Reckless (14 page)

“I don’t have a master key or anything that cool,” Lon admitted when Brandon asked him. “But there are a bunch of old keys on here that open a lot of strange doors. And yeah, one of them opens the Lasell access door to the tunnels.” He shrugged.

“How the fuck did you keep that a secret?” Brandon swiped at a bead of sweat running down his forehead.

“Well.” Lon grinned proudly. “It’s not exactly a secret—a few girls know about it too.” Lon was reputedly a ladies’ man, although he wasn’t one of the guys that talked about it much. Or emailed lists of all the girls he’d hooked up with out to his dormmates. In other words, he was no Heath Ferro.

“Do you know how far they go?”

“I haven’t really explored them. But they have signs on the walls—apparently they go to all the main buildings.”

“Dorms included?”

Lon nodded. “Dorms included.”

Bingo.

Brandon filled in the stealth group of explorers by email, though even he wasn’t sure what he meant by “come prepared.” Flashlights and dark clothes, maybe. But then Walsh showed up wearing a yellow hard hat with a giant light on the front of it.

“Spelunking.” Easy shrugged and set it on his head. He looked like a miner. If the girls were here, they’d be falling all over themselves trying to tell him how cute he looked. How
creative
and
artsy
it was that he was wearing a fucking
spelunking
helmet. Brandon just thought he looked like a dweeb.

Alan St. Girard started pulling a thick rope from his bag and wrapped it around his waist.

“Fuck’s that for?” Ryan Reynolds asked, stroking his nose ring and looking a little self-conscious about the tiny
LED
penlight he’d brought.

“In case anyone needs pulling out.”

“Whoa.” Heath Ferro held up a hand. “No one needs to be talking about pulling out. Yikes.”

“These aren’t caves, you know.” Brandon pulled on a black V-neck Armani sweater over his faded gray Ben Sherman T-shirt. He glanced at Julian, who had hung what appeared to be binoculars around his neck. “Binoculars?”

“Night vision goggles,” Julian corrected. His hair, normally flying all over the place, was sticking out the bottom of his black knit cap. He looked like a really tall Kurt Cobain—maybe it was a Seattle thing.

“Lemme see.” Heath Ferro grabbed at them, but Julian, about six inches taller, pulled them off his neck and held them above his head.

“I don’t trust you with expensive toys.”

“Where’d you get those?” Brandon asked, curious. This Julian kid was an enigma. “My mom.” He held them up to his eyes and pretended to focus on Brandon. “She was
CIA
.”

“Really!?” Ryan Reynolds jumped up and down with excitement. Everyone knew
Alias
was his favorite show.

“No.” Julian smiled.

“Fucker,” Ryan mumbled.

Brandon tapped his black Camper bowling sneaker impatiently against the linoleum floor. “Are we ready? The girls are waiting.”

Lon led them to the basement of the old gym building, where the ceilings were low and all sorts of outdated gym equipment was stored. He stopped suddenly in front of an innocuous-looking door, right next to the football coach’s dingy office. He flicked through his keys expertly before sliding one into the lock and twisting it back and forth. Everyone held their breath. Someone hummed, “Dum da dum dum DUM!”

The door opened with ease. “Lon, I love you. Let’s go!” Heath clapped and grabbed his flashlight from his pocket. He shone it on the walls, illuminating a sign that looked like a directory. He paused at the name Dumbarton. “Ladies, here we come.”

Easy clicked on his spelunking light, and Brandon hated to admit it was incredibly helpful in lighting the way. Still, the tunnel was much wider, more navigable, and less Edgar Allan Poe-esque than Brandon had expected.

“This way.” Julian pointed, the other hand holding his night vision binoculars to his eyes. Where the fuck did you get something like that? Brandon started to think that maybe Julian’s mother
was
in the
CIA
after all.

“This rocks!” Alan exclaimed when they came to the first turnoff that led to the library. “Why would anyone deal with the fucking snow in winter if they could be all warm and snuggly down here?”

