Mark smirks and takes another gummy bear from the box. “That depends on how you want this to play out Ellie-bear. You keep saying that what happened with Ben is no big deal. You’re shrugging your shoulders cryptically and trying to act nonchalant about the whole thing. But at the same time, you’re calling me at the ass-crack of the morning to obsess over him.”
“I think the term obsess is a little much.”
Mark ignores me and continues. “And you can deny it all you want, but something in you has changed.” He pauses and gives me a brief once-over. “You’re less stressed about school and the LSAT. I haven’t heard you mention it in days…”
He’s right. I haven’t studied since last Thursday. And I planned to have the first draft of my essay for Columbia done by tomorrow but so far I only have the opening paragraph written.
“Arggghhhh!” All of the pieces are starting to stick together. I swallow them down. “You’re right. I cannot believe I let this guy get so far under my skin. How stupid am I?”
“Don’t beat yourself up.” Mark pats my hand. “It happens.”
“Does it?” I croak out.
“Well, maybe not to you, but to the majority of the world. And it’s good for you.”
“What’s good for me? Having a crush?”
Mark turns his head so that he’s looking directly at me. “No. Crushes are for fourteen year olds. Ellie, I would describe what’s happening to you as falling.”
“Falling,” I say softly, letting the word sink in. “So, how do I get back up?”
“Maybe you don’t.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Mark clears his throat. “All I know is that I’ve never seen you like this over a boy.”
This is the problem with having a perceptive best friend. Sometimes they know what you’re thinking before you know it yourself. Mark is right. I am thrown by Ben. I’m losing sleep over this guy, and letting my mind dwell on him when I should be worrying about the LSAT, and my admission essay, and the summer internship in New York that I want.
I chew vigorously on a red gummy bear. “You’re right.”
Mark smiles glibly. “Of course I am.” He moves so that he’s sitting up and he flicks me an expectant look. “So you’re going to talk to him tonight, right? If I were you, I’d just ask him about the evil bitch of an ex and tell him how you feel. Put it all out there and let the rest of the world go to hell. That’s my advice.”
I hold my face still and close my eyes. “Nooooo,” I say slowly, deliberately. “What I meant was… you’re right that I’m taking everything too far. I am obsessing over Ben. But that’s not the plan. It’s not what I want or what I need right now. This is my last year of college and I promised myself that I’d be completely serious about school so that I’d get the grades that I need for Columbia. I don’t think I have enough brain cells to worry about Ben Hamilton and my classes and the LSAT at the same time. So, the plan is to forget about him and his awful ex-girlfriend, and focus on prepping for the exam and that research paper I have due in nine days.”
Mark’s silence is as big and loud as a sigh. I don’t look because I don’t want to see the disappointment on his face. Just feeling it is enough for me.
Finally, he speaks. “Ellie, you do realize that this is the worst plan ever?”
“No, I think the worst plan ever was when you told the bouncer at Cellar 98 that you were Brad Pitt’s nephew freshman year.”
“Whatever. He would have let me in if you hadn’t started giggling uncontrollably.”
I grin at the sky and the memory. “Sure he would have.”
I don’t have to look to know that Mark is rolling his eyes at me.
The plan should have worked. The plan is perfect. Ignore Ben and pay attention to my classes and the fast-accumulating mountain of work I have to get through before the end of the semester. I even volunteer to help one of my professors catalog material for a research project. He’s thrilled and my mind is occupied with busy work for an extra four hours on Tuesday afternoon.
The benefit for me is that while my brain is stuffed full of school and studying, there’s no room for Ben to tiptoe around up there.
It’s all going well until Payton, Ainsley and I make our weekly trip to the grocery store. We’re at a standstill in the dairy section debating between a strawberry or peach yogurt pack.
“Oh, let’s just get both,” I say, grabbing a yogurt pack in each hand and putting them in the shopping cart.
“Fine.” Payton shimmies aside to let an elderly couple pass by us. “But like I was saying, I seriously think that we should have a Halloween party on Friday night.”
