How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend (2 page)

Then again, they never openly snubbed me when Jesse was around—maybe he just didn't realize that Stacey and Bridget couldn't assemble a redeeming quality between the two of them.

While I dumped more potato chips onto a plate, Dante strolled into the kitchen. “Hey Giovanna, when do you want to leave?”

“I can't leave Jesse's party. I'm his girlfriend.”

“Then you'll have to find another ride home, because I'm going.”

I held one hand out to him, pleading. “Don't leave me here by myself. Jesse is your friend too.”

“Which is why I showed up. I came. I ate. I'm leaving. If you hang too long with this crowd, you can actually feel your brain cells dying off.”

“Well, at least people are talking to you.”

Dante grabbed a handful of M&Ms and tossed a couple into his mouth. “Oh sure, and I can never hear enough stories about Wilson's last skiing trip to Vail, or how difficult it is to be in the student council.”

For a moment I worried on Jesse's behalf. “You didn't insult Wilson, did you?”

“Insult him? I couldn't even get a word in edgewise. Every time he shut his mouth long enough, some girl or another jumped in to ask him a stupid question that made him start talking again.” Dante tossed another M&M into his mouth. “Why do girls like listening to that crap, anyway?”

Because Wilson is six foot three inches of good looks with shoulders like a linebacker, which I'm sure come in handy when he plays football as—let me think—a linebacker.

But Wilson isn't simply another jock. The boy gets straight A's. I know because he's in some of my honors classes. And did I mention his father, Wilson Montgomery Senior, is the mayor?

I'm not sure how much mayors make a year, but if it isn't a whole lot, then someone should audit the town's books, because Wilson drives a BMW to school.

So why do girls hang on Wilson's every word? I believe the scientific explanation would involve a discussion on hormones, chiseled jawlines, and an analysis of the typical teenage girl brain.

“I don't know,” I told Dante.

Jesse walked into the kitchen. “There you are, Gi. I've been looking all over for you.”

Dante grabbed some more M&Ms and headed to the door. “Hey Jesse, great party. Thanks for inviting me, but right now I've got to . . .” Dante waved his hand in an upward spiral. “You know, do some stuff . . . so see you on Monday.”

“Thanks for coming,” Jesse said, but he didn't take his eyes off of me.

Jesse is exactly what I pictured cowboys would look like when I moved to Texas three years ago. Mussed brown hair, broad shoulders, and biceps that could be used to wrestle steers to the ground. Plus he wears cowboy boots half the time. Seriously. He has a casual and a formal pair. He also has aqua blue eyes, which are capable of stopping time when he looks at you.

The clock paused for several minutes while he walked toward me, smiling. “Are you having fun?”

“Yeah.”

“Then how come you're hiding out in the kitchen?”

For a moment I considered telling him about my conversation with Stacey and Bridget, but even as the thought ran through my mind, I dismissed it. I wouldn't criticize his friends at his birthday party. “No reason. I'm just going through the chips to see if I can find one that looks like Jay Leno.”

Jesse stood close to me. “I know why you're really in here, and I'm sorry.”

“Are you?” Had he heard what Bridget and Stacey had said to me? I brightened up at the thought. I mean, that would make things so much easier if he saw for himself what they were like.

Jesse took the plate from my hands, laid it on the kitchen counter, and took my hands in his. “Sorry I've ignored you. I've been so busy running around trying to make everyone feel welcome I've barely talked to you, but I'll make it up to you.”

“Really?”

“Yep, I promise not to have another birthday party for an entire year.”

I squeezed his hand. “It's sweet how you sacrifice for me.”

He pulled me toward him, then bent down to kiss me. I held my breath, waiting to melt like I did whenever we were close, but just then a couple of Jesse's basketball buddies walked into the kitchen.

One of them cleared his throat in an exaggerated manner, and the other said, “It looks like Jesse's birthday wish already came true.”

