Glass Girl (A Young Adult Novel) (26 page)

I sneered at him over my shoulder—Grayson, who had never apologized to Thanet or me. He’d stalked through the halls of school like always, never paying me a bit of attention. Henry had gone to his house a few days after the locker room incident and they’d talked it out. But I’m not sure what, if anything, got truly resolved. I was told there were extenuating circumstances that made the situation…difficult
.

“Give us a sec,” Henry said to Grayson.

He lumbered away toward the front door and Henry rolled up the window. “Still wanna go?” he said.

In shock, I nodded my head. “Maybe there’s been a mistake and Tennyson will tell him to go home.”

“I don’t think so. I’d bet my right arm Taylor invited him.” Henry rubbed his chin. “She’s kind of had an inexplicable thing for him since we were in junior high.”

I laughed. “What kind of inexplicable thing?”

“The kind that happens when you go into a closet with someone at a party and make out. Then you don’t kiss anyone else for the next four years and you turn that memory into something it wasn’t.”

My mouth flew open. “Gross. How do you know all that?”

He grinned. “Hijacked a passed note last year.”

***

Johnny, Tennyson’s dad, had rented an enormous van to transport four girls, four guys, a mom and a dad to Jackson Hole. Luggage went into a carrier on top for the three-hour drive.

Henry and I held hands in the back seat alone. Taylor, Grayson and Sara sat in the middle, and Tennyson, Sara’s brother Matt and Matt’s best friend from college sat in the front seat. Matt put his arm around Tennyson as soon as we left the drive. His friend, Adam, had begged to come along because he had a crush on Sara. Adam kept his body turned back toward Sara for the entire drive, trying to get her attention.

The angst and desire flowing forward from the three bench seats probably made Tennyson’s parents feel awkward. They pretty much faced straight ahead. Maybe they should’ve thought this all couples trip through before agreeing.

I spent most of the ride enjoying the feel of the entire side of Henry’s body pressed against the entire side of mine. Not even Grayson’s presence could ruin this for me. With nowhere else to be for three hours, it felt…extravagant. I could lean my head one way and rest against his bicep. Lean it the other way and study his profile.

I could close my eyes and feel him breathing. Open them and watch the way he flexed his leg muscles under his jeans when he felt cramped. How he leaned his head back and covered his eyes with his cap, pretending to sleep. But I knew he was doing the same thing I was doing—learning me, like we had all the time in the world. His thumb turned circles on the heart of my bracelet.

I finally understood why so much monkey business happened in the backs of buses. Put a couple in close proximity, with wheels spinning under them, and nothing to do but wait, they’re going to start thinking of lovely uses for their bodies. I don’t care who they are.

“Y
ou’re so full of sh—” Grayson said, before Henry elbowed him in the side to cut him off. “I called dibs on this machine as soon as I saw it.”

Henry angled his face close to Grayson’s. “Thought you’d agreed to watch your language.” He handed Grayson the key to the snowmobile we were getting ready to climb on. “Take it. But you’d better bring it back in perfect condition.”

Grayson ignored the fact that Henry had talked to Tennyson’s parents about letting us borrow the snowmobile and had even mapped out an area where we could go. “Taylor,” Grayson called. “You coming?”

Taylor looked up from the snow boot she was lacing. “Coming.” As she passed me, she whispered, “Sorry.”

Maybe her fascination with Grayson had ended after only one night in Jackson Hole.

We’d spent twenty-four hours together—first in a cramped van and then in the condo. We’d been lazy most of our first day. None of us wanted to pay for skis and lift tickets, so we’d watched movies, played games, and talked.

“When they get back, I’ll take you on the snowmobile.” Henry gathered me into his arms in the cold condo garage. “You’ve seriously never ridden one?”

“They’re not street legal in Pittsburgh.”

“True.” He inched over to the door, leaning us both close so he could listen. “I don’t hear anyone, do you?”

“No.” I pressed my cold hands between his jacket and his shirt.

“Good. Kiss me.” He leaned down, tilted my head to the side and kissed me. With a hundred layers of coats and flannel between us, he backed me up next to a wall and we tangled together as close as we could get. He tasted like spearmint gum and Dr. Pepper and I wanted more. I put my hand on his face, tracing his jaw. He pressed his hand into my lower back and made my heart race.

