Classic (15 page)

“Are you okay?” she asked. “You look upset.”

Brandon stared at her for a moment. “Um, I’m fine,” he said, and pretended he didn’t hear Heath’s snort from across the table.
But Cora continued to look at him, and there was something about her expression that seemed… interested. Concerned.

“Something’s wrong,” she declared. “Maybe I can help.”

Heath smirked at Brandon from across the table while Brandon considered it. It wasn’t like Heath had been any help. Brandon’s
single attempt to talk about Callie the night before had resulted in Heath blaring Sarah McLachlan from his iPhone and asking
if Brandon needed to be held.

Cora, meanwhile, was someone Brandon barely knew. She couldn’t possibly have any agenda or any hidden allegiances. She probably
had a whole life at Waverly that he knew nothing about. A rich, full life that didn’t involve Callie Vernon or Easy
Fucking Walsh. In fact, Cora might be the most perfect person in the world to talk to about this.

“My girlfriend broke up with me,” he said, looking into Cora’s calm, steady eyes. She frowned.

“Dumped him by e-mail,” Heath added, leaning even closer across the table and making a wounded face like that e-mail had hurt
him, too. “Before class the other day. Just like that.
Pow.
”

“That’s awful,” Cora said, her eyes widening. She shifted in her seat, and Brandon noticed, almost absently, that she wore
a gold chain bracelet around one delicate wrist.

He blinked. “It is,” he said. “I mean, it was.”

“Sure,” Heath interjected. He sat back and raised his voice slightly, like he wanted the table full of sophomore girls next
to them to overhear. “But it could be a lot worse. Like when you were with her the last time, and you walked into the rare
books room in the library and found her with Easy Walsh’s tongue down her throat. Remember that?” His green eyes were brimming
with laughter. “Beginning of sophomore year?”

“Yeah, Heath.” Brandon glared at him. “I remember that. Jesus.”

“So she’s broken up with you before,” Cora said matter-of-factly but not unkindly. Brandon had the weirdest sense that she
was like some kind of therapist, processing what he said but not judging him.

“It’s like… she has this addiction to this other guy,” Brandon said, the words sort of spilling out of him. “Whenever he’s
near her, she turns into the kind of person who would do
something like cheat on her boyfriend or break up with someone by e-mail, but she’s really not like that. She changes around
him. Like she thinks that someone being awful to her and treating her like shit is actually some big, romantic thing, and
she can’t help herself.” He shook his head. “But she’s so much better than that. She’s kind and sweet and funny, and when
this guy isn’t around, everything is great between us. Like, really great. Perfect.”

There was a slight pause as he stopped talking, and he could feel his face get hot. He deliberately avoided looking in Heath’s
direction. But Cora met his gaze and smiled slightly.

“You really love her, don’t you?” she asked quietly.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Heath said with a snort. But when Brandon looked at him, he was grinning.

Brandon rolled his eyes. What was the point in denying it? “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

Cora nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I know exactly what you have to do.”

“You have a cure for Easy Walsh?” Heath asked, amused. “I think it might be terminal.”

“You know there’s this heart scavenger hunt thing going on this week, right?” Cora asked Brandon, ignoring Heath. Brandon
stared at her. Scavenger hunt? Was she serious? “All you have to do is collect the most hearts, win the competition, and then
prove your love to Callie at the dance.”

“Wow,” Heath said. He paused for a moment, like he was pondering it. Then he let out a laugh. “That’s the gayest thing I’ve
ever heard.”

Cora turned to look at Heath. Her eyebrows rose a little bit as she stared him down. Brandon couldn’t help being a little
impressed.

“No, it’s not,” she said firmly. “It’s romantic.”

Heath made a scoffing noise.

Cora rolled her eyes at Heath and looked at Brandon. “What’s more romantic than a guy making a grand, kind of goofy, but sweet
gesture just to tell you he loves you?” she asked. “If Callie’s as romantic as you say she is, she’ll love it.”

Heath laughed again, but Brandon’s mind was racing. He found himself nodding. Callie
was
a total romantic. He could picture it suddenly—presenting her with that Sweet Heart thing, and then declaring his love in
front of the whole school. He could practically see the soft look in her eyes. Didn’t she cry at almost every chick flick
with a sappy ending? This would be exactly like one of those movies. But better, because it would be real.

Brandon stood up suddenly. “Thanks, Cora,” he said as he gathered his things. He meant it.

“Sure,” she said, looking the slightest bit deflated. Probably because he was leaving her alone with Heath.

As he made his way out of Maxwell, Brandon felt better than he had in the twenty-four hours or so since Callie had sent that
e-mail. He wasn’t going to sit around and mope anymore.

He was going to win her back.

E
asy hadn’t planned to bail on his Human Figure Drawing class. He’d packed up his art supplies and headed for the studio in
Jameson House with every intention of drawing until his mood improved. He was thinking charcoals and bold lines might come
close to expressing his feelings. Definitely an improvement over sitting in his room, staring at the ceiling and wondering
what Callie was doing or why she’d dumped him the way she had.

