Drive Me Crazy (10 page)

“You don’t think that’s true?” Kate could sense Adam’s disagreement in the tone he was using.

“No, I don’t.”

“Why’s that?” Kate flicked the fuzz off her finger and watched it drift down to the ground and settle onto the pine needles.

“I don’t think you’re being totally honest when you’re with Lucas.”

“Whatever.” Kate shook her head. Leave it to Adam to bring Lucas into this.

“I mean it, Kate. I was with you day and night all the way across the country, and I watched how you act around your friends and I’ve seen the real you.”

“Oh, so you know me better than anyone, do you?” Kate rolled her eyes. Adam felt it was appropriate to analyze her now? As if.

“I just don’t think you act like you when Lucas is around. You’re sort of…” Adam paused for a second, apparently searching for the right word. “Blah.”

“Blah? You’re an asshole.” He hadn’t searched for the right word
quite
long enough.

“Not blah! Not blah,” Adam said, and laughed. “That came out wrong. It’s just that you don’t seem like
you
when he’s around. You’re less feisty or something.”

Kate sort of got what he was saying, and realized he wasn’t trying to be entirely rude. So she decided to let it go. “Why do you dislike Lucas so much?” Kate asked this without really expecting an answer. But she couldn’t stop herself from asking.

Adam paused, and his face turned toward hers in the pinkish afternoon light. For a moment he said nothing. When he did finally speak, his voice was quiet and deliberate, as though he’d taken the time to think it through for once. “Because he got the girl I’m falling in love with—and he’s not treating her the way I would.”

Kate’s breath caught in her throat. She sat quietly, absorbing what he’d just told her. Adam must have taken her silence and stillness as the right sign, because he leaned toward her on the blanket and reached his hand out to touch her face. Just as his fingers brushed her jawline, Kate jumped up off the blanket and ran toward her canoe.

“Kate!” he called. “I’m sorry. I…”

Kate’s legs were propelling her forward, even as her heart begged her to go back to him.
This is crazy
, she thought, and jumped into the canoe. She pushed her boat back from shore, and tears immediately sprung to her eyes. She could feel them rolling down her face the whole time she paddled back toward the resort.

As she approached shore, she could see Lucas standing at the end of the dock, ready to catch her canoe. Her emotions were already in a tailspin, and now she was spinning out of control…because half of her wanted to throw herself into Lucas’s arms, but the other half wanted to paddle back to the island and find out what would have happened if she had stayed with Adam.

But now it was too late for that, and she couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

For a few days after the island incident Kate mostly just holed away.

There was a permanent dent in their cabin’s futon that resembled a less shapely version of her butt. She blew through three novels, and her sunburn had totally faded by the time she emerged from her hiding spot.

Of course, she hadn’t been inside the
whole
time. She had spent plenty of time with Alexis and Sierra—who still had no idea what had gone down between her and Adam on the island—and every night at the group bonfire, Lucas was by her side. But ultimately Kate’s main goal was to avoid Adam. She didn’t have anything to say to him, and didn’t know how to look at him after what had happened. More than anything, she couldn’t explain her tears and had a hard time understanding why his eyes—the way they had locked on hers that day—were the first thing she saw when she closed her own.

The one time she had bumped into Adam around the resort, he had just acted like a slightly more distant version of himself. He didn’t mention their day on the island, and it seemed like he was making a point of not coming to the bonfire in the evenings.

“Are you going to get your lazy butt off that futon and go outside today?” Gina asked, barreling into the cabin and fiddling with the tie on her halter top bikini. “Can you get this?” She nimbly sat down on the floor in front of the futon and thrust the ties of her swimsuit at Kate. “Hello?” She whipped her head around with an entitled look on her face, staring openmouthed at her sister. “What’s wrong with you, anyway?”

“Nice, G,” Kate said. “Your caring is so apparent.” She tied her sister’s bikini, then flopped back onto the futon.

Gina hopped up to sit next to her. “Seriously, Kate. You’re a total bummer.” She pouted dramatically. “Everything okay?”

“I’m fine,” Kate said, convincing neither herself nor Gina.

“Is it Lucas?” Gina’s eyes grew wide, preparing for the scandal.

“No.”

Gina tilted her head, unconvinced. “It is.”

“Seriously, Gina. It’s not Lucas.”

“Did you know Zack told Sasha he thinks I’m hot?” Gina giggled. “How cute would that be?”

“Lucas’s brother?”

“Mm-hmm. We would be dating brothers!”

Kate scowled. “That’s disgusting. Besides, G, all Zack does is water-ski all day. How does he have time for a girlfriend? Have you ever even spoken?”

“Oh, my God. Like you can talk! Lucas is, like, the leader of the ski crew. If it weren’t for him, there’s no way Zack would be out on the boat all day. Lucas is the one that’s obsessed.”

“And that’s the problem,” Kate muttered. Luckily, Gina was distracted by a bag of Doritos on the counter, and in her haste to open them and declare their deliciousness, she hadn’t heard Kate’s comment.

“The guys just got back from skiing,” Gina announced, heading toward the door again. “Come down to the lake?”

