Anywhere But Here (9 page)

“Put me down.” I beat on his back. He slammed the door shut and carried me with ease across the parking lot as if it was perfectly normal and acceptable. I continued to protest and he continued to ignore me until we stepped through the sliding doors. I quit making a scene and he slid my body down the front of his, setting me on my feet.

“I hate you,” I hissed.

“Right, because I’m the impossible one.” He rolled his eyes and grabbed a cart.

Since I was already inside and it wouldn’t do any good to go back out and stand in the cold and dark, I followed him to the junk food aisle.

“What do you want?” He looked at me. “We have to get Oreos because you made me want cookies. We can grab some real chips too. I’ve got like sixteen bucks cash on me that I made in tips tonight.”

“Unh uh,” I shook my head. “I can’t let you pay.”

“Why the hell not?” He sounded almost offended.

“Because, I invited you over to do homework. I’m the hostess. I’m supposed to provide the snacks.”

“And you did. They were just shitty snacks.”

“Exactly. That’s why you need to let me pay. I feel bad that you had to drive out here because I don’t have anything you want.”

The corners of his mouth tugged upward. “I never said you don’t have anything I want.”

I smacked his arm. “Knock it off. You know what I meant.”

“Fine, but I was the one who chose to drive us out here. Therefore, my idea, I can pay.”

“No.” I shook my head. “The only way I’m letting you get anything is if you let me pay.”

“For fuck’s sake,” he groaned. “Do you always have to be so difficult?”

“It might seem silly to you, but please just let me get the snacks. If we work on the project at your place, you can provide them.”

“No deal. We’re not going to be working at my place. So I let you get the snacks this time, but next time I bring them.”

“Fine. I can live with that.”

“Okay, now I’m going to ask you again, what do you want?”

I looked at the shelves and then back to him. “I don’t know. I don’t really eat this stuff. What do you like?”

He reached forward and grabbed two bags of Doritos. “Spicy or Cool Ranch?”

“Get both.” I grabbed the bags and tossed them in our cart. “What else? Do we need dippy stuff?”

“If by dippy stuff you mean salsa and queso, then yeah.” They had jars lining the shelf. “Mild, medium or hot?” he asked.

“Oh, I have a really good recipe for homemade salsa. We could get the ingredients and make it ourselves.”

He gave me the little frown that meant he thought I was being unreasonable.

“What? It’s good.”

“You’re missing the point of tonight. We’re not doing healthy, homemade. We want the shit in the jar. So, mild, medium or hot.?”

“Fine. I like it spicy.”

“Good to know.” He grabbed a jar of extra hot salsa that promised to set our mouths on fire and one of the cheeses that I was pretty sure wasn’t real cheese.

“Oreos now?” I asked.

“Yeah, we can go get Oreos now.”

We found the aisle with the packaged cookies and he grabbed a pack of double-stuffed.

“What about those peanut butter ones?” I pointed at the cookies next to the Oreos.

“You want Nutter Butters?”

“I don’t know. Are they good?”

He tipped his head back. “You’re killing me.” Then he grabbed a pack and tossed them in.

“What?” I asked confused as he started to walk away.

“You’ve never had fucking Nutter Butters. Are you even from this planet?”

I gently rammed the cart into the back of his legs.

“Hey!” He turned on me. “Don’t get sassy with me.”

I stuck my tongue out when he turned his back to me again.

“So there’s got to be some junk food you’ve had before that you actually like.”

“I’ve had junk food before. I just don’t each much of it.”

“Well, there’s got to be something you like.”

“I like ice cream,” I admitted. “But I don’t have it often.”

“I can work with that.”

I followed him over to the freezer section.

“Pick your poison.” He waved his arms Vanna White style at all the options.

I started to reach for a pint sized carton of Ben & Jerry’s cookie dough.

“Unh, unh, uh,” he stopped me. “Go big or go home.” He steered me toward the larger tubs.

“I can’t eat that much ice cream and I doubt you can either.”

“You have a freezer don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Right, then. What kind?”

After we’d added the unnecessarily large tub of cookie dough ice cream to our cart, he insisted there was one more thing we needed, and led me through the aisles until he found it. He grabbed a jar of maraschino cherries from the shelf and set it in our cart. I gave him a hard look.

