The Boyfriend Thief (14 page)

Zac tilted his head to one side as he regarded me. “That you think I’m the most hilarious comedian you’ve ever met.”

I laughed. “You wish.”

“And that you’re loyal to the people you care about.”

I shrugged. “Isn’t everyone?”

“And,” he said in a softer tone, “you try to hide yourself from the rest of the world, though I haven’t yet figured out why.”

A shiver tickled its way up my spine, setting all the tiny hairs along my arms standing on end. “I’m not hiding.” My voice didn’t sound convincing, even to myself.

But I wasn’t hiding. I was here, in plain sight, sitting in the shadowy parking lot of the Gas ‘N Drive with Zac Greeley, drinking slushies in a car which had always been slushie-free territory before he arrived in my life. If I were hiding, I’d be back in my room, sound asleep in my bed as I’d always been on Saturday nights at one A.M.

“Why would I be hiding?” I asked, my fingers squeezing the cup toward dangerously close quarters, likely to spill over with the purple-black liquid at any moment.

Zac shrugged. “I’m not the one with the answers, I’m just the one listening.”

“If anything, you’re hiding,” I said. My voice got more and more high-pitched as I spoke. I could feel another major freak out coming on if I didn’t let out some steam and get control of myself again.

But I couldn’t stop the flow of words spilling out of my mouth now, like Zac had broken open a dam inside me. “You’re the one who hasn’t told his dad anything at all about what he really wants to do with his life. You sneak out and perform at midnight comedy shows for a bunch of strangers, but then you go back home and pretend you’re satisfied with making keys every night. You sit with me while your girlfriend is off doing who knows what and you try to tell me what relationships are about? I’m not hiding. I’m right
here
! I’m not the one who runs away!” I slapped my hand on my steering wheel, causing the horn to give out a loud blast, echoing around us. Inside the store, Jake jolted awake from his nap, nearly crashing into a display of magazines behind the counter.

I shivered for a few minutes while the silence grew around us. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked, probably awakened from sleep by my car horn.

What had I done? I could feel Zac’s discomfort growing with each passing second as my words absorbed into both of us. Now he knew. He could see for himself that I was Avery James, Total Freak. The persona I’d worked so hard to build at school would crumble around me. He’d tell Hannah how psycho I was and then she’d know that she would win valedictorian next year. Underneath the perfect layers I showed to the world, the truth was I couldn’t handle the pressure. When things got tough, the people in my family ran.

I leaned forward and pressed my forehead against the top of the steering wheel, squeezing my eyes shut and wishing this entire day would disappear.

“Are you okay?” Zac asked.

“Go away.”

“What?”

I sucked in a ragged breath, trying to force down the panic building inside me. “Go. Away. Just for a minute. Let me have some time alone.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he asked, “Why are you afraid of letting people see you like this?”

Why couldn’t get he just out of the car and leave me alone so I could freak out in privacy? Wasn’t one public breakdown enough for him?

“I’m not walking away, Avery,” Zac said. “But I am sorry for trying to get you to go onstage.”

I rolled my head over to look at him. “What?”

“At the diner,” he explained. “I thought maybe getting up onstage would help you to...I don’t know, stop hiding. Maybe make you realize you don’t have to plan every moment of your life in advance. Sometimes it’s good to let things happen. Go with the flow.”

I set my cup in the cup holder and started the ignition. I turned out onto the street and drove in silence for a long time.

“What if everyone laughs at me when I get onstage?” I asked after I’d driven away from the store.

“It’s a comedy show. Making the audience laugh is a good thing.”

I shook my head. “No, I mean, what if I get onstage and I blow it? What if they’re not laughing at my jokes, but laughing at
me
? What if I’m not good enough for them? What happens then?”

Zac yawned as he shrugged. “You get back up there and try again another time. No one expects you to be perfect.”

“Hannah is perfect,” I said.

“Hannah wants you to
think
she’s perfect. Trust me, underneath she’s as messed up as you and me.”

