Shark Bait (The Grab Your Pole Series) (5 page)

Without the benefit of details on the serious fashion atrocity of my new gym clothes and the debacle it was to even find a uniform for me in the first place—I mean one that didn’t look as though it was meant for Humpty Dumpty—not to mention how
completely
weird it is to strip down to your skivvies in front like a hundred other girls who are doing the same thing, I’ll ask you to just take my word for it when I say P.E. pretty much sucked like I thought it would. The coaches lumped the tenth grade girls and boys together for the next four weeks so we can play co-ed flag football. The upside to this is there are some cute boys in the class and I got to watch them show off for us girls, which is always fun. I mean the boys aren’t in the same realm as Tristan cute, but you know…eye candy is eye candy. The downside is that I’m expected to participate. Anyway, I got through it without making myself a laughing stock and I met a few more decent kids, both boys and girls. I was finally starting to feel like maybe I’ll get the hang of public high school and it won’t be so bad. After all, I have fifty-five minutes in heaven everyday to look forward to and that has to count for something, right? As I was changing into my dance stuff, those musings were pretty much confirmed when I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Kate’s gym locker is right next to mine and she’s in my class too.

“Hey Camie! I didn’t know you danced!” She said, dropping onto the bench next to me.

“Oh, yeah. I’ve been dancing since I was little…ballet, jazz, and hip-hop mostly, but I’ve also done a little ballroom and tap.”

“Wow, that’s great! I’d totally
love
to take a ballroom class!” She enthused before hopping back onto her feet. I like Kate; she’s spunky. “Come with me, I wanna introduce you to Melissa. She’s in our Lit. class, but she had a student council meeting so she wasn’t there today.” Before I could even respond, Kate grabbed my hand and dragged me to another aisle of lockers where she planted me in front of a gorgeous girl with long, striking mahogany colored hair and soft blue eyes. “Melissa, this is Camie. She’s a sophomore, but she’s really cool and she’s smart enough to be in Mrs. Henderson’s with us.”

Little did I know it, but Kate had just handed me my first letter of recommendation that, if properly used, would open the doors to the upper echelons of the social ladder. I was unaware of it at the time so I can say in all honesty that I was just being myself and not trying to advance in the ranks on purpose, but during the next hour I was going to totally hit it off with the co-captain of Varsity Cheer, of which I discovered Kate is a member as well.

After dance was over and instead of changing so we could leave school, the three of us lingered in the open area between the girls’ locker room, the pool, and the boys’ locker room, still in our dance clothes and I’m gonna learn there’s a reason for this. Remember when I said that dance clothes are flattering? Well, I’m not the only brainiac who knows this. Melissa and Kate had positioned us in just such a way as to not be blatantly obvious about it but at the same time, make sure we were very well noticed when the stampede of boys from several locations came thundering back to their locker room to change.

I have to say I really admired these girls’ tactical maneuver, especially when they’d put us directly in the path of the guys coming from the gym. Among them was; you guessed it, my favorite womanizer. He definitely took notice, but he opted to view us in all our spandex glory from afar by leaning against the wall of the boys’ locker room. He was just opposite from where we were, but that also put an inconveniently wide expanse of concrete between us. However as a consolation prize, we were joined by a couple guys who were both adequately attractive in their own right.

“Check out the new girl,” the taller of the two whispered with a nudge to his friend and then to us he said, “Hello ladies.”

He really is rather good looking, but his body appears to be on the thinner side; not a big deal on its own, but then you add in his height and he becomes overly lanky, which leaves something to be desired and just doesn’t do it for me.

“Hello back,” Melissa said and then flirtatiously shoved the shorter guy’s shoulder.

Now this guy looks like your typical football player. You know, stocky and a little beefy with “boy next door” good looks, which I’m finding doesn’t really do it for me either. But that’s cool because I think he might be going out with Melissa. I say that because he picked her up, threw her over his shoulder and gave her butt a playful little smack before setting her down again and all she did was laugh.

“Kate, introduce us,” the non-spanker said as he flashed me a grin and then firmly tugged on a lock of my hair. Seriously, what are we? Kindergarteners? I mean really, I imagine that’s what a five-year-old caveman would do instead of hitting a girl over the head with a club. Besides, it kinda hurt.