“Maybe that was the problem.” Brandon’s flashlight slid over some writing scratched across the walls—
Madison Oliver gives good head, I Masterful Johnson, Taylor loves Michael 4 ever, Duran Duran rocks my world.
Guess Waverly Owls had never been terribly creative with their graffiti. Brandon shone his light on one:
Marymount has a teeny weeny.
He nudged Heath in the ribs. “Sounds like you guys should be buddies.”

Heath glowered, still pissed about Jenny’s impromptu revenge cheer about his body parts at homecoming last month. He grabbed the rope from Alan’s hand and swung it around in front of him like a lasso. “You can’t believe everything you hear, dickwad. You’ll probably be too busy trying to get into Callie’s pants tonight to notice, but I’m going to be the belle of the fucking ball. Again.”

At the mention of Callie’s name, Brandon felt nothing—something that, in itself, was monumental. His heart didn’t beat faster, he didn’t start picturing her in her white Shoshanna bikini with the tiny little cherries on it, he didn’t start wondering what guy might be drooling over her at the moment. It was pretty fucking amazing.

And terrifying. Because it was Tinsley he was picturing in that bikini.

“Uh, yeah, whatever.” Brandon tried to clear his thoughts, but suddenly they were filled with images of Tinsley. He had been thinking about her a lot since dinner last night, but so far he’d managed to convince himself that he was just shocked to see her behave like a normal, albeit ridiculously flirty, human being. But now that they were getting closer to Dumbarton, he realized that he was kind of excited to see Tinsley again. Maybe he’d been wrong about her. Maybe she wasn’t evil but just … um … misunderstood?

“Baby doll! Are you still not over that girl yet?” Heath trilled, unable to let the Callie thing go. He probably didn’t ever want Brandon to get over her because then he’d have to find some new material.

“Get off his back,” Easy called over his shoulder as he led the way up front with Julian. “It’s not his fault. Callie’s a great girl. She’d make a lasting impression on any guy.”

Collectively the boys dropped their mouths.
She’d make a lasting impression on any guy?
Like,
Easy?
Brandon couldn’t help being irritated with Easy, not only for pseudo-standing up for him—no, thanks, dude—but for waxing sentimental about Callie. Maybe it was just paranoid-jealous Brandon returning, but it sounded like Easy was still into her.

Which pissed Brandon off to no end. First Easy breaks Callie’s heart—now he was going to do the same to poor, sweet Jenny? Jenny, who was unbelievable—who was almost perfect in every way except for her exceedingly poor taste in guys. Admittedly, the image of her nearly busting the seams of that cherry bikini top had also played a part in a few of Brandon’s daydreams.

“Wait wait wait wait wait wait waiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit a second, cowboy.” Heath stepped in front of Easy and put a hand on his chest. “Aren’t you supposed to be with little Miss Bouncy right now? Isn’t she supposed to be the one making
impressions
on you?” He made a lewd gesture of pressing his chest into Easy’s body.

“Get off me, jackass.” Easy slapped Heath’s hand away. The two of them stared each other down.

But thankfully, before there could be a lot of macho shoving and shouting, a loud thumping noise came from up ahead. “Guys,” Julian called back. “This is it.” Immediately everyone crowded around him, their flashlights focused on a small door-knob. Above it, in unmistakable lettering, was the word
Dumbarton.
Julian turned the knob and pushed.

Nothing happened.

He turned and pushed again; this time Heath slammed his body against the door too. It flew open, sending both of them tumbling out, knocking over a bucket and mop.

Julian gazed up at the ceiling, and everyone was silent as they listened to the sound of “Like a Prayer” coming from somewhere above their heads. “Holy mother.” He stood up and adjusted himself. “We’re here.”

Heath Ferro held up his compass. “Let me get my bearings,” he said, sniffing the air. “The beer is … this way!” He pointed toward the door out of the storage closet—the only door.

“Nice work, Nancy Drew.” Brandon rolled his eyes. “Let’s go.”

Email Inbox

To:
[email protected]

From:
[email protected]

Date:
Saturday, October 5, 8:00 p.m.

