Chaos (Kardia Chronicles) (Entangled Teen) (28 page)

I cursed myself for not giving in to the urge to stuff the ring he’d given me into the pocket of my “dress.” I’d been afraid to lose it dancing but damn, I needed it.

I gulped in a breath and aimed for nonchalant. “Yeah, well, Libby bulldozed me, so here I am.”

His intense gaze trailed from my face, down my body, lingering on the low-cut camisole that did excellent things for both my skin and the girls, and then back up. It was hard to hang onto my cool with the heat flashing through me, so my arms shot out to my sides, and I waggled my fingers in unintentional jazz hands. “How do I look?”

Like most people flashing jazz hands, you look like a total fuckwad
, my subconscious blared.

I cleared my throat and let my arms fall to my sides. Mac’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “Gorgeous. And…like you should have gotten a looser top.”

Maybe not the declaration of love I’d been hoping for, but it still gave me a thrill. For all his teasing about my baggy t-shirts, my new look clearly distracted him and caused him discomfort. Good, then we were even Steven, because I was constantly distracted and uncomfortable around him.

“Mac? A little help here?” Ella had about eleventy pounds of emerald taffeta strangling her ankles and still hadn’t managed to get out of the car. Mac shot around to help her.

“Sorry about that.”

“See you inside, Maggie,” Ella called dismissively from her prison in the passenger seat of Mac’s tiny coupe.

My presence was all but forgotten, and I murmured a response before taking off again, in the direction Libby had last been headed.

It was going to be a great night. A. Great. Night.

I repeated the words over and over as I picked my way across the lot toward the doors. A huge banner with the lyrics to our class song hung above them, reinforcing my mantra. “We are Young…So Let’s Set the World on Fi-ire!”

The irony wasn’t lost on me.

According to some of the books I’d read, setting the world on fire was an actual possibility for some semis. For the rest of the kids at Crestwood, it was just a reminder to take life by the balls and go for it.

I didn’t belong here.

The magic of the night had already worn off for me and the dance hadn’t even begun yet. I pondered how hard Libby would kill me if I ditched, but when the answer was “Soooo hard,” I dropped the idea.

“Hey, Mags, you look smoking hot.” Bink sidled up next to me and whistled. “And even better from the front. I can’t believe you let her sucker you into this.” He tossed a nod toward Libby, who was chatting with the crowd of guys surrounding her in the corner, looking happy as a clam.

“Suckered? Nah, I know when I’m being pied-piped. I let her do it because I’m pretty sure it made her year. And speaking of looking hot.” I took in his dark gray suit and crisp white shirt and nodded approvingly. “You’re looking fine yourself there, big man.”

“I got swag for days,” Bink said, looking away from Libby to meet my gaze and brushing some fake lint off his massive shoulder. “Gotta look good for all the ladies now that I’m back on the market again.”

Okay, so was he protesting overmuch or was I reading him wrong? If he wanted to get with Libby, playing up this Romeo act with other girls was so not going to do the trick. I considered telling him that, but then opted to wait him out. He’d come to me when he was ready.

When we reached the gym, he pushed the door open for me and I stepped in, grateful to be on solid ground in my sneakers. I wouldn’t have admitted it under threat of death by shark, but one of the main reasons I had never been a fan of dressing up was the whole high-heel thing. Seemed to me like an accident waiting to happen, and I think somewhere along the line, I’d convinced myself that I thought they were stupid when, in fact, I thought they looked pretty good on some girls.

If I ever got super excellent control over my semi powers, I made a silent vow to use them only for good…and to help me walk in high heels.

“Place looks nice,” he noted, waving a hand in the direction of the silver and purple streamers that hung from every available surface.

I would have begged to differ. It looked like Jabba the Hutt had vomited Vegas showgirls everywhere. It was kind of funny, really. This was the place the athletically inclined go to show off by monkeying up a rope and the un-athletically inclined go to subject themselves to ridicule by not being able to monkey up a rope, and this stupid dance was pretty much the same. We were all there to pay homage to the jocks and their coolness and the cheerleaders—and Libby, who loved the theater of it—who had decorated the place. So it was just gym class all over again, but with some lavender Renuzit straining to cover the smell of sweaty boy and rubber balls, and some paper taped to the walls. Booyah.

