French kiss (30 page)

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"Tyler!" she called, her heart bursting. He looked her way, his face lighting up in a huge smile, and he lifted the bouquet in greeting. Holly could feel it then -- across the crowded airport, almost like a piece of rope that connected them the strength of what she and Tyler had.

Grinning uncontrollably, Holly broke into a mad dash and Tyler, not a shabby runner himself, also raced toward her. Before Holly knew it, they were together, Tyler taking her duffel from her, handing her the gorgeous bouquet, and wrapping one arm around her waist. Holly drew close to her boyfriend, inhaling his clean, soapy scent as it mingled with the heady perfume of the roses. But she and Tyler didn't kiss -- yet.

Tyler set down her duffel at his side, and then straightened up, his face etched with concern. "Holly," he murmured, gazing down at her. "I'm so glad you're finally back. This week was -- um was really hard."

"Tell me about it." Holly sighed, admiring her boyfriend's golden-flecked eyes, and realizing how much she'd missed all the small details about him. "Tyler?" she added quietly, and he nodded at her attentively. "I'm sorry I never called," Holly went on, choking up a little. "If you knew how many times I thought of you --"

"Me, too," Tyler murmured, reaching up to tenderly

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cup Holly's face in both his hands. "I did call you once, but I didn't have the nerve to leave a message. I felt like there was all this stuff I needed to tell you in person...."

"But not now," Holly whispered, touching one finger to Tyler's upper lip. "We'll talk about everything later. We have so much time."
And we do,
Holly thought. There really
was
no rush for her and Tyler.

"That's true," Tyler agreed, his face breaking into a grin. "But sometimes you can't wait anymore, you know?" And, with that, he leaned in and kissed her.

The kiss was warm and deep, both gentle and passionate, and so blissfully familiar that Holly thought she might pass out from happiness. It was a kiss that contained all the sweetness of her and Tyler's past kisses, but held the tantalizing promise of something ...
more.
Holly returned the kiss enthusiastically, twining her arms around Tyler's neck and burying her hands in his soft, wavy hair. Holly thought of her last kiss and how different and exciting it had felt to kiss a French boy in France. But now, with Tyler's lips on hers, Holly realized that a kiss in the middle of New Jersey, from the regular American boy she loved, could be just as thrilling.

They were pulling apart when Holly's cell phone -- as if feeling left out chimed in with a loud

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ring. "Parents," she and Tyler said in unison, laughing as Holly removed her cell from her pocket. On the screen, however, Holly saw not the word home , but -- as she had that fateful night in Wimbledon -- a plus sign followed by a string of digits. A Paris number.

"I should take this," she told Tyler apologetically, pressing talk and bringing the phone to her ear.
"Chérie?"
she asked with a grin. Tyler raised his eyebrows, clearly surprised to hear Holly speak another language.

"Oh, my God, the cuteness!" Alexa laughed from the other side of the Atlantic, where it was one p.m., Paris time.

In Paris, Alexa was striding up the sweeping, sunlit Champs-Elysées, clutching her new pearl-studded mobile phone a post-Xavier consolation gift she'd bought that morning, after she'd gone to breakfast with her cousins, who were being very supportive. From Alexa's free hand swung a colorful array of glossy shopping bags; after all, she'd needed a
lot
of consolation.

"Hoi, did you make it home safely?" Alexa asked breathlessly.

"I'm home all right." Holly smiled at Tyler, who was watching her, intrigued. She reached down to take her boyfriend's hand. "When does
your
flight leave?"

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"Sometime this evening," Alexa sighed, maneuvering around a street musician. "I'm hoping to
God
that Diego changed his ticket and won't be on the plane." She heard Holly giggle and realized her friend sounded ... happy. Not at all like someone who'd been expelled. "So spill it," Alexa urged. "Can you still graduate in June? Did you make up with Tyler? I've been
dying
over here!"

Holly bit her lip, hesitating. Yesterday, she hadn't had a chance to check in with Alexa from England, and now -- with Tyler right there, and her teammates milling about -- was clearly not the moment to divulge. "Let's put it this way," Holly replied teasingly. "I think your shoes
and
your clutch are perfectly safe...."

"I knew it," Alexa declared, gazing ahead at the grand Arc de Triomphe. "Am I not psychic?" She felt a wave of relief for her friend, but a twinge of melancholy for herself;
her
spring break hadn't ended quite as, well, triumphantly.

"Are you doing any better?" Holly asked, hearing the note of sorrow in her friend's voice. Holding hands, she and Tyler headed for the airport's exit.

"Not really," Alexa admitted, swallowing hard. Her heart was still brimming with raw pain and unchecked anger toward Xavier. Though yesterday, in the apartment, after tearing out and crumpling up his magazine

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photos, she'd been ready to rip his charcoal portrait of her to shreds -- but had stopped herself. With uncharacteristic calm, she'd decided to keep the sketch as a reminder that even she, Alexa St. Laurent, could get completely stupid over a boy.

Or
she could always sell it on eBay.

"We'll talk more when you're back," Holly was promising on the other end, but Alexa was distracted by someone bumping into her right shoulder -- hard. Still holding the phone to her ear, she spun around, glaring at the wayward pedestrian.

Who happened to be a smolderingly hot guy.

"Pardon,'"
he told Alexa, his dark green eyes crinkling up in a smile as he pushed a hand through his mop of brown hair.

Ooh,
Alexa thought, smiling back at him, and for the first time in two days, felt a spark of hope. But then she tossed her hair over one shoulder and kept right on walking, her espadrilles carrying her confidently forward.
No thank you, monsieur.
It was time for Alexa to
really
get her independence on. And if there was anything she had learned from Xavier, it was
never
to get tricked into falling in love so easily again.

