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Authors: Hailey Abbott

Boy Crazy (8 page)

BOOK: Boy Crazy
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“Mae Rose,” he said when she stopped in front of him. “I thought you left.”

“Now, would I leave without saying goodbye to the gentleman who accompanied me most of this tour?” Cassie asked, her drawl in full effect. “My mother would faint from shock. She raised me to be a good Southern girl, with manners.” She stopped just short of saying, “I do declare.” It would have been overkill.

“I haven’t met a lot of Southern girls,” Ricky said. His brown eyes looked like chocolate in the afternoon sunshine. “But I’m a big fan.”

Cassie didn’t say fiddle-dee-dee, either. Instead, she closed the distance between them and slid her hand around Ricky’s neck. His skin was hot against her palm,
and she could feel his soft curls against her fingers. His breath puffed against her cheeks, and she smiled. Then she stood on her toes and pressed her lips against his.

Ricky’s mouth was warm and firm. He stood frozen for a moment; then his hands came to touch Cassie’s waist and he leaned closer, his mouth pressing back against hers.

Cassie stood there for a moment and enjoyed it.

Then she stepped away and smiled up at him. She liked the way it felt to kiss him first. To move back first. To be in control. The kiss had been nice too.

“Wow,” Ricky said. “I mean—thank you.” Color darkened the skin above his cheekbones. “This has been the best college tour so far.”

“Well, aren’t you sweet,” Cassie murmured, and then felt the Southern drawl take control. “I do declare.”

She blamed it on the carefree feeling humming in her blood as she turned and walked away, grinning to herself.

Number three, and only seven left to go!

I
’m going to lunch!” Cassie called to Billy, locking her bike to its usual spot in the backyard space that served as their tour staging area and sometimes Billy’s garage. The door to the repair part of the shop was open wide to catch the breeze coming up from the harbor below. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young sang in perfect harmony from the stereo at only mildly deafening volume.

The older man didn’t look up from the bike he was working on inside the repair center.

“Are you going to the café?” he asked.

“I can’t seem to help myself,” Cassie said with a pretend sigh. “It’s too delicious.”

Billy looked up then, and grinned. “Then you know you need to bring me one of those Caesar wraps,” he said.

“Right?” Cassie threw out her hands. “They’re addictive!”

“Maybe you should bring me two,” Billy said, mulling it over. “I might need a snack later on.”

Cassie hummed under her breath as she skipped down the road toward the café. She’d had a great morning. A tour that was tough at first—with an angry, gothed-out twelve-year-old girl—had ended up being terrific. Once Goth Lucy had relaxed a little bit and really taken in the view, Catalina had worked its magic on her. The whole family had left in a much better frame of mind than when they’d arrived. Cassie loved that she got to be a part of that. She knew that the ocean and the hills and the glorious sky did all the heavy lifting. But she liked to see that the beauty of the island got under everyone’s skin, not just hers.

Cassie made her way down the bustling avenue toward the café, excited to tell Ryan all about her adventures at UCLA. She was trailing pretty far behind Keagan and Greta in Project Kiss, but Cassie wasn’t worried. She felt like she’d just hit her stride. She’d been under the cloud that was her crush on Daniel Fletcher since the day she’d first arrived at Siskiyou Academy, but the way he’d dumped her had ended the crush as well as their relationship. It made her feel buoyant to be free of all that now. Cassie was working up to a full-on swagger when she ran up the steps into the café.

But she stopped dead in her tracks when she walked through the door and saw Trey standing there by the dessert case, chatting to Ryan.

As if they were the best of friends.

Cassie felt her mouth drop open in shock.

Ryan—the traitor—saw her come in and didn’t leap away from Trey or run over to Cassie or do any of the other things Cassie thought would be appropriate responses to being caught speaking to the enemy. He kept talking to Trey as if it were perfectly normal. Cassie didn’t know what to do. Should she ignore Trey when he was standing right there and talk to Ryan the way she usually did? Or should she just sit down and avoid the whole dilemma?

Cassie knew she was a coward. Greta would have marched over and given Trey a piece of her mind, kicked him out, and then slapped Ryan around too. She’d filled him in on all of the gory, terrible details about Trey’s player past and almost-stalker present. How could he cavort with the enemy? But she couldn’t bring herself to do anything except grab a table and pretend she wasn’t at all bothered.