“Fine.” Kate shoved her book under the futon and changed into her suit. She grabbed a granola bar for the walk down the path, realizing she hadn’t really eaten all day.
Nice
, she thought bitterly.
I’m totally losing it. What kind of idiot forgets to eat?

Down at the dock she was relieved to see that Adam wasn’t there. Kate’s parents and their friends were loading into the pontoon boat for a cruise out on the lake. They went out most afternoons, spending the latter half of the day discussing thrilling research articles each had read, while drinking wine from a box. Kate waved at them, flashing a thumbs-up when her mom yelled out a reminder to put on sunscreen.

Kate hastily hid her granola bar in her towel after her mom turned to Gina with the comment that she shouldn’t be snacking before eating lunch. (Gina had the whole family-size bag of Doritos on the beach with her.) Kate recognized that Gina’s skating encouraged her to maintain a certain figure, but she felt angry realizing that her sister was going to have major food issues because of her mom’s vigilant caloric observations. Luckily, Gina didn’t seem bothered by their mom’s nagging. She waved to acknowledge the comment but flashed her mom the middle finger from behind her bag of chips and then grabbed another handful.

At the boat dock Lucas and the ski crew were lounging around in the boat drinking sodas. A quick glance at the dock told Kate that neither Lex nor Sierra were around, so she sauntered over to the guys. Lucas came over to say hi, slipping his hand under her shirt to feel her exposed back. Kate shivered and backed away, embarrassed to have him touching her like that in front of everyone down at the lake.

“Hey,” he said, pulling her close again. “Come here.”

She gestured to the pontoon boat, which was still only a few hundred yards away, and said, “My parents…”

“Oh,” he said, pulling back. “Right.” He looked back at the other guys on the boat, and chuckled when one of them made a rude gesture in their direction. Abruptly Lucas turned to Kate again and said, “What are you doing tonight?”

“Um, nothing much.”

“Let’s go out, eh?”

Kate’s face instantly broke into a huge smile. “Yeah, that’d be fun.”

“We can grab some pizza in town.”

“Sure.” Greasy pizza at Romano’s wasn’t exactly the most romantic date ever, but it would be her and Lucas, alone…on a real date!

“We should be back in by about five. Wanna meet me by the barbecue pit around five thirty?”

“Yes,” Kate said happily. This was major progress. Okay, so it shouldn’t be such a major event having her boyfriend ask her out on a real date, but considering the circumstances…it was. Baby steps. And this was just what she needed to forget Adam and reconnect with the guy who really mattered.

Zack turned the key in the boat’s ignition, gunning the motor to send up a roar of engine noise. It was Lucas’s signal that the guys were all ready to go back out on the water, so Kate sent him on his way, planning their evening in her mind.

The lip gloss Alexis had forced on Kate was called Cherry Bliss, but Kate was anything but blissful. She was nervously licking her lips every ten seconds, and had licked off and reapplied the gloss so many times that she was starting to feel a little ill. Sierra and Alexis had helped Kate put together a perfect date uniform, complete with some sort of bronzing powder between her boobs that Alexis had dabbed on against Kate’s will.

Kate was waiting on the steps of her cabin’s small front porch, trying to look casual and demure. But instead she could feel the heat of the late afternoon sun baking into her skin and was paranoid the bronzing goop would be carried down her chest in a river of sweat. She pulled at her tight black tank top and tipped her face forward to blow into the dark cave of her shirt. Just as she was feeling cooler and more confident, she looked up and saw Adam standing a few feet away. She released the top of her shirt, embarrassed.

“Anything good in there?” he asked, nodding toward her chest.

She ignored his question and the amped-up fluttering of her heart in her chest. “I’m waiting for Lucas,” she declared.

“Hot date?”

“Actually, yes.”

“Nice.” Adam nodded, then paused. “You look pretty.”

“Adam…,” she warned. This wasn’t the time to do this. “I can’t…”

“Don’t freak out,” Adam said quietly. “I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. You look beautiful, and I just thought you might like to know that.”

“I don’t,” Kate said, tears welling up deep inside. They were too far from the surface to make an appearance, but she could feel them bubbling up. Any more comments like that and she’d be in trouble. Besides, the combination of dormant tears, Cherry Bliss, and nerves was making her insides queasy. “Please don’t say things like that to me.”

Adam looked at her seriously, then said, “Okay. I get it. Honesty only sometimes, right?”

At that moment Lucas came sauntering up. In his green polo, jeans, and sun-bleached hair, he looked like a male model. His hair was still wet from the lake, and she could see comb marks running through it. “Hey, bro,” he said to Adam, glancing from Kate to Adam and back again. “What’s going on?”

“I’m ready,” Kate declared. “Let’s go.”

Lucas draped his arm around her. “See ya, Adam.” He tugged at Kate’s shoulder, steering her in the direction of the parking lot. They walked silently, and the gravel crunched beneath their feet as they trudged along. Kate was still trying to shake the feeling that had rocked her when Adam had appeared a few minutes ago. She was finding it more difficult than she would have hoped.

