Shark Bait (The Grab Your Pole Series) (46 page)

I watched Tristan’s face as he read what I’m assuming is a rather personal and detailed account of what happened and I had to seriously force myself to not laugh as his expression went from mild curiosity to astonished disbelief, and then, to being utterly horrified. Then, and without any warning, he started typing out something on my phone. I lunged to try to grab it back. I failed. Most of the time I love that he’s big and strong, but not when he’s being a snot.

“Give it back!”

“Uh-uh…not until I’m done.”

“What are you doing?!”

“Forwarding it to myself so I have the contacts,
aaanndd
there. I’m done.”

He tossed my phone back and gave me a look I couldn’t quite decipher. But then when I looked through the email history, the message was gone.

“Wait, I think you deleted it…”

“Hell yeah I deleted it! Do you seriously think I want you re-reading
that
?”

“I never read it in the first place, you ass!”

He started laughing again while typing out a message on his own phone. “Thank God for small favors…”

“At least tell me how you convinced her to get back together with her boyfriend.” I really was curious about that part.

“Oh look, a butterfly…”

I rolled my eyes at his attempt to distract me. “I wanna know!”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Come on, Tristan,
please?
” Begging can’t hurt. I can’t stand being told no; it totally grates and just makes me want to know that much more.

“Maybe the next time we play.” He’s totally teasing me now, the brat.

“Fine. I’ll just have Derek send it to me again.” Ha! Two can play at that game.

“He won’t.” I don’t know how he can be so confident about that, but he sounds pretty damned sure.

“Why the hell not? He sent it to me in the first place and I didn’t even ask!”

“Guy code…I just sent him a text reminding him.”

“So? He’s my cousin, I think that trumps your stupid code or whatever.”

“Not when I can play the MaryAnn card, which I’m more than prepared to do and told him so.” That sneaky son of a bitch...he just blackmailed my cousin. And, he’s typing again.

“Who are you texting now?”

“Not texting, I’m emailing the person responsible for that serious infringement of privacy, not to mention the partial cause of that huge fuckin’ fight we had…I’ll let her take care of Sara and Brandon.”

Ah. I think I get it now…he’s totally pissed, but knows he doesn’t really have the right to be. It’s kind of funny. And yeah, if I were Samantha, I’d be ready to murder both of them, so I’m sure she’ll respond exactly the way he expects her to.

We were walking up to the office for our passes when he got a text—which he actually had the nerve to show me with an extremely smug and distinctly amused look on his face.

Derek:
done deal. but i gotta say…bravo man.

“Whatever.”

Apparently my irritation amused him further because he started laughing again.

“What’s so funny?” Jeff asked from the office window.

“Camie’s learning to play hard ball and she’s not thrilled about it.”

“You suck.” I grabbed my pass and went to leave before Tristan caught me by the elbow, still chuckling at me.

“Okay, I’ll make you a deal…I’m kinda bent about that whole thing and I don’t wanna talk about it right now but maybe another time, so if you want to, you can ask me something else and we can be even.”

Hmmm. I’m thinking I might only get one more question out of him and I’m picturing the scene in the movie
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
. You know the one…when Harrison Ford is trying to pick which goblet is the Holy Grail and the knight tells him to “choose wisely.”

Ah-ha! I’ve got one… “Okay, who’s Phil?”

“
Phil?
I don’t know a Phil…”

“Umm, if I may interject something here?” We both turned to stare in question at Jeff who was grinning at us. “Dude, use your verbal photographic memory and think back to our conversation late Saturday night…”

Tristan studied Jeff’s face for a brief moment and then rolled his eyes. “Oh shit.”

In complete confusion, I looked back and forth between Jeff, who’s laughing now, and Tristan, who’s shaking his head.

Tristan took his pass from Jeff, grabbed my hand and towed me away towards the lower quad. “So how much of
that
did you hear?”

“Are you gonna tell me who Phil is?”

“What, not who, and no, I’m gonna show you…”

“All of it.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” He stopped in front of his locker and gave me an unreadable look before he started to spin the dial, inputting his combination. “Tell your sister not to MacGyver the lock on the bus again…there’s a key hidden behind the spare tire on the back. Oh, you can also let her know she doesn’t owe me the box of Twinkies anymore either.”

