Shuffle, Repeat (21 page)

Ainsley grabs my arm as we stand up from our lab table at the end of physics class. “There's a party at Kaylie's next Saturday. You should come.”

“Kaylie and I don't really hang out.” It's true, since I've spoken maybe twelve words to Kaylie in my life, and some have been things like “Excuse me” and “That's my pencil.”

“Everyone can come. The whole senior class.”

“I'll wait for my invitation,” I say, and she bonks her purse into me.

“This
is
your invitation.” She's smiling, but then it drops from her face. “Can I ask you something?”

Not-about-Oliver-not-about-Oliver.

“Sure.”

“It's about Oliver.” Natch. “How's he doing?”

“I honestly have no idea.”

“You just listen to music when you drive to school?”

I nod. “You might want to ask Theo.”

Ainsley's arched eyebrows jut together in the middle. “Theo?”

“From what I can tell, that's the only person who Oliver's hanging out with.”

Ainsley shakes her head. “That's not good.”

“Tell me about it.”

It's spring, which means it's sunny and lovely but not yet too hot. It also means that all kinds of people eat on the bleachers. Lily and Darbs and Shaun and I are at our regular spot, but now there are tons of others dotted all around in little clusters like ours. We've just finished an entire conversation about the end of spring break and Yana and the final book report for the year when Lily asks the question I've been hoping to avoid. “Are you guys definitely going to prom?”

Shaun and Darbs both nod, which I was not expecting. Shaun, yes. Darbs…I kinda figured she'd flake.

“I'm deejaying,” Shaun says. “I can't escape it.”

“I don't
want
to escape it,” Darbs tells us. “It's going to be hilarious.”

“Will you go with someone?” I ask her.

“I'm debating.”

“Between what?” Lily asks.

“Taking a risk on asking Yana or saying yes to Ethan.”

“Ethan asked you to prom? He never even texted me.” I gawk at her. “You must be an awesome kisser.”

Darbs waggles her tongue in my direction. “Oh, I've got moves.”

“Gross,” I tell her.

“Are you going?” Shaun asks Lily.

“Maybe if my new boyfriend's into it.” She smiles when she says it, all smug and amused because we react exactly the way she knew we would: by squealing and hammering her with questions. Apparently Lily has been hooking up with a twenty-year-old dude she met in Saline at an underground concert. His name is Gordy, his hair is dyed shiny black, and he wears eyeliner. “He's so hot,” Lily tells us.

Later, I'm walking back into the main building with Shaun when he nudges me. “Are you still anti-prom?”

“One hundred percent.”

“Just because it's an antiquated tradition from a patriarchal era that disenfranchises females by placing them in the subordinate position of waiting to be asked by a male?”

“Pretty much.”

“Change your mind,” says Shaun. “Be my date.”

“What about Kirk?”

“I can't ask him. He'll say no and I'll be destroyed. It's better if I just let him drift away. You be my date instead.”

“That's crazy,” I tell him. “And no. You'll be deejaying.”

“You could keep me company.”

“No offense, but no thanks,” I tell him. What I
don't
tell him is that the idea of hanging in the deejay booth with my gay best friend during the most sacred of high school traditions makes me feel like a pathetic loser. Like the girl who can't find a
real
date. And yes, I know plenty of my fellow seniors are planning to go in big groups with each other and that it's totally fine to fly solo…but I don't want to. I don't want to because—

“Oliver,” says Shaun, and I feel my body twitch in response.

“What about him?” I say in the most casual tone I can scrape up.

“He's single. You're single.” Shaun shrugs. “It kinda seems like a
duh.
”

“I thought you would be on the Oliver hatred train with Darbs and Lily.”

“No, I've done stupid things because I was trying to fit in.” Shaun shakes his head. “Granted, not since middle school, but
still.
Most of the time, Oliver's a really good guy. He should get credit for that.”

“I guess.” We walk in silence until we're almost to the building. “But we're friends, or something like friends. Going to prom—that would make it a different story.”

“Maybe you need a different story.” Shaun gives me side-eye and I shove him.

“Maybe shut your trap-hole.”

“Are you going to Kaylie's on Saturday?” My question is a desperate attempt to make conversation with Oliver as we approach campus.