During the short drive into town Kate remained distracted, and she was much more nervous than she had thought she’d be. Lucas spent the whole drive telling her about that afternoon’s wakeboarding showdown. “Zack and I totally creamed the other guys!” he declared proudly, thumping the steering wheel.

Kate tried hard to muster up the right level of enthusiasm. “Wow,” she replied. “That’s really exciting.” He rubbed her knee absentmindedly. Kate hated the fact that it just felt sort of irritating.

When they got to the pizza place, Kate followed Lucas inside. She was still looking forward to their date, but was also starting to realize that maybe they would never have anything to talk about. At least he was making an effort. A date was a date, and it was exactly what she’d been craving. “Should we sit up here by the window?” she suggested.

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “Not big enough.”

She furrowed her eyebrows. “They’re booths.” The two booths in the front window could easily hold four people and several pizzas. How much was he planning to order?

“We need a table for eight,” Lucas informed the waitress. Then he turned back to Kate. “The guys should be here in a few minutes. Turbo is slow getting ready. He’s like a chick.”

“Turbo? The guys?” Kate’s face fell.

Lucas nodded, as though it was obvious. “Zack, Turbo, Johnson…the ski crew.”

“Uh-huh.” Kate could feel the frustration fermenting inside her, morphing into something horrible.
Chill,
she cautioned herself.
He never said it was a date. You just misinterpreted
.

She ordered a soda and waited patiently. Sarcasm dripped from her voice when she said, “I’m really looking forward to tonight.”

Lucas put his hand over hers. “Me too.” He didn’t seem to get it.

When the guys got there, Kate felt even more like an afterthought—some sort of fifth wheel, unable and unwilling to discuss the merits of that afternoon’s wakeboarding adventure.

She was a spectator on her own date.

When finally the last of the pizza had been consumed—capped off with a prizewinning burp, courtesy of Harris Johnson—everyone decided to head back to the resort for the bonfire. Kate hadn’t weighed in on this decision, but she was pretty willing to do just about anything that would get her out of this one-on-seven date.

As an extra treat—something to make her date with Lucas even more memorable—they took Turbo and Nick in their car on the way back to the resort. Turbo spent the drive mooning people out of the backseat passenger window.
Nothing says romance like a fat, naked ass
, Kate mused.

Apparently Kate was living in a choose-your-own-adventure fairy tale, only someone else was making all the choices for her, throwing her into the parts of the story that should have been edited out. As Lucas pulled the car into the lot at the resort, Kate resolved that she would stop letting her heart be thrown around like this. Enough was enough, and Kate was tired of pretending this was paradise.

When they got out of the car, the bonfire was already in full swing. Sierra and Sasha were sitting on a log bench with Gina, roasting marshmallows for s’mores. Alexis and Jake were sitting with some of the kids who worked at the resort, singing along as Adam played his banjo.

It was the first night since their afternoon at the island that Adam had come to the bonfire. Kate suspected he had come out that night because he’d assumed she would be out on her date with Lucas.

Looking at him, strumming his banjo and cracking everyone up, Kate was struck with a sudden sense of longing. She longed to know what might have happened had she stayed that day on the island. And she longed for the “debates”—okay, arguments—they’d had on their road trip. More than anything, she missed their friendship.

He drove her crazy…in a good way, it seemed.

“Hey, Kat!” Alexis spotted Kate first, beckoning her toward her spot near the fire. “Back from your date already?” she asked, quietly enough so she wasn’t screaming it out to everyone, but still loud enough for the people nearest them to hear. Adam was watching closely, so Kate squatted down right next to Alexis, out of his line of sight.

“Not a date, as it turns out,” she whispered.

Alexis whipped around to face her completely and blurted out, “Shut up.”

“I’m serious,” Kate whispered again. “Pizza with the guys.”

“Oh, Kat…Are you pissed?”

“Not thrilled,” Kate admitted. “But I guess I’m not surprised.”

Sierra sauntered over, a s’more in hand. “Dessert?”

Kate nodded happily, grabbing the gooey treat from her friend. The marshmallow stuck to Kate’s lips. Kate leaned up against the log Alexis was sitting on and listened to Adam play for everyone. Sierra settled in next to her, resting her head on Kate’s shoulder.

While Adam sang, Kate’s mind wandered. But no matter how far it wandered, she kept coming back to one thing—the memory of Adam’s face looking down at hers that day on the island. His voice floated over her now, singing Cat Stevens (or Yusuf Islam or whatever his name was), and when she glanced up, he was looking at her with the same expression again. But this time she didn’t run. She looked back at him, watching the firelight cast shadows across his arms, making him look almost mystical in the smoke-filled sky.

Then the wind shifted, blowing a line of smoke straight at Adam, forcing him to break their gaze and sending him into a hacking coughing fit.

Kate averted her eyes, then felt a pair of arms wrap around her from behind. Lucas was lifting her off the ground, fixing Adam with the same look he had earlier that night, before they’d left for their “date.” Lucas pulled her around to face him, and tipped her chin up toward him for a kiss.