Ryan sauntered over a few minutes later—when, Cassie couldn’t help but notice, Trey and he had finished talking and Trey had taken one of the high tables near the register. Ryan had in no way
hurried
over to Cassie.

“You are dead to me,” Cassie told Ryan when he arrived. He laughed at her. He set down her drink and the salad she hadn’t even completely decided she wanted yet. She glared at the food and told herself she wasn’t sulking. She was rightly furious at Ryan’s betrayal.

“You have to admire his tenacity, Cassie,” Ryan said, as if he could read Cassie’s mind. Then he smirked. “Especially when it comes in such a fine package.”

Cassie rolled her eyes at him, and then noticed that he’d given her half a Caesar wrap too—clearly a peace offering.

“Are you trying to bribe away my legitimate outrage with this?” she asked, picking the wrap up and brandishing it at him. “Do you think it will work?”

“I am, and it will,” Ryan said with all the lazy confidence in the world. He looked quickly over his shoulder and then dropped into the chair across from her. “You can’t resist my charm. And I know you can’t resist that Caesar wrap.”

Cassie decided that Trey Carter and his suspicious appearances were not going to ruin her lunch—much less her friendship with Ryan. Also, Ryan was right. The delicious Caesar wrap cured all ills. So she let it go, and she and Ryan indulged in some serious dishing as she ate. It was one of the things she loved most about her job—these long, gossipy lunches with Ryan.

“What will you do if he calls you again?” she asked at
the conclusion of yet another scandalous tale, in which Ryan had gone on what he thought was a date only to discover the guy already had a boyfriend—the live-in, angry, and back-unexpectedly-from-his-trip kind.

“You know he will too,” Ryan said with a sigh, as if being so good-looking and sought-after was a trial.

“They always call you again,” Cassie agreed with a snicker.

“He can call all he wants,” Ryan said, shaking his head. “Life is way too short for me to be jumping out of windows in West Hollywood. Seriously.”

Cassie gathered her things together, including the two extra Caesar wraps for Billy, and leaned over to kiss Ryan on the cheek.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. And then she couldn’t help herself—she looked over to Trey’s table and was surprised to see that it was empty. Surprised and, if she was honest with herself, kind of let down. She ignored the feeling.

“Yes, you will,” Ryan said cheerfully. “And one of these nights, you and I are going to have to have some adventures of our own!”

“You know it,” Cassie called back. She could just imagine the trouble she and Ryan would get into on a night out. It would be fantastic.

Cassie headed out into the sunny afternoon, stopping in the doorway to slide her sunglasses over her eyes.
She was so busy fumbling with them as she started walking again that it took her a long moment or two to realize she was walking directly toward Trey. She blinked a few times in case she was imagining it, but no, he hadn’t appeared in her mind again. He was right there.

He was leaning up against the side of the next building, watching her.

Waiting for her.

Cassie felt that strange confusion wash through her again. How could he look so good to her? How could her fingers actually twitch with the need to touch him—his glossy dark hair, maybe, or that half smile he always wore?

What was
wrong
with her?

“What are you doing?” Her voice sounded like someone else’s, husky and weak. It sounded as confused as she felt, and she hated that he could hear it.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he asked, pushing away from the wall and closing the distance between them. Cassie’s heart began to pound inside her chest.

“I don’t know,” she said. She cleared her throat. “Following me around again?”

Trey smiled and held out his hand with his fingers closed over his palm, like he was holding something. Cassie stared at that hand as if she thought a poisonous tarantula might creep out of it. She looked up, and something in his dark eyes challenged her. Squaring her
shoulders, she held out her hand, but flinched slightly when something dropped into it.

The hard plastic bubble was warm from contact with his skin. It was the kind of thing you could get from one of those machines at the arcade. A bright pink crown rattled around inside the plastic.

Your Majesty
, he’d called her back at that party out in the Palisades. Cassie’s throat tightened.

“Go out with me,” he said.

She couldn’t have heard that right. “What?”

“Go out with me,” he repeated.

“I…” She stared at him, at his dark eyes that made her feel dizzy and his adorably crooked smile, and she wanted to. “I can’t,” she said. But her fingers closed over the crown in its plastic bubble, closing it in her fist.

