One of the Guys (26 page)

Ollie stumbles toward us. He halts when he sees me and shouts, “What the hell, Cowboy? I told you to come alone!”

“I didn't bring her,” Cowboy says, shaking his head. “Loch did. Dude, what happened to you?”

Ollie's injuries come into focus. Dried blood decorates his nose, and his right eye is swollen shut. A large gash slices through his eyebrow. His dirt-smeared shirt flaps in the wind, and his black pants are spotted with more blood.

“What the hell happened?” I ask, my gut twisting. Poor Ollie.

Ollie snorts. “What does it look like?
I got my ass kicked
.”

“By who?” How did Ollie end up stranded in the middle of the night, beaten to a pulp, when he's supposed to be working for Lemon tonight? Maybe he pissed off the wrong person with a snarky comment or something, but I fear this has something to do with the job. Which means this is my fault.

Ollie looks at Cowboy and then Micah. “I don't want her here, guys. She'll tell Emma. It's embarrassing.”

“Let's get out here,” Cowboy says, ruffling his hair.

I slide off my coat and hand it to Ollie, but he stares at it like it's a bomb. “It should fit you,” I say. “Come on.”

Micah adds, “Take it, man. You're turning blue.”

Ollie yanks the coat from my hand and wraps it tightly around his bruised body. He leans on the guys and limps to the car while I walk behind them. A few minutes later, we're all back in the car. The heat blasts. Ollie sits in the back behind me, his head resting against the window. He doesn't kick my seat. He's very, very still.

Cowboy sighs. “Who did this?”

“I don't know,” Ollie says.

“You must've seen something?” I tread carefully.

Ollie runs his battered hand through his curls. “One second I was sitting in my car, waiting for Lemon to leave her girlfriend's house so I could take her home, and the next thing I know some guy is beating the shit out of me on the road. He stuffed me into the trunk of a car that smelled like fish and then dumped me here. He wrecked my cell phone, too.”

“We should go to the cops,” Cowboy suggests.

“No!” Ollie protests. “No way my parents will let me go to Colorado if they know about this.”

“They might notice the broken nose,” I add, turning around in my seat. “And that cut above your eye looks disgusting. A trip to the hospital isn't a bad idea either.”

“Thank you for the unsolicited advice,” Ollie snaps. “Take me home. That's all I need.”

Micah and I exchange a look. What else can we do? He shifts the car into drive and pulls onto the road. We head toward Ollie's house in silence.

Ollie doesn't keep quiet for long. “I want to be paid extra for this,” he says. “This is an occupational hazard.” I glance in the rearview mirror to see Ollie dab at his nose with the sleeve of his shirt, but the bleeding seems to have stopped.

“It's a dangerous business,” Cowboy adds.

I wave my broken arm. “I know all about dangerous, thank you.”

“We don't know if this incident is related to the job,” Micah says. He turns away from me and coughs into his hand.

“Please!” Ollie cries. “The job is to lie! Maybe someone found out the truth! All I know is that this is the first time someone has punched me for no damn reason at all!”

“I'll talk to Lemon,” I interject, tugging at the loose thread in the seat. “I'll figure this out.”

“I can't do this anymore.” Ollie shakes his head. “I quit, okay?”

I turn around. “What?”

Ollie wipes dried blood from his nose. “Cowboy was right to get out early. Do you have any idea how bat-shit crazy these Winston girls are?”

“They are pretty crazy,” Cowboy says.

My cheeks burn. “Winston girls aren't crazy. They're just people. They need a break every now and then. Like everybody else.”

Ollie laughs. “Like I said.
Crazy
. And you're one of them now.”

“SO WHAT?” I scream. “I'M PROUD TO BE ONE OF THEM!” I point at him. “You know what? You're fired, Ollie!”

“You can't fire me!” he spits. “I already quit!”

Micah slams on the brakes, and we all slide forward. This time, I am semi-prepared, but Ollie smacks his nose against the back of my seat and cries out, “What the hell, Loch?”

