Scarlett White (4 page)

Finally she ended up opening the drawer she never opened. It was the drawer of all the clothes she had had before she had moved in with her mother. They were the designers her father had bought her back when he and his second wife were alive. All of the clothes still fit her because she hadn't grown much since the eighth grade. She had been extremely tall back then—about five feet and seven inches—and she had only grown, maybe, an inch or two since then. So, she knew that the clothes that she practically forbade herself to wear because they brought back painfully happy memories still fit her.

She pulled out a random pair of jean shorts and pulled them up her legs. She looked at herself in the mirror and remembered the good, old days back when her father was her caretaker, not her mother. She sighed and slipped on some sandals. She grabbed her cell phone from her desk and made her way down the stairs and to the kitchen where she found a note scribbled in careless handwriting.

Ibuprofen

Beer

Ice cream

Tampons

Cheese

Vodka

Scarlett was astonished at the short and unnecessary list her mother had taken, she assumed, two seconds to write. How in the world did she expect her eighteen year old daughter to buy her beer and vodka? Scarlett let out an exasperated chuckle as she chucked the slip of paper into the trash can and made her way out the door after she grabbed her keys from the side table.

It took her only ten minutes because it was Saturday and it was eight thirty a.m. to get downtown. She parked the car and made her way into the store, mentally creating a proper grocery list.

Water

Coffee bags

Orange Juice

Eggs

Bread

Cereal

Lunch meat

Ice cream

Milk

Bananas

Apples

Ibuprofen

Tampons

Scarlett was in fruit section of the large multiplex grocery store that was located in the center of the downtown area when she saw something she never thought she would see in a million years.

Tristan Cox had a plastic, rectangular basket hooked around his elbow and he was searching for food in the grain aisle. Scarlett would never have taken that inconsiderate, insensitive, thoughtless, pain in the derrière as the shopping type, especially not at eight-thirty in the morning on a Saturday. Scarlett turned back around and faced the aisle with the fruits, pretending not to notice Mr. I-Think-I'm-All-That-And-A-Bag-Of-Potato-Chips.
More like just a bag of potato chips,
Scarlett thought to herself and chuckled quietly at her really bad mental joke,
Well, that's what you get for staying up half the night.

Tristan was dead tired and couldn't believe he had been talked into getting up so damn early to go grocery shopping. I mean, he could have just as easily bought the same food at twelve p.m., so why was it so important for him to buy the food so early? Would the food really have begun the process of rotting in just a few hours? And on a Saturday? He had plans tonight that would probably last all night and well into tomorrow morning. So, he had to be well rested so he could party heartily, but now with three hours wasted, how was he supposed to stay up for tonight with his friends at the club?

Tristan found the grain aisle and started putting the whole grain bread into the plastic basket he was carrying around. And that was when he heard a small chuckle. He turned around in confusion. Was someone laughing at him? Because he was in such a bad mood that he wasn't going to take crap from anyone. And that was when he saw a red, curly ponytail in the fruit section of the grocery store. He knew that head of hair. It was his new lab partner. But what really shocked him was what she was wearing. She was wearing booty jean shorts and a nice, tight green blouse. And, day-um, she had a body of a well-paid stripper. Maybe that was a bit vulgar, but, hey, he just thinking about what he seeing, and what he was seeing was what he thinking about. Scarlett White had a hot body. Who would have guessed?

"Scarlett?" he called as he made his way over to her.

He knew she wasn't popular and that if anyone from school saw him actually talking to her about anything off school topics, his reputation would be ruin. But he was pretty sure that everyone from Watson High was sleeping in on their much longed for weekend. And only crazy people, like him and Scarlett, would be caught up at this time of the morning.

As Tristan approached her, she turned around, and he read tired disbelief in her green eyes. She looked tired, but for the first time in his life, he realized she wasn't wearing makeup, like all those other materialistic girls he ate lunch with. But he noticed that she didn't need makeup. She didn't even need cover up for bags under her eyes because she didn't have any.
How in the world did you not have any bags at this early time in the morning?
Tristan thought to himself. Tristan didn't mean to, but his eyes naturally slid down her body and assessed it. She had rather nice breasts that he had never noticed before because they were usually covered up with a baggy T-shirt. And her waist was tiny and petite, but flowed out into nice hips that looked like they could shake it on the dance floor. And her legs…jeez, he never realized how long and tan and…toned they were.

Scarlett snapped her fingers, quickly bringing his brown eyes back up to her makeup-less face. She had one eyebrow cocked. And now Tristan read irritation in her hazel eyes.