“Ohmigosh, yes!” Ainsley bounces and claps her small hands in front of her body like she’s making exclamation points in the air. “It will be a costume extravaganza!”
I rear back bringing the shopping cart with me. “A costume party?”
Payton wears her annoyance openly, snapping her finger against the strap of her black canvas purse. “Yeah, Ellie. I know that sounds shocking on Halloween and all, but…” She stops and grabs a bottle of cranberry juice from a shelf and hands it to me. I place it next to the gallon of skim milk we’ve already put in the cart.
“You know what I mean…” I pause, biting the inside of my cheek. “A costume party? It’s just so cliché and expected.”
Payton puts her hands on her hips. Her dark-lined hazel eyes are luminous under the florescent grocery store lights. “Costumes expected on Halloween? Yes, Ellie. Call me old fashioned, but I like wearing my costumes on October 31st instead of on Flag day.”
I laugh.
Ainsley pulls on my hand. Her slender fingers slide along my palm. “Please Ellie. It will be completely awesome and you won’t have to do a thing for the party. I promise!”
“It’s not that—” I begin but Ainsley is still talking over me.
“Laurie and I were saying yesterday that we don’t have any good Halloween plans to look forward to ever since Sigma Chi cancelled their shindig. Now, we could be the hosts of the best party this town has ever seen.” Her blue eyes skip over me excitedly. “Please, please, please!”
I make a dismissive sound, but I can’t help the smile that spreads across the lower half of my face. Both girls cheer when they see it because they know that they’ve won. Payton starts listing off all of the alcohol we need to get in the next two days. Ainsley is taking notes on her phone.
I clear my throat, interrupting the frenzied planning to ask the question that flitted through my head the second that the word “party” came up. “Should we talk to Ben about this? Do you think he’s going to mind if we have a party at the house?”
My heart clenches the minute that his name falls off my tongue. Ben.
We’ve barely spoken much more than a dozen words to each other in the past several days. He did make an attempt to talk to me on Saturday morning and again in the afternoon, but interacting with him is strictly forbidden by my plan. It’s basically the first and only rule.
Both times he came up to me, I blew him off and made it clear that I wasn’t interested in hearing an explanation about his relationship with Lily. In fact, what I said when he started to talk was, “Why would I care about you and your ex-girlfriend? That’s none of my business.”
He wore his hurt openly like a badge. “Oh,” he said, with an edge to his voice.
I shake off the memory and focus on Payton. She’s wearing jeans littered with man-made holes and a tight white shirt. She tosses a crinkly bag of potato chip into the shopping cart and turns to face me. “He doesn’t mind at all. I actually asked him before he left the house for band practice and he said that he’d talk to the guys about playing at the house on Friday night since they aren’t already booked.”
My brain is a mess and my heartbeat is uncomfortably erratic. “You mean that Ben’s band is going to play at our party?”
“Yeah.” Payton takes a couple steps back to that she can reach a box of microwavable
popcorn. “Do you mind?”
I shake my head. “No,” I answer in a clipped tone. “Why would I mind?”
The wrinkle on Payton’s forehead deepens. “I don’t know, but you’re acting weird. Don’t you think so, Ainsley?”
Ainsley glances up from her phone. She blinks. “Huh?”
Payton brushes her off and rolls her eyes. “Never mind. Maybe it’s just my imagination.”
I hang back, presumably to examine all of the different kinds of pretzels. Really, I’m just trying to calm down. Ben Hamilton, playing guitar at our party, where there are going to be copious amounts of alcohol consumed and lots of half-dressed girls. Just great.
I don’t need to be a genius to know that this is not sanctioned by the plan.
CHAPTER SIX
It’s Just a Scarf
I’m in a short-sleeved black dress and a cat ear headband. There’s a long, curving tail made out of black panty hose stuffed with tissue paper trailing behind me. Ainsley’s idea.
Four-inch heels adorn my feet. Huge silver hoop earrings dangle against my neck. My eye make-up is so dark that it borders on scary. Payton’s idea.