I pulled away from Jesse and laughed in what I hoped was a casual and perhaps slightly sophisticated manner, but I felt myself blushing bright red.

Jesse grinned. “Don't mind us. We're on our way out.” Then he pulled me out the kitchen door and back into his family room. We plopped down on the love seat, and I noticed Dante hadn't left after all, but stood a few feet away talking to Wilson, Bridget, Stacey, and Wilson's best friend, Luke Talbot.

“Everyone thinks student council is just about planning dances,” Wilson said, “but it's more than that. People don't see all the work that goes into it, or the decisions we have to make.”

Dante let out a grunt. I could tell from his posture he was in one of his the-popular-kids-are-idiots moods. “When was the last time student council decided anything important?”

Wilson took a sip of Coke. “Today. Our budget was lower than expected, so we had to cut some things in order to have funds for next year's homecoming float. It wasn't easy. I hate to break it to everyone, but instead of serving soda at prom, you all get punch.” He laughed as he looked over the group. “Probably the watered-down kind.”

“Yeah, that's important stuff.” Dante snapped his fingers as though remembering. “Whatever happened to the memorial the student council was doing for Norman Pike?”

“That was one of the areas we cut.”

“You cut the memorial for Norman?”

Wilson took another sip of his drink and shrugged. “I told you it wasn't easy.”

Norman had been killed in a car accident last month. I hadn't known him that well, but Dante and he had done a social studies project together sophomore year.

Dante's eyes took on a stubborn glint as he looked at Wilson. “Homecoming float? You want to spend money for a trailer that someone shoves pieces of crepe paper onto, but not for a memorial for one of the students?”

Bridget, who is also in the student council, shook her head at Dante like he just didn't get it. “We sent a plant to his funeral. It's not like we did nothing.”

“Oh. A plant. Well, it's nice to know that if I die tonight, the students of Bickham High will comfort my family with a fern.”

Jesse forced a laugh and called over to them, “Hey Dante, if you die, I'll personally see to it that Giovanna's comforted with more than a fern.”

“Right,” I added. “Plus I'll also get to keep all of your stuff.” I expected Dante to throw some comment back at me. Or to laugh—something that would break the tension. But he didn't. He stared at Wilson.

“So does our class get to vote on the theme for the float?”

Which was when I knew Dante wasn't going to let go of the whole memorial thing. I mean, he couldn't possibly care about the float. Dante only goes to the occasional football game, and then spends most of his time making fun of the cheerleaders. His only comment on the float our class did this year was, “Hey, let's drop this baby in a river and see if it really floats.”

Wilson smiled, but it didn't look like he meant it. “The class always votes on two or three possibilities.”

“Great. I make a motion that the theme of our next homecoming float is ‘Our student council was too cheap to do a memorial for Norman Pike, so we're dedicating this float to him.' ” Then Dante looked at me. “Giovanna, do you second that?”

As he said this, everyone in the room looked over at me. I could feel the heaviness of their gazes on me and automatically shrank further into the couch. It was just like Dante to drag me into his fight with Wilson, but I couldn't leave my brother standing there without any support. I sent him a stiff smile. “Sure. I second the motion.”

Bridget rolled her eyes. “It's too bad, then, that neither of you is on student council, and this isn't a meeting.” She gave a tinkling little laugh and shrugged her shoulders. “It's not that I don't agree with you that every dead guy needs his own float, but we've already chosen the school theme. It's ‘Bickham Tigers rule.' And we have three choices for our class float. The first is ‘We've got a tiger in our tank.' The second is ‘Cats always land on their feet'—you know, like we'll have one of our football players standing on a bunch of players from the other team, and . . .” She shut her eyes. “Oh, I can't remember the third one.”

Wilson took another sip of his drink. “It's ‘Has the cat got your tongue?' ”

Bridget nodded. “Right. We thought we could have a tiger pouncing on a player from the other team and ripping his face off.”

Luke laughed like this was somehow funny. “So there will be a dead guy on the float after all. You can call him Norman and dedicate the float in his memory.”

