Getting Caught (14 page)

“I’m sorry.” His nervous expression melts away, and he gives me a grin. The grin that makes me weak.

Before I can be consumed by it, I turn away and hurry past a few more stores, but he just takes a few of his big strides and keeps pace with me.

“Look,” I mutter, “are you eighteen, or eighty? I figured you’d be chomping at the bit to get in my pants. But your dentures must be getting in the way.”

He gives me a short, surprised laugh. “So much for being a gentleman.”

“You’re past gentleman. You’re barely registering a pulse.” I shake my head. “Do you think I’m hot, or was that just a line?”

He just stands there, shocked. As if it’s a trick question. I turn away, but he stops me again. This time, it’s just a half-hearted tug on my sleeve.

I’m livid, wondering what I have to do to knock some sense into him. As if he wants me to put a gift-wrapped copy of
The Joy of Sex
in his locker. No, maybe I didn’t want us horizontal just yet, but any kind of physical contact would be a step up. When we’re together, I’m on fire, wanting to be closer, wanting his skin against mine. How can he not feel that way too?

I’m about to step inside when he grabs my arm, then puts palms on either side of my cheeks, tilts my head up, and brings his lips to mine.

The first kiss at the party was too unexpected, too quick; I hadn’t had time to move or enjoy it. But this time he doesn’t pull away after a couple of seconds. His tongue softly parts my lips, and my mouth opens, pulling him deeper. He wraps his arms around my waist and hooks his thumbs in the back of my jeans, urging me closer. When we part, I’m breathless, and he, gazing into my eyes, seems just as woozy.

Finally, he recovers. “See you,” he says with a grin, very casually, as if he’d just been mopping the floor instead of kissing me, and starts to walk away. As I’m about to growl at him some more, he comes back to me, grabs my hands, and starts to kiss each of the silver rings on my fingers. “That was a joke.”

I walk into Pet Pantry, still in a daze. Gavin is standing in the dog treat aisle with a clipboard, doing inventory. At first I think maybe he didn’t catch the show, but then I notice his face. He’s smiling like the Cheshire cat. He looks down at the clipboard, marks something in pencil, and murmurs, “That guy sure has it bad for you.”

My knees are so weak I need to hold on to the counter for support. “No worse than I have it for him.”

Chapter Nineteen

Peyton

I’m at the mall, happily perusing a rack of sunglasses in the center walkway, when I see my brother. His face is flushed, like he’s been running for the last twenty minutes, and his shoes don’t match. They’re both Vans, but one is gray and black and the other is maroon. At least he put them on the right feet.

“Oh, thank God,” he says, and collapses in front of me, all over the dirty mall floors. “I’ve been looking
everywhere
for you.”

“What’s up?” I ask, eyeing the sweat stains on his ratty gray T-shirt. He looks like he’s just skated every round of the X-Games by himself.

“This came for you.” He pulls a folded, dirty envelope from his pocket, and without even seeing the return address, I know what it is.

Harvard.

I don’t touch it. I just stare at it in his outstretched hand. It’s small; regular-sized. It has bent corners, and it’s thin, like it only holds a single sheet of paper. It’s
supposed
to be big and full of information about classes and dorm rooms, and it’s supposed to have pictures of a thousand smiling faces, welcoming me to the school of my dreams.

“Well?” he says, looking at me expectantly. He shakes the envelope in my general direction, but I just back up a step. I can’t touch it.

“You tricked me!” Now I’m holding it, and again I can tell it’s a single sheet of paper, the kind they send to rejects. The kind that says things like
regret
and
unfortunately.

I look up at my brother’s blue eyes, and see the ever-present support and confidence in them, and can’t help but think I’m about to fail him.

With a trembling hand, I slide my thumb under the edge of the envelope and rip it open. I pull the letter out and let the envelope fall on the ground, like a piece of trash, and open the first fold. Emblazoned on the top is the maroon emblem of Harvard.

I read it aloud. “Although the committee, after careful consideration, is unable to offer you admission at this time, your name has been placed on the waiting list. We expect to have a better idea by mid-May as to whether we will be able to accommodate any candidates from the waiting list…”

I don’t finish reading it. I just drop my hands and let it fall from my grasp, only to be swept away in the steady flow of mall-goers. Maybe if it disappears, it’ll be like it never existed.

“Oh, Peyton, I’m sorry,” my brother steps forward to hug me but I step out of his embrace.

“It’s fine, right? I’ll make it off the wait list, and it’ll be just like a regular acceptance. I’ll still make it in. I’m a shoo-in, remember?”

My brother starts to say something, but I just wave him off and walk away. “I’ll catch up with you later at home,” I say over my shoulder. I don’t want to see the look he’s giving me right now. He’s been the single most supportive person in my quest, and I can’t even look him in the eyes.

Well, now Tina will have her wish. I can slow down now. Without Harvard, everything I’ve been doing means
nothing.

I find a Cinnabon stand at the food court and order two, with a big regular Coke. I know the sugar will make me sick, but I already feel nauseated so I don’t care.

I’m still sitting at the same table an hour later when Dave finds me. He looks around, like he’s on a secret spy mission and doesn’t want to be caught, then pulls up a chair.

“Hey,” he says.

I stare blankly back at him. I’m not sure I have the energy to carry on a regular conversation, like life still exists. It’s unfair that the rest of the world hasn’t combusted.

“Everything cool?”

I shrug. I realize I can’t let
anyone
know that I’ve been waitlisted. I’m the Harvard girl and everyone knows it. So I blink away any remaining tears and smile a big, fake smile. “Yep. Just in a sugar coma. You?”

“Um, actually, I need to talk to you. About Jess.”