Libby came scurrying over, as light on her three-inch heels as she was in her cross-trainers. The shoes put her at right around six feet, and I wondered how many guys would still muster up the sac to ask her to dance. Her ample chest jiggled over the top of her corset as she approached, and I grinned to myself. Probably still quite a few.

“You were totally wrong,” she murmured, casting a quick, squirrelly look left and right before leaning in. “A lot of people showed up early. Apparently Tony Saunders got caught out back with a pint of vodka, so he and his date were escorted out.”

Libby was nothing if not well informed, and I resisted the urge to pour some punch on the ground for poor Tony and my homies who couldn’t be there.

“They are cracking down on the drinking this year for sure,” Bink confirmed with a stiff nod, seeming to have a hard time looking away from Libby’s abundant cleavage. “Coach Branko said if any of us get caught with booze we’ll be suspended first game of next season.”

He tore his eyes away and followed Libby’s lead with the “all-clear” glance around and then leaned in. “So we’ll have to make sure not to get caught.” He patted his chest, indicating he’d smuggled something in his pocket, and I snorted.

“What have you got in there, a wine cooler? Maybe some NyQuil?”

Bink’s parents weren’t big drinkers, and my mom didn’t drink at all. Last summer when the two of us had decided we should get drunk in his tree house for posterity and just to say we’d done it, there had been slim pickings in the alcohol department.

We’d wound up with half a bottle of cooking sherry and one wine cooler left over from Bink’s family’s Fourth of July party. Needless to say, aside from the lemon-berry hiccups (him) and a stomachache (me), it had been an epic fail. Since then, he’d had his share of bonfire beers, but I’d been too caught up in my own little drama to bother with parties.

“Not this time, haters. This time I palmed a bottle of whiskey from my uncle Danny. There’s enough for each of us to do three shots or more.” He leveled us both with a challenging stare. “You down?”

I hiked my shoulder in a noncommittal shrug, but it was just for show. I so wasn’t down. Things were still so screwy for me; as much as I relished the idea of getting a brain-cation, my fear of losing control to the “three shots of whiskey” level was too scary for words.

Annnnd I’d promised Mac I’d stay away from anything that might throw me off. We were on shaky ground, but I owed him that much.

“I might,” Libby hedged, but I could tell she didn’t really want to, either. That was okay; once the dance kicked into gear, Bink would find someone to help him in his quest for drunkenness. I just hoped I was still there, so I could get some pictures of it to post on tumblr. “But I’m going to see if I can find some cute guys to dance with first.”

Bink’s eyes narrowed for a split second, but then he grinned, taking our non-answers in stride. “Okay, well, you let me know. I’m not going to do it until way later when the teachers are too busy to notice, so I’ll catch up with you guys. Right now, I’m going to see if I can find Miss Nemkovic and see if she’ll save me a dance.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure I’ve almost got her convinced that a hot slice of Bink might be just the thing to end her first year teaching right.”

Libby scowled and punched him in the arm. “Ew!”

I just laughed and waved him on. “Yeah, good luck with that. I’m sure it’s going to go great for you. In fact, I think I saw her checking out your ass in the hall the other day. I think she wants you.”

He winked and swaggered away.

“Why do you encourage him?” Libby asked, her voice dripping with disgust and a hint of something else. Jealousy? I eyeballed her hard. Was this really a thing on both sides? Were they keeping secrets from me, and each other?

Not that I could judge. Mac had asked that I not tell Libby anything about him, so she thought the time he and I spent together was us working out our column pieces. And Bink didn’t even know I was a semi. I couldn’t be a hypocrite and judge them for having secrets, too, could I? But damn, I had a right to know what was going on between my two best friends.

In fact, I was going to make it my mission to find out and, if they needed it, give them a push in the right direction. That way, if something happened to me, at least they would have each other.

My heart ached at the thought of never seeing them again.

As long as I went willingly with Mac to the Council, that wouldn’t happen. Although it would be almost as awful if I did see them but didn’t even recognize them. Just like that, my mood, which was already shit, got even worse.