“What?” he asked innocently. “It’s fruit. You’re all about fruit and you can’t have ice cream without a cherry on top. The cherry’s my favorite part.”

“I’m sure,” I muttered and then pushed the cart toward checkout. We passed by the candy display and I stopped, but then thought better of it, considering we already had enough sugar in the cart to induce a diabetic coma.

“Oh come on, you know you want to,” he urged.

I stopped, looked back at the shelf of sweets and then reached for a bag of peanut butter M&M’s, but was stopped when he grabbed my hand and ‘tsked’ me.

“Thought you’d learned by now.” Instead of grabbing the normal size bag, he grabbed the giant bag.

My stomach and teeth were already hurting.

“Are you hungry, you know for something besides all this?” I asked him, thinking it might be better if we had real food.

“I ate dinner, but I’m a guy so I can eat again.”

“Okay. How about we grab a pizza?”

After going back to the freezer section and having a five minute debate about pizza preferences, we grabbed two and then finally made it to the checkout.

We were in line when my phone buzzed with a text message from Jeremy asking how homework was going. I texted him back a quick
fine,
feeling slightly guilty. I slid my phone back in my purse and then paid for our stuff. Somehow Kellen managed to carry all of the bags out to the car himself and then we were on our way back to my place.

Kellen

September 9

Senior year . . .

Shae’s phone buzzed several times in her purse on the drive back to her place, but she ignored it.

“So, does good ol’ Jer know what you’re up to tonight?” I couldn’t help myself.

“Yes,” she replied sharply. “I have no reason to lie to him.”

“Right. Of course. I just can’t imagine he’s all that cool with this.” I pulled into her drive and my car made a choking noise as if even it knew it didn’t belong here.

“It doesn’t really matter. Either he trusts me or he doesn’t, but he has nothing to worry about.” She made sure she was looking me in the eye to get her point across.

We carried the sacks inside, depositing everything in her fancy as fuck kitchen.

“We got all this stuff. Now what?” she asked cutely.

I started pulling everything from the bags. Shit, we bought a lot. A lot more than my measly sixteen bucks would have gotten us. I felt like a chump. “Maybe you can turn on the oven for the pizzas and we can snack on chips and salsa while they cook.”

She hit like fifteen fucking buttons on the oven that I swore was probably going to turn into some Transformer Decepticon, and then stuck the pizzas in, setting a timer.

“Where do you want to work? We can go to the living room, the den or the study.”

“Hold up, what the hell’s the difference between the den and the study?”

“Um, the den has couches and another TV. The study has a desk and a computer and a lot of books.”

“Does this place have a dungeon too?” I joked.

“No dungeon, but it does have a big cellar. All that’s down there though is wine and a bunch of old stuff.”

“Alcohol, now you’re talking. I say we head to the cellar.”

“No alcohol. No cellar.

“Fine. What about your room?”

“Why would you want to go to my room?”

I cocked my head and gave her a
come on
look.

She huffed, putting her hands on her hips. “The answer to that is no also.”

I laughed. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to. Your face did it for you.”

“Alright, alright. I don’t care where we work. You pick.” I grabbed the chips and the jars. “I’ll just follow.”

“Okay, then the study would probably be best so you can use the computer in there if you need to.” She guided me down a hall around a corner and down another hall. This place was huge. Who the hell needed this much space?

“Is it just you and your mom here?” I knew her Dad was dead. Hell everyone on the east coast knew that. When you’re the first “B” in BNB Trust, or Bradford National Banking and Trust, one of the largest holding companies in the country, people take notice of your life, and your death, especially if you go down in a fiery helicopter crash.

“Mmhmm.” She pushed open the door to what she called the study, but it was more of a small library, at least twice the size of any room in my house. “Make yourself comfortable wherever. I’m going to run upstairs and grab my laptop.”

“I’ll try not to get into anything,” I called after her. The second she was out the door, I was exploring the room and all their shit. There were so many damn books, and some of them really old. I felt like if I went through pulling all of them off the shelves one would open up a secret passageway. The house wasn’t old, but it just had that feel. There were paintings all over the place. It seemed her mother, or someone, had a serious thing for renaissance art and tragic shit.