“You’re really good at this,” he whispered, his lips never leaving mine.

“So are you,” I whispered, the truth of that making me think of Brooke and other girls he might have kissed. I must have shifted.

“Don’t you dare stop,” he said.

I smiled, the curve of my lips making his turn up, too. “We could disappear in Jackson Hole,” I said.

“We could call some kind of mountain man cab and find a little chapel,” he suggested.

“We could jump the broom and rent an empty trailer outside of town.”

“I’ll support you by driving a salt truck.”

“I could take in ironing.”

He chuckled. “You’re not even legal.”

“Darn,” I said, smiling.

“There’s something about a seventeen-year-old girl, though. Lots of songs written about you.” He ran his fingertips from my ear, down my neck to my collarbone. “You’re like the star of every boy’s dream.”

I tilted my head into his touch. And unzipped his jacket so I could look at the Christmas present I’d given him. I touched the word
Guapo
on the gray vintage shirt he’d opened this morning. I’d bought it for him to wear in Nicaragua because I thought it would be funny for Henry to advertise how cute he was.

He smiled. “I like my
handsome
shirt.”

“Me, too.”

“We’d better head back in before they send out a search party, my Meg,” he whispered.

***

Inside, Tennyson and Matt prepared to go to town with Johnny for more food. Adam had fallen asleep on the couch and Sara was reading John Green next to him. Martha, still in the kitchen where she’d started her morning, was making chili for dinner. Henry and I found a place to sit and started a movie.

No one had mentioned my mom or Wyatt once on this trip and I was beginning to feel like they accepted me here, unspeakable heartache and all. The warmth of Henry’s arm around my shoulder made me sleepy and I dozed through most of the movie.

Tennyson’s rap ringtone woke me, and I reached for it to make the Drake tune stop. Seeing Taylor’s name, I answered it.

“What’s up?”

“Meg?” Taylor said. She sounded upset.

“Taylor? Where are you guys?” I glanced out the window. The sky had darkened to that early evening color since I’d fallen asleep.

“Grayson is an idiot,” she said. “I’m in town.” I heard her rustling around, struggling with something. “I’m in some café called Deadcenter.
Ah.
” She opened a door that sounded like its hinges were rusted out. “Yeah, that’s why. It’s in the center of Jackson Hole.” The door slammed shut again.

“Where’s Grayson?”

“I don’t know,” she said, clearly frustrated. “We got close to town on that stupid snowmobile and he decided he wanted to run it on the street.”

“You can’t run a snowmobile on a cleared street. You have to have snow, right?” I stood up to stretch and look for Henry.

“That’s what I screamed into his ear for a good five minutes until he told me to get off and he’d pick me up in town later.”

“How
later
has it been, Taylor?”

“Two hours! He’s not answering his cell.”

“He’s probably been arrested,” I said, half in jest.

Henry leaned his head into the room and saw that I was awake. He handed off a pool cue to someone. “Who is it
,
” he mouthed.

I covered the phone. “Taylor. Grayson dumped her in town two hours ago and she can’t get hold of him.”

Henry’s face went twenty shades of red and he motioned for me to give him the phone. “What’s going on, Taylor?”

He listened quietly. Taylor had broken down and started crying as soon as she heard Henry’s voice. Henry walked through the living room, picking up his coat and gloves and cap. “
Mm-hmm
,” he said. “I know. I know. What’s the name of the place?”

He held his hand up to Johnny and called him over. “Know where Deadcenter is?”

Johnny nodded.

“We’ll be there in a minute, Taylor,” Henry said. “Stay put.” He ended the call and tossed the phone back to me.

Keeping his voice low, he explained the situation to Johnny, who cursed under his breath, and then put his own coat on and grabbed the keys to the van.

Henry motioned with his chin toward the game room. “Don’t let ’em get too riled up and mob-ish about this, okay?”

I nodded.

As soon as the door closed behind Henry and Johnny, Tennyson came out of the game room squealing, “Hot tub!” Sara followed and they disappeared to put on bathing suits.

Martha appeared out of thin air. “I turned the hot tub on an hour ago so it should be getting warm now.” She patted me on the back. “Go put on your suit, Meg.” Then, after doing a three-sixty, she said, “Has anyone seen Johnny?”

I frowned. “He and Henry ran to town for a minute. They’ll be right back.”

