Girl Gear 3: Bound to Happen (18 page)

So what if her mother agreed and, minutes before Izzy had stopped to pick
Sydney
up, had even told her so to her face? What in hell did her mother know, anyway? Except how to make everyone's lives miserable, while all the time, the world revolved around her. She was flamboyant and beautiful and exciting, all the things that were out of
Sydney
's reach, no matter how hard she'd tried to measure up.

And now, on top of all that,
Sydney
was stuck here at this stupid party, with a bunch of spoiled brats.

And it was nobody's fault but her own.

Standing with her back against an eight-foot-high cedar fence, holding a plastic cup of beer she didn't even want, much less like, she remained halfway hidden in the shadow of a huge spreading oak. The night was warm and muggy. Her jeans were sticky and hot. The plastic band of her watch was causing a circle of sweat around her wrist.

Why had she ever let Izzy talk her into coming?
Because you had to get out of the house, that's why.
And she wasn't going to go home again until she'd proved every single one of her mother's accusations wrong. Considering the way things had gone in her life lately, that could take a year or two.

This party was definitely not how
Sydney
would choose to celebrate her graduation. Or anyone's graduation. She could be home taking a nap, for all the fun she was having. But being at home would mean another confrontation with her mother and having to hear again what a loser she was.

Of course, being a loser probably had a lot to do with why she'd rather be anywhere but here. Except for Izzy, everyone
Sydney
had seen here so far shared her mother's opinion. Her yearbook photo caption could've read "Coldest Fish." Instead, it didn't say anything.

She barely even knew the guys throwing the party. She thought this was Boom Daily's house, but she hadn't seen him, so she couldn't be sure. Even Izzy was uncertain. They'd just followed the crowd from the mall parking lot like the mindless lemmings they obviously were.

Stereo speakers had been moved onto the backyard patio, where tables were set up with chips and cookies and sandwiches. Coolers of canned soft drinks sat beneath. And then there was the keg of beer at the side of the house, supplied by a group of older kids who'd been out of school long enough to be legal. And obviously feeling obligated to initiate
Sydney
's class into the finer things in life.

Sydney
stared into her cup. How could anyone think this beer tasted like anything other than horse piss? Oh, wait. Maybe the same twenty-something bunch who thought crashing a high-school graduation bash the epitome of fun. Right. Like that would be on her "to do" list in three or four years. God, she was in a bad mood.

Slipping her arm behind the trunk of the tree, she upended her cup. The beer foamed in a puddle on the grass, soaking into the roots and the bed of purple and yellow pansies circling the trunk. Even as rotten as it was, she doubted it would do any good as a fertilizer. Maybe insecticide. Or weed killer.

"It's only free if you drink it, you know. If you dump it out, it costs you a buck."

At the sound of the deep male voice,
Sydney
turned her head sharply. And then she thought she was going to ooze into the ground, along with the beer. She certainly wasn't going to be able to say anything; her heart was pounding so hard she could barely breathe.

It was Ray Coffey, Patrick Coffey's older brother, the top-billed star of so many of her fantasies and daydreams, the object of the most ridiculous crush she'd ever had on a boy. The only crush she'd ever had on a boy. Except Ray Coffey barely resembled the boy she'd last seen at his graduation a year ago.

Funny how it had been only a year. He looked so much older than that. He seemed taller, though she was sure that he wasn't. Or did guys keep growing till they were twenty years old? His shoulders were definitely broader. So was his chest. As if he'd been lifting a lot of weights the past year. He probably had been, playing college football and all.

She wondered if he was still going out with Mandy Green.

"What?" he asked, his mouth breaking into the cutest dimpled grin, his eyes twinkling. "You don't like beer?"

Oh, God. She was staring at him as though he'd been speaking a foreign language. "I'm sorry, uh, yeah. I do like beer. Sometimes." Great. Now she sounded like a moron. "What I mean is, I like certain brands of beer more than others." And now she sounded like a total bitch.

"And
keggo
isn't one of them?"

"
Keggo
?" she repeated.

"Yeah. Keg o' beer."

She was still working to gather her thoughts when he grimaced and said, "That was pretty bad, wasn't it."

"Not as bad as the beer," she said, and laughed. "I'm sorry. That probably makes me sound like a snob. And I don't mean to be. I mean, I'm not, really."

"It's okay. I'm not much for
keggo
beer myself," he said, and handed her the cold
Corona
long-neck he'd had stuck in the pocket of his jeans. "Better?"

"This will definitely do," she said, and twisting off the top, took a long appreciative swallow. Appreciative that he apparently wasn't going to hold her snobbery against her and appreciative of the better-tasting beer.

That was what she got for having had only the better brands to filch from the family fridge.

"Now that's my kind of woman." Ray laughed. "One who can go for a good beer, instead of wanting one of those silly frou-frou drinks."

God, she loved the way he laughed. The sound of it. The look on his face. The way her belly got all warm and tight and tingly. "I should warn you, then. I'm a big fan of those silly frou-frou drinks."

He tipped his long-neck bottle toward her. "Well, never let it be said that I let a strawberry daiquiri come between me and a good time."