"What?" Scarlett asked. It didn't sound harsh or mean, just tired and ready to move on.

Tristan was taken aback. He had never been talked to in that tone. Nobody had ever talked to him…like…he wasn't important. She had replied in a tone that had said, 'Can you speak, so I can move along?' And nobody—and especially no
girl
—had ever been so unenthusiastic to talk to him: The Celebrity.

"I didn't know you shopped here," Tristan stalled. Really the only reason he was talking to her was because he honestly didn't feel like shopping right now. And…well, Scarlett looked hot.

"Well, now you do," Scarlett replied without interest and turned back around to pick up an unblemished apple.

"Why are you up so early?" Tristan tried to make conversation, his eyes falling back down to look at her nice, round ass.

"Stop staring at my butt," Scarlett ordered without turning around.

Tristan's eyes snapped up to look at the back of her head, "H-How did you know?" Did he just stutter? Did Tristan Cox, the most wanted, most popular, most admired boy at school, just stammer…
in front of a female?

"A girl knows when a boy is looking at her. It's just instinct. And I should ask you the same question," Scarlett said, still facing the wall filled with fruits.

"Wait. What?" Tristan asked, not exactly following her train of thought.

"Why are you up so early?" Scarlett asked, doing a pretty good impression of Tristan's voice.

Chapter Three

"
No, sorry, I
have to go...somewhere this weekend," she had said.

"
Where?" he had asked.

"
Somewhere. Now, I have to go..."

That simple conversation rang in Tristan's ears for the rest of the night. He couldn't help it. Her voice kept coming into his mind at the worst of times. She was so secretive, so grounded, and so tame. She kept walls up high, guarding her. And for some reason, Tristan wanted to know what was behind those thick walls. He had an odd feeling that Scarlett was more than just a brain hiding beneath baggy clothes. He had a feeling that she was much more deep and complicated than anyone ever gave her credit for. And Tristan felt like breaking down her walls would be a challenge. And he loved challenges.

"Honey, are you sick? You aren't eating anything," Tristan's mother, Julia, asked from across their dining room table.

"He's been acting like that all weekend. I don't even think he realized that I totally kicked his butt in Halo yesterday. That's a first time, and it won't be the last," Bryan, Tristan's younger brother, said with a triumphant smile on his face.

"Did something happen at school yesterday?" Julia asked, still concerned in that annoyingly over-protective mother style.

"No...yes...maybe...I don't know. It was different," Tristan finally answered.

"Well, what happened?" Mary, Tristan's younger sister, asked. "Does it have anything to with Alice? Because there is a rumor going around our school that you two..." Mary glanced at their parents, "...kissed. Or something like that," she mumbled the last sentence.

"No, it doesn't have anything to do with Alice. She's still the same obnoxious head cheerleader she's always been," Tristan answered.

"Another girl, then?" Mary asked, interested now. She always loved to stick her nose into other people's business, especially her older brothers' business.

"Yes, another girl, but it wasn't anything interesting. Just addictingly different."

"'Addictingly' isn't a word,
Mr.
Dumbass
," Mary replied.

"Language, Mary!" Julia scorned from across the table.

Tristan ignored his mother and answered Mary as if there hadn't been any interruption at all, "Whatever, I never even noticed her before, and now all I can think about is her. It's so annoying. I want her out of my brain. And I have to work on an entire project with her for an entire month." Tristan didn't mean to tell his incredibly nosy family about this, but it just spilled out.

"So, who is she? Is she hot?" Bryan asked.

"She's way out of your league," Tristan said a smile on his round lips.

"So, she's a cheerleader, I assume?" Bryan asked.

"You know what they say about what happens when you 'assume'," Julia chimed in.

"It makes an
ass
out of
u
and
me,"
Mary answered.

"Well, that question was kind of rhetorical," Julia mumbled into her lasagna.

"That question was kind of not a question," Bryan said. "Anyways, Tristan, she's a cheerleader, right?"

"Why are you so inquisitive?" Tristan asked.

"I need to know everything about my future high school, including all the students...girls," he whispered the last word to Tristan.

"So, is it: Viviane, Lucy, Miranda, or Jessie? Those are main cheerleaders. Or is she a dancer or gymnast? Is she: Ally, Vickie, Chelsey, or Fawn?"

"None; she isn't popular." Tristan had the two siblings going; he enjoyed it when they tried so desperately to guess anything about his social life.

"Elaine?" Mary added in.