Mansfield Ranch (The Jane Austen Diaries)
He’s in English, too? I scrunched my brow and shook my head. “Nope.”
“We now share our last two classes.”
Great. Fabulous. I shrugged and put my ear buds in my ears. As I hitched my bag higher on my shoulder, Harrison stepped in front of me and blocked the way.
“I did it because of you. Now I can get to know you better.”
“No. You did it because of you.” I made a shooing motion with my hands. “Now move, please. Alexis and Lauren are waiting for me.”
“I’ll take you home.”
I slumped my bag on the desk next to me. “You know, Harrison, for a guy who’s talked to a lot of girls, I have to say I thought you’d be better at it.”
“Better at what?” He grinned, probably thrilled to start a real conversation. “What did you mean by that? You have to tell me.”
“I don’t have time for this. Now move.”
“You have all the time in the world. I’m taking you home, remember?”
That’s it. I shoved against his chest and threw him off balance enough to allow me to grab my bag and slip past. “No, you’re not.”
I’d actually made it about five steps before he caught up with me. “Why not? Let me take you home. It’ll be fun.”
“For who?” I could think of ten things I’d rather do than ride home with Harrison Crawford. One involved cutting off my pinky toe.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid.” He chuckled as he followed me out of the room and into the hall. About thirty teenagers were staring at us.
I groaned. “Seriously? I’m terrified. Now leave me alone.” I was, too. I was really scared to be anywhere near his ego. It just might explode.
“You sure know how to play hard to get, don’t you?”
He’s such a moron. “I’m not playing a game, Harrison. I know you. I know your type.” I planted myself in the middle of the hallway and looked him right in the eyes. “And you disgust me.”
He laughed. “Why? What have I done?”
About thirty things rose to my mind, but I decided to mention something he’d actually understand. “Who’s your girlfriend?”
“Uh—” Harrison took a step back.
“Exactly.”
He leaned toward me like he was going to grab my arm.
“Touch me and I’ll flatten you.” My fist came up in between us.
Harrison threw his arms up in a “don’t shoot” gesture and backed away. The smile on his face grew to colossal proportions. “You are definitely the most fun game I’ve ever played.” Then, loud enough to be heard down the hall, he announced, “I’ll call you tonight. Bye!”
By the time I had made it into the car with my sisters, I was in no mood to hear them chatter about their favorite subject: Harrison. I turned up the volume on my iPod and drowned them out, my gaze out the window of the backseat blurred as I leaned my head against the glass. It was cold and hard. I tried not to think about the interested stares of the people who’d been standing around Harrison and me, but it was difficult. As much as I didn’t want to, I realized that the side effects of his obvious attention would be catastrophic. I sighed and closed my eyes as I allowed the deep music to vibrate through me. Alexis and Lauren were going to be bent once they heard about what happened.
My life just got a whole lot worse.
***
My cell phone rang for about eight minutes straight before I got annoyed with it enough to answer. I knew it was Harrison—I didn’t even have to check the ID. The worst part was, I couldn’t turn it off. It was against the Benally rules to turn off a cell phone. They wanted to be able to get a hold of us whenever they needed to. If we did turn it off, we lost the privilege of owning one—a rule Harrison obviously knew about. Grr. I had already lost enough privileges since I met him—I wasn’t about to lose this one too.
“What?” I hissed into the phone. “Stop calling me!”
“All right, then, I won’t tell you the surprise I’ve been planning,” said a subdued Sean.
I gasped. “Sean? Sean! It’s you?”
“Yeah.” He chuckled. “Who’d you think I was?”
“Uh . . . no one. It doesn’t matter. What surprise are you talking about?”
“What are you doing Saturday morning?”
“Uh, Saturday? Just riding Buttercup. Why?”
“Good!” he exclaimed. “Don’t plan anything else, okay?”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “So what’s this about?”
“You’ll see.” I could hear the mischievous grin in his voice.