But when he’d made it outside and into the crystal clear, cold afternoon, his body had other ideas. He’d found himself headed
out to the stables instead. Maybe it was just the crisp winter air. The sun reflected off the snow and made the icicles on
the tree branches glitter like diamonds. Suddenly he had to ride Credo.

He crossed through the woods, taking one of the many shortcuts to the stables that kept him out of sight of academic
buildings that were filled with teachers interested in his whereabouts. He paused when he spotted a lone figure, moving slowly
in the opposite direction, on the far side of one of the unused sports fields. Easy stared, perplexed. There was something
odd about the way the other guy was moving.

He realized two things almost simultaneously: (a) the guy was looking for something on the ground in the field and (b) the
guy was Brandon Buchanan.

Brandon was the last person in the world Easy wanted to see. Why was the always neatly dressed, always following-the-rules,
always Mr. Perfect Buchanan out so far from the main campus during a class period? He never came this way. Nobody really did,
unless they were headed to the stables, and Brandon didn’t ride.

Weird,
Easy thought, and then, with a last brooding look at Brandon, he kept going.

He didn’t really like to think about Brandon or the fact that Callie had gotten back together with him—even if she had dumped
him, too. Easy lit a cigarette and blew out a long plume of smoke into the frigid air. When he was at military school, he
would sneak out of his dorm at night to smoke out the window of the communal bathroom, the one time all day he could be alone
and think. Usually when he was there he’d think about Callie, about when they could be together again. Now he was back, and
nothing had changed.

He smoked his cigarette as he walked through the quiet winter woods. He put his cigarette out when he finally crested that
last hill and saw the stable before him. His refuge. His
boots crunched into the hard crust of snow on the path, and he shoved his cold hands into the pockets of his coat as he walked
toward the building.

Inside, the soothing sounds of horses moving in their stalls mixed with the usual hay and horse smells of the stables. Easy
felt better immediately. He walked to Credo’s stall, smiling when she harrumphed and thrust her nose at him, demanding he
pet her. He obliged, patting her wet nose and running a hand down her silky mane. Being here in the stables, with all its
sights and smells, brought back the night that Callie had found him here last month. She’d come running out to find him after
the party in the middle of the night. He’d thought the fact that she’d come, that she’d known where he was at that very moment,
meant something. He’d
wanted
it to mean something.

He moved inside the stall and rubbed his hands down Credo’s smooth, warm back. But after a while, it was clear that he was
only going to wallow in his Callie problems if he stood around, so he decided he’d better ride instead. A good gallop had
never managed to shake Callie Vernon’s hold on him, but it always made him feel a little bit better. It cleared his head,
at the very least.

He walked back out of the stall, closing the wooden gate behind him and heading for the tack room to get Credo’s saddle. The
window above let the afternoon sun in, lighting up the hay beneath his feet. His artist’s eye couldn’t help following the
graceful beam of sunlight—all the way from the glass, through the air where little dust motes danced, down to the hay scattered
on
the stable floor. He frowned when he spotted something unusual down in the nearest hay bale, and squatted down to take a
closer look. It was a bright red and shiny plastic heart. It even had the Waverly horned-owl emblem stamped onto it.

Valentine’s Day,
Easy thought, shaking his head as he held the plastic heart in his hand. He had a vague recollection of some e-mail about
a scavenger hunt and hearts. But he couldn’t remember any details from freshman or sophomore year—he’d probably been drunk
at the Valentine’s Day dances. He generally tried to be drunk at most dances, as a matter of fact. It was his policy for mandatory
social events. Callie had always gotten really pissed about it.
Why can’t we have one nice night?
she’d once yelled at him. Easy straightened and almost threw the heart back into the hay.

But then he remembered something else: Brandon Buchanan’s unusual presence out in the old field and the fact that he’d clearly
been looking for something. Easy knew, in a sudden flash of certainty, that Brandon was looking for these stupid, cheesy hearts.

And he knew exactly why he was doing it.

For Callie.

It was obviously the kind of thing Buchanan, with his pathological need to be the supernaturally perfect boyfriend, would
be all over. Easy knew it. And he also knew that Callie would love it. She would eat it up. She might pretend she thought
it was dumb, but the truth was, she would melt.

And Easy would be damned if he would sit around moping while Buchanan was the one to make her feel like that.

He stuck the plastic heart in his pocket and felt his own heart beat a little faster. He didn’t care if feeling competitive
about something so lame probably meant he was lame, too, by definition.

He was going to find every goddamned heart on campus—and win Callie’s back in the process.

B
rett tossed her phone back on her bed in Dumbarton 121. She glanced over at Tinsley, who was lying across her own bed with
her laptop open before her and a gray cashmere throw wrapped around her slender body to ward off the chill.

“Are you ready?” Tinsley asked, impatience threaded through her voice. She rolled her violet-colored eyes as if Brett had
been holding her up. Brett decided to overlook her attitude, because she knew Tinsley was just excited and anxious. So was
she. Besides, being involved in this particular “research project” with Tinsley was the closest the two of them had been in
a long time. It made the fact that they were roommates fun again. Like it had been when they’d lived together with Callie.