“Of course you can,” he said easily. He reached over as if he wanted to touch her, but he only dropped his hand again, leaving Cassie feeling strangely bereft. “Why not? What do you have to lose?”

In that moment, Cassie couldn’t think of a single thing. Instead, she thought that maybe knowing how big a player he was would neutralize him. His usual games wouldn’t work, right? She could play her own game. And no one had to know.

“Okay,” she said. Though it sounded more like a whisper—or maybe that was just the roaring in her head. “Okay,” she said again. “I’ll do it.”

C
assie couldn’t believe she was actually doing this. She squinted at herself in the small mirror over the employee toilet in the back of bike shop and gave her hair another tousle on the off chance doing so would give it a little body.

Greta would be horrified. Cassie knew she would. And Cassie knew that she should be horrified herself—except that wasn’t how she felt at all.

Because, she’d decided during her afternoon tour, she had this covered. She’d taken what Greta had told her to heart. She couldn’t be played if she already knew the game. She was the one in control.

Cassie pulled the little red American Apparel dress out of her backpack and wondered if Keagan had been
psychic when she’d suggested Cassie pack it “for emergencies.”

“You never know when something might come up,” she’d told Cassie. “And do you really want to go to some cool Catalina party in your bike shorts?”

Thank God for Keagan,
she thought then, pulling the stretchy dress over her head. A
whole wardrobe in one dress,
Greta had called it when she’d encouraged Cassie to buy it. Cassie fussed around for a moment, finally deciding to wear it as a halter. The dark red material cupped her chest and swirled above her knees, making her feel flirty and delicious. A pair of flip-flops finished the outfit, and Cassie was amazed at how much prettier she felt just by changing her clothes. She looked at her reflection. When she was on her bike, unafraid to get grimy and really push herself, she felt tough and strong. And now, because she was wearing a pretty dress and about to meet a cute—if dangerous—boy for dinner, she felt a whole different kind of powerful.

Either way, she liked it.

Cassie let herself out the back of the bike shop, glad Billy had trusted her enough to give her a key. Okay, he’d trusted her within fifteen seconds, claiming he could read her
aura
, but whatever. She took a deep breath in the back lot, trying to settle herself down. She didn’t know why she was so nervous—

Well, yes, she did.

And that reason was waiting for her out in front of the shop. He smiled when he saw her coming, and moved toward her out of the lengthening shadows. Cassie felt her breath leave her in a rush.

“You changed,” Trey said. “I’m dressed like a scumbag, and you look gorgeous. How is that fair?”

“I thought I told you a long time ago,” Cassie replied easily, thinking of the tiny pink crown. “I’m the queen.” Inside, she thrilled to the word
gorgeous
and replayed it over and over again.

“I remember,” Trey said, his voice warm and appreciative.

Side by side, they walked down the street toward Crescent Avenue, which was still bustling in the late afternoon shadows. An odd silence fell between them. Cassie sneaked a look over at Trey, and he met her gaze. She felt herself blush, but Trey only smiled.

“I thought we could grab something to eat,” Trey said. He waved at his clothes. “Nowhere fancy, obviously.”

Cassie thought his khaki shorts and T-shirt looked just fine beneath an open button-down, and she wasn’t sure how he managed to look laid-back rather than prepped out, but he did. She’d never seen him not looking amazing, though. Maybe it was that twine around his neck. Or maybe she was just far too susceptible to him.

“You look fine,” she said. “Are we going to a black tie gala?”

“We could probably swing that,” Trey replied, laughing. “I’ll just tell them I’m with the queen and I’m sure no one will give it a second thought.”

“I like the way you think,” Cassie told him.

Trey led Cassie down to Crescent Avenue and into one of the restaurants that overlooked the harbor. It was a restaurant Cassie had never been in before, though she’d walked past it a million times on her way to and from work. She liked that he was taking her to a place that was new to her—it made the fact that she was there, with Trey, feel more special somehow.

Don’t get carried away,
she told herself sternly as they were led to a table tucked away in the corner, with candles flickering and a sweet view of the evening bustle on Crescent and the boats bobbing on their moorings.
He
wants
you to think this is something special. It’s just dinner.