“Sean?” I growled.
“What?”
“Ugh! You know I hate surprises. And now you’re making me wait all the way till Saturday? Just tell me!”
“Nope.” He chuckled softly in my ear.
I grinned. “Come on. I can be surprised now, just the same as if it were Saturday.”
“No.” He laughed. “You’re the worst. You know that, right?”
“Yes. I know. You tell me all the time.” For no reason at all, I found myself giggling.
“You’re going to giggle more on Saturday, I promise. You’re gonna love it.”
“You’re evil, Sean.”
“Yep. I’m as evil as they come. Besides,” his voice got a bit deeper, “if I tell you now, it’ll ruin it for you on Saturday, and then I’ll never be able to make up for last Saturday.”
“Aww, the truth comes out.”
“Good night, Lilly.”
I rolled over and checked the time. Ten o’clock. “Where are you?”
“I’m driving back from Albuquerque with a friend right now.”
“Are you just now coming back? How’d it go?” Sean had been gone for a couple of days at a large cattle and farm convention down in Albuquerque. He’d taken this year off before he started college so he could help his dad build up the ranch.
“Same as all the other conventions—bought more than I needed to.”
“Yeah, but knowing you, you’ll find some way to use it.”
Sean chuckled. “Or donate it somewhere.”
“Or donate it somewhere.” I smiled and shook my head at Sean’s overgenerous nature. I was pretty sure there wasn’t a family in Bloomfield that hadn’t been secretly blessed by the Benallys at one point or another, especially during the recession that seemed to have hit particularly hard the last few years.
“See ya tomorrow.” His deep voice warmed me all the way to my toes.
“Okay.”
“Don’t miss me too much until then.”
“Ha ha. You wish.” I grinned and then whispered “Bye” before I clicked the phone off and tossed it on the bed.
About two seconds later, it rang again. I chuckled and leaned over to grab it.
“What?”
“Finally, you answered your phone. I wondered how long it would take.”
Ugh. “Harrison?”
Chapter Nine: Popularity Blues
“Who’d you think it was?” He snorted.
“Why can’t you take a hint?”
“So I’ve been thinking,” Harrison said calmly as if we talked on the phone every day. “I’ve been trying to figure out what it is about me that you don’t like.”
“Gee, and you’re finished already?” I stood up and collected the clean clothes that were on my bed.
“I realize you may be intimidated by the fact that I have a girlfriend.”
I dropped the clothes on the chair and yanked open the closet door. “Intimidation is the least of—”
“Which is why I’ve decided to do it.”
My hand stilled on the end of an empty hanger. “Do what?”
“Dump your—uh, sister. Is she your sister?”
The hanger pinged off the rod and almost hit me in the eye. “Wait. You’re dumping Lauren?” Dang! “Why?”
“Just to prove to you how serious I am.”
I tossed the hanger on the top of the clothes and wandered back over to my bed. It took me a moment to compose my
self enough to remember to sit down. I collapsed. Is he really this stupid? Really? “Harrison?”
“Yeah?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose with my fingers and closed my eyes for a second. “Let me get this straight. You . . . uh, are going to break up with your girlfriend, a girl who’s sort of my sister, to prove to me that you’re serious about making me fall for you?”
“Well, when you put it that way—”
“And how is that going to make me like you more? Honestly?”
“Uh—”
“No. Please, Harrison, enlighten me, because as of right now, you just went from being a massive jerk to the biggest loser who’s ever walked the face of this earth.”
“Fine. What do you suggest I do?”
I started to laugh—like, really laugh. “Are you kidding me? You’re asking me how to go about making me fall for you? Why? So you could win your own game? The game where you make the rules and you win all the prizes?” Conceited, arrogant, overconfident . . . “And just what’s in it for me, huh? Is it so I can say in two weeks from now that I got dumped by you the second some other girl came along? Did you ever stop to think that I didn’t want you as a prize? That maybe I valued relationships a little more than you obviously do?
