The Truth about Us (11 page)

Fortunately Flynn's looking around, not gazing into her eyes under her spell. Good. I send him a telepathic message: Stay strong. Jennifer notices us first, and she beams at Braxton and then snarl-smiles at me. Nance is so deeply involved in her flirt game she doesn't even notice until we're right in front of them. Braxton immediately forgets my existence and leans toward Jennifer, tapping her hip with his. She bats her eyes at me, and I smile, signaling a silent okay, even though she probably doesn't feel like she needs it. She practically purrs as she turns all her attention to Braxton.

Flynn sees me, and his expression changes. His eyes open wider and he steps away from Nance so she's forced to drop her arm from the crook of his.

“Jess,” he says. He smiles.

My heart sings with happiness.

Nance glares at me and then back at Flynn, but it doesn't matter.

“Imagine finding you at a place like this,” he says and then he winks, and I know that he came to this party for me.

“Imagine indeed.” The gigantic smile on my face may be permanent.

Nance looks back and forth, her lip moving up into a barely there snarl.

“You two know each other?” she asks, but the subtext sounds like, “Why are you talking to
her
when you could be talking to me?”

“We've met,” Flynn says and grins. He's holding a bottle, but it's Coke.

“Where?” she demands.

He doesn't take his eyes off me. And I don't take mine off him.

“We met through his brother,” I say, which is only half a lie.

My peripheral vision catches Nance's frown, but a grin might as well be tattooed to my face. Nance takes a sip of her drink. This is new territory for her. Losing the attention of a boy to me.

“Hey, Jess. I have to pee. Come with me?” She hops off the railing and pulls on my arm before I can answer, yanking me away from Flynn. I glance over my shoulder at him as she takes me away. He lifts his chin and smiles, telling me without words he'll wait.

I turn back to Nance, who is dragging me behind her. A hand brushes my ass as we pass through the crowd, and I swat it away and can't see who did it. “Assholes,” I say to a group of boys cracking up. Oblivious, Nance keeps going, plowing her way through people. As soon as we step inside the house, Nance drops my arm and turns, her hands on her hips.

“So what's up? How do you know Flynn?” Her voice is louder than necessary, and her eyes shine bright. She's functioning on a pretty high alcohol level, but she's got lots of practice.

“Yeah,” I say and shrug as if meeting him isn't the best thing that's happened to me all summer. As if Flynn and I don't know each other at a place so different from this party, it might as well be on another planet. As if my dad forcing me to volunteer at a food shelter for the summer didn't turn out to be amazing. Weird. Unexpected. True.

I push her forward. “I saw a bathroom that way.”

She digs her heels into the floor in the living room. “Yeah? Well, I want to go for it,” she says.

“The bathroom? Yeah. Go,” I tell her.

“No. With Flynn. Summer fling. Perfect for fun. You're okay with that, right? I mean, you two are just friends, right?”

“No,” I say quickly and so loud it's almost a shout. A boy from the other high school in town is walking toward us, his eyes on Nance, concentrating as if he's practicing what he's going to say to her. He's holding a full beer. Liquid courage. I turn away from him. “No, I'm not,” I repeat, just in case the first no wasn't clear.

“What?” She frowns. She gets first pick. That's the way it goes. And the fact she's dragging me off to tell me her plan tells me she's pretty sure we're not just friends. She wants to interfere. But this isn't football. There's no running interference here.

“I already hooked up with him,” I say and push on her again so she starts moving. The guy from the other high school stops a few feet away, but he's staring at her. What's another lie added to the hundreds of others I've told in my life?

Girl Code. It's the one thing that will let me lay claim on him. Even with Nance, there's Girl Code. Once lips touch a boy, he's not touchable to the other friend. Girl Code. I've practically peed on him to mark my territory. The image makes me laugh. She scowls at me.

“You did? When? Why didn't you tell me? What don't I know about this?” We're moving toward the bathroom slowly, with me pushing on her back. She digs her heels in and stops.

“Come on.” I push harder. “It's not like you've called me. I couldn't tell you,” I say with zero shame. “I've left messages on your cell and at home, and you never returned them.”