I forced a smile and shook my head. “He knows I’m not serious. Hell,
he’s
not even serious. I’d love to see his face if she actually said yes. He’d piss his pants.”

She chewed her lip and nodded slowly. “I guess.”

I opened my mouth to press her, but just then, Principal Jordan approached the mic onstage and tapped, calling the room to attention.

“Good evening, Crestwood juniors, and welcome to this year’s Snowflake Swirl!” He said it with such gusto that the resulting smatter of claps fell way short. He cleared his throat and smoothed down the few strands of stubborn hair that had managed to cling to the top of his shiny head. “First, I want to thank the cheerleading squad and the student council for all their hard work. You know we wouldn’t be able to have done this all without…”

The rest was a muffled blur as I tuned him out, opting to take up a spot beside the punch bowl and marking my turf by setting my empty, for-show-only purse Libby had lent me on the table.

So far, things were going exactly how I’d always imagined they would, and that wasn’t a good thing. Lots of girls chatting about their hair and their nails, running around like they didn’t have a care in the world. And maybe they didn’t.

I shouldn’t have come.

I milled around for a while, hung with Libby and Bink some, and then milled some more. I had just started workshopping some possible medical reasons to give Libby so I could dip out—kidney stones in the lead—when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“Want to dance, Maggie?”

I startled and turned my head to see Rafe standing there. He had the sly smile that seemed ever-present, and I was about to say no when I caught sight of Mac and Ella shaking their tail feathers on the floor.

“Sure.”

We danced to a fast song together and I phoned it in, stepping side to side and snapping in time. Still, I managed to not look in Mac’s direction even once and was still patting myself on the back when Rafe took my hand.

“Let’s get some punch.”

I shrugged and refrained from yanking my hand away, because that would be weird, but it wasn’t comfortable. My emotions were a tangled mess and with four days of no Mac to unload on, my powers were extra twitchy. I could feel the vitality coming off Rafe, and it called to something in me that sat up and sniffed the air like a bear in the presence of a beehive. I fought it, using the tricks Mac had taught me to focus myself, and, when we got to the punch table, slipped my hand from his grasp. No harm, no foul.

Still, I couldn’t help but scan the dance floor to see if Mac had seen us holding hands. If he cared. I shouldn’t have looked. He and Ella were smashed together, hip to hip, and swaying.

Pain, sharp as a needle, stabbed me in the heart, and I bit my lip hard.

“Here.” Rafe handed me a cup of pink foam, and I sucked it down in one gulp. It was gross, as expected, but when he handed me another, I drank that one, too. Any excuse to stay by the punch bowl where I had an unobstructed view of my worst nightmare.
Hello, masochism? It’s me, Maggie.

When the song ended, so did my patience. This time, I threw caution to the wind, grabbed Rafe’s hand, and pulled him back out to the dance floor.

The lyrics to “Clarity” blared through the speakers and I couldn’t help but sing along. I wasn’t a huge fan of techno, but this particular song was pretty much my anthem this year. The lyrics were so dead-on, it was scary, and the beat thumped so loud, the floor vibrated in time. I felt wild and excited and terrified as I moved right next to where Mac and Ella were dancing.

Rafe and I faced each other, and I dropped his hand. Then I started to dance. I may not have been athletic, and I couldn’t sing a note, but I was pretty good at dancing. When I couldn’t get Mom and Dad to do it with me, I’d scoop up the cat and sometimes, if I had some chocolate to bribe him with, even Bink.

So there, on the dance floor, I did my thing. Shutting out all the other people, just letting my body feel the groove.

Not dancing with Rafe.

Dancing
for
Mac.

Pathetic, maybe, but I didn’t care. I whipped my head around and looked up to find Mac stepping side to side. He was moving to the beat while Ella writhed around in front of him, but that was about all, and he had the strangest look on his face.

I narrowed my eyes at him, part of me still angry. But at that moment, dancing to my favorite song, rocking my favorite pair of sneakers…sort of, with my second-skin jacket and my little skirt at the center of his attention? I couldn’t have been more content.
Keep watching, Mackie boy.

I spun to face Rafe, surprised when the room tilted a little. Had I forgotten to eat?
Yup.
“You know how to do the Wobble?” I shouted over the music.