There were paintings and art all over this house, but I’d yet to see one photograph. I felt more like I was in a museum. Would have been one hell of a place to play hide and seek as a kid, but I guess if you didn’t have any brothers or sisters, you wouldn’t be playing much hide and seek.

Shae reappeared a minute later and didn’t comment on my perusal of the room. I joined her at the large wooden desk that looked even older than some of the volumes in here, and we spread out the chips and our work. She booted up her laptop and I did the same with the other.

“We can do the plot analysis first and then lead into the character break-down. We should start with the context and setting.”

“Whatever you say, you’re the expert.”

“Yes, and the only one who’s read the book,” she muttered dryly.

I leaned back in the chair while the laptop came to life. “What do I need to read it for? Rich dude and servant girl fall in love, yada yada, yada. Right?”

“No. Number one, she’s not a servant girl. She’s just of a lower social class, and one of the major themes is the separation of the classes. Number two, there’s so much more to it than just them falling in love. You really need to read it, or at the very least watch the movie or Sparknotes it, or something,” she urged dramatically.

I let out a reluctant breath. “Who’s in the movie?”

“There’s more than one version, but I love the one with Kiera Knightly, even though most of the population prefers the five hour version with Colin Firth.”

“Fuck, five hours?”

“Yes, it’s a little more periodically accurate and of course follows the details of the book more closely, but the two hour version still captured the feel of the story and I think Kiera Knightly portrays a better Lizzie.”

“Whatever, fine. Then let’s watch it.”

“That wasn’t the plan. We need to work on the paper.”

“The movie is what, you said two hours? The paper will take us maybe one.” I glanced at my phone, it wasn’t quite eight. “We’ve got plenty of time. Now do you have a theater in this place?” I was already up and making for the door.

She scrambled to her feet, grabbing her computer and papers. “No theater, but the TV in the den is bigger than the one in the living room.”

“Lead the way,” I gestured and then followed her back down the hall and around the corner to another large room at the back of the house. She flicked on a light and illuminated the large space. Large couches and armchairs made up the seating. Behind them, a wall of glass enclosed the room. French doors led to, what I assumed was, a patio or back yard. It was pitch black out, so the only thing visible was the reflection of the room and what looked like could be moonlight reflecting off water. Of course there was a fucking pool. 

As promised, the biggest flat screen television I’d ever laid eyes on was the focal point of the room. Had to be eighty some inches, hooked to a surround sound system that I was sure would make this a theater experience. Shelves of movies filled the walls, almost as many as there were books in the last room.

“Not a theater, right.” I shook my head and dropped down onto the couch. The cushions molded around my body without swallowing me up. It was more comfortable than my bed, not that I was surprised. It was pretty clear by now that everything in this house was bigger and better than anything I’d ever had times about a billion. Even Derek, whose family was much better off than mine, didn’t have stuff like this. No one in my world did.

After putting the movie in, Shae made herself comfortable on the opposite end of the couch with her computer in her lap and papers beside her. “Here,” she handed me a blank notebook and a pen. “You can make notes about the characters and the story while we watch.”

She wanted me to take notes . . .

Making no move to accept the notebook and pen from her, I eyed her like she was out of her damn mind.

“Just take it.” She threw it to me and then flung the pen at my head but it bounced off the back of the couch.

“Fine. I’ll take the damn notes.” I snatched up the notebook and pen.

“Thank you.” She skipped through the previews to the menu, but before she hit play, she suggested we check on the pizza.

We returned to our places a few minutes later, plates of pizza in hand, and she started the movie. Right away, I was pretty sure it was going to be a snooze fest, but I could see how into it Shae was. I think I spent more time watching her face than I did the movie at first. If she was aware that I was staring at her, she didn’t comment on it. A few times she did pointedly ask if I was taking notes, so I set my food aside and opened up the notebook.

Elizabeth : hot, feisty, a little naïve and stubborn as hell (a lot like Shae)

Her sisters : fucking annoying, but older sister is hot and less annoying

Mother: fucking nutter

Dad: either smarter or dumber than he seems, needs to reign in his circus

Mr. Bingley: Gay

Mr. Darcy : Really? This is the guy Shae’s going nuts over?