“Look!” I continued, drowning out his protests, “I’m sure there are lots of girls willing to get burned by you, but frankly, I don’t have the time or the inclination to deal with a guy who’s just playing games. I want a real guy. A guy who thinks of me first. A guy who’s dependable and nice and caring and well, all the things you’re not. Oh! And by the way, if you dump my sister to win some stupid game, you aren’t any better than I thought you were!” I flung the last words at him like I was in a shouting match.
“Wow.” The phone got really quiet.
I stood up and headed back to the closet. Just as I picked up the hanger, I heard Harrison mutter, “I don’t think anyone has ever had the guts to say that to me before.”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed the first shirt. “Then maybe I’ve done you a favor.”
“Maybe.” I heard him heave a sigh and then, almost whispering, he mumbled, “Fine, you win.” He cleared his throat as if he were uncomfortable.
I flipped the phone to my other ear, wondering what he was going to say next. Harrison surprised me. In a deep, sad voice, he quietly said, “You’re right. I’ll still go out with Lauren. I definitely can’t have her making your life more miserable than it already is.”
“Wait. Harris—”
“No, let me finish.”
I waited.
After a pause, he cleared his throat again. “Look, I’m really not good at this thing I’m trying to do here. I’ve never had to do it before. So if you could just give me the benefit of the doubt for a little while until I figure out a way to balance this cheesy soap opera, you may find I’m not who you think I am.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I remained silent. I found myself wanting him to go on. He didn’t disappoint me.
“I . . . uh, don’t really know what’s happening to me. I’ve never felt like this before, that’s for sure. It’s pretty painfully, actually.” Harrison chuckled softly before he continued, “What am I going to do with you, Lilly?”
Leave me alone and never, ever think about me again.
“I can’t . . . I, uh, I don’t want to give you up. Funny as that seems. I must be addicted to torture, because you’re pretty addicting.” Then he really laughed. “I’m a torture junkie! Imagine that! Me, Harrison Crawford, addicted to the one girl who couldn’t stand to be with him. It’s ironic, isn’t it?”
“Whatever.” I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to say something. “You’re so overdramatic, you could be a movie heroine. Spare me, okay? You couldn’t care less about me if you were paid to.”
“Lilly—”
“It’s true! So don’t try to deny it. And if you’re honest with yourself, you’d see that the only reason—the only reason—you like me is because I don’t like you. And that bugs you. That gets under your skin so much that you don’t know what to do with yourself! You have to prove somehow that you can make me like you. Well, bravo. Your act is quite appealing. Almost believable, if I were someone else, but I’m not buying it. I never will. The only person you care about is yourself, Harrison. So—”
“You know what? For someone who pretends to be shy and perfect all the time, you sure make some pretty rude, brash assumptions of people—based off little or no factual evidence—”
What? “Factual evidence? As if I needed—”
“And I can’t wait, Lilly Price, for you to be strangled by your own disillusions.”
“My own—?”
“Especially when you see me play the game your way—not how I want to, but with your rules—and then you realize just how jealous it makes you.”
“How jealous it makes me?” What in the—? “You’ve got a lot of nerve, bud!”
“Yes, I do have a lot of nerve. And guts. Or I wouldn’t be hanging around you, now would I?”
“Grr!”
“Oh. And make sure you wear something nice to school tomorrow.”
What? “Why?”
“Any girl who’s going to get the kind of attention you’ll get tomorrow will want to.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re not my girlfriend, but we’re still married, Lilly Price—or wait! Should I say, ‘Lilly Crawford’?”
Urgh! In disgust, I hung up. Harrison’s laughter rang in my ears long after the line went dead.
