Adored (13 page)

Write soon, li’l sis.

xoxoxo

Bree

P.S. I’m attaching a jpeg of the hot new Stella McCartney clutch that I snatched from the new samples today. I’m FedExing it to you for an early Xmas present!

B
randon had to struggle to pay attention to Doc Gilbert’s droning voice in the overheated classroom on Tuesday morning. The English teacher’s chalk squeaked loudly across the chalkboard as he scratched out a discussion question from
Middlemarch
. The hissing radiators and the hot, steamy air didn’t make it any easier to focus. For the past couple of days, all of Waverly had been abuzz with stupid Secret Santa—er, Secret
Satan
. Someone had given Benny Cunningham a ferret, which was just plain disgusting, with a red bow on its head. Even though pets of any kind were prohibited in the Waverly handbook, Benny had taken to carrying the ratlike animal around in her tan leather Fendi bag like she was Paris fucking Hilton. Lon Baruzza had gotten a gift bag of edible massage oils left on his doorstep, and had spent the last week personally offering full-body rubs to every single girl on campus.

Brandon felt a tap on his shoulder and glanced behind him to see Sage Francis. She wore a red ribbed Polo turtleneck, her corn silk blond hair pulled up in a tight ponytail. Her small hand held out a note for him. Two weeks ago, Sage passing him a note— combined with her sweet-smelling pear shampoo—would have sent his heart into near arrhythmia. But after she’d so heartlessly dumped him the day before Thanksgiving break, telling him he was too
feminine
for her, Brandon had fallen hard for Hellie and tried to erase all fond memories of Sage from his brain.

“Uh, okay,” he muttered, grabbing the note and ignoring Sage’s wink. He unfolded the rhombus-shaped note without curiosity, and recognized Sage’s loopy script handwriting:
How’s your Swedish girlfriend?

Totally jealous
, Brandon thought triumphantly, as he turned around and flashed a thumbs-up sign. He crossed out
Swedish
and wrote
Swiss
in its place and tossed the note back to Sage, who giggled as she read it.

“What’s so funny, Miss Francis?” Doc Gilbert demanded, throwing his chalk down on his desk in disgust. He was a short, red-faced Santa Claus-like figure—if Santa had a really short fuse and a predilection for hard liquor.

“Nothing,” Sage answered nervously, twirling the end of her ponytail around her finger. The sleeves of her turtleneck were pushed up around her elbows, and her whole face was pink, either from the attention or the near-tropical steaminess of the classroom.

“If you’re not interested in learning today, Miss Francis, I suggest you leave.” The whole class quieted down and eyed the door, wondering if Doc Gilbert was actually expecting Sage to get up and leave. He made the “suggestion” to someone at least once a week, but no one had ever taken him up on it. Brandon would have loved to watch Sage slink out of the room, but just then, the oak door to the classroom opened and a deliveryman in a brown jacket and matching brown pants poked his head in.

“Is this Weston, room twelve?” He stared at his clipboard, a slightly annoyed look on his face.

“Yes, but…” Doc Gilbert crossed his arms in front of his chest. “Deliveries are supposed to go to the main office, not the individual classrooms.”

“I’ve got a case of wine for…” The deliveryman glanced back at his paperwork. “For Julia DeSimone?” He pushed in a dolly with a giant wooden crate that read
FRAGILE
in block letters.

Julia DeSimone, a gangly junior with dyed black hair in the theater club, raised her hand eagerly. The rest of the class turned to look at her, unable to control their laughter. “Right here!” she cried.

“Wine?” Doc Gilbert stepped forward, all his annoyance evaporating from his voice. “For an underage student? I don’t think so. Better bring that crate up here and I’ll take care of it.” Shrugging his shoulders, the deliveryman quickly wheeled his dolly over to Doc Gilbert’s desk and dumped the crate on the floor. Brandon could practically see Doc salivating at the thought of curling up with all that alcohol. “I’ll have to turn this over to the administration, I suppose.”

“Like
that’s
ever going to happen,” Heath whispered loudly. Brandon rolled his eyes.

“Back to work, you overprivileged little freeloaders.” Doc Gilbert’s favored way of motivating his students was by insulting them, but it was only occasionally effective. He scratched a few more discussion questions on the board but kept glancing at the crate next to his desk. Even Brandon started to wonder if it contained the $5.99 crap or the good stuff.