Bingley’s sister: bitch, probably gives good head

Preliminary notes jotted down, I traded the notebook for the bag of spicy nacho Doritos. I ate a few and then held it out to Shae. She eyed the bag. “No thank you.”

“You haven’t touched anything besides a piece of pizza. Eat a damn chip.”

She rolled her eyes but reached into the bag and pulled out one small chip and popped it in her mouth.

“Have another.”

“I don’t want one.”

“Don’t want one or you’re being a girl and worried about eating in front of me?”

A hard frown pinched her brow, but she reached her hand into the bag again to prove a point. It was so easy to get a reaction out of her. Satisfied, I retracted the bag and we both returned our attention to the large screen where the Bennett girls were having their first run in with a soldier boy, Wickham. Right away it was obvious that the guy was a total tool, but Elizabeth was looking at him like he was Superman. It got worse further into the movie. I snorted, unable to help myself.

“What?” Shae looked at me curiously.

“Just figures Elizabeth would fall for that slimy douchebag. Girls are so predictable, even back then it seems.”

“How do you know he’s slimy if you haven’t seen or read this before?”

“It’s obvious the guy is a complete prick, and that whole story about Darcy, clearly bullshit to get sympathy.”

“You really haven’t watched this before, or read the book? Not even skimmed it?”

I laughed. “Nope, I’m just not completely fucking blind. It’s girls who fall for that shit all the time.”

“Not all girls,” she grumbled, her eyes returning to the movie. Another laugh escaped me. Her head snapped to mine. “What?”

“It’s just funny hearing that from you.”

“And what exactly do you mean by that?” she challenged.

“Nothing,” I muttered, thinking better of opening this can of worms. She refused to let it go and grabbed up the remote, hitting pause.

“No, if you want to say something, say it.”

“Fine,” I shifted my body to face her. “While we’re having our little homework session, where is good ol’ Jer tonight?”

“At Josh’s, having a guys night.”

“Mmhmm. Of course he is. I bet it’s just him and the guys playing some video games, eating pizza.” Not likely. My tone said as much.

“You think he’s lying to me?” she bristled.

“I think you trust the guy more than he deserves.”

“Whatever, you’re wrong. You–”

“What? Don’t really know the guy, because he’s not like that. He’s good to you and would never treat you like you’re disposable. Yeah, I must be wrong about him, after all, I’ve only known him since he was still pissing the bed at sleepovers.”

“It doesn’t mean you know him better than I do,” she snapped.

“Of course not. I’m sure he’s a real prize. Good job on snagging yourself such a great catch.” I grabbed the remote from her hand and hit play. If she wanted to delude herself, fine by me. The truth was there if she decided to open her fucking eyes.

Tension settled in the room between us as the film started back up. I felt bad for causing it, but not for being right and trying to do her a favor. If it were anyone else he was fooling, I wouldn’t give a shit. I’d probably say it was their own fault, they deserved each other, but more and more I was becoming convinced that she deserved about a thousand times better than Jeremy Black. The fact he didn’t see that made me hate the guy all that much more. His entire life he carried around a sense of entitlement simply because Mommy and Daddy told him he could have whatever he wanted and gave it to him. He didn’t know the value of anything, so he didn’t value shit. It was obvious that extended to people.

I wasn’t a saint, or even a good guy by any means, but I was honest about that. What you see is what you get. I sure as hell didn’t go around convincing girls I hung the fucking moon, only to stomp all over them when they found out I didn’t. So really, who’s the piece of shit?

Still me in this backwards world, and when Elizabeth annihilated Darcy because she was wrong and he hadn’t done a damn thing except be who he was and refuse to apologize for it, I found myself actually relating to the poor sap. But if I were Darcy, I would have gone and kicked Wickham’s pathetic ass, especially when it was revealed how the fucker used his little sister and then Elizabeth’s. The last thing I would have done was pay the guy off. Wanker would have disappeared and never been seen again, regardless of how that left dear Lizzie’s slut of a sister. But hey, he got the girl in the end so what did I know?