ ’kay,” Jessica said, waving cheerfully.
I hurried through the crowded cafeteria, not slowing down until I was within five feet of Wesley’s table, where the only other male occupant was Harrison Carlyle. Then I paused for a second, suddenly a little hesitant.
One of the girls, a skinny blonde with Angelina Jolie lips, was rattling on about her crappy vacation in Miami, and Wesley was listening with rapt attention-obviously trying to convince her of his sympathy. Disgust erased my insecurity, and I cleared my throat loudly, getting the whole group’s attention.
The blonde was agitated and angry, but I focused on Wesley, who looked at me casually, like he would any other girl. I turned up my nose and said, “I need to talk to you about our English paper.”
“Is it necessary?” Wesley asked with a sigh.
“Yeah,” I said. “Right now. I’m not going to fail this stupid assignment because of your lazy ass.”
He rolled his eyes and got to his feet. “Sorry, ladies,” he said to the tragedy-stricken girls. “I’ll see you tomorrow. You’ll save a seat for me?”
“Of course we will,” a tiny redhead squeaked.
As Wesley and I walked away, I heard Big Lips hiss, “God, that girl is a bitch!”
When we were out in the hallway Wesley asked, “What’s the problem, Duffy? I e-mailed you the essay last night, just like you demanded. And where exactly are we going? The library?”
“Just shut up and come with me.” I led him down the hall past the English classrooms.
Don’t ask where I got this idea, because I couldn’t tell you, but I knew precisely where we were going, and I was sure that this might officially make me a slut. But when we reached the door of the unused janitor’s closet, I had no feeling of shame… not yet, at least.
I grasped the doorknob and noticed Wesley’s eyes narrow with suspicion. I yanked open the door, checked that no one was watching, and gestured for him to go inside. Wesley walked into the tiny closet, and I followed, shutting the door stealthily behind us.
“Something tells me this isn’t about The Scarlet Letter,” he said, and even in the dark I knew he was grinning.
“Be quiet.”
This time he met me halfway. His hands tangled in my hair and mine clawed at his forearms. We kissed violently, and my back slammed against the wall. I heard a mop-or maybe a broom-topple over, but my brain barely registered the sound as one of Wesley’s hands moved to my hip, holding me closer to him. He was so much taller than me that I had to tilt my head back almost all the way to meet his kiss. His lips pressed hard against mine, and I let my hands explore his biceps.
The smell of his cologne, rather than the lonely, stale air of the closet, filled my senses.
We wrestled in the darkness for a while before I felt his hand insistently lifting the hem of my T-shirt. With a gasp, I pulled away from the kiss and grabbed his wrist. “No… not now.”
“Then when?” Wesley asked in my ear, still pinning me to the wall. He didn’t even sound winded.
I, on the other hand, struggled to catch my breath. “Later.”