“You know I prefer to text,” she says snottily, as if losing my phone privileges was only to piss her off or something.

“I don't have a phone anymore!” I push her toward the bathroom by the front entrance.

The boy who's been watching comes at us from another angle. Nance notices and shoots him a look I do not envy him being on the receiving end of. He veers off and pretends to be looking for someone else. Poor guy.

We stop at the bathroom and try the door, but it's locked. Nance bangs on it. “Hey. I have to pee!” she yells and then turns and pokes me with a sharp fingernail. “I can't believe you found a summer fling before me!” She says it loudly, the way drunk people do, and I glance around, but no one pays us any attention. She frowns. “I need another drink,” she announces. “I have to pee!” she yells at the bathroom door.

Finally the door opens and a girl walks out of the bathroom. She's a grade younger than us, and when she sees Nance waiting, her cheeks turn red. “Sorry,” she says and scuttles off before she is severely and socially punished for daring to use the bathroom when Nance has to pee.

Nance drags me inside with her, pulls down her pants, and sits on the toilet. I turn to the mirror to check myself out and groan. My hair is a disaster. So is my makeup, or what's left of it from the morning.

“So what happened?” she asks, overly loud and kind of aggressive. “With the fling?”

“Oh. Um. Last weekend. At a…family thing…I was, uh, looking after his brother and, well, things happened.” I shrug. As if it's not a big deal. As if I didn't lie to get Flynn off her radar. But she's not going after him. Not on my watch.

Nance's reflection is visible behind me in the mirror. She's got her head in her hands, and when she looks up, she looks foggy and kind of sad. She finishes her business and stands and flushes the toilet. I notice her lower hip has cuts all over it and so does the inside of her upper thigh. When she sees me looking, she turns away and does up her shorts. She comes to stand beside me with an uncomfortable look on her face.

“You okay?” I ask. “What happened?”

She avoids my gaze. “Nothing. It's nothing.” Then she turns to me. “Don't get too attached to Flynn. Summer flings end, you know, when the summer does.” She leans forward to stare at her reflection and frowns. Her eyes are hooded, and she wobbles on her feet.

“Obviously,” I answer and hate myself. I watch her for a moment, wondering about the cuts. “You're sure you're okay?”

“I need a drink,” she says. She heads for the door without washing her hands, which is really gross, and I quietly judge her.

When we come out of the bathroom, she throws back her head and spots something and then livens up as if she's on a stage. When I see what she's looking at, I smile. Thank you, Hunter Bell.

“I heard Hunter broke up with his girlfriend last week. I saw a tweet,” she tells me.

He graduated a couple of years ago and works for the town. Cutting grass. Shirtless. Pruning trees in parks and boulevards. Shirtless. His longish blond hair shimmering in the sun. Shirtless. He looks good shirtless. She's gone, moving toward Hunter on a mission, but the boy who was trying to get her attention earlier is in her path. Nance gives him a big smile, grabs the full beer from his hand, starts guzzling, and keeps walking without looking at him.

I walk slower, and the boy whose beer she stole watches with me as she reaches Hunter and he greets her with an enthusiastic hug. Hunter smiles at her like she's a Halloween treat and leans down and whispers in her ear. She pets his arm, and I wrinkle my nose and glance at the boy. The heartsick face gets to me.

“Poor guy, she totally didn't wash her hands after using the washroom,” I tell him.

He stares at me for a second. And then he laughs.

“Thanks,” he says. “That's awesome.” And he walks the other way, still laughing.

I make my way through the house, back to the deck party.

My grin starts before I reach Flynn.

“Hey,” he says when I'm standing in front of him. “See my friend over there? He wants to know if you think I'm cute.” I glance to the side and see Braxton and Jennifer making out. Their hormones seem to be breeding and mutating, fueled by alcoholic substances. I understand their inclination, but at the same time, I want more than a hookup at a party with Flynn. More than hormones and lust. No matter what I told Nance.

“Yeah. Sure he does.” I laugh. The smile on Flynn's face is totally sexy and a little bit shy, which of course makes it even sexier. He looks different in this environment, at this party. Not as intense. But still familiar.