The door had hardly shut when it clicked open again. “
Now
what?” Doc Gilbert shouted, tossing his chalk across the room, narrowly missing Kirin Choate’s head. The entire class turned around to find a police officer, his hands on his hips, surveying the room. Immediately, everyone sat up straighter in their seats, and Brandon felt himself smoothing out his collar. Had it been one of the out-of-shape Waverly security officers, in their cranberry-colored uniforms, no one would have moved, but a real police officer? A hush fell.

“Can I help you?” Doc Gilbert asked meekly. He briefly glanced toward Kirin Choate, as if he expected to be arrested for throwing chalk. He folded his guilty chalk-covered hands behind his back and stood in front of the case of wine, as if to shield it from the officer’s view.

“Is Brandon Buchanan here?” the cop asked sternly, his steely blue eyes scanning the room as if comparing all their faces to a description of a suspect.

Brandon felt a sweat break out on his forehead as all eyes turned in his direction. His mind raced through the short list of things he’d ever done wrong in his life—breaking into the field house with Callie to make out on the mats, taking a hit from Alan St. Girard’s enormous bong one night, throwing out Heath’s black Ben Sherman T-shirt he’d worn eight times and refused to wash, insisting it was good luck. But they’d either happened ages ago, or weren’t exactly illegal. And then he thought of Mr. Dunderdorf. Had the old man somehow discovered that Brandon had defiled his daughter and turned to the police?

“I’m Brandon.” Brandon spoke up, trying to sound brave in front of everyone. Maybe if Dunderdorf had called the cops and Brandon got sent to jail, at least then fucking Sage would believe him about Hellie. “What did I do?”

The class was completely silent, and even Doc Gilbert seemed to be frozen in place.

“Brandon Buchanan?” the cop repeated, gripping the black nightstick attached to his belt. “Can I see some ID?”

Benny’s ferret peeked out over the edge of her purse, but she nudged it back inside as the cop stood over Brandon’s desk, smelling like cheap cologne. Brandon tried to keep his fingers from trembling as he pulled his student ID card from his butter-soft Gucci leather wallet. The cop looked at it for half a second before dropping it back on the desk. “Brandon Buchanan, you’re under arrest—”

“What?” Brandon’s jaw dropped, and several of the girls in class—Sage included—gasped audibly.

“For being
too damn hot
,” the cop continued, and before anyone could react, he tugged at his uniform top and the sound of Velcro ripping filled the room. The class’s shock quickly turned to glee when they realized they were not actually in the presence of law enforcement… but rather, a stripper!

“Boo-yah!” Teague Williams whooped, clapping his hands together. Before Brandon knew what was happening, the whole class was clapping in unison as the cop—Brandon could see there was a fake-looking gold badge over his naked chest that read officer booty—tugged his shirt open more and touched his tanned, perfectly sculpted, and hair-free pecs.

Doc Gilbert pounded his fist against his desk to call the class to attention, but even he knew it was futile. The entire class was staring—partly horrified, partly fascinated—at the stripper, who was now strolling up and down Brandon’s aisle and swiveling his hips. Brandon clenched his fists together. He’d never actually punched anyone before, but now he couldn’t wait for the chance to connect his fist with the face of his asshole Secret Santa.

When Officer Booty touched his polished brass belt buckle, Brandon felt like he was going to faint. His mind swirled through all the various humiliations of his life, but nothing came even remotely close to his Secret Santa sending a male stripper to serenade him in the middle of math class.

O
n Wednesday after dinner, Callie strode up the steps to Baxter Hall, the upper-class boys’ dorm on the north edge of campus where Sebastian lived. It was kind of strange to walk into a boys’ dorm to visit anyone other than Easy. As she stood outside Sebastian’s door in the oak-paneled hallway, she caught the faint whiff of marijuana and Febreze, which made her think of Easy even more. He and Alan had always kept a stash of Febreze ready in their closet to spray down their entire room after a joint-smoking session, and sometimes they overdid it, drenching the room in the too-clean scent.

But that was over. Easy Walsh was gone, for better or for worse, and it was time Callie moved on. One of her mother’s favorite platitudes—and she had many—was “Treading water doesn’t get you anywhere. You have to swim.”

