Rolling Dice

  “If everyone’s done talking, I’d like to begin the lesson,” Miss Augustan announces, her voice carrying so that everyone shuts up pretty darn quickly.

  I glance away from her once to look at Carter, though, and wonder if what he’s just said means I’ll have to choose between my two very different sets of friends.

  Chapter 18

  I’m right: the news that Bryce Higgins is dating that new girl, the one with the nose piercing—yeah, that’s it, the short blond one, Madison Something—is all over the school. It spreads like wildfire, and I only have to walk down a hallway to hear people say, “That’s the one who’s dating Bryce.”

  I don’t exactly want to be known by who I’m dating, but I’d rather be “that girl dating Bryce” than “that weirdo loser,” or Fatty Maddie.

  As soon as the bell rings after lunch, I head off to AP Physics with Dr. Anderson; I turned up about a minute late to the previous lesson and was told that since it was my first week he would let it slide, but if it happened again I’d have detention. I don’t want to be late for a single lesson now.

  On my way there, I spot the back of a familiar head of curly black hair in front of me, turning toward the staircase.

  “Dwight!” I call, but he doesn’t hear me over the noise of kids going to class. I jog up to him, glad now that I’m wearing my Converse today rather than heels (even if Tiffany turned her nose up at them earlier). He doesn’t hear me come up behind him, so I jump at his back, my hands clapping down on his shoulders, and he stumbles forward slightly.

  “I called and you didn’t hear,” I tell him before he can ask what the heck I’m doing.

  He blinks two or three times, like he’s a little shell-shocked and confused, but then shakes his head rapidly and smiles that easy, infectious smile at me, his sea-green eyes lighting up. “Hey, Madison.”

  “How’s it going?” I ask.

  “Not too bad,” he replies. “How about you?”

  “Okay.”

  “Only okay? If what I’ve heard through the grapevine is anything to go by, things are better than okay for you right now.” He nudges his elbow at my ribs, and I laugh.

  “So you heard about me and Bryce.”

  “Uh-huh.” He nods and smiles at me again. “When were you planning on telling me? I’m truly hurt by this betrayal, Madison. How can you not tell your AP Physics lab partner that you’re dating the hottest guy in school?” The feigned hurt is so melodramatic he can’t keep up the façade for more than a few seconds; then he breaks out in a grin and laughs with me.

  “Please, I’m begging you, don’t go giving me every single detail of your relationship. Personally, I’m don’t really care whether or not he’s a great kisser. Or if he’s got, like, the hottest abs you’ve ever seen in your whole life.”

  I laugh, and push open the door to Room 31. “Don’t worry, I’ll spare you the details, Dwight.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  “Hand these out,” Dr. Anderson tells a girl near the front, giving her a stack of papers. As she gets up to distribute them, he carries on in his slow voice: “What you’ll be receiving now is a copy of the basis of your projects. You’ll all remember, I hope, that you will be working with your partner on a project to investigate a physicist who changed the science world in his or her own unique way …”

  He carries on—the same stuff he told us last week about the project counting for twenty percent of our final grade. Then he starts to read through the sheet we’re being handed, which is the most pointless exercise.

  As the girl approaches our table, she pauses. “Are you really dating Bryce Higgins?” she whispers to me.

  “Um … yes,” I whisper back.

  “Omigod,” she breathes. “You’re one lucky girl. Do you know most girls in this school would kill for a shot with him?” She smiles and puts two sheets on our desk before heading to the next table.

  “Has it been like that all day?” Dwight asks, a chuckle in his voice.

  “Sadly, yes.”

  He bites back a laugh, but smirks. “You poor thing. Popularity is such a burden.”

  “Is that supposed to be you taking a dig at me?”

  “Not really. Just a dig at popular kids in general.”

  I roll my eyes and shake my head at him. My eyes glaze over when I scan the sheet, and in the end I slump over the table, my elbow on the desk and my cheek resting on my fist. I suppress a yawn as Dr. Anderson drones on. Dwight’s taking notes, like most of the class, so I take out my notebook too. Part of me thinks that if it weren’t for Dwight, I wouldn’t make any effort in this class at all.