***
The next morning came too fast, in my opinion. I played around with the idea that I was sick. I mean, I even tried to cough a few times before I gave up and got ready. No use putting off the inevitable. I clawed through the back of my closet and came up with the oldest shirt I could find and paired it with my oldest jeans, too. No reason to give Harrison any more ammo than I had to. Besides, I was almost a hundred-percent sure he’d said that junk about us still being “married” just to get a rise out of me. What guy is that cruisin’ for a bruisin’ anyway? He’d have to be a complete moron.
Harrison Crawford is a complete moron. Ugh!
Okay, so I admit it, once I got to school I had to give a point to the Crawford team. He had completely one-upped me. The last thing I ever would’ve expected was to be welcomed into the elite crowd. Why me? Seriously? By the end of second hour, I had about thirteen of Alexis’ and Lauren’s friends following me around the halls. Joy. All because Harrison helped carry our books to our classes first hour. Just that small act, teamed with yesterday’s sharing-the-book episode—that was now making the rounds like wildfire—made me officially go from a zero to a hero.
In fourth hour, I tried to scare off the girls with my talk of horses and all things ranch/farm related. But by the end of class, they all wanted horses too. It was downright creepy how those Barbie clones changed their opinions so fast.
“Harrison was so right!” laughed Miri Mortensen, a girl who’d never looked at me without a sneer until today. “You are so much fun! Why didn’t we ever notice before? Seriously. You’re so cool.” She actually giggled as she plopped down into the seat next to me.
My mouth dropped open slightly and I wondered if gushing like that took extra effort. It had to be tiring. I found myself tired just watching. I would’ve asked, too, if I thought it would make her stop. Instead, I smiled vaguely and leaned closer to my English book.
“See what I mean?” a familiar male voice triumphed behind me as I heard his books hit the desk. “I told you all the Benallys are cool.”
Yeah, but I’m a Price.
“I like your vintage shirt.”
I looked up to see the girl in front of me eye my clothes. “Uh, thanks.”
“It’s really cute. Where did you get it?”
I shrugged and glanced down at the faded blue emblem across the plain, boring T-shirt. “From my closet. I’ve had it awhile.”
“I really l
ike it.”
Great. Now I was a trendsetter? How did this day just go from bad to worse? “Yeah, thanks,” I muttered again. This time I flipped the page in my book and pretended to read. A couple of seconds later, my cell began to vibrate. Who in the world is texting me? I pulled it out of my pocket and groaned. Harrison chuckled from behind.
“I thought you’d get a kick out of that,” he whispered.
“You’re not supposed to text during—”
“It’s still two minutes before the bell. Now hurry up and read it.”
I pushed the button and watched his text flash onto the screen.
Told you to wear something
nice didn’t I?
Before I could stop myself, I had already begun to answer him back.
Are you saying my clothing
choice isn’t nice?
Harrison responded with another chuckle before I felt the phone vibrate again.
Of course not. Obviously
you think it isn’t or you
would’ve taken my txt as a
compliment.
Ooh! My fingers practically flew over the keys. Take that.
Since when is a text from you
a compliment?
His answer was just as quick.
When will you ever learn not
to tempt me? Don’t you know
that millions of girls would
love to get my texts?
Millions? Millions? Excuse me
while I die laughing. You know
one day you’re gonna wake up
from this demented dream of
yours, you know the one where
you think everyone falls for you
Harrison laughed out loud.
I stopped myself just short of laughing with him. Class had already started. After a couple of seconds, I got his reply.
Anybody ever tell you you’re
hot when you flirt?
Flirt? What in the—? Was I flirting? Eww. I put my phone back in my pocket. A couple of seconds later, I felt it vibrate again. This time I didn’t answer it. Instead, I crouched down lower in my desk and tried to force myself to listen to the teacher—except I couldn’t get Harrison’s stupid text out of my mind. What is it that draws me to him, anyway? It wasn’t like I didn’t know exactly who he was, or that I didn’t despise the loser—but why did he egg responses out of me in the first place? Before I’d even known what happened, I found myself arguing back. It was downright annoying how he could get under my skin like that.