Speed Demon (6 page)

Now that he had noticed me and asked me to Homecoming, even though we’d only been together a few weeks, it was easy to be with Adam. He didn’t make stupid guy jokes, he didn’t try to maul me every chance he got, and he didn’t forget to call me back. He was thoughtful, fun to talk to, and probably not as smart as me (had to admit that helped my feelings of security), but not dumb to the point where I wanted to knock on his skull.

Nothing about Adam annoyed me, really, which was more than could be said for some people.

Like people whose names started with
L
and ended with
i
. And had an
ev
in the middle.

“I’m fine. Just tired. They started work on the kitchen this morning and my mom was bitter that it screwed up her morning coffee routine. She made me get up and help with Zoe’s Girl Scout thing.” Speaking of my mother, I pulled my phone out and texted Levi to call me. He really needed to ask my mom about this party.

“Who are you texting?” Adam asked, glancing over at me, his baseball hat shadowing his eyes. “Isabella?”

“No. Levi. Isabella wants to have a Halloween party at my house. Tomorrow. And I told her Levi was going to have to ask my parents because they will never let me do it. They’ll let him do it, though, which is seriously irritating.”

“When is he moving back in with his parents?” Adam asked, oh-so-casual.

“I don’t know. They’re getting divorced and they hate each other, and they’re both refusing to move out of the house, so they’re like throwing knives at each other and crap, so they don’t want him there right now.” That was the story Levi had told everyone, anyway, even though as far as I could tell, he had no parents. Yet he had even managed to produce a woman on the phone to discuss the whole fake sordid situation with my mom so she would agree to let him live with us.

“That sucks.”

I wasn’t sure what Adam meant sucked exactly, but I thought he meant pretty much everything about it, including that Levi, who was not related to me, lived in my house, three feet down the hallway.

Or maybe that was just my guilt laying suspicion at Adam’s feet.

My stomach suddenly hurt. “Totally,” I agreed, massaging my gut.

Could guilt actually eat through stomach lining in half a day?

“I think Levi likes you,” Adam added, straight out of nowhere.

Yikes. I played dumb. “As a friend, yeah, we get along. We kind of have to, living in the same house. And you know, our moms are good friends and everything.”

“No, I mean he
likes
you likes you. Like he wants you to play secretary to his boss.”

It was a good thing I wasn’t drinking anything because I would have spewed it all over Adam’s windshield.

“
What
?” I squeaked, majorly, seriously, catastrophically grossed out by that phrasing Adam had so casually thrown out there. “What are you talking about? He so doesn’t!”

“He totally does.”

“I . . . I . . .” What was I trying to say? I had lost command of the English language in my horror. “Nuh-uh.”

That was really putting some conviction behind it. “He’s with Amber anyway.”

“I’m just saying,” Adam said.

“What? What are you saying?”

“That he likes you.”

“No, he doesn’t!” And the thing was, I wasn’t even really lying. I didn’t think Levi liked me that way. I thought he was totally telling the truth when he had said he hadn’t meant to kiss me. Not very flattering, but I did think it was just that Levi had been close to me and he had kissed me on total impulse. No big thing.

“I think it might surprise you how much he’s into you.”

Adam had clearly made his decision and nothing I said was going to convince him otherwise. “What does it matter anyway? I’m positive he doesn’t, but so what if he did? I don’t like him. At all.”

“I’m just saying,” Adam repeated.

Saying what? God. I had that go into a closet and scream feeling again. I was surrounded by obtuse men. And neither one probably even knew what obtuse meant. Maybe I didn’t either, now that I thought about it.

Did I even really know
anything
?

“Can we stop by here?” I pointed to the United Dairy Farmers store. “I want some ice cream.”

Sugar and cream always made everything better.

It was a rule.

Chapter Five

I got three texts and a phone call from Levi while Adam and I were cuddled up on the couch watching a movie that made Adam laugh and left me confused. I would never understand why bodily functions were considered so funny by guys. But Adam was amused for the most part, until my phone rang. Levi’s ring tone, which was the music from the movie
Halloween
, was jarring and creepy.

“Is he calling you again?” Adam asked, glaring at my phone as I went to scoop it up off the coffee table.