I reached my house and pulled to a stop in the driveway. Zac’s car sat along the side of the road, but neither of us made a move to get out. I killed the ignition and then picked up my cup, staring into the melting drink.

“No one can possibly be as messed up as I am,” I said.

“Everyone is messed up in their own way. The funny part is we all don’t want anyone else to know, so we work so hard to hide it.” He yawned and leaned his head back against the seat.

I thought about all the people I knew and all the ways we were messed up. My dad believed self-help books would heal the hole in his heart. Ian desperately wanted a mother to fill the empty place in his life that he tried to cover up with junk food. Molly hacked into her mom’s email account to delete messages from her father before they could start new fights over her or the divorce settlement.

Maybe Zac was right. Maybe we were all hiding from ourselves and each other.

“I don’t know if I should go to Costa Rica,” I murmured. “What if I get there and I find my mom and...nothing changes? What if I’m still not good enough to make her want to come back?”

When he didn’t answer, I looked over and found him asleep. Zac Greeley, the boy who never stopped moving, was finally still. His eyes were closed, dark eyelashes brushing the tops of his cheeks. His mouth hung open slightly and his breathing was slow and steady.

I reached over to take the slushie from his hand and set it in the cup holder before he could spill it. I rolled down the windows enough to let in what little breeze there was and then eased out of the car, shutting the door as gently as I could to keep from waking him.

Zac was gone in the morning. I didn’t know how long he had slept. Once I’d gone inside, I had fallen into an exhausted sleep in my bed and had slept until ten, a very late sleep-in for me.

Dad was in a cheery mood, humming as he cleaned up the breakfast dishes at the sink when I walked into the kitchen.

“Morning, baby,” he greeted me. He kissed my cheek and then spun around, dancing as he hummed and washed.

My father, dancing?

He didn’t dance. At least, I didn’t remember ever seeing him dance before in my life.

“What has gotten into you?” I asked as I pulled my usual cereal down from the cabinet.

“Nothing. Can’t a guy be in a good mood on a beautiful Sunday morning for no reason?”

I made my bowl of cereal, but kept a close eye on him as I ate, trying to figure out what had happened that brought this dancing psycho into my home to take the place of my real dad.

“You’re not working today, right?” he asked me.

“No, I have the day off. But I’m going over to Zac’s to work on our project for a while.”

There were only three weeks left of school. Since the last week was reserved for exams and the week before that would be reserved for each team to present their projects to the class, we had only one week left to finish up A to Z Love Matches. Most of the work was done. We had filled out our business notebook and had detailed reports on costs, projected profits, and marketing strategies. Over the past week, we had passed out data sheets to random kids at school to use for the initial testing of the website. Delia had already given Molly the website she had created.

All that was left were the final touches and the presentation of the working site, which Molly would deliver to us that afternoon at Zac’s.

My stomach churned at the thought of seeing him after everything that had happened last night. He had seen me in my weakest moment. What could he possibly think of me?

“Good,” Dad said, still bopping around the room as he put away the clean dishes. “Be sure to be home for dinner at six.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Why? What’s going on at dinner?”

Dad just smiled at me. “Food. Conversation. You know, dinner.”

Instantly, my brain whirred with possibilities. He acted like a smug child with a juicy secret he wasn’t telling. Whatever it was Dad had up his sleeve, I had a feeling I wouldn’t like it.

* * *

“So,” Molly said, pressing the power button on her laptop as she set it up on the coffee table in Zac’s living room, “this is a preliminary database. Something you can present in class and give an idea of how it will work. There are a lot more features I have planned, but I’ll have to work on those over the summer. Even though this incarnation is very basic, I think it should be enough to get you an A.” She grinned, proud of herself.

“I hope so,” Zac said. “I could use it. Not all of us are valedictorians in the making.” He winked at me.

My heart did a weird fluttering dance. What was wrong with me today? Ever since I’d arrived at Zac’s house a few minutes before, I’d been unable to stop looking at him. I liked the way his dark hair fell into his eyes even after he tried to brush them away. I liked how pink his lips were against his naturally brown skin.