***

The steam from the hot tub clouded my vision when I shucked my sweats and eased into the water. I had planned to let Tennyson and Sara have it to themselves with Matt and Adam. But Martha watched them through the window for a second and then called to me from the kitchen. “Meg, would you mind getting in the tub and chaperoning? I can’t see Matt well enough to know what he’s doing in that water.”

I was pretty sure I knew what Matt was doing in that water. And I didn’t really want to be a fifth wheel
.
But…since she’d been so nice to let us all come, I obliged.

“Hey, crazypants,” Tennyson said, sliding a mini-cooler filled with beer my way. “Mom has no idea. See, we’re cloaked in mystery and steam.”

I giggled. “Yeah, she sent me out here to monitor the underwater activity. So you guys had better treat me nice.”

“Are you kidding me?” Matt said. “My sister’s in this hot tub. Adam knows to keep his hands to himself and I’m a gentleman with Tennyson.”

Tennyson rolled her eyes and put her arm around me. “I’m so glad you came, Meg. I’ve been worried about you.” She cupped a handful of water and poured it over my shoulder. “I’m sorry about how weird things got at school,” she whispered into my ear. “I didn’t bring it up because I knew you were tired of talking about it. But you know I’d do anything for you, right?”

I nodded my head. Tennyson, despite all her bravado, really did have a good heart. She’d been smart about helping me out without making a big deal about it. “Thanks, friend.”

“Where do you think Taylor and Grayson are?” Sara said. “They’ve been gone a long time.”

Adam and Matt shared a look. “I figure they found some privacy somewhere,” Adam said.

“
Ew,”
Tennyson said. “They did not. That’s disgusting.” She looked around. “But seriously, where are they? And where’s Henry?”

“Henry and your dad went to town to bring Taylor back,” I said. “Grayson’s MIA with the snowmobile.”

Tennyson laughed. “Right.”

“I’m serious. He dropped her off in town and hasn’t been back in two hours. She was really upset.”

Headlights bounced over us as the van turned in and parked. Four doors slammed, meaning all four of them had returned. Tennyson looked at me and raised her eyebrows. I shrugged.

After a few quiet minutes of holding our collective breath, the kitchen door opened and Taylor, who’d changed into a bikini, slipped quietly into the hot tub. She rubbed her temples, grabbed a beer, and swallowed half of it.

“Swear to me you will never let me be alone with him again.” She shook Sara’s shoulder.

“I swear,” Sara said. “What happened?”

“I thought he would be all romantic and intense if I could get him alone.” She leaned her head back on the padded mat around the hot tub and groaned. “He’s the same bombastic rudenik that he is in public.”

“Shoulda seen that coming,” Tennyson said.

“He nearly killed us a hundred times on that thing. He missed trees by inches. Inches!” She finished off the beer and went for another one. I sighed, thinking about my dad’s trip conditions.

“When he decided the mountain wasn’t challenging enough, he drove closer and closer to town. We could see this road just beyond a snowdrift. It had a couple of inches of snow on it and he decided to drive the snowmobile on the road.”

Matt laughed, a loud burst of surprise. “Do you know what that’ll do to a snowmobile’s engine? It’ll blow it up in a few seconds.”

“Yeah, well, when I refused to be part of it, he pointed toward town and said, ‘Find somewhere warm to wait and I’ll call you in a minute.’” She’d nailed Grayson’s hoarse voice.

“Where’d you go?” Sara said.

“A café. I waited a while and then gave up and called. Henry and Johnny and I drove around town a while looking for any sign of Grayson and then we saw it.”

“What?” Adam said.

“The snowmobile. It was trashed and sitting in the parking lot of the little police station downtown.”

“Holy crap, that’s golden,” Matt said.

Tennyson swatted him. “That was my dad’s toy. It probably cost a couple thousand.”

“Yeah, but insurance’ll cover that. And the story’s priceless.” Matt put his arm around Tennyson and squeezed her.

“So?” I said. “Was he in the station?”

“Yeah,” Taylor said. “We walked in and he was sitting at a desk with an officer. He looked all forlorn and repentant.” She chuckled. “The cop was getting ready to call Johnny.”

“They just let Grayson walk out?” Sara said.

“They released him to Johnny, but he has to pay a humongous fine for operating a snowmobile illegally, and reckless driving, and some other stuff that sounded made-up.”