“You lost your friend?” he asks.

“She found someone else to salivate over.” I try to keep the jealousy out of my voice, but the way he smiles, I don't think it worked. We grin at each other, and suddenly I have no idea what to say. This is so different from being alone together in the greenhouse or at the shelter. “It's weird seeing you here,” I blurt out. I could stare at him all day long.

“Can I tell you a secret?” He grabs the belt loop on my pants and pulls me close.

My heart swoops. I hold my breath. Waiting. The buzz of the kids around us laughing and talking loudly fades.

“It's not really my scene,” he whispers. We're so close, our noses almost touch. “Usually I hang out at soup kitchens.”

I smile, happy he's joking. It must be hard to deal with sometimes, especially at a party like this.

“The only reason I'm here is because I hoped I'd see you.”

I press my lips into a smile. “I didn't know about the party until Braxton came to get me. And I only came because he said he brought a friend. I hoped it was you.”

“I guess we both abused his crush on you,” Flynn says.

I glance over at Jennifer and Braxton. “Good thing for us he's fickle.”

We watch them make out like they're madly in love and laugh.

“So what now?” he asks.

Behind me someone drops a bottle on the deck and it smashes. A bunch of kids whoop. No one bothers to clean it up. Instead they kick away the glass and ignore it.

“I'm not really into this party,” I admit. “I was actually going to head home. My mom's home alone.”

“Can I walk you?” he asks.

“Aren't you Braxton's DD? You'd have to walk all the way back.”

He glances over. “Nah. I'll head home too. Braxton's good about taking public transportation if he's drinking. His dad was hit by a drunk driver a long time ago. So…”

I nod. “That's good. I mean, not the accident.”

“I knew what you meant.” He smiles.

“Yo, Brooks!” Flynn yells and puts his hand on my back. My back likes it. Braxton manages to drag his lips away from Jennifer for a second. “I'm out,” Flynn calls.

Braxton stares at him and then at me and nods. Jennifer plants her hand on his neck and drags him back in. Flynn and I laugh again, and he puts pressure on the hand on my back and we start moving. I float past the kids laughing around us, totally unaware of our existence. It doesn't matter. None of it matters.

“You're sure you don't mind?” I ask.

“More than sure.”

It makes me want to sing show tunes like Penny used to do when she was happy. Probably still does. I look around for her as we weave our way out the front door, but I don't see her. I look around for Nance and Hunter too but don't see them either. I think about the scratches on her hip for a moment, but Flynn holds the door, and we step into the front yard, and the party noise is instantly gone. It's like a distant echo in the night air.

“Big parties aren't really my thing,” Flynn says.

“Me neither. I mean, not anymore,” I add because it's true right now and that's all that matters. “You're sure about walking me?” I ask again but not even slightly genuinely.

“Nah. Changed my mind.” He turns and goes back and grabs for the front doorknob. “Psych.” He turns back to me with a smile.

“Ha ha,” I tell him. I can't wipe the grin off my face.

We walk up the driveway to the sidewalk, side by side. We pass a group of teens carrying beer, heading toward Brittney's, but I don't even look at their faces.

“Mmm, smell that,” I say. There's a giant lilac bush at the front of the yard. I worry for a second he'll think I'm a big nerd.

“Lilies,” he says.

I guess not. I smack his arm lightly. “Those are not lilies; they're lilacs.”

“Show-off.”

“I know flowers,” I tell him.

“Prove it,” he says.

“And how do you propose I do that?” I ask.

“Stay tuned,” he says in mock seriousness. “A flower test is imminent.”

We reach the end of the street, and he waits for me to lead the way. I turn left and he follows. “Tell me,” he says as we pass a bunch of shiny clean cars. “Does every kid in this neighborhood drive a brand-new car?”

“Lots,” I tell him.

“Your daddy get you one?” He says it lightly, but it sounds a little forced. “I'm surprised you take the bus to the shelter.”

I hesitate. “Well, actually I share an Audi with my sister. A hybrid. In his mind that totally makes him green…” I shut up, realizing the joke probably won't be funny to him. “Never mind.”