At least, not for a while.

"Sorry -- I'm still here," Alexa told Holly. "And definitely yes to the talking-when-I'm-back thing,"

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she added. "How about we go to the mall after school one day? We'll pretend the Galleria food court is our little café on the place des Vosges."

"I can't wait," Holly laughed, stepping out with Tyler into the New Jersey sunshine.

Neither can I,
Alexa realized, surprising herself. This unexpected feeling had been building in her for a few days now, but right there, on the elegant Champs-Elysées, Alexa knew it for sure: She missed Oakridge. A lot. Paris might have been all shimmer and romance but, to Alexa, New Jersey would always be about friendship. Which, at the moment, felt so much more important than anything else.

"So I'll see you tomorrow?" Alexa heard Holly asking.

"Tomorrow," Alexa echoed happily. Snapping shut her cell phone, she paused in the middle of the wide, bustling avenue and smiled with anticipation.

She was going home.

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About the Author

Aimee Friedman is the
New York Times
bestselling author of
South Beach,
the romantic comedy
A Novel Idea,
and the forthcoming graphic novel
Breaking Up: A Fashion High Graphic Novel.
Aimee was born and raised in New York City, where she still lives and works as a book editor. But she loves to travel as much as possible--especially to Paris.

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Chapter Twenty-Eight

Prom Night, June 15, 10:25
pm

Cady

Cady Sanchez adjusted her red bra strap and took a deep breath.

Next to her, a serious-looking boy with biceps the size of bread loaves shot a look at a blond girl fixing the T-strap on her sandal.

"We just took some killer stuff," the boy whispered. "Want some?"

The girl twisted her head and glared. "I don't take candy from strangers," she said, shaking her taffeta hips confidently.

Cady watched as the girl headed toward a group of guys and girls singing off-key, a capella, in a corner. Biceps quickly shoved his hands into his pockets to avert the glare of a class chaperone. Orange-carpeted floors vibrated with the heavy boom of DJ Beat's music and the loud pound of

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more than a hundred feet jumping up and down and up and down.

You know you want it. You know, you know, you know you want it.

The entire school year had been leading up to this?

Most girls had been shopping for their prom dresses since the start of senior year at Chesterfield High School. Now they wandered in and out of the massive ballroom at the Chesterfield Suites like lacy, frosted mannequins, half-dazed with heat, emotion, and the wonder of it all. Cady felt different, looked different, from the rest. Her dress was scarlet; although she didn't wear lipstick or shoes to match, she had painted each toenail the same shocking red.

It had taken Cady all of her seventeen years to get used to most parts of herself, like the downward curve of her nose and the pattern of pale freckles on her right shoulder that looked like a miniature constellation. Her skin was so light, too light, Cady thought, considering that her father was from South America. She wished she looked more like her brother, Diego, whose skin was more olive toned. Cady's light skin came from her mother, Sara, whose own Irish skin was so pale it was almost translucent, like a china doll. Cady didn't want to be anything like china. She didn't want to break.

From inside the ballroom, strobes flashed red, and then yellow. Even from a distance, the disco light pulses gave Cady a headache.

DJ Beat popped his lips and pumped up the volume on one song, a ballad neatly mixed with new wave and rap.

"This one's for Hope," he shouted into the mic.

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As soon as Cady heard the name
Hope,
she scanned the faces in the crowd, searching. She hadn't seen Hope White since the start of prom.

The mob of guys from the basketball team (and the mob of girls who liked them) walked by, rapping to each other.

"Hot dress, Sanchez," one player named Darius West called out.

Cady flashed a wide smile. She'd known Darius since sixth grade, but they'd never been "real" friends. Life was funny that way. You could know people for so long but never know them at all.

"Nice tux, West," Cady whispered. He wore a T-shirt with a picture of a tuxedo on it.

As Darius walked on, Cady glanced at herself in a wall mirror but quickly looked away. What was going on with her hair? The dress was hot and itchy and she already had the makings of a blister on her little toe. And where was Lucas? He promised Cady one dance.

But she'd lost him.

Weaving her way through the endless throng of seniors was worse than navigating a driving test obstacle course. These were the cones and roadblocks of Cady's senior year: the jocks, the jokers, and of course, the beautiful people. Cady narrowly missed knocking a glass of orange punch (definitely spiked) out of one jock's hand. She almost stepped on the open-toed sandal of a girl she hated from music class. Carefully, Cady edged past a cluster of clucking girls who complained about how unfair it was that they couldn't smoke anywhere at the hotel, not even on

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the outside patio. The hotel had installed cameras to make sure no one broke the rules.

"Cady!" someone cried from the crowd. "Where have you been?"

"Marisol." Cady sighed, relieved to have found one of her friends again. "I was looking for you. Where's Ed?"

Marisol shrugged. "Getting my bag. I think we're gonna go."

Cady tipped her head to the side and squinted. It was the face she always made when she wasn't so sure about something. "Well," Cady said, "I was thinking of hanging out a little while longer. Just in case. You know."

Marisol grabbed Cady's shoulders. "You look good, girl. You should be working it on some boy who's worth it instead of waiting around for
him."

Cady laughed. "I don't know how to work it, Marisol. I'm better on back-up guitar. Actually, I brought mine with me tonight."

"You did?" Marisol said. "Big surprise. Well, I think it's time you play something loud and kiss that boy's butt good-bye. You know Emile is having a rave later. You're coming, right? Oh--wait--I see Ed ..."

Marisol waved to her boyfriend from across the room. Of course they'd only been dating since the winter, but Cady could tell it was true love. Or at least she hoped it was. Cady wanted to believe in true love more than anything. No matter what happened, she was determined to believe.

"Maybe I'll go to the rave," Cady said thoughtfully. "Maybe."

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