And so Callie rapped her gloved hand against the oak door of Sebastian’s room, right above his New Jersey Nets sticker—was that baseball or basketball? She should probably care. She took a deep breath and tried not to think about how their date had ended the other night. Sebastian had walked her up the front steps of Dumbarton, and she’d stood there stupidly, waiting for a kiss, until she finally realized it wasn’t going to happen. Although she’d bragged to everyone about what a gentleman he was, it kind of weirded her out that he hadn’t kissed her. Didn’t he find her attractive?

Her bruised ego might have been the end of their burgeoning relationship, but the next day, he’d given her the anklet. Definitely a gentleman, despite his poor taste in jewelry.

Callie heard the soft pulse of music with a heavy bass coming from inside, so she knew someone was home. She knocked again, louder. “Who’s there?” a deep voice called out. Callie stepped closer to the door, feeling somewhat ridiculous shouting her name down the hallway.

“
Callie
.” The door finally swung open and Callie grinned at the sight of Sebastian, yawning, his tousled black hair falling sexily across his forehead. In his tissue-thin white Hanes T-shirt and dark wash True Religion jeans, he looked devastatingly sexy. In a kind of bad-boy way.

“Oh, hey,” he said, squinting, his eyes slightly reddened. The faint smell of Old Spice deodorant tickled Callie’s nose and she sneezed. “God bless,” he said. “Are you getting sick?”

Callie rubbed her nose and shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She waited a beat, rubbing her hands up and down the arms of her white bell-sleeved Tahari coat. Sebastian didn’t say anything. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” she asked, running the toe of her buckled Stuart Weitzman ankle boot against the door frame.

“Oh. Uh, sure.” Sebastian stepped aside, waving his arm graciously. “Kind of a mess.”

Callie stepped carefully into the room. The floor was absent the crumpled clothing, abandoned notebooks, and empty Cheetos bags that always littered Easy’s room. It was a nice start, but unfortunately, what the room had in cleanliness, it was lacking in décor. The only light on was a red Chinese lantern hanging from the ceiling, a tear in the paper shade letting a ray of light escape. On the wall over one bed—Sebastian’s, she assumed— was a giant green, white, and red Italian flag. A red curtain was duct-taped haphazardly over the window, which was wide open to let out the smoke.

“Whoa!” Callie cried, stepping on something that squeaked beneath her feet. For a moment, she thought it was a live animal, like Benny’s squirmy little ferret. But then she bent over and picked up a Nerf football. “Cool,” she said unenthusiastically.

“Sorry,” he apologized, tossing the football into the closet. “Blinds went missing some time after Halloween,” he said when he caught her looking at the curtain. “Too many people climbing in and out of the window.”

Nothing a girlfriend couldn’t fix, Callie told herself. “Where’s your roommate?” she asked, changing the subject. She thought she remembered that he roomed with Drew Gately.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Sebastian replied, perching on the edge of his paper-cluttered desk. Were those his college applications? Callie squinted at the top one, hoping to see Princeton or Dartmouth, but it was for somewhere called Eastern Apache University, which sounded made-up. Next to the stack, a cigar box lay open with a glass ashtray inside, filled to the brim with ashes. He picked up a half-smoked Marlboro and offered it up to Callie.

Callie shook her head. An open closet door caught her eye. “Is this your closet?” Callie asked, tugging on the sleeve of a charcoal gray John Varvatos V-neck sweater that would have set off Sebastian’s skin tone perfectly. She imagined pressing her cheek to his cashmere-covered chest.

“Nah. That’s mine.” Sebastian nodded his head toward the other closet, the one filled with rows of plain white Hanes T-shirts—at least they were hung up—and lots of Tommy Hilfiger. She recognized the button-down he’d worn to dinner the other night, and the handful of nice clothes she’d seen him wear over the past week, but they were sandwiched between all kinds of shiny tracksuits.

“Oh.” Callie shrugged, glancing back at Drew’s closet longingly. Maybe she could burn all the Tommy Hilfiger and Sebastian would have to start all over. “I just think it’s really sexy when guys wear sweaters.”

“Yeah?” Sebastian asked skeptically.

“I almost forgot!” Callie exclaimed, though she hadn’t forgotten at all. She dug through her Fendi tote and pulled out a small box wrapped in silver paper. She held it out to him, purposefully brushing her hand against his.