What the hell?!
He’s
the stupid boy she went to help? My sister is a goddamned traitor!! I mean, I love her for it, but,
so
not the point! I should’ve tailed her like Melissa wanted to! Oh and see what I meant about the little, blonde sneak’s true talent being counter-intelligence?!

“
You
were the stupid boy calling in a favor?” I had to throw the stupid part in there…

He laughed and pulled open his locker revealing a picture on the inside of the door…of the two of us at the beach…one that’s been blown up so you can really see our faces…one that was taken right at that profound electrical moment when he almost came unglued. It’s a
very
telling picture.

“That’s a good one…you should see the others,” I commented, staring at the stark emotion captured in our faces.

“After being the recipient of this ‘message,’ I figured there were more, but anyway, here’s your answer.” He pulled the picture down, flipped it over and handed it to me.

On the back written in what looks like my sister’s handwriting are the following title she’d chosen for the picture, a short message and her cell phone number:

A Water Warrior Saved

Phil. 1:3

Just in case…

“OH! The picture and scripture from your argument with Jeff! I thought the picture he was talking about was the one on your phone, but I totally forgot about the scripture! What does it say?” My knowledge of Bible scripture really isn’t what it should be. (Again, sorry God.)

“In light of what would’ve happened if you’d decided that you couldn’t forgive me, I’d say ‘I thank my God upon every remembrance of you’ was rather appropriate, don’t you think?”

“Uh, yeah. She never fails to amaze me… You know, before she left that night she offered to make an example out of you.”

“I don’t even wanna think about how she’d do that, Camie…”

“Well, I think she was actually hunting for another kind of answer by asking that. I mean she would’ve totally done some major damage if I’d told her to go for it, but when I firmly told her no, I think she took it upon herself to drop little hints that would keep us together instead. Because I’m tellin’ ya, she would’ve never given you her number if she didn’t think you’d need it or that
I
wouldn’t
want
her to help you.

And I mean, look at this picture Tristan...anyone looking at it would know immediately how we felt, and I think it was her way of proving that we weren’t fooling anyone with the game we were playing except maybe ourselves. Oh, remind me to show you the message
I
got the following morning…although I gotta say, the stationary she used for yours is way better than what she used for mine.”

“Huh... I didn’t think of it like that. I thought she was trying to tell me to be grateful for every moment with you. I think that’s what Jeff thought too and why he reminded me about the verse Saturday night when you were
supposed
to be sleeping.”

“Oohh…is that what the memorizing was all about?”

“Exactly.”

“Hold on, I’m confused about something now…she gave this to you a week ago, right?”

“Well, she didn’t give it to me directly, she left it and an I.O.U. in the empty box of Twinkies …she ate the whole damned box, Camie…but yeah, she left it sometime during that ill-fated party. Jeff found it the next morning when we were packing up the bus to go surfing.”

“Then what did she do to help you yesterday?”

“Oh. She told me an exceptionally annotated version of what you and your co-conspirators talked about when you got home. Although I could tell she really didn’t wanna tell me even that much…I swear it was like pulling teeth to get what I did out of her.”

“Yeah, she can be uber-infuriating like that. Even though I love her, it’s not always easy having her as my sibling...”

It’s true too. Having a little sister who’s so incredibly intelligent and whose brain functions on a wholly different plane than yours does makes living with her difficult at times.

“Yeah well, she singlehandedly made me feel grateful to be an only child...well, not really but anyway... I got an idea of where you were at and then she helped me come up with my plan for this morning, but I wanted to keep her on the hook for the Twinkies in case it didn’t work and I needed more help.”

Well at least she didn’t give him step-by-step instructions because that would’ve pissed me off. Oh wait…did she?

“Well whose plan was it? Because I thought you said you came up with that whole thing because of what I said…” I’m so confused…

“I did. She asked what strengths I had to work with and when I told her about my
phenomenal
memory, she told me to go over everything I knew about you and suggested I replay every conversation we’ve ever had. She seemed to think that should’ve been enough to gimme what I needed to get started…and she was right, it was,” he explained and closed his locker. “Oh, she also told me I could always resort to guilt warfare.”