  As we pack up our stuff, Dwight and I are talking about the project. It has to be handed in by Christmas break, so we have a couple of months, but with the amount of work Dr. Anderson expects us to put in, we need to get started as soon as possible.

  “How about this weekend?” Dwight says. “We can meet up at your place or mine and have a look. I’ve already got a couple of ideas, so it won’t be too difficult.”

  I nod. “Sounds good.”

  I do wonder briefly if I might see Bryce this weekend, but then I shrug it off. I can see him another time. I’ll hang out with him in school too. It’s not that big a deal.

  “Hey,” says a voice I recognize as Andy’s as we leave the lab. He’s waiting outside. “Double Math got canceled,” he says, by way of explanation.

  “Lucky,” I giggle.

  “Lucky? It’s terrible! We were doing integration today.”

  I laugh again, but then realize he’s kind of serious, so I stop.

  “What’re you guys doing now?” he asks, pretending not to acknowledge the brief awkward moment.

  “Um …”

  “I don’t know what Madison’s doing, but I was going to finish off some work from Trig—”

  “How ’bout we go grab a milk shake?” Andy suggests. “You guys up for it?”

  “Uh …” Dwight looks at me uncertainly.

  “Sure,” I say, grinning. I haven’t hung out with them since the party on the beach over a week ago, and it’d be nice to have a bit of a change. “That’d be great. I could kill for a strawberry milk shake right now.”

  We start to head off, wandering down the corridor. Suddenly I see that Tiffany and Summer are heading toward the stairs too, and we all meet on the landing, neither group heading down. I don’t miss the way Tiffany’s nose scrunches up ever so slightly at the sight of Andy and Dwight, like she’s looking down on them.

  “Madison, what’re you doing?” she asks, turning to look at me.

  “Um … going for milk shakes?”

  “It’s fine,” Andy mumbles quietly to me. “You can take a rain check.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Madison,” Tiffany says. Her voice holds a certain ring of command. She arches an eyebrow at me, almost daring me to object—but there’s a calm smile on her face, and I squirm inside, torn.

  I open and close my mouth, trying to say something, anything, when Dwight decides for me.

  “See you around,” he says quietly, and gives me a fleeting smile before heading down the stairs with Andy, leaving me with the girls.

  They wait until the boys are out of earshot to say anything. Summer speaks first: “Were you really going to go with them for milk shakes?”

  “Yeah.”

  Tiffany sighs. “Honey, I know he’s your lab partner, so you guys have gotta get along and everything, but …”

  “What, hanging around with him is bad for my social standing?” My voice is derisive and blunt. I immediately regret saying anything.

  Tiffany just looks at me like “duh.” “People like them don’t mix with people like us. You think I haven’t heard what people say behind my back? A bunch of people at this school think I’m a total bitch, and quite frankly, I couldn’t care less about them. Half of what they’ve heard about me isn’t even true.”

  “And what, you think Dwight and Andy are like that?”

 
“I didn’t say that,” she replies. “But you know how these things work. Not everything is rainbows and butterflies. There’s a certain way things are done, and—”

  “Save it,” I say, but I try not to say it in a mean way. Tiffany wasn’t being horrible, or even patronizing, really, but I don’t care to hear about the social airs and graces of the popular clique. “I get it—it’s fine.”

  And I do get it, but it’s not fine. It’s not fine at all.

  I know I’m acting stupid. And shallow. And awful.

  But I can’t help it.

  I don’t want a repeat of anything like what happened to the old Madison back in Pineford, Maine. The new Madison has friends, and she’s popular, and the best thing is: she’s not the victim this time. And I plan to keep it that way, whatever it takes.

  “So, where are we going?” I ask instead, putting on a bright smile to let them know I’m not mad, even though I sort of am.

  “Back to Summer’s.”

  “My mom found out this morning that she has to bake two hundred cupcakes for my little sister’s school fundraiser,” Summer explains. “So we’ve been enlisted to help.”