Subject:
Rock on

As much as it sucked being cooped up all day long today, I am SO happy that us girls are bonding the way we should be, and it is totally unfair that we are being punished for it. A responsible Owl works hard to establish and preserve friendships with fellow students. I mean, there are schools that don’t even allow boys at all because they so value female connection, and here we are just trying to hang out with our girls and we’re getting, like, imprisoned for it! But like I said, I’m just happy we got time together. Can’t wait for tonight!

Lovin’ my sisters,

Yvonne

Instant Message Inbox

BennyCunningham:
At long last, the boys have arrived! Where are you, baby?

CallieVernon:
I’m on the roof, smoking cloves … . R all the boys there?

BennyCunningham:
U mean, is EZ here?

CallieVernon:
That’s not what I meant. But is he?

BennyCunningham:
Yup. And looking reeeeeeeeeeeally cute.

CalleVernon:
Great.

BennyCunningham:
If your ass isn’t down here in three minutes, I’ll drag it down!

Instant Message Inbox

VerenaArneval:
Chica, where are you?

JennyHumphrey:
Just sending an email to my dad … I’ll be down soon.

VerenaArneval:
Your father surely doesn’t expect you to write when there’s a party heating up.

JennyHumphrey:
I’m sure he’d be quite happy to have me staying in my room all night.

VerenaArneval:
Not when there’s a certain tall, dark, and handsome cowboy looking for you …

JennyHumphrey:
Sold! I’ll be down in two minutes.

VerenaArneval:
Hurry, or I might jump him myself!

In a well-intentioned but probably not all that convincing move, the girls of Dumbarton had decided to spread all their textbooks and notebooks around the downstairs common room just in case Angelica Pardee or some other authority figure happened to peek in. In a way, it was more exciting for the boys to see the girls’ dorm as it might be any day of the week, not all fancied up. It made it seem more intimate. Easy could imagine Jenny lying on the couch, doing her algebra homework, her little pink sneakers dangling off the edge.

But chasing that image out of his mind was one of Callie, sitting in that window seat, staring at the copy of
Vogue
that she had tucked in the pages of her history book.

What was his
problem?
Why couldn’t he get his feelings about these two girls straight in his mind? It wasn’t fair to anyone to keep thinking this way about both of them, but he couldn’t help it. It was like choosing between Mandy Moore and Lindsay Lohan—he thought he’d made his choice. It was Mandy all the way—if only he could stop thinking about Lindsay.

“Took you guys long enough.” Alison Quentin stood in the doorway to the common room, hands on her hips, wearing a simple white tank top with a pair of skinny black cigarette pants and a pair of red skimmers. She looked a little like an Asian Audrey Hepburn. Easy glanced at his roommate Alan, who had an enormous crush on her.

“Did you miss us, honey?” Alan St. Girard grabbed Alison by the waist and spun her around. She giggled but didn’t fight it, and the two of them danced down the hallway.

“Kegs are this way,” she called over her shoulder.

Easy spotted a box of pizza lying open on the coffee table and grabbed a slice. A few girls he didn’t recognize were playing a game of Twister in the corner, and he was sort of impressed. Most of the time, Twister was just an excuse to grope members of the opposite sex. Good for them. Chewing his slice of cold mushroom-and-olive pizza, he headed up the stairs. Even though boys were banned from girls’ dorms, except for the common areas in the brief period between sports practice and dinner, Easy knew his way to room 303 blindfolded.

He paused at the door, not sure who he was going to find inside. And not sure who he was hoping to. He knocked gently and pushed open the door.

Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue” was playing, and Jenny was sitting at her desk, typing away at her laptop. He watched her for a moment and listened to the sound of keys clicking. She looked so pretty, her dark brown curls tumbling down over her back. He tried to sneak over and surprise her, but the floor creaked beneath his Converse high-tops and Jenny whirled around. “You’re here!” she cried, her small face breaking out into an enormous smile. “Why didn’t you say something?” She quickly sprang out of her chair and walked over to him, looking totally hot in a dark brown strapless dress that matched her eyes and looked like something you’d throw on over a bikini. And she was barefoot. Mmm …