“
She what?!
” Oh, that’s so not cool.

He started laughing at me…
again
. “Relax. She just suggested I might wanna use Phineas and Ferb to play on your parental emotions.”

“I was gonna ask you about that…so who picked the lock, you or my evil sister?”

“Neither of us. I got in the same way I had your locker re-painted after Teresa vandalized it…I’m buddies with Henry, the school custodian.”

Holy crap…you’d think I’d stop being surprised by now, but come on…

“Seriously Tristan, are there any other skeletons I should know about that you’ve been hiding from me over the last month?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know?! You keep surprising the shit outta me with what you already know!”

“Okay, how about the Pirate Pun—er, Jungle Juice thing…accident or planned?”

“Oooh, as much as I’d love to take credit for that, I can’t. Total accident, but really awesome timing.”

“Umm, keeping my bra?”

“Both. Originally I’d intended to return it, but when my mom posted it, I decided to see what you’d say when I didn’t. I have one…Derek’s text at Pete’s party?”

“Oooh, that was fun but completely spur of the moment. I was hoping he’d be cryptic enough to get a reaction from you. Oh, earlier you said something about Kate being good…how long have you known?”

“From jump. I had my suspicions early on that first day because she was watching me like a hawk, so when she caught my reaction to Zack, I knew she knew. Oh, holy shit, I just realized something…she lied to Zack, didn’t she?”

“Oh, about me breaking up with my boyfriend? Yeah, totally.”

I told you he was quick. In doing the mental math he immediately realized I never had a boyfriend because if I had had one, he wouldn’t have been my first kiss.

“Before or after that travesty of a phone call with Jeff?”

“Before.”

“Her idea or yours?”

“All her.”

“Huh.”

“I have another one…what about Pete?”

“What about Pete?”

“Well, Kate was thinking he was spying on me for you…”

“Mmm, no.” Tristan answered. Then his eyes dropped to the ground briefly before he somewhat hesitantly said, “He’s ah…sorta
known
everything but, I never asked him to spy on you.”

“Yeah, Melissa and I didn’t really think so but I had to ask, especially when he was so willing to be part of our costume thing.”

“Yeah, don’t remind me. I’m trying really fuckin’ hard to forget about certain disquieting events from that party because if I don’t, I’m liable to knock some people the fuck out... Oh, speaking of that, this one’s a big deal…what was really goin’ on with you and Zack last week?”

“Oh look, a butterfly…” I said and looked around, giving Tristan a dose of his own medicine.

“That’s not funny.”

“It’s pretty funny.”

“
Shit.
”

“Sucks, doesn’t it?”

He narrowed his eyes at me, growled a little and then said, “We’ll talk about this later. Right now we gotta get to class before the bell rings or these passes won’t be any good. Want a ride?”

Duh. Why even ask?

When I nodded, yes, I’d very much like a ride, he picked me up and I wrapped my legs around his waist like I had when we first came to school. But instead of kissing and walking, we just talked until he reached the closed door of my class.

“Are you gonna pout the rest of the day?” It’s very apparent that he really doesn’t like the taste of his own tactical medicine.

“Probably.”

“If you’re gonna withhold information, then it’s only fair if I do too.”

“Nu-uh! I’m pretty damned pleased with knowing I was the first guy to kiss you and I wanna know if I’m still the only one!
Especially
if it was him! Besides, you don’t have to worry about a visual reminder…I have to see him five fucking days a week.”

“Not true grasshopper…I have licorice-girl to worry about running into and that’s a far more disturbing visual reminder than yours.” Huh. That sucks…now I’m cranky too.

That got me a “
Humph,
” and an “I gotta go, I’ll see you in about nine minutes,” and then a very distracting kiss before Tristan put me down. I say distracting because I all but forgot I was irritated moments before and I barely noticed Teresa spitting hatred at me with her eyes when I went into my class with a stupid grin on my face.