  “Two hundred? All by herself?”

  “Well, the other moms are working, so my mom volunteered. She likes doing this kind of thing,” Summer says.

  We begin heading down the stairs, and Summer and Tiffany tell me all about the time Summer’s mom offered to make all the animal costumes for the nativity play when they were in fourth grade, and how some of the costumes hadn’t been big enough, and none of the sheep could move, and they’d fallen down like dominoes onstage.

  There’s a nagging feeling at the back of my mind telling me that I should’ve just gone for milk shakes with Dwight and Andy, whatever my friends thought about it.

  But I know that’s just the way high school is. There are the people you hang around with, and the people you don’t. And that hierarchy is not to be disturbed. And that is exactly why I push away the feeling and don’t say anything—and why I don’t reply until I’m home later that evening to the text Dwight sends me as we’re getting into Summer’s car: Any chance we can start the project at your house this weekend? My sister is having a sleepover … I am declaring my house off limits for my own sanity.

  Chapter 19

  As Summer drives down my road later, I see brake lights ahead of us, but I can’t quite make out the car—I just know it’s not my mom’s or my dad’s.

  “Whose car is that?” I ask.

  Summer shrugs, but as we draw closer, she exclaims, “Oh! That’s Bryce’s car.”

  She pulls to a stop behind it, and he gets out.

  Summer winks at me as I turn to thank her for the ride home. “And you said he wasn’t interested.”

  I laugh. “Shut up. See you!”

  “Talk to you soon!” she replies, and leans out of her open window. “Hey, Bryce!”

  He raises a hand. “Hey.”

  Then I close the car door, and Summer ducks back into her car and pulls off.

  And she leaves me standing there, with flour, a bit of cupcake batter, and some icing smeared over my T-shirt and the front of my jeans, with my incredibly cute boyfriend, who is most definitely not covered in cake. My arms hang awkwardly at my sides and, partly for something to do, I wrap my right hand around my left.

  “Um, hi.”

  He reaches a hand up to brush my cheek. “You have a little icing on your face.”

  I laugh, and raise my eyebrows. “Just my face?”

  “I figured you wouldn’t be too impressed if I brushed the flour off your boob.”

  I laugh again. Then the front door opens.

  “Madison,” Dad says. “I thought I heard a car pull up.”

  Then he takes in the state of me, and Bryce. He looks from me to Bryce a couple of times, mouth open like he’s about to say something but he’s not sure what. Then I remember that Dad hasn’t met Bryce and Mom only saw him briefly.

  And once I realize that Dad will be acting like he did whenever Jenna brought a new boyfriend home, I immediately begin to get nervous.

  But Dad opts to go for me first. “Madison, what happened to your clothes?”

  “Me and Tiffany were helping Summer’s mom bake cupcakes.”

  “Right …,” he says slowly. Then he stands up a little straighter and crosses his arms. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend, Madison?”

  “Um, maybe. Two seconds.”

  Dad raises an eyebrow at me, and Bryce starts to say something—he’s probably about to introduce himself and sound super-polite. Except I elbow him in the ribs and say, “Dad, I’ll be in in a minute.”

  And Dad says, “Fine. Nice meeting you, Madison’s friend.”

  Once the front door is shut again, I turn to Bryce. The corner of his mouth twitches up in a smirk and he says, “Are you too ashamed of me to introduce me to your dad?”

  “No, but—”

  “So what, I’m gonna have to sneak in your bedroom window at night to see you?” He pretends to consider that for a minute. “I can live with that. Nothing wrong with a bit of excitement.”

  “Shut up,” I laugh, prodding his arm, and he laughs too. “What’re you doing here anyway?”

  “I came to see my girlfriend,” he answers simply. “Or didn’t you want to see me?”

  “No, no, I do! It’s just … well, you could have warned me! How’d you know I’d even be home?”

  “You didn’t answer your phone earlier, but Tiffany told me when you’d left Summer’s.”

  “Oh, right.”