“Nope.” And then, for the first time in a week, he actually asks me a question in return. “Are you?”

“I'm thinking about it.”

“You should. Kaylie throws a good party.”

“Then why aren't you going?”

“I've been to a lot of Kaylie's parties.”

I eye him, debating asking a different question. We seem to be making progress—at least in this moment—but I don't want to piss him off and possibly send him back to the Land of Jerkdom, even though there's a certain peace in that land, because when he lives there, I have no fear of the attraction coming back.

“Is it because Ainsley will be there?”

Oliver glances at me, and I see him weighing how to answer. “No.”

“Then why?”

“I promised my mom I'd help her with some stuff at home, that's all.”

We're silent as Oliver finds a parking spot, but when we're walking toward school, he suddenly turns to me. “Do you think I should go?”

“Yes.” I say it reflexively, which is why I don't have an answer when Oliver asks the inevitable next question.

“Why?”

Because I want you there.

It comes into my head as a simple fact over which I have no control. Like gravity. “Because…because it'll be fun.”

“But don't you think there will be other fun parties?”

I'm not sure what Oliver is getting at. “Maybe. Or maybe not. We don't have that much school left.”

Oliver nods. “So it's one of the last times I'll get to hang out with all my friends.”

“Yes. It might even be the last big party of the whole year.”

“Except for prom.”

Ugh.

“Right. Except for prom.”

Oliver's face gets very serious. “So you're saying that it's important.”

“Exactly,” I tell him, and then realize my mistake as the first bell rings and Oliver grins really big. “Dammit!”

“Oh, June,” Oliver says, and all my attraction to him comes flooding back, because his smile is so wide and his eyes are so brown, and something about the way he says my name makes my abdomen tighten. “Another song for our playlist. When will you ever learn?”

Apparently the answer is “never,” because here we are again: me falling hopelessly; him unaware and unattainable.

Of course, the only thing I say is “Shut up.”

It makes him laugh out loud.

When Shaun arrives at my house, he insists on playing dress-up. At least, that's what I call his desire to pick out my clothing for the party. “It's not that you look
bad,
” he says, scanning me. “But it's hardly party attire.”

“My dad says these are the hottest jeans in New York,” I protest, pointing to the elaborately ripped hole along my upper thigh.

“Those are sexy,” Shaun assures me. “But you could wear that shirt to teach Sunday school. What else do you have?”

After half an hour in my closet (and several jokes about coming out of it), Shaun has exchanged my T-shirt for a long-sleeved crop top screen-printed with tiny zebras: a present from Dad two summers ago. I tug at the bottom of it, which barely skims my navel. “I think this might be too small.”

“There's no such thing as a shirt that's too small.” Shaun assesses my outfit. “Shoes.”

I want flip-flops and he wants stilettos. Since I don't own the latter and he refuses to sign off on the former, we settle on a pair of jewel-studded platform wedges that I've worn only a couple times.

“If I break an ankle, I'm blaming you,” I tell him.

Shaun only points to my hair, which is pulled back in a ponytail. “Down.”

“It gets out of control when it's down.”

“You could stand to be a little out of control,” he tells me.
“Down.”

A few minutes later, my hair frames my face in already tangled waves. Shaun gives me a double thumbs-up. “This is fun. We should always do this.”

“Or not,” I tell him. But my reflection in the mirror is smiling.

Since I don't usually go to these house parties, I'm a little disappointed to discover that people aren't jumping off the roof into a pool and no one is playing a game of Suck and Blow and there hasn't been even one fistfight. Looks like Hollywood got it wrong.

What they got right, however, is the loud music and the beer keg and the revealing clothes. When we walk in to see a pack of girls with a lot of skin showing, I have a flash of gratitude for Shaun's pushiness.

We find Kaylie in the kitchen, in the center of a crowd. She's leaning against the counter and giggling through a slice of lime between her teeth. As we watch, Bo Reeves shakes salt onto her chest, right above the line of her halter top. He licks it off, then tosses back a shot glass. As the crowd cheers, he slurps the lime wedge out of Kaylie's mouth and sucks on it for a second before spitting it into the sink. He turns back to Kaylie and presses his mouth down on hers, which she allows for a scant moment before pulling back with a loud “Woohoo!”