“It’s the first time he’s called me. We’re trying to figure out this whole Halloween party thing.”

I answered it, which I knew wouldn’t make Adam happy, but I also knew Levi. He would keep texting or calling until I answered, and I had texted him first. In all fairness to him, he would actually worry about me if he didn’t hear back from me. So I said, “Hello. How are you?”

“Fine. What do you need me for?”

“You have to”—I glanced around to make sure my mother wasn’t in earshot—“tell my mom you want to have a couple of friends over tomorrow night for Halloween. That you’ll help pass out candy and stuff.”

“What friends am I having over?” he asked suspiciously.

“Everyone on the list I give you. It’s only fifteen people.”

“So it’s a party.”

“Sort of.” I bit my fingernail. “Look, my mom will tell me no, but she’ll let you do it. Please?”

It seemed weird that I was basically begging him to have a party that would actually ensure his and Isabella’s future happiness—something I suspected had never even occurred to him. The whole plan was starting to feel a little, well, stupid. But I was in now and couldn’t back out. Isabella would never forgive me, and I’d already annoyed Adam. I had to just roll with it.

“Kenzie. This isn’t a good idea.”

“Probably not,” I agreed. “But just do it, Levi.”

“You know I’d do anything for you.”

“Well, if you’ll do anything for me, then in comparison this is totally easy. It’s just saying you’re having a few friends over. No biggie.”

Levi sighed. “Fine. I’ll talk to your mom tonight. I’ll be home in an hour.”

“Yay. Thank you.”

“By the way, am I on the invite list?”

“Of course. You have to be there or my mom will catch on.”

“Is Adam?”

“Of course.”

“Can I bring Amber?”

“It would be better if you didn’t,” I said cheerfully, glad he’d asked me outright. “She wants to scratch my eyes out and it kind of drags the room down.”

Another sigh. “Fine.”

“Thanks! I’ll see you later.” And I hung up before he could ask any further questions.

Adam stared at me, his long legs, which had been so close to mine, suddenly pulled to the left about a mile away. “He said he’ll do anything for you?”

“Umm. Yeah.” I bit my lip and tried to look innocent and casual. “Cuz we’re friends.” Who had shared one teeny, tiny, measly kiss.

“If you say so,” Adam said, turning back to the TV, his expression gloomy.

I was starting to figure out it was totally impossible to make all people happy at once. Maybe that was obvious, and we all knew it, but it was still worth noting that it sucked.

 

 

Kenzie Sutcliffe + Impulsiveness = Disaster.

Yeah. Planning a party that is not supposed to appear to actually be a party that is intended to alter the course of your best friend’s life with about a minute to work through the details? That is not a plan. That is reckless optimism.

My mom had said yes to Levi’s request to have some friends over, and so to make it seem legit in her eyes (and not my trying to wiggle around being grounded, which, hello, I so was) we decided to invite mostly West Shore soccer players and their girlfriends. And guess what? Adam was a West Shore soccer player. And I was his girlfriend. Wow. Were we brilliant or what? We figured my mom wouldn’t think anything of Isabella’s being there, since she was always at our house, even if she wasn’t attached to a soccer player.

Having Dirk Danger there (yes, that was really his name, proving that parents do have a sense of humor) didn’t thrill me since he had morphed into Levi’s Mini-Me, but Levi wouldn’t invite friends over without him, so we were stuck with Dirk and his inability to use cologne without dumping the entire contents of the bottle on himself. Being around Dirk was like entering the pig barn at the county fair—you just held your nose and breathed through your mouth until you got lightheaded and made an excuse to leave the room. If you were lucky Dirk took his Pig-Pen cloud of Ralph Lauren four feet or more away from you before you saw spots from a blinding chemical headache.

Otherwise, I was cool with the guest list. Adam and his friends, Reggie and Justin, plus Justin’s girlfriend, Darla, and her friend Madison. Two other soccer players whose positions on the field I could never remember—but were the kind who run up and down between the goals a lot—and their girlfriends rounded out the crowd. Dirk didn’t have a girlfriend (imagine that), and he threw off our even number of guys and girls, so Levi had invited Cecily Thrombauck, who had significant enough asthma that Dirk’s cologne probably couldn’t penetrate her lungs and kill her the way it did the rest of us.