  There’s a silence.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Bryce asks, but not rudely.

  “Right. Yeah. Sure. I, uh …” I clear my throat. “Come on in.”

  With that, he follows me inside.

  I lead him into the family room, where both my parents are watching TV. I’d bet anything that they wouldn’t be here if they didn’t think they were about to see my boyfriend. Dad would’ve been on his computer; Mom might’ve had her feet up reading a magazine.

  “Mom, Dad, this is Bryce. Bryce, these are my parents, Carrie and Greg.”

  That’s when Bryce puts on one of his hundred-watt smiles that I find incredibly cute. “It’s really nice to meet you.” And then he sticks his hand out.

  Dad shakes it. “Nice to meet you too. Are you staying for dinner?”

  “I don’t want to impose …”

  And I just stand there thinking, Man, he is really playing the part of the perfect boyfriend, isn’t he?

  “Oh, no, you’re not imposing at all!” Mom says, with just the appropriate amount of enthusiasm. “It’s no trouble at all, don’t worry. Madison, why don’t you go clean up before dinner?”

  That’s when I remember I’m covered in cake batter.

  I turn to Bryce. “Give me ten minutes.” I run up the stairs, and call back over my shoulder to my parents, “Be nice!”

  I want to look good, so I should really take more time and care washing the icing and flour out of my hair and choosing clothes, but I don’t want Bryce to be left alone with my parents for too long. With Jenna’s boyfriends they tend to tell funny (or as Jenna sees it, embarrassing) stories from her childhood. More than once they’ve cracked open an album of baby photos.

  I get back to the family room and Bryce says, “Wow. I’ve never known a girl get ready so quickly.”

  “Is that an insult?”

  He laughs. “You think I’m complaining because you didn’t spend forty-two minutes on your hair? Not that you need to,” he adds quickly, with a wink. “You look great.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  “Your parents are in the kitchen,” he tells me before I can ask.

  “What were they saying?”

  “Nothing incriminating.” He smiles warmly. “They’re really nice, don’t worry. And I think they like me …”

  “I’m sure they do.” My parents would be happy with almost any guy I brought home.
The fact that he’s nice, and a cute jock, means they probably love him already.

  I leave Bryce in the family room while I pop my head around the kitchen door.

  “Dinner will be ten minutes,” Mom tells me. “And oh, he’s a lovely boy, Dice! And he’s so polite too.”

  “We only asked him about school and soccer—no embarrassing stories,” Dad assures me just as I start to ask. Then he adds, “Yet.”

  “Ha-ha, very funny. Just … be nice, okay? Please.”

  “Of course we will,” Mom laughs. “We’re hardly going to scare off your first boyfriend, now, are we?”

  I only sigh and shut the door, going back to the family room.

  Bryce is at one end of the couch. I flop down on the other end with a big sigh. “My mom said dinner is almost ready.”

  “Why are you sitting all the way over there?”

  “Because it’s comfy …?”

  “It’s comfier here.” Bryce pats the spot next to him.

  “I know my own couch, Bryce. And it’s comfiest here.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he says. Then he reaches over, grabs my hips and legs, and pulls me over. I don’t resist him, I just giggle—but he’s probably strong enough to move me even if I’d tried to push him off. He sits me half on his lap.

  I’m not entirely sure what to do, but then he kisses me, and I don’t need to know what to do anymore. I simply kiss him back and lean into him as one of his arms goes around me and his hand rests on my back. I can feel the warmth through my T-shirt.

  “Convinced now?” he asks in a quiet, teasing voice.

  “Not really,” I answer, and I tilt my head down to his to kiss him again.

  I like the way Bryce kisses. Not that I’ve got anyone to compare him to, but I’ve heard plenty of tales of bad kissers from Jenna. There are the sloppy kissers who salivate all over your face (or so I’m told), and there are the kissers who ram their tongue down your throat, and Bryce is neither of those. His lips are soft and warm, and he clearly knows what he’s doing—which I’m quite glad of, because I don’t really know what I’m doing.