The crowd echoes her response and I exchange glances with Shaun. “Romantic.”

Kaylie squeals again, and I realize she's looking at us. “June! Shaun! Come do body shots!”

Shaun grins at me. “I'm driving.”

“What the hell,” I say, which makes Kaylie squeal again. She sloshes some tequila into the shot glass and hands it to me. “Have you ever done one?”

I glance around at my audience of what I assume are body shot veterans. “Nope.”

“You're supposed to put it in your cleavage,” Kaylie says in a confidential tone that everyone within twenty feet can hear. “But I didn't want Bo's face in my boobs.”

“Generally speaking, I have a face-free boob zone myself.”

“PMGO,” Kaylie says, and I laugh because Darbs's thing has finally caught on. Kaylie gestures to the crowd. “Who's it going to be?” I know most of the faces but don't see anyone I'm particularly dying to lick, so I point at Shaun. Apparently it's a good choice, because cheering and laughter erupts.

“Make him straight!” says Danny Hollander, and Shaun gives him the finger.

I take the proffered lime wedge from Kaylie and slide it over the back of Shaun's hand. “I'm pretty sure this won't make you straight,” I tell him as Kaylie sprinkles salt over the area.

“You're welcome to try.” Shaun opens his mouth so I can set the wedge between his teeth.

I lick the sour salt from his hand and drink the tequila. It's way stronger than I imagined, and my face involuntarily squinches up tight, which makes people laugh. I shake my head and lean into Shaun so I can take the lime from his mouth. “Yuck,” I say once the taste is gone from my tongue and people have stopped clapping for my amazing feat.

“Congratulations on losing your body shot virginity,” Shaun says.

“Thanks. Are you straight now?”

“I actually think you might have made me gayer.” Yet another squeal from Kaylie heralds a new group of guests, so with the attention off us, Shaun and I head for the keg. “We can share,” he tells me.

It's a good call, especially because the tequila is still burning in my throat. As Shaun fills up a plastic cup, the door to the backyard bangs open and a girl totters in backward. It's obviously Ainsley, because that's Ainsley's thick, curly beach-sand hair hanging almost to her waist, and yet it can't
possibly
be her, because visible at her waist is a pair of very big, very male hands. They're groping her quite extensively, and they belong to Theo Nizzola.

I want to think it's a party game—one I don't know, like another version of body shots, maybe—but Theo and Ainsley aren't carrying any alcohol that I can see. Also, they're so into each other that they can't even separate their mouths long enough to walk into the house. They're murmuring between kisses, and as Shaun and I stare, Ainsley takes Theo's hands away from her waist so she can entwine her fingers with his. She steps into the kitchen, pulling him after her.

Because he's facing forward—and because Shaun and I are just standing there with our mouths wide open—Theo addresses us first. “What are you looking at?”

We're saved from answering by Ainsley's gasp of surprise. “June! You're here!”

“You invited me.” I hear the chill in my voice. Suddenly, I understand what might have made Oliver punch Itch in the face.

“You said you weren't coming.” She waves her hands in front of her body, distressed, and her eyes are bigger and greener than usual.

“Shaun convinced me otherwise.” I eye Theo. “I guess I should have alerted you that I changed my mind.”

“No.” Ainsley shakes her head. “Of course you didn't have to tell me. I'm sorry. I'm surprised, that's all.”

“I see that.” I turn to Shaun. “Let's go anywhere else.”

“Wait,” says Ainsley. “Can I talk to you?”

I don't especially want to listen to Ainsley explain why it's okay to make out with Oliver's best friend, so I look at Shaun. I'm hoping he'll save me, but he only nods and pushes the cup of beer into my hands. “Go ahead.”

I follow Ainsley through the kitchen and the crowded living room and out onto the front porch. It's not as big as ours, but there's a porch swing in the corner. I sit on one end and Ainsley plops onto the other. “Theo was going to tell him tonight,” she says. “That was the plan, but then Oliver decided not to come.”

I gesture to the house. “Do you really think everyone here is going to keep it a secret? You're all over each other.” I don't add what's really going through my mind:
grossgrossgross.