I’ve got a gin and tonic in my hand, and two shots of something strong and fruity flowing through my system. Mark’s idea.
What’s my idea? Sticking to the plan. Even with Ben Hamilton giving a swoon-worthy performance on the makeshift stage situated off of the back porch.
I’m all about the plan.
While we were getting ready earlier, I made Mark swear up and down that he would stay by me.
He’s true to his word and guards my elbow and virtue for about thirty minutes. Then Hal Shepherd shows up and all bets are off.
Hal is dressed like some department store version of a cowboy. When Mark sees him, he adjusts his purple polka-dotted bowtie, pushes his taped-together “nerdish” glasses up the bridge of his nose, and promptly tells me that I’m on my own. I suppose that friendship only goes so far, and poor Mark has been crushing on Hal for months.
I shuffle between two burly guys that I don’t recognize, careful to hold onto the porch railing so that I won’t tip over in these God-awful heels. Ainsley declared me adorable and Payton deemed me appropriately sexy in this get-up, but my equilibrium is completely thrown by the shoes and I’m freezing.
“They’re good,” some guy says off to my right.
He’s talking about Ben’s band, and he’s right. They are good.
“What are they called?” A girl asks loudly. She’s dressed like a zombie—a sexy, push-up-bra-wearing zombie. So wrong.
“Accidental Sweet Tea,” I reply, turning my head away from them quickly. I finish walking up the porch steps, pulling the hem of the black dress down my thighs as I go.
Against my better judgment, I let my eyes wander over to Ben. I watch his fingers move across the taut strings of the bass guitar and the way that his long body is curved around the instrument. His head dips and sways with every beat of the music. Tiny beads of sweat glisten above his straight brow and trail down his cheek to his open mouth.
It’s clear that he’s lost on stage—in a world of chords and rhythm and oblivion. I find myself leaning forward, entranced by this new version of Ben. Just once, he looks up and catches me staring at him. Our gazes hold steady for a long moment before I tear my eyes away and let them fall to the ground, unfocused.
It isn’t a surprise that more than a few admiring girls, dressed in slutty Halloween attire, have collected toward the front. I see them giggle behind their cupped hands and dart moon-eyed glances in Ben’s direction. I think about how it would feel to gag those girls or kick them in their pretty faces. Instead of resorting to violence, I drain my drink in one quick motion and glare threateningly at their backs.
All around me, people that I don’t know are laughing and tossing back drinks. They shout at their friends and flirt and dance.
One unfortunate soul is puking over by the fence.
I look for my friends and spot Mark and Hal on the far side of the backyard engaged in a private conversation. Ainsley’s standing in the middle of a cluster of girls and she’s laughing giddily. Payton is perched on a chair taking a shot straight from a bottle of bourbon. A small entourage cheers her on.
Apparently, our party is a rousing success, yet here I am, standing by myself in a corner freezing my butt off. The alcohol is helping, but I’m still practically shivering with my legs and arms exposed to the cold night air. I push myself away from the wall, about to defy Payton’s orders to stay in costume. I have every intention of slipping inside to change into a pair of jeans and a sweater when something soft and grey and warm drops over my shoulders.
I look down. It’s a thick, wooly scarf.
“You looked cold,” an unfamiliar voice says.
I jerk my head around. A guy, with a smirk playing at the corners of his lips, looks me up and down shamelessly. His eyes, I note immediately, are a startling shade of blue framed by a layer of thick black lashes. My breath hitches. There’s something about blue eyes.
His cropped light hair is gelled and mussed to excess. He’s got that I-tried-hard-to-look-like-I-didn’t-try thing going on.
His arms are crossed over his chest and he’s leaning against the back wall of the house. He’s got on a leather jacket over a tight-fitting black tee and dark, stiff jeans. No costume for this one.
“Thanks.” I finger the scarf, wrapping it more snugly around my neck. I smile at him questioningly.
“I’m Drew,” he says, holding his hand out to me.
“Ellie,” I reply.