“Toni's just trying to help us, man,” he says.

Ollie pauses. He goes in for the kill. “She's going to Purdue next year. She tell you that? You two tell each other everything, right? You lovebirds—”

“Will you just shut
up
for once in your life?” I ask, my heart thumping. I tug harder at the thread. It pops off, loose in my palm. I stare at it to avoid looking at Micah. Emma told Ollie about my decision. I'm leaving Vermont next year. He knows, and I wasn't the one to tell him. I waited too long.

After a few moments, I find the courage to look over at Micah. He studies the steering wheel and scratches his red nose. I drop the thread to the floor. “Micah—”

Ollie throws open the door and stumbles out of the car. We aren't far from his house, but he's in bad shape.

“Someone should go after him,” Cowboy says. He taps my shoulder, as if I should be the volunteer.

“Um, he hates me,” I say. “You go.”

“This has gotta stop,” Cowboy says. “Go, Toni. Work it out.”

Ugh
. I climb out of the car and catch up to Ollie. Before I reach him, he says, “Back off, McRib. I'm serious.”

I fall back a few steps, but I follow. Behind us, the Honda creeps along, the headlights illuminating Ollie's bruised face. Man, he looks awful.

“I'm sorry I got you in trouble with your parents,” I call after him. “I'm sorry you can't go to Colorado. I'm sorry about whatever happened to you tonight.”

Ollie just keeps walking. Limping. I continue to follow but stay several steps behind. I stop at the end of Ollie's driveway. When he reaches his front door, he goes inside without so much as a wave. I'll probably never see my coat again. Well, so much for working this out.

I get back in the car and close my eyes and pretend. I pretend I'm a ten-year-old girl dribbling a basketball down the center of a road. Pretty houses with emerald lawns border my path. A lake shimmers in the distance. Beneath the surface, a lake monster lurks. I'm surrounded by my three best friends. Boys who protect me. Boys who make me laugh. Boys who challenge me. Boys who make me feel big.

Moments are fossils. I dust them off. I keep them in my pocket.

I turn to Micah. “Are you done, too? Because I understand. If you are.”

Of course we're talking about something larger than
Rent-a-Gent
. This is the conversation hidden beneath insults and bloody noses, beneath basketball games and monster movies. I wonder what Mrs. Kemper would advise here. Is honesty the best policy?

Micah lets out a huge sneeze and blows his nose. He keeps driving, silent. When we get to Cowboy's house, Cowboy opens the back door and says, “Well, this has been an interesting Valentine's Day.”

I turn around. “Hey, Cowboy.”

He pauses, halfway out the door. “Yeah?”

“You should ask Katie Morris to prom,” I say. “Just ask, dude. You don't need money to win her over. Just be honest. Be yourself. Be a person. Next year, everything could be different and you may always wonder about her. Just say hello. Start there.”

Cowboy stares at me blankly and then blinks a few times. His face turns red. He opens his mouth to say something, but then climbs out of the car and jogs to his front porch. I guess my advice isn't that valuable. At this point, I probably wouldn't listen to me either.

We pull into Micah's driveway, both of us quiet. I climb out of the car, weak in the knees. Maybe it's the excitement of the night, my anger, or maybe this feeling stems from something else entirely. He gets out and sets his keys on the hood of the car and slides out of his suit jacket.

“I got my job back,” he says, his voice scratchy, “but I'm not done.” He hands me the suit jacket. “Here. You must be freezing.”

I curl my hands into the vanilla-scented sleeves. “Thanks.”

It's time to go inside, time to begin the transition into a new day, but I can't bring myself to move from his driveway. The basketball hoop looms above us. This is what I wanted, to be alone with him, but now it feels strange.

He smiles. “This has been quite the violent Valentine's Day.”