“Oh…yeah…Camie, this is Zack…and that’s, uhh, Keith,” she said with some distraction as she absentmindedly indicated Zack to be the juvenile Neanderthal and Keith as the spanker.

I was about to issue a greeting to Thing One and Thing Two, and yes, I know calling them that isn’t nice, but even though Melissa seems to really like Thing Two and Thing One is super cute and I know he was flirting with me, something about him especially kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it’s because he just moved in front of me, cutting off my view of Tristan, or maybe it’s because I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that Tristan didn’t come over to talk to us because of these guys. Last I saw, he was still keeping tabs on us but both his facial expression and body language had been screaming “DANGER: Violent Outburst Imminent.” Regardless, like I was saying, I was about to issue a greeting to Thing One and Thing Two but right when I opened my mouth to say a version of hello, both Kate and I were given a bone crunching hug from behind. Can you guess by who?

Can you? Can you?

Hooray! Three cheers for my favorite douchebag, “Dear Jeff!” I say this because cave-boy doesn’t seem to care for Jeff very much. He gave Jeff, whose eyes are a little red, a dirty look and then he stomped off towards the locker room. I risked a quick glance over at Tristan and was rewarded by seeing he was no longer pissed, but doubled over in laughter. When I looked next to me again, I was totally shocked because Jeff had Kate pressed against the pool’s chain link fence and they were in a
full-on
lip-lock.

Although she was alternating between hitting his back and pushing against him in trying to get him to stop kissing her, I’m guessing I can throw my earlier theory about the two of them being related out the window. Remember that semi-formed idea I had in English? Well, Jeff has a different last name than Kate, but he has the exact same shade of emerald green eyes as her, both of them are on the tall side, and aside from his short, almost black hair and being a lot tanner than Kate, they look an awful lot alike so I was thinking they might’ve been half-siblings or something. After all, Tristan and Paul look less alike than Kate and Jeff and then throw in how condemnatory she was acting in English…well; you can see where I came up with it.

Anyhoo, when Jeff finally relented and pulled away, I thought Kate was gonna lose it but she was laughing instead. Jeez…the mating rituals of teenagers are really quite a confusing concept to grasp.

“You’re
such
an ass!” She muttered and finally shoved him away from her with force.

“You know you want me,” Jeff teased with a grin, moving close to her again like he was daring her to deny it.

Which she did, just not with much conviction. “Uh, not.”

“Love you too, Katy Baby!” Jeff then planted a swift kiss on her cheek, gave me a big smile that I think meant something but I’ve no idea what, and then he jogged over to Tristan.

Thus began what I’m gonna think of as the Varsity round of showing off…

When Jeff caught up to Tristan, he elbowed him in the ribs. Tristan then went to punch and/or shove Jeff in the shoulder but before he could, Jeff grabbed Tristan’s wrist and twisting it behind him, Jeff jumped on Tristan’s back and using his hair as reins, Jeff tried to get Tristan to carry him into the locker room piggyback. However, I guess Tristan wasn’t cool with that plan because he then flipped Jeff over his shoulder and dumped him unceremoniously on his butt. The wrestling match continued until they weren’t visible anymore and unlike the tenth grade boys who’d been showing off in my P.E. class—who could really stand to learn a thing or two from these guys—neither Tristan nor Jeff ever bothered to look back to see if their antics were being appreciated by us girls. And I can’t really speak for anyone else, but I enjoyed every second of the show thoroughly.

“I swear, they’re like puppies…” Kate said to herself with a silly grin on her face, telling me that she appreciated the boys’ performance as well, and hinting that maybe this wasn’t necessarily a show, but just how they behave on a regular basis. “Hey Melissa, I’m gonna get outta here. Camie, do you want a ride home?”

“Sure, thanks!” Yeah, like I’m gonna choose walking home over getting a ride with Kate, who I’m rapidly starting to not only like
a lot
, but who I’m also realizing might just be the key to unlocking the treasure chest that is Tristan.

Now, with having just witnessed the whole kissing thing, if I were a cat, I’d probably be dead right now because I was bursting with curiosity about what the deal with her and Jeff was. So, I decided to just be forthright and asked, “So, I’m dying here, what’s the deal with you and Jeff?”