“So,” Trey said, his fingers tapping lightly against the menu and his eyes on Cassie. “You’re the queen, you give a great ride”—Cassie laughed despite herself at that, while Trey grinned—“and you can wear the hell out of a red dress. And, for some reason, you seem immune to my obvious charm. What’s your deal?”

“What deal?” Cassie shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“That’s it?” His smile could have melted Superman’s ice castle in about a minute. Cassie pinched herself under the table to keep from squirming. “You’re just
going to sit there? You’re not going to tell me even one thing about yourself?”

“I didn’t realize there were so many rules,” Cassie taunted him, watching his dark eyes brighten. “I thought we were just having dinner.”

“You’re cold and cruel,” he told her. “What do you want to know about me? You can ask me anything.”

Are you now, or have you ever been, a user of epic proportions?
Cassie asked him in her mind, her eyes narrowing. Trey laughed.

“Uh-oh,” he said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I know about you,” she replied mysteriously, hoping it would unnerve him. But she relented a second later. It was the way he was looking at her. Or maybe it was that smile he couldn’t seem to get rid of no matter what she said. Maybe it was both. “Well, I can tell you about boarding school,” she said. “It’s kind of like summer camp and school at the same time.”

“The good parts or the bad parts?” Trey asked, leaning forward.

“Exactly,” Cassie said with a snort, and proceeded to tell him a few stories of some of her more outrageous antics. Like when she and a few of her friends had sneaked out of the girls’ hall to go to a party with the senior boys, and yet only Cassie had gotten busted.

“Wait,” Trey said at one point, laughing so hard he
actually wiped at his eyes. “You got caught sneaking
back in
to your dorm?”

“Laugh it up,” Cassie replied dryly. “I didn’t think it was so funny when I had to spend the next weekend scrubbing all the graffiti off the walls outside the gym. It was that or write my parents a long letter explaining my whereabouts that night.” She shuddered. “My dad likes to think I’m Amish, so…graffiti it was.”

“They made you choose?” Trey asked, shaking his head. “In my school it was automatic detention, no questions asked.”

“Siskiyou is all about choices,” Cassie said darkly. “They claim it builds character.”

“I hope you learned a valuable lesson,” Trey said, trying to keep a straight face.

“Sure I did,” Cassie said, grinning at him. “I learned never again to sneak into my dorm after curfew, when I could have walked in with my key and claimed I was at the infirmary.”

“I love the idea of boarding school,” Trey told her. “I want to believe it’s like Hogwarts or something.”

“Except with a lot fewer wizards,” Cassie said.

Trey laughed, but then he looked away. He shrugged. “I used to fantasize about going away to school,” he said. “Things were kind of rocky with my parents for a while, and I guess I thought it was my fault. I figured if I went away, they could fight about something else.”

Cassie felt as if she’d been socked in the gut. Trey looked so vulnerable, but that didn’t make any sense with what she knew about him. Confused, she unfolded her napkin over her lap, and smoothed it carefully along her thighs. She wanted to reach across the table and hold on to him, but she shook that impulse off.

“Why would they fight about you?” she asked tentatively.

His gaze was troubled when he looked at her, and it made her breath hitch. He tilted his chin up. “I don’t think they really were,” he said. “I think they were just fighting, and I happened to be there.” He smiled at Cassie’s expression. “It’s okay,” he said. “Things were really tense a year or so ago. It’s much better now.”

He changed the subject, and soon was back to his usual teasing and flirting. Cassie couldn’t help responding, but she wondered about what he’d told her. Had she finally seen the real Trey Carter?

After dinner, they walked down to the water and sat on a bench overlooking the harbor as night fell all around them. Cassie was full from too many cannolis and too much looking at Trey. Both were way too rich. Sinful, even.

“The stars are so bright here,” Trey said, looking up. “It’s never really dark enough at my house.”

Cassie tipped her head back and looked up at the night sky, filled to bursting with stars. And when she
looked out across the water, she could see the lights of the California mainland gleaming into the dark. It was all so beautiful that her chest ached a little bit—or maybe that was simply the fact that Trey was so close to her. She suspected it was both. She could feel him move next to her on the bench. She felt the brush of his arm, the scrape of his thigh against hers as he shifted position. She was afraid to look at him, afraid that it would mean more than she wanted it to. But then she dared to sneak a look and bit back a gasp of surprise because he was watching her.

