The Secrets of Boys (2 page)

She swallowed hard. “Hey, can I ask you a silly question?”

Eric nodded, and she took a deep breath and forced herself to look him in the eye. “How do you feel about me?”

His forehead crinkled with confusion. “What do you mean, how do I feel about you?” he asked. “You’re my girlfriend. I’m crazy about you. You know that.”

“Yeah,” Cassidy said. “I guess I do.”

Eric continued to squint down at her. “Why?” he asked. “How do you feel about
me
?”

“Oh,” Cassidy said. “I …”

The words stuck in her throat. There was no way she could say “I love you” to Eric before he said it to her. Every article in the women’s magazines she and Larissa liked to giggle over insisted that saying it first was relationship suicide. But after nearly two years of dating, shouldn’t it be out in the open? She was almost positive that Eric
did
love her, but there was no way she was going to risk letting the words slip without
knowing
first.

“I’m crazy about you too,” she finished softly.

“Good.” Eric’s face relaxed into a grin and he leaned forward, kissing her again. Cassidy counted to ten in her head before putting her hands on his shoulders and pushing him away.

“We should get going,” she said. “Really.”

“Okay.” Eric sighed, not meeting her eyes as he climbed off the bed.

He was too nice a guy to say anything, but Cassidy could tell he was annoyed she had never let him take things all the way. As close as she felt to Eric, Cassidy could never in a million years tell him that the “I love you” factor was keeping them from having sex. She knew it was silly and old-fashioned and really just a for-mality, but she still wanted to hear it, and was positive that as soon as the words were out of his mouth, she’d be rushing to Victoria’s Secret to buy the laciest thong she could find.

“Let’s go, gorgeous,” Eric said, finally meeting her eyes and smiling so that the comma-shaped dimple on his left cheek seemed to dance.

Cassidy smiled back at him. She grabbed her purse in one hand and Eric’s arm in the other and wondered what was to come in the night ahead.

Afew hours later, Cassidy was being crushed by a swarm of sticky, perspiration-soaked, barely clothed bodies.

To her left were guys in white baseball hats, punching each other on the arm and calling each other “bro.” To her right were Tara Reid clones comparing tans and belly button rings and asking if there was any diet tonic left to mix with the vodka. Pepperdine’s Sigma Phi Epsilon fra-ternity was notorious for debauchery, and Cassidy could see why. A lot of people were already grinding their pelvises on the dance floor in the living room or funnel-ing a variety of alcoholic beverages in the kitchen. As for Eric, he’d disappeared five minutes before to fill up their plastic cups with more Coors Light, which left Cassidy alone with Larissa, the boy-guzzling machine.

“Holy crap.” Larissa grabbed Cassidy’s arm suddenly in a death grip. “Look at that guy over there. I think I’m going to melt, he’s so hot.”

Cassidy followed Larissa’s gaze to a thin guy with lanky blond hair and an enormous nose.

“Are you sure?” Cassidy asked. “What about that thing in the middle of his face?”

“Face?” Larissa asked, bewildered. “Honey, check out his
shoes
.” Cassidy looked down. The guy had on a gorgeous pair of gray suede Gucci loafers, which looked great under a faded pair of Lucky jeans.

“Let’s go talk to him before he watches too many
Queer Eye
episodes and decides to go home and re-upholster his sofa or something.”

Cassidy tried peering over the crowd to find Eric, but before she knew it, Larissa’s hand was in hers and they were both surging through the crowd, hot on the trail of Gucci Boy.

“You better watch out,” Larissa warned him when they emerged safely on the other side of the mob. “I heard there’s a plot under way to get you drunk and steal your shoes.”

Startled at first, he broke into a huge grin at the sight of the two girls. Nose and all, Cassidy had to admit that when he smiled, he
was
kind of cute. She could sense Larissa sneaking glances at her, trying to gauge her approval, and gave her a barely perceptible nod.

“I think I can fend for myself,” he said, grinning.

“Believe it or not, I actually
do
work out once in a while.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it for a moment,” Larissa said. “So what’s your name?”

“Can you guess?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“I dunno. Maybe a Dan? Sergio? Harry?” Larissa asked.

“You’re about as wrong as you can be.” He laughed, extending his hand. “I’m Jay.”