Was he having a good time? With her?
Sydney
felt about thirteen years old. And she was afraid that if she wasn't careful, Ray would discover that she had this
huge
crush on him.

But it was hard to play it cool when he was here and he was talking to her, not to any of the guys he knew and not to any of the girls whom she'd heard in the past say they'd drop their pants if he asked.

"I'm Ray Coffey, by the way. Patrick's brother." He took a drink of his beer.

"Oh, hi. I'm Sydney Ford."

"Yeah. I knew that."

Oh, God. He knew who she was! "I knew who you were, too."

"Well, that's cool. That we know each other and all." He shrugged. "I always have to remind myself that not everyone I went to school with knows who I am.

"I think most people you went to school with know. You were rather high-profile."
Sydney
cocked her head to one side, hoping it made her look cute rather than stupid. She was not much good at flirting. "Let's see. There was football and the class-president thing and the school paper. And weren't you crowned five or six different kinds of king?"

Ray smacked his palm to his forehead. "That's right. I'm royalty. Well, retired royalty, anyway."

"Does that mean I should curtsy?" she asked, doing her best not to fall at his feet.

"If you do, then I'll have to bow." He stared at her over his bottle of beer as he drank.

"Bow?"
Sydney
frowned, but only as long as it took her to snap to what he was saying. And then she chuckled. She couldn't help it. He had no idea what sort of crap he'd just stepped into. Especially tonight.

"The Ice Queen thing, right?" She rolled her eyes, shook her head. "I'm really not, you know. It's just one of those bad rumors that won't go away."

Ray took a step closer, reached out a hand and lightly tugged on a strand of her hair where it skimmed her shoulder. "So how'd the rumor get started?"

She shrugged, sipped from the bottle of beer. He'd touched her hair and she wasn't sure she could answer his question without her voice cracking.

And she so wished she'd worn a tank top or spaghetti straps so she could've felt his touch on her skin. Instead, she was wearing this stupid Depeche Mode concert T-shirt she'd grabbed when Izzy had honked, figuring they were only going to the mall.

"I'm really not sure."

"Hmm." Ray looked at her. "The way I figure, it could be any number of things."

He was nice to try to be so diplomatic, but she really did know the truth, even if she'd bed to him about it. "What number of things?"

"You've got that blond-hair-and-blue-eyes thing going on. Sort of an icy Scandinavian look."

"And I think we both know that's a load of BS," she said, though she couldn't deny a small thrill that he'd noticed her looks.

"Well, then," he said, grinning again, leaning back against the fence almost right behind where she stood in the shadows of the tree. "I guess it's just because you're so cool."

She braced a shoulder on the tree trunk and studied his face. If only being "cool" was anywhere close to the truth. He had to know what everyone thought. If he knew who she was, there was no way he couldn't know what everyone thought. She wondered then if he was just playing with her, getting her hopes up before he crushed her to the ground.

But that didn't seem to fit with the kind of guy she knew he was. And so she decided to be totally honest. She could only hope he wouldn't walk away. "You're close. You just need to drop the temperature a few more degrees."

Sydney
said what she had to say, then waited. The party was getting louder, the music and the people. The laughter was nothing but screeching and now a dozen of the kids were splashing in the
Dailys
' backyard pool.

She wanted nothing more than to be somewhere else right now. It wasn't the crowd. It wasn't even the kids making up the crowd. Yes, they were getting on her nerves, but after four years she really was used to their antics.

No, her bad mood was all about the things her mother had said. The accusations she'd made and the names she'd called her.
Sydney
guessed her mother was including her, along with her father, in the divorce.

"Listen," Ray finally said. "I need to get another beer."

Sydney
's heart fell to her stomach and both made the trip to her feet. Pretty much what she'd expected. "Sure. Go ahead."

"No." He shook his head, grinned, lifted his empty bottle. "Let me try that again. The rest of this six-pack's in my truck. You want to come with me?"

RAY HAD NEVER
had to work at being popular. He'd never really cared about being popular. It all just sort of happened because of the things he'd done in school. And, okay. He supposed girls thought he was cute. But he didn't have anything to do with that.

He remembered having wondered a lot about Sydney Ford during his senior year. Patrick hadn't known much about her except that everyone called her a cold fish. When Ray had asked his brother why, Patrick had shrugged and headed out the door to shoot hoops, which was all he ever wanted to do.

For some reason, ever since Ray had seen Sydney Ford standing in the doorway of the computer lab last year, he'd had a hard time getting her out of his mind. And he wasn't sure why. He'd been dating Mandy Green, so he'd never really done anything about figuring it out.

But the minute he'd walked into Boom Daily's backyard, looking for the guys he'd played football with, he'd seen her standing in the corner between the fence and the tree and he knew the time had come to make his move. There was nothing he loved more than a good challenge, and he'd learned a thing or two about making moves this past year at A&M.

Sticking that extra long-neck bottle in his pocket had been a stroke of genius. He'd had a feeling Sydney Ford would've been used to a better class of beer than what these cheapskates had sprung for. She had a bad rep for being a snob. He'd just never seen anything to back it up.