You’re with me so far, right? It all made sense. We’d thought it through.

What I didn’t realize is that asking humans to put on costumes says a lot about who they are, what they think of themselves, and what they find funny—things sometimes you’re just better off not knowing. Levi was no exception.

When he came down the stairs dressed all in black with a ton of pictures of women Velcroed all over his chest, back, and legs, I just stared at him. “What are you supposed to be? And is that the Olsen twins stuck to your gut?”

I probably shouldn’t have asked, because he stuck out his arms, grinned, and said, “I’m a chick magnet.”

Oh my God. “I think I just vomited in my mouth.”

Levi just laughed. “What are you?”

I was wearing a blue trapeze dress, devil horns, and a devil tail. To avoid clashing, I had quickly dyed the tips of my hair back to red instead of pink, and I thought it was a good effect. “Hello. I’m a devil with a blue dress on.” It was obvious.

“Your horns don’t look real,” he said dismissively, going for the front door as the doorbell rang. “But you are pure evil when you’re in a bad mood.”

“They’re not supposed to look real!” I yelled after him. “It’s iconic.”

He didn’t care. And he sucked some of the pride in my costume away, which ticked me off.

As I set out munchies, Justin and Darla strolled into the family room. I wasn’t entirely sure what their costumes were supposed to be, but they looked very . . . plastic. Lots of makeup on Darla, high pink pumps, a blond wig. Justin had a tight sweater on with a big
K
on the front. “Uhhh ...” I said.

“We’re Barbie and Ken,” Darla told me.

Nice. I laughed. “That’s hilarious. Where’s your Corvette?” And how whipped was Justin that he let Darla talk him into being Ken? I thought it said good things for the future of their relationship, and I totally liked a guy who had a sense of humor.

Justin was grinning and chasing after Darla, hands out ready to grope, saying in a fake deep voice, “Come on, Barbie, let’s go party.”

“Oh, Ken,” Darla said, falsetto, with a giggle as she ran around the table in her heels to escape Justin. “I’m having such a good time.”

Stop me if I ever try to wear a Barbie costume. I can’t pull off perky like that.

Reggie and Madison came in two minutes later dressed like a dish and a spoon. Interesting choice for two people who swore up, down, and sideways that they were just friends. Not that dinnerware was sexy or anything, but in the nursery rhyme the dish ran away with the spoon, and it was obvious it wasn’t to go to the grocery store. But I wasn’t going to say anything. Let them live in Deluded Land together. As a dish and a spoon.

“You’re a present?” I asked Dirk, when he strolled in wrapped up in gift wrap and a bow, his cologne cloud still intact despite the fact that he was wearing a cardboard box. “Way to be modest.”

“Did you see my gift tag?” he asked with a smirk, turning so I could see the big tag on his shoulder.

“To: Women. From: God.” He was not saying . . .

“Get it? I’m God’s gift to women.”

Snort. On what planet? “You are totally delusional. But it is funny, I’ll give you that.”

Cecily arrived as a bee and I shoved her in Dirk’s direction. Everyone was there except for Adam and Isabella and I was starting to wonder if somehow Adam had forgotten to mention that he was dumping me, when he finally showed up. Wearing a gladiator costume.

Oh. My. God. He looked so hot that I needed a lobster bib for my drool. The beauty of an athletic boyfriend was that he wasn’t scrawny or chunky. He was firm, and muscular, and filled out in all the right places, and he was man enough to stroll in wearing a freakin’ skirt. I must have passed out from overwhelming admiration because the next two minutes don’t actually exist in my memory.

If I had to guess I would say I sweated and giggled and made no sense, but if that did happen, I was glad I didn’t remember it. I do know I stared at him as if I were having an out-of-body experience, time frozen to a halt as I checked him out head to toe, focusing in particular on his eyes, lips, legs, biceps, hair, jaw, butt . . . Okay, I was focusing on everything, which was probably why I forgot to breathe until he squeezed my hand.

“Hey, Kenzie. You look adorable,” he murmured to me.