Stop looking at Zac!
I told myself.

Molly typed in a web address and brought up the website Delia had designed. The logo for A to Z Love Matches featured a cartoon cupid shooting an arrow between our initials.

“I’ve put in the data you guys gave me,” Molly said. “So we can pick someone—let’s use you, Zac—and we’ll see what matches the computer gives us.”

Molly typed in Zac’s name to pull up his profile and then clicked the flashing “Match Me!” button she had added to the site. A moment later, a couple of names were displayed.

“Rita Haysworth?” Zac asked. “Who is that?”

“Freshman,” I said.

Molly laughed as she read the other name. “You got matched with Pamela Hopkins!”

Pamela Hopkins was a junior whose nickname was Goliath. She played on the basketball team, was about six foot five and very muscular. She could have crushed Zac easily.

“Pamela’s a nice girl,” Zac said, although he didn’t look too thrilled at the match.

“Keep in mind there are only about twenty profiles in the database right now,” Molly said. “So it’s possible you’d have a lot more matches if we had more profiles.”

Zac nodded and then said, “Do Avery.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not into this matchmaking thing.”

Zac reached behind Molly and playfully shoved my shoulder. “Scared you’ll get matched with someone gross?”

I ignored the tingles on my arm from Zac’s touch. “No, I don’t believe in this stuff, remember?”

“Then it doesn’t matter what the computer says,” he pointed out. “It’s a silly game. Do it, Molly.”

Molly typed my name in, hit the button, and…nothing.

The page displayed the words “Zero matches found” in big black letters.

Great. Even a computer knew I wasn’t meant to be matched up with anyone.

A long moment of stunned silence fell over the room. Then Molly cleared her throat and said, “Well, like I said, there are only twenty profiles in the system right now. Once we get more…”

I tuned out Molly’s excuses and settled back into the couch cushions. Proof right in front of me that perfect matches didn’t exist, at least not for me. I’d known all along. I’d made it my mantra.

So why did the confirmation hurt so much?

Molly stayed for a while longer, going over her future plans for the site and potential revenue sources. Her ideas would keep her busy throughout the summer and into next year.

I sat slumped on the Greeleys’ couch, barely paying attention as they talked. How could the two of them believe any of this might be real? It was a stupid computer program, lines of code, that pulled out names based on things that in the end never mattered at all. Because you couldn’t predict people and you couldn’t force romance by pulling two names out of a hat and pairing them together. The entire project was doomed to fail.

That, at least, would get me out of dancing for Zac. If he lost our bet by us failing the project, then I wouldn’t owe him anything. We could go back to our separate lives in which I slept soundly in my bed on Saturday nights instead of running around town with him.

“And that’s basically it,” Molly said as she packed up her laptop. “If you have any questions or suggestions, email them to me and I’ll add them to the list.”

Zac stood and grinned at her. “Thanks a lot, Molly. This is going to be the best project in the entire class.”

Molly huffed. “Don’t be so sure of yourself. I have a project of my own, remember? And it’s pretty spanking awesome, if I say so myself.”

When Molly left, Zac and I were alone again. His family was out for the day and the house was quiet. He had set out bowls of chips and cans of soda, but I’d been too preoccupied to even touch them. Molly had no qualms about free chips though and she had taken advantage while she was there, dropping crumbs all over the coffee table.

I couldn’t resist the urge to clean and I grabbed a napkin to sweep up the broken chips.

“You don’t have to do that,” Zac said, reaching forward to pull my hand back.

I looked at where his fingers touched my skin. Strange tingles worked their way up my arm from his touch. I had never felt anything like it before, this dizzying sensation that made it impossible for me to say anything. All I could think about were Zac’s fingers on my hand. I silently recited the names of the bones in my hands, trying to steady myself.

But the chant did nothing to calm the swirling thoughts in my head.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “You’ve been really quiet today.”

I needed to think of something that would keep me from noticing how close Zac was. “What if Mr. Freeman hates our project?” I blurted out.

“I doubt he’ll hate it. He’s liked it so far. He said it was unique and interesting.”