“He’s my ex,” she answered simply.

“Huh. Do all ex-boyfriends kiss their ex-girlfriends like that?” I nudged her with my shoulder. I can totally tell Kate still has a thing for him and I’m guessing she might want to get back together. I think they look good together, so I’m pulling for her.

She laughed. “No, just him. I’m always having to convince myself that I broke up with him for a good reason, but then he does something like that and I find myself admitting just how much I adore him.”

“Well, if you like him as much as you do, and I hope you don’t mind me asking, but, why
did
you break up with him?” Inquiring minds want to know…

“Because he’s a complete jackass, just like Tristan said earlier today,” Kate answered and then gave me yet another thoughtful look. “He habitually ditches school, flirts with practically every girl he lays eyes on, and sometimes he gets out of control if he drinks too much or gets high. He was stoned back there…you know that, right?”

“I guessed when I saw that his eyes were all red.”

“Yeah, well, Tristan will talk some sense into him and if that doesn’t work, he’ll beat the shit outta him until Jeff does what he wants,” she said and laughed as she unlocked the car doors with her remote. Then, taking her seat behind the steering wheel, Kate clicked a button on the dashboard and looked into the driver’s side review mirror, presumably to check her perfect makeup or hair while the convertible roof of her new model, cherry red, mustang was lowered. (See what I mean about the cool cars and such?)

“I thought Tristan said he was done dealing with Jeff’s crap,” I said, sinking down into the cushy leather of the passenger seat.

Before Kate started the car she shot me a sharp glance, making me wonder if I’d just crossed a line or something. “Camie, don’t believe everything that comes out of Tristan’s mouth. In fact, I wanna talk to you about something I’ve been thinking about all day, but not here. Let’s go someplace where we won’t be interrupted,” she suggested and as the mustang’s engine roared to life and settled into a nice purr, she looked at her side mirror again with a triumphant smirk.

“Okay, sure. Just tell me where we’re going so I can let my mom know. I don’t want her to worry when I don’t show up when she expects me to.” My mom would be fine with me hanging out with a new friend, but if I don’t check in, she’d probably have the police send out an Amber Alert for me.

“Let’s go to the park down below school. It’s just below the lower soccer fields...”

“Yeah, I know the one you mean. I used to have big birthday parties there when I was little.”

So, as Kate drove us to the park that is actually not too far from my house, I called my mom. I started by asking how she was feeling, and then listened when she told me her doctor appointment had gone really well, for which I was relieved to hear. Then asking her if she needed me home right away, I explained how I’d made a friend and that we wanted to go hang out at the park. Just for good measure I also threw in that Kate and I were going to be doing some homework for our honors class. Although I didn’t know it at the time, I should mention that this is not a lie per se. My mom sounded really happy to hear I’d found someone I already clicked with and she told me to take my time and have fun. See? My mom rocks hard.

“Is your mom sick or something?”

“You could say that. She has breast cancer. Everyone, including me, keeps referring to me as new, but actually, my sister and I were born here. We moved back from Arizona in May so we could take advantage of our extended family here,” I willingly explained. I don’t mind talking about this stuff. In fact, I find talking about certain things like this to be cathartic. Besides, I really like Kate. I don’t know why, but I just get the deep-down feeling that Kate is good people.

“Aw Camie, that really sucks, I’m so sorry. But if you guys moved back months ago then how come you’re just starting school now?” She asked, politely not pushing for the “other” details.

“Well because my sister and I have been homeschooled our entire lives and my mom insisted that she continue until she absolutely couldn’t do it anymore. We actually thought for a while that she’d be able to keep it up and we’d get to stay home, but the chemo and radiation really beat the crap out of her,” I admitted, not knowing how Kate would react to the information that I was previously homeschooled. I’m hoping it doesn’t make me ineligible to be her friend. I mean I don’t know how these things work; there could be a handbook or something that I just haven’t been given yet.

“Oh, okay. It sounds like you really enjoyed being home…I bet this place is intimidating as hell,” she said, being rather shrewd in her observation. You’ll soon discover, as am I, that Kate has wicked-awesome skills at reading people.