Larissa took his hand, letting her palm linger just a tad longer than necessary as she introduced herself. “I never would have guessed,” she purred. “I’m Larissa.

And this is Cassidy, my bestest friend for life.”

Jay smiled. “Nice to meet you, Bestest Friend for Life.”

Cassidy withdrew her hand after something like half a pump and immediately felt silly. What did she think, he was going to
eat
her or something? She was always such a wreck when it came to talking with strangers.

Even when Eric had approached her at Nobu, she’d been so anxious when she’d handed him the soy sauce that she’d dropped it on his foot. He’d been wearing Tevas and his big toe immediately had begun to swell up. He’d pressured her into giving her his number so that his “lawyer” could call her. It was so sweet.

“Nice to meet you, um, Not Sergio,” she said, realizing as soon as the words were out of her mouth that she sounded like a moron. The pressure of small talk just
did
that to her sometimes. She tried to be funny, and then it became obvious to everyone how awkward she was.

But Jay didn’t seem to have even heard her. “So you girls go to Pepperdine?” He casually glanced at the way the strap of Larissa’s tank top had slipped off her shoulder.

“No, we just hang around campus hoping to meet guys like you,” Larissa quipped.

“You don’t want to meet guys like
him
,” interjected a guy with black hair gelled up into tiny spikes. “He’s trouble. Not like me. I’m a
nice
guy.”

“Oh, but nice guys are no fun!” Larissa said.

Cassidy could tell Larissa loved all the attention, and this was why hanging out with her made Cassidy kind of depressed. She didn’t begrudge Larissa’s talent for flirting or how easily her best friend turned a bor-ing conversation into a laugh-fest. She didn’t aspire to
be
Larissa either. She just envied how Larissa was so comfortable with being herself and letting other people get to know exactly who she was. Cassidy had never really been able to fully do that, even with Eric.

She still felt like even though he had been holding back those three little words, there was much more that she was holding back from him and from everyone else she knew. Cassidy wished she could find out the secret to unlocking the interesting, engaging person that always seemed to show up in her sketches. She knew she wasn’t going to find out what it was tonight, so she drew in a large breath and decided it was time to sink or swim.

“Eric is nice and fun,” Cassidy interjected automatically. “And Dominican.”

Oh my God, why am I even talking?
she thought.

“Who’s Eric?” asked Jay.

“He’s, um—a surfer,” Cassidy stammered, barely managing to get the words out of her mouth.
Duh!

That’s not all he is.
“And he’s my boyfriend,” she added nervously.

“Oh, you guys have boyfriends?” Jay looked disappointed.

“
She
does.” Larissa’s eyes flashed Cassidy a tiny warn-ing. “I, on the other hand, am delightfully single. Who wants to be my date tonight?” She crooked her elbow in invitation and the two guys nearly collided with each other trying to grab it first.

Cassidy panicked at the thought of having to come up with more things to say to these guys, so she did what any self-respecting shy person would do—run fast and far, far away.

“I think I’m going to find the ladies’ room,” she whispered to Larissa.

“You sure?”

“I’ll be fine,” Cassidy assured her. All she wanted was to go somewhere quiet where she could get her bearings and plan out her next conversation—word for word.

* * *

The line for the bathroom snaked through the kitchen and into the hall. Great. En route to the one place at the party where she could be alone, Cassidy was surrounded.

“My, oh my, Miss Cassidy Jones.”

The voice came from behind her. She spun around.

With his dyed blond hair and his signature scrubby jeans (complete with a tear in the crotch), Joe Telesky usually looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. But Cassidy knew that in her mind, he’d always be the kid down the block who used to spend his summers making a bunch of noise while erecting his state-of-the-art tree house. Cassidy and Joe were neighborhood pals during the BE period—Before Eric. From sixth grade until fresh-man year of high school, Cassidy had gone to Joe’s special fortress to play Pictionary, which was how he’d orig-inally lured her off her front porch. But once she’d gotten a serious boyfriend and begun hanging out with Larissa more, Joe had morphed from a childhood buddy into a classroom acquaintance. Still, whenever they did run into each other, it was like seeing a favorite cousin at a family reunion.