His eyes seemed even darker in the night, and Cassie felt more than saw him move closer. She held her breath. He reached over and very gently, very carefully, pushed her hair back from her face.

“Cassie Morgan, you are trouble,” Trey said softly.

“Said the pot to the kettle,” she replied in a sassy sort of voice, one that made it seem like there was nothing but flirting and fun between them, and none of that vulnerability that she’d seen in him. Or suspected he could see in her.

“I’m not trouble at all,” Trey protested, still so very close. “I’m just a guy trying to get a girl to give him the time of day. I’m like every song on the radio.”

“Uh-huh.” Cassie eased away from him and smiled. “Somehow, I’m not quite buying it. You don’t strike me as the pure and innocent type.”

“Pure and innocent, maybe not,” Trey said, with a grin that made something warm uncoil inside Cassie. Then he looked serious. “But my intentions are good.”

Cassie wanted to surrender. She wanted to lean in and press up against him and let the island magic wrap around her and become part of his magic too. She swayed toward him like he was some kind of snake charmer.

But then reality intruded, blowing its horn. Cassie gasped when she heard it, and jumped to her feet.

“The last ferry!” she cried, sudden visions of having to sleep on the floor of the bike shop—with Trey Carter—dancing through her head. “It’s going to leave without us!”

“Let’s go!” Trey leapt to his feet and grabbed hold of Cassie’s hand.

He held her hand tight as they raced down Crescent Avenue toward the ferry landing, both of them laughing like loons and gasping for air as they went. Cassie’s flip-flops slapped against the ground and her dress tangled with legs, but none of that bothered her—she felt like she could fly just then, if she wanted to—leap up into the Catalina hills and soar off toward the stars.

Finally, they skidded to a stop at the entrance to the ferry, only to be met by the cool stare of the
Catalina Express
crew member standing there.

Giggling uncontrollably, Cassie handed over her ticket. Assuming a grave expression, Trey did the same.

“You kids are lucky,” the crew member said sternly. “We reserve the right to give away tickets less than fifteen minutes before departure. But no one was trying to ride standby tonight.” He shook his head. “Welcome aboard.”

Cassie was still laughing as Trey led her onto the ferry and to the upper deck, still holding her hand. He let go when they got to the outside seating area, and Cassie dug into her bag for her sweatshirt. Greta would faint from the horror of throwing a sweatshirt over a pretty dress, Cassie knew—but then, Greta was willing to be a lot colder than Cassie was. Once she’d zipped up her hoodie, she joined Trey near the railing. She looked over the side and back toward the village of Avalon and the bright lights from the dome at Casino Point. She could smell the salt and sting of the ocean, and when Trey moved closer to her, she could feel the warmth of him, flooding into her like he was some kind of walking space heater.

“Good thing you bundled up,” Trey said approvingly as the ferry began to move. “It’s going to get chilly up here.”

Cassie turned toward him to say something—to continue the easy banter that had made the evening so much fun—but when she faced him, her words died in her throat.

His dark eyes were so intense that Cassie almost wanted to look away. Almost.

He reached over and slid his hand over the cap of her hair, as if memorizing the shape of her head. Then he stepped closer, pulled her toward him, and kissed her.

And Cassie wanted to die.

Or dance.

His mouth was warm and fit hers perfectly. He tasted like heaven. He slanted his mouth over hers, again and again, until Cassie thought she might faint. Then he pulled back and laughed slightly.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” he whispered. “I hope it’s okay.”

“It’s more than okay,” Cassie whispered back, and pulled him close again.

She’d kissed her share of other guys this summer—well, three of them, anyway. And none of them had made her feel like this, like she was made of champagne, all bubbles and giddy pleasure. Trey smiled against her mouth and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight against his lean, muscled chest. She thought of Greta’s warning briefly and then dismissed it, unable to imagine how a guy who had showed her his pain and then kissed like this could be anything but sincere.

Kissing Trey was the highlight of her summer. In fact, she thought as she snuggled closer to him and wound her hands around his neck, she could probably die happy right then and there.

But she kept kissing him, just to be sure.

BOOK: Boy Crazy
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