“
My Bloody Valentine
would be an appropriate movie choice for the evening.” It sounds like an invitation, and it is. I want him to come to my room and curl up with me, but his feet don't move. The pause between words is torture. He coughs and sneezes and wipes his nose. On second thought, he should rest. Maybe this isn't the best time for this conversation.

“Congratulations, by the way,” he says, scratching his nose. “On Purdue. That's great. Your dad would be psyched.”

“Thank you. I…” I should explain, but I don't know how. I changed our plan without consulting him. I wish space didn't exist so everything could be in one place and we wouldn't have to separate.

“Good night, Toni Valentine.” Micah sniffles and walks away, sliding his hands into his pockets. A sharp, clear thought races through my mind. A thought swimming inside my head for weeks, months, maybe even years. A terrifying, distorted, illogical, lovely, wonderful, vibrating thought.

I'm in love with my best friend. I'm in love with Micah Garry. SHIT.

twenty-six

T
HE FOOD COURT IS LOUD, HOT,
and reeks of French fries. How I loathe the mall. A cluster of colorful bags with tissue sticking out the top fall over Emma's feet and Lemon's pink high heels. I have no idea how she walks in those things without breaking an ankle. Unlike my friends, I have just spent the last three hours pretending to inspect overpriced shoes while trying to convince myself that my recent revelation is a mistake. A side effect of some sort.

I can't be in love with Micah Garry. I'm leaving for college in the fall. Long-distance relationships don't work. Assuming Micah shares the same feelings, which, let's face it, he probably doesn't. I'm like Ben Mayhew, pining for someone who will never want me.

Lemon folds her hands in prayer-like fashion and says, “I'm sorry, Toni. I'm an idiot. No. I'm a moron.”

In her maternal way, Emma pats Lemon on the back. “You couldn't have known this would happen.”

Lemon smooths the ends of her black bob. “But I should've been more careful. Me and my big mouth.”

“It's not your fault.” I nibble on a French fry. Two tables over, a baby starts crying, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming, too.

What happened to Ollie is my fault, not Lemon's. I keep picturing Ollie's pathetic limp and the dried blood on his face. I told Emma about it, despite Ollie's wish to keep the incident private. She's my business partner and my friend and she needed to know.

Just as I feared,
Rent-a-Gent
is responsible for Ollie's broken state.

“I had no idea that Jess's brother would go that far,” Lemon continues, sipping her Diet Coke. “My girl wasn't exaggerating when she said he could act like an overprotective psycho.”

Emma continues to soothe Lemon. Lemon continues to unload her guilt. I pick at my corn dog, void of appetite.

Jess, Lemon's girlfriend, was at the grocery store a few days before Ollie was hurt. Jess's older brother, Jacob, overheard Lemon talking to her parents there about Ollie. Lemon was laying it on thick at the time, going as far as to say she hoped to marry Ollie one day.

Her parents ate it up, but Jacob, who was fully aware and accepting of Lemon's real relationship, thought Lemon was cheating on his sister. That really pissed him off. His reaction could be classified as sweet if blood weren't involved. Jacob turned his anger to Ollie.

When he spotted Ollie sitting in his car outside of the house, waiting for Lemon as normal, Jacob flipped out. I hate to even think about it. Ollie could've been seriously hurt. Because of me.

Rent-a-Gent
is in shambles. No Ollie. No Cowboy. No Jason. No Henry. Micah is the only boy left. And I'm freaking in love with him.

Maybe this is the way it should be. Maybe this is a wake-up call. I can't control people. I can't use people, profit or no profit. If I try, everything turns out messy and bruised. Ollie's face proves that.

On the drive home from the mall, Emma tries to raise my spirits by blasting the country station. She thinks I'm depressed because of the sorry state of the business. If only she knew.

“It's another small hiccup, Toni.” She drums her fingers along the leopard-printed steering wheel cover. “We made a mistake. We kept our clients safe, but we weren't thinking about the boys. I assumed they could take care of themselves. Dumb, huh? We should give the boys fake names to protect their real identities or something. We can still do this.”