“Oh,” I say, half-heartedly. I so don’t want to think about our prank war right now. It all seems so stupid.

Now he’s looking at the floor, and dang if he doesn’t look like a lost little kid who
knows
he’s in trouble.

I narrow my eyes. This can’t be good.

He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. And that’s when I know it. The Angel Dave is rearing his stupid head again, and he needs convincing in order to stay on course.

I take my mind off Harvard for one millisecond and try to concentrate. No way am I going to lose Harvard
and
the prank war today. Peyton Brentwood is not a loser. “Look, you’re doing really well. But don’t think you have to go all out like that. You really didn’t need to kiss her.”

He’s silent, staring at me with brooding eyes.

“Oh my God, have you
already
hooked up?” My words echo through the food court, and for a panicked moment I think everyone has overheard us, and my prank is going to be blown.

“And you’re saying
I
am?” I erupt, then push a curly lock behind my ear. “Look, she’s not an angel. You know what she did to me with that interview. She went for the jugular, Dave. She’s known about my Harvard dreams for years, and she used it against me. And the play? I
loved
being in the play, and she knew it and used that against me too. And seriously, we’ve worked way too hard on this dating thing.”

He raises an eyebrow at me.

“Okay,
you’ve
worked way too hard at this. Don’t break up with her. You’ll only have to do it for another month or so, and by then it’ll be prom and you can break up with her then, okay?”

I hear my own voice, and it sounds desperate, like I’m grabbing at anything I can to keep the wait-list letter, and now Dave’s reluctance, from drowning me. I get up, and my food-court chair scrapes the tile floors. It sounds loud, and I’m afraid everyone is going to look at me, see me burst into tears. I have to leave before Dave sees me completely fall apart.

Peyton Brentwood does not cry in public.
Losers
cry in public.

“I’ve got to go, though. Just trust me on this one. It’s only a handful of weeks until prom and then it’ll be done. Just avoid her until then if you have to.” I chuck my still half-full plates into the garbage and leave Dave sitting at the table, alone.

On my way out the mall I pass the Pet Pantry, and I actually consider going inside and smacking Jess, just to see if it will make me feel better, but then shake my head.

It’ll be much more satisfying to see her hurting on the inside.

One month. One blasted month, and my fate will be decided: I’ll be off the wait list, and I’ll be watching Jess Hill melt like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Chapter Twenty

Jess

“This is great,” I say as Dave and I walk to the door of the small, white ranch with a sign that says
Animals in Distress
. “Usually I can only take out four or five at a time. With you, we should be able to take double that.”

Cradling the picnic basket in the crook of his arm, he pulls the door open and lets me pass. Immediately, the yips and howls of the dogs greet our ears. When I turn back to see Dave, he has a deer-in-headlights look.

Mae is in the front, talking on the phone and cradling a tiny Chihuahua mix in her arms. She smiles at me, covers the mouth piece, and whispers, “They’re waiting for you. Go right in.”

I lead Dave through the room to double doors. When I push them open, the already loud barking becomes practically deafening.

Dave follows me, silent, but his eyes are wide.

“You don’t like dogs?” I ask, raising my voice above the din. Oh God, he probably hates animals. I knew he couldn’t be
that
perfect.

He shakes his head, and surveys the rows and rows of kennels. “No, I love them. We have a Golden Retriever. I just haven’t seen this many in a room. All together. At one time.”

I laugh, thinking he sounds like the victim in a scene from a B-movie entitled
Attack of the Killer Pound Puppies.
I walk past each kennel, saying hello to some of the hopeful pups, letting others lick my fingers. Dave follows me, doing the same, yet still a little tentative. “Just be careful. Some can bite. Look on the index card outside their crate,” I say.

I come to one with a German Shepherd. This old dog looks like it’s been through the mill. He’s well-cared for now, but he constantly shivers, like a basket of nerves, and his eyes are always so sad. “Hey, Deke,” I say, as he lumbers forward and hands me his paw.

“Poor guy,” Dave says. “What happened to him?”

“An asshole who shouldn’t have owned a pet,” I say. “They found him last year. He had a chain around his neck and it had never been changed, so his skin just grew around it. They had to cut the links out of his skin, one by one.” I finger the fur around his neck. “See the scars?”

Dave looks repulsed. I guess this isn’t exactly a romantic date. I quickly stand and grab a tangle of leashes off a hook on the wall. “Let me just get some of these guys ready, and we can go.”

He helps me leash up a few, and we set out on the trail behind the building. He has five pups and I have four, and as we cross into the forest, they pull us along purposefully, knowing exactly where to go.

“You come here a lot?” he asks me.

“I volunteer whenever I can, usually on Saturdays.” I untangle two of the lines as we quickly stumble down the dirt path. “They don’t get much attention otherwise. It’s sad. They’ve all been traumatized in one way or another, and they just need a loving home. It’s a no-kill shelter, and Mae feeds them, but they deserve more.”

He reaches down and ruffles the fur of a poodle mix named Chummy. “Can they be adopted?”

“Yeah. But some of these guys are so old, not many people want them.” I take a deep breath of the warm spring air and let it out slowly. “I hate it when they die in the shelter. I wish I could take them all home.”

“Won’t your parents let you take at least one?”

“You haven’t met my mom. Everything in our house is white. It looks like a freaking hospital. A dog like Deke would give my mother an aneurysm.”

We walk into a clearing, where there’s a little brook surrounded by giant pine trees. The sun beams down on us, warming the goose bumps away from my bare arms. I drop the leashes and the dogs run off to get a drink, so I open the picnic basket and pull out a quilt, which I spread out over the grass.