“But what if he realizes matchmaking doesn’t work? What if everyone in class wants us to match them up and we can’t? You saw how it didn’t have any matches for me. What if it has no matches for everyone else too?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in this stuff anyway,” Zac said.

I took a deep breath. It was hard to think, with Zac’s hand still on mine. He made no movement to pull away. “I don’t. I...I have to make an A on this project. I can’t fail.”

“Why?” Zac challenged me.

“Because failing means I’m not good enough. Because then everyone will know I’m not as perfect as they think I am.”

Zac reached up to touch my cheek with his free hand, a gentle brush across my skin. “You
are
perfect, Avery. Just like you are, flaws and everything.”

I dropped my gaze to my lap, unable to meet his eyes. “I’m far from perfect.”

His fingers traced the angle of my jaw. “Don’t do that,” he said.

“Do what?”

“Put yourself down when someone compliments you,” Zac said. “You remember what you said at my dad’s store? About wanting to know how to not be miserable? The only person who can make you miserable is yourself, if you hold back because you’re too afraid of failure to take a chance.”

I forced myself to look up at him. He stared back at me, his eyes wide. In that moment, I knew that he saw
me
, clearly saw everything I’d fought so hard to hide. And I saw that underneath the jokes and the animated exterior, Zac was just as afraid of not being good enough as I was.

His fingers trailed over my cheek, moving toward my lips and leaving an electric tingle in their path. I tried to keep my breathing even, but my lungs and heart were working overtime.

My body seemed to have developed a mind of its own. I certainly didn’t tell it to lean across the space between us. I didn’t tell my eyes to close or my lips to pucker together. I had lost all control of myself and I couldn’t stop my hand from turning around to intertwine my fingers with Zac’s. His free hand moved up my cheek and around the back of my head, pulling me closer to him. I didn’t make any effort to pull away.

When our lips touched, I couldn’t remember why I had ever tried to hide from him.

He crushed his warm lips to mine, pulling himself across the distance between us. I fell backward into the plush pillows, my arms wrapping around him to bring him closer. Our bodies fit perfectly together, as if
everything
—my mom’s leaving, my fight with Hannah and Elliott, the breakup plan, the midnight slushies—had all happened specifically to lead us right here, right now.

And then he jumped, pulling back from me so suddenly his fingers tangled in my hair and pulled me with him.

We stared at each other across the couch, both panting heavily. My heartbeat sounded like thunder in the silent room.

I pressed my hands together between my knees, trying to stop the way my entire body was shaking. What had just happened?

Zac ran a hand through his hair, causing pieces of it to stick out wildly. “I...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...That shouldn’t have happened.”

He sounded weird, as if he had to force the words out. My lips still burned from the kiss. I could still feel his touch electrifying my skin.

I should have told him the truth.
It’s okay if you want to kiss me because your girlfriend doesn’t even want you anymore!
But the words were stuck somewhere in my throat.

He stood and walked across the room to put as much distance between us as possible.

“You should leave,” he said. His back was to me, as if he couldn’t bear to even look at me after what we’d done.

I forced my legs to stand despite their trembling. “Zac?” My tongue fumbled to get the word out, as if I had forgotten how to speak properly.

I reached toward him, but he flinched and I dropped my hand. “I have a girlfriend,” he said, though I wasn’t sure if he was speaking to me or himself. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

I bit my lip when tears stung my eyes.
Do
not
cry,
I told myself.
Having feelings for Zac Greeley was
not
allowed. This had only ever been a job to get me to Costa Rica. No feelings, no regrets. I had only kissed him to finish the job.

“Do you really want me to go?” I asked. The way he had kissed me, it hadn’t felt wrong. He wanted to kiss me, and I wanted him to kiss me again.

He nodded, still not looking at me. When I walked toward the door, he turned suddenly. I thought—
hoped
—for a moment he might pull me back to him and ask me to stay.

But he didn’t. He disappeared down the hall into the shadows of his house as if he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. He was just like everyone else I’d ever known.

Everyone always ran away in the end.