I turned to Jesse to see his reaction to this. He groaned and shook his head, but I didn't know if it was because Luke was an insensitive dolt, or whether he just didn't like the float idea.

Dante smiled at Luke stiffly, then turned his attention back to Wilson. “The floats won't be built until next fall. Why is this year's student council already making the decisions?”

“We like to be prepared. It makes it easier to get everything ready.”

Dante raised an eyebrow. “Doesn't next year's student body president get a say on what the theme is?”

Stacey, Bridget, Luke, and Wilson all glanced at each other and smirked. Wilson said, “Oh, definitely.”

Which made Stacey and Bridget giggle.

Jesse called over to Dante, “Elections are in three weeks, and as far as anybody knows, Wilson is the only one running.”

Bridget nudged Wilson with her elbow as though it were an inside joke. “It wouldn't matter if anyone else ran. Wilson would beat them.”

“Which is why no one else is running,” Stacey said. “Ain't no two ways about it.” And then the four of them smirked again.

Dante smiled. “I'm running.”

Bridget laughed, shaking her head, but Wilson's eyes narrowed. He stared at Dante, unspeaking.

Dante took his keys from his jacket pocket and strode to the door. “See you at the polls,” he said, and then left.

As soon as the door clicked shut, all eyes turned to Wilson. He shrugged and smiled, evaporating the tension that filled the room. “Looks like I might have competition after all.” Wilson raised his glass as though offering a toast to Jesse's guests. “And may the best Texan win.”

A rumble of laughter rolled around the room, and Wilson's gaze followed it, silently accepting their support. Then his eyes stopped on Jesse. Something flickered in his expression. Perhaps worry. Perhaps a challenge.

The next moment, he turned back to Luke, talking and laughing so casually that I wondered if I'd imagined the look he'd sent Jesse.

Jesse stayed with me for most of the rest of the party, but we didn't talk about the election again until everyone left. Then while he put on his jacket so he could take me home, I looked out the window and thought about my brother. “You don't think Dante will really run for school president, do you?”

Jesse zipped up his jacket. “I doubt it. Most likely he was blowing off steam on account of the memorial for Norman.”

Maybe, or maybe Dante just wanted to pick a fight with Wilson. Over the years we'd lived in Bickham, Wilson had said some things about Dante, specifically that he looked like he shopped at only the best yard sales. And Dante had said some things back to Wilson, most of which were unrepeatable in polite company. So maybe Dante just wanted to fight.

“He might be upset about the memorial,” I said, “but I don't know. It's not like he and Norman were close friends.”

Jesse took my hand, and we walked toward his garage. “Remember how, not too long before he died, Norman tried to convince Dante to join the math team?”

I grunted, and Jesse held up a hand to stop my protest.

“I know—Dante's favorite thing to do in calculus class is to pretend like he's sleeping, but Norman told him he was smart enough to help out the math team. You don't forget that kind of thing.”

We walked into the garage, and Jesse hit the button on the wall to open the door. It gave a protesting grind as it lifted to let the night air in.

I crawled onto the back of Jesse's bike and snapped on my helmet. “So is Wilson mad at Dante for saying he'd run?”

“Nah, and all that stuff Wilson said at the party about crushing Dante like a brittle walnut was just guy talk.”

“What? Did he really say that?”

Jesse laughed and sat down in front of me. “It will all blow over by tomorrow. By Monday neither one of them will even remember that Dante said he'd run.”

I held on tightly to Jesse's waist and hoped so.

Chapter
2

T
wins are supposed to have a psychic connection. You know, feel each other's pain, recognize what the other is thinking, wake up in the middle of the night with premonitions if one is stuck down a well or something. Let me say right off this has never happened between Dante and me. When we were younger, I hoped it would. Occasionally I would try to use ESP to get him to share his dessert with me.

Maybe it's because Dante and I aren't identical twins. But it's more likely because Dante isn't trying hard enough.