Drew doesn’t shake my hand when I give it to him. Instead, he curls his fingers around mine and pulls me forward until my shoulder joint brushes his upper body.
“Sorry, what was that?” He asks against my ear.
The music is loud and the crowd is rowdy, but I get the distinct impression that Drew heard my name and he’s just toying with me. Normally, this is the type of move that would have me rolling my eyes and mentally practicing groin kicks. But tonight, I find it vaguely amusing.
“Ellie,” I repeat slowly, letting my fingers linger in his grasp. He smells faintly of beer and musky cologne.
“It’s nice to meet you Ellie.” Drew steps back and brazenly surveys my body. “You cute girls and your sexy dresses on Halloween…”
“Excuse me?”
He chuckles and raises one eyebrow. “Not that I’m complaining at all. I just meant that the weather doesn’t usually cooperate.”
I smile. This guy is hot and intriguing. Is it weird that I notice that he’s almost the opposite of Ben in the looks department? He’s shorter, which isn’t really saying much, since everyone in the world is shorter than Ben. But, it’s more than that. Drew’s looks are groomed and sleek, and he’s dressed meticulously in a way that would never even occur to Ben.
“It wasn’t my idea to wear this costume,” I say, adjusting the cat ear headband on my head. “My roommates insisted that I get in the spirit of things. If you knew them, you’d know that there’s really no use arguing. They always get their way.”
“Ahhh, I understand. I’ve been around lots of those girls,” Drew says matter-of-factly. He eyes my empty cup. “So, Ellie, can I be a gentleman and get you another drink?”
Any other time in my life I would say no. Any other time, I would let my eyes fall to the ground coyly, and make an intentionally vague comment like, “maybe next time.” But tonight is different. I want to have fun. Scratch that—I need to have fun. Also, I’ve just spotted a pretty girl wearing an angel costume talking to Ben.
It looks like the band is getting ready for a break. Ben is fiddling around with his guitar, but he’s also leaning his long torso forward so that he can hear the angel girl better. He’s smiling. Smiling. And she is beautiful in that perfect sort of way that you think only happens in magazines or on television. The whole thing twists my stomach into a knot.
So I turn back to Drew because he’s standing right in
front of me. And I nod my head, and bat my eyelashes to complete the effect.
Drew grins and disappears into the house, presumably to find me something from one the coolers set up on the kitchen floor. When he returns, he hands me a wine cooler that he’s wrapped in a paper towel. “I hope that you like strawberry,” he says, looking slightly apprehensive.
It’s my favorite. I take a sip. “I love it.”
Drew’s stance mirrors mine. He rests his shoulder against the side of the house so that we’re face to face—not quite touching.
“What year are you?” He asks, letting his eyes travel to my mouth. My stomach flips and I can feel my cheeks flushing. Suddenly I’m not so cold anymore. I take another sip.
“Senior.”
“Same as me.” Drew nods his head. He runs his index finger along the rim of the beer bottle he’s holding. “Do you know what you’re going to do after graduation yet?”
This is familiar territory. I take a deep breath and launch into my standard explanation about my parents being attorneys, and my plans for law school. Drew asks all the usual questions, and I answer them. Eventually, we exhaust the topic and lapse into an idling silence. I look around the party for inspiration.
The porch is still packed. Earlier, Ainsley pinned a few strands of spiraling white Christmas lights to the eaves of the house. The more I drink, the more the lights seem to twinkle and swirl against the dark night.
The band has stopped playing completely. Someone with a sense of irony is playing a 1990s mix for the crowd and people are laughing and singing along. Smiling, I think that it’s probably Payton’s doing. I swear to myself that if I hear even one chord of an Ace of Base song, I’ll pull the plug, regardless of who I piss off.
Drew touches my arm gently. My eyes snap back to his.
“So… how do you know these guys?” He asks, gesturing to the house.
I scrunch up my nose, grin crookedly, and say, “I live here.”
Drew throws his head back and laughs loudly.
“Of course you do,” he counters.