“We didn't think it through,” says Ainsley. “We were just going to come to the party like friends, but then we were holding hands and suddenly it seemed silly to keep trying to hide it, you know?”

“I actually
don't
know. You could have any boy you want, and you choose the one who's besticles with Oliver?”

“That's not
why
I'm with Theo. I just like him.”

I don't say anything, because although I cannot remotely understand liking Theo Nizzola, what I
do
understand is not getting to choose how emotions work.

“I know it's breaking the bro code. Theo knows it, too. That's why he's going to talk to him.” Ainsley leans forward, training her eyes on my face. “Please don't be mad, June.”

I turn it over in my mind. I don't know why Ainsley cares if I'm mad at her, which I'm not. Not exactly. It's more that I don't want anyone to get hurt and this seems like it has big potential for hurting everyone involved, Ainsley included.

“I have to tell you something,” I finally say, and watch Ainsley's smile vanish. “In the name of sisterhood, I think you need to know.”

“Go on.” This time her voice is sharp. Cold.

“When you and Oliver started dating, Theo made a stupid bet with him about how fast Oliver could”—I pause and Ainsley waits, tapping her foot against the porch floor—“have sex with you.” It sounds so awful when I say it out loud, and suddenly I hate myself for being the one to inflict this knowledge on her. “Theo bet Oliver he couldn't do it by the Fourth of July. That's why Oliver took that family sciences class, because he lost the bet.” Ainsley stays quiet and I can't tell if she's furious or if she's going to burst into tears or what, so I keep talking to get it over with, the words coming out faster and faster. “Yeah, it was crappy of Oliver to take the bet, but maybe it was worse of Theo to make it in the first place. He brought it up in the locker room or something, so everyone was listening and all the athletes know about it. I'm so sorry, Ainsley….What?”

Ainsley has burst all right, but not into tears. She's laughing, the sound of it ringing hard and clear through the night air. It's not joyful. It's
scornful.
“God, June. You're just so
earnest.
It's kind of adorable.”

I don't know what's going on here, but I'm pretty sure she's not giving me a compliment.

“I already know about their stupid bet,” she tells me. “I've known forever. It's not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” Indignation rises in me and spills out. “Are you kidding? A whole locker room of asshole boys speculating about how fast you'll put out? It's awful! It's
gross
! It's—”

“It's a lie,” Ainsley says.

“The bet? The bet was a lie?”

“No. Oliver
taking
the bet was a lie. When Theo brought it up in front of everyone, it was a done deal. Oliver and I had already had sex, but Oliver didn't want all those guys to know it. He thought it would make me look bad.”

I shove back the part of me that cares about Oliver having sex.

“He told everyone he lost the bet to save…like your
honor
or something?”

“I know.” Ainsley shakes her head. “Stupid, isn't it?”

It's not stupid to me. It's revelatory. Oliver let me think he was an asshole jock so he could protect Ainsley's privacy. Oliver might be the best person I've ever known. Oliver is a
prince.

Ainsley hops up. “I need another drink. We're cool?”

“Sure.” Because what else would I say?

She beams at me. “Awesome. See you in there.” She traipses back into the house. I look down at the plastic cup I'm holding and reflexively take a gulp. It's not very good. I don't love the taste of beer and this particular cup is already getting warm, so I stand and dump the contents over the porch railing. I have an urge to throw my cup into the darkness beyond, but that would be littering, so I don't.

I stay there for a while, wondering how to approach Oliver on Monday. Sure, I'm not thrilled about the way he's been behaving, but I was supposed to be his friend and I accused him of something he didn't do. I accused him of the exact
opposite
of what he did. I started off the school year by believing the worst of him, and then I believed it
again
after he'd already proven me wrong.

Maybe I'm the jock-hole.

I wait for clarity that never comes. Finally, I'm tired of being alone and tired of slapping at mosquitoes, so I decide to see if Shaun is ready to leave. I'm starting toward the front door when I hear the sound of an engine and see headlights approaching fast as a car rumbles up the long driveway from the road. There's a spray of gravel as the behemoth grinds to a stop, nestling in a grove of trees beyond the other cars, at the edge of the darkness.