Cassidy put her arms around Joe and gave him a big hug. He was so wiry and skinny that when she squeezed him tight, he actually let out a gasp of air. And he smelled like turpentine—Joe pretty much lived in his father’s garage, which doubled as a workshop. He built everything from the desk in his room to the bookshelves in his parents’ den. He’d even made an easel for Cassidy in honor of her fourteenth birthday. That was two years ago, and it was the last time they’d really hung out. Now that she was right in front of Joe’s kind, Adam Brody–esque face, she felt a pang of regret about not staying in better touch with him.

“How have you been?” she asked. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.”

“They don’t call me J-Low Profile for nothing,” Joe reminded her. “What are you doing here?”

“Larissa and Eric brought me,” she replied.

Joe chuckled. “You mean dragged you!”

Cassidy blushed. Joe really did know the score.

“Kind of.”

“Heading to the bathroom for cover?” Joe laughed.

“No, I—I was just …” Cassidy stammered. “Trying to find the keg.”

“Such a party animal,” he said with a grin. “Come on, I’ll show you a shortcut. There’s one upstairs that’s probably easier to get into than a White Stripes concert.”

“Sounds good,” Cassidy said. Hanging out with Joe was definitely better than brooding in a corner by herself.

She followed him into the kitchen, where he opened a door that she could have sworn belonged to a closet.

Behind it was a flight of rickety wooden stairs.

“Servants quarters,” Joe explained. “These houses used to belong to ritzy families. They’d probably be rolling over in their graves if they knew what was going on here today.”

“Since when did you become such an expert?”

“Scotto is king of the Frat Monkeys,” Joe explained.

“Don’t tell him I called them monkeys, though. He’ll kick my ass.”

Cassidy giggled. “I won’t. Promise.”

“There’s a mini-keg in here,” he said, knocking on a door covered in a ripped batik tapestry. “Better beer. It’s supposed to just be for the frat brothers, but I’m real family.”

“Who is it?” a voice boomed from inside.

“Your brother,” Joe called back. “And guest.”

“Male or female?”

Joe rolled his eyes at Cassidy. “Female,” he said. “But hands off. She’s very taken. A buff surfer would end you if you did anything stupid.”

“Fine,” was the final verdict. “Come on in.”

Joe led Cassidy into a room so smoky it took several moments for her eyes to penetrate the haze. She tried not to cough as Joe introduced her to a cadre of frat brothers huddled around a glass-topped coffee table littered with ashtrays, empty beer cans, and copies of
Scientific
American
and
Maxim
magazine. The glass bong sitting in the middle was almost taller than she was.

She couldn’t catch any of the names except for Scotto, Joe’s brother, who looked like an older, chunkier version of Joe. He was wearing purple sweat-pants and a T-shirt that had the
Onion
logo splashed across the front and was sitting cross-legged on an arm-chair without any legs.

“Welcome!” Scotto bellowed. “And what can I offer you this fine evening? I’ve got Blue Hawaiian, this great hydro from Humboldt, and I think there’s Vicodin around here somewhere… .”

“Actually, we kind of just want some beer,” Joe said.

Scotto waved his hand. “Whatever, man.”

Joe fished two red plastic cups out of a paper bag and poured them both beers from the keg. Cassidy took a sip of hers. It was cool and bitter. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was.

“Who wants to smoke?” Scotto asked abruptly.

All the hands in the room went up except for Joe’s and Cassidy’s.

“Excellent.” Scotto fished several plastic baggies from under the cushion of his seat.

“We have to get going,” Joe said.

Scotto looked genuinely hurt. “So soon?”

“Yeah, I think there’s a chugging contest brewing downstairs and Cassidy’s favored three to one.” Joe reached out and tousled his brother’s hair.

“Wow, awesome,” Scotto said. “Well, can you do me a favor?”

Joe nodded.

Scotto found a plastic baggie under his seat cushion.

This one was labeled PURPLE HAZE. “Can you take this down to Jordan? I promised him a sample.”

Joe pocketed the bag. “No problem, bro,” he said.

“See you later.”

“Wow,” Cassidy said when they were out the door.

“Your brother—”

“Smokes more dope than the kids on
That ’70s
Show
,” Joe said. “Yeah, I know. My parents made him take the LSAT his junior year of college just to see how he’d do, and he aced it without even having to study.

But he can’t seem to get it together enough to graduate