Tell (21 page)

She turned the corner of the first floor hallway to see him bounding down the stairs.  She wondered how much he had had to drink and how he still had the ability to bound.  Her own buzz was wearing off.  She had been hoping that once her buzz dissolved, so would her overwhelming desire to kiss Shane, but unfortunately that was not an effect of the alcohol.  And apparently he really did look that good, whether she was under the influence or not.

He held onto the banister and swung himself around toward her, stopping about six inches away.  “Hey,” he said, grinning.

“Hey,” she said, returning his smile.

The conversation came to a halt.  Cadie found herself looking at his arm, extended behind him as he held onto the banister.  She thought about that arm wrapping around her and pulling her body against his chest.  She realized she was staring and she forced herself to look back at his face.  He was staring at her mouth.  He snapped his gaze upward, and it locked onto hers.  Cadie somehow managed to take a deep breath, even though it seemed that the air had gone out of the room.

“I think we should talk to Felicia,” he said suddenly.

She looked down at the ground.  She did not want to think about Felicia, but she knew that he was right.  Cadie looked back up at him.  “Well, did you talk to her before you fooled around with any of her other friends?”

Shane stared at her.  “Why did you have to bring that up?” he asked quietly.

“I’m just saying, if I’m just another one of Felicia’s friends to hook up with—”

“Damn it, Cadie,” Shane interrupted, his voice cold, “you know it’s not like that.  It wasn’t ever like that.”

“Then what was it like?”

“Those girls weren’t her friends.”

“Well, they certainly aren’t anymore.”  Cadie realized she was picking a fight with him for no real reason.  But ever since she had become aware of Shane’s infatuation with her, she had wondered if she was anything more than just a conquest to him.  Now, she had gotten too deep in her own feelings to just walk away.  If she had to pick a fight with him to cover up her own insecurity—or to keep herself from throwing herself at him—she would do it.

He continued staring at her, and he looked as if he was choosing his words carefully.  “Those were girls who shouldn’t have been in Felicia’s life, anyway.  They would’ve hurt her eventually, so what difference would it have made if I had or hadn’t slept with them?”

“What do you mean, ‘they would’ve hurt her eventually’?  What makes you so sure that they would have hurt her?”

“Well…”  Shane trailed off, shrugging his shoulders irritably.  “They were after me from the beginning, so… so they couldn’t have been very good friends, right?”  He turned his head, staring up the steps toward the second floor, looking deeply pained.

Cadie stared at him.  It occurred to her that her mouth was hanging open slightly, and she closed it.  “How do you know they were after you from the beginning?” she asked quietly.

“They told me,” he answered smoothly.  She continued staring at him until he looked back at her and snapped, “What?”

“You knew,” she said slowly.  “You knew those girls were after you, and you knew that Felicia wouldn’t be friends with them anymore if you slept with them.  You did it on purpose.  You did it to protect her.”

He sighed but did not respond.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters.”  She said this forcefully.  “Felicia doesn’t know?”

“And she won’t,” he responded with finality.

“Why?”

He sighed again, releasing the banister to fold his arms across his chest.  “I’m her brother,” he replied.  “It’s a lot better for her to go through life thinking her brother is a jerk than thinking…”  He trailed off and shook his head.

Cadie was completely thrown.  She had never expected that Shane would try to explain away his past indiscretions with Felicia’s friends.  It began to dawn on her that he might actually be telling the truth.  He would never have been able to tell Felicia that her friends were using her without sounding like a total egomaniac, and Cadie knew that Felicia never would have believed him if he had tried to say anything.  Even if he tried to tell her now, she would not believe him.

Cadie had hoped more than believed that Shane might have feelings for her, but now with this new information available, it was hard to deny that he must.  He wanted to talk to Felicia about the two of them.  Why would he want to do that if this was not something real?

“So, then,” Cadie began, “you and me—is this—?”

Before she could finish, Melody rounded the corner.  They had been alone at the bottom of the stairs until then.  Melody’s eyes lit up when she saw the two of them, but after she looked at them for a moment, she saw how they were staring at each other and how perilously close they were standing to one another, and her face became one of embarrassment.

“Oh,” said Melody, her cheeks flushing.  “Sorry.  I just came to—never mind.”  She turned to walk away.

“What’s up, Mel?” Cadie asked.  She partly did not want this conversation with Shane to end, but she was afraid of where it was going and what might happen if it continued.

“It’s nothing,” Melody answered.  “I can talk to you later.”

“No, what’s wrong?”

Melody bowed her head and shuffled her feet a little.  “I’m kind of worried about Andy,” she admitted.

Cadie raised an eyebrow.  “I thought you didn’t care what happened to him.”

“Well, I didn’t, but he disappeared awhile ago.  And he wasn’t sober.”

“He wasn’t in the living room?”

“No.  That’s where I left him earlier.”

“Did you check the basement?” Shane spoke up.  “There’s a pool table down there.”

“No, I hadn’t,” Melody responded, sounding relieved.

“I’ll go with you,” Cadie offered, stepping away from Shane.

He stared at her from a moment, then turned to Melody and said, “I’ll ask Amanda if she’s seen him.”

Cadie glared at him.  He deliberately ignored her.

“Okay, thanks, Shane,” Melody said.  “Are the basement stairs—?”

“Down the hallway, next to the door to the garage,” Shane replied, pointing her in the right direction.  He smirked at Cadie.  “Have fun.”

She did not respond before she fell in step beside her sister.

Shane saw Amanda in the kitchen and approached her cautiously.  They had not spoken directly to one another yet that night, and he was unsure as to whether or not she was mad at him, or had ever actually been mad at him.  He thought it would be nice to have a girl actually tell him what she was thinking to his face so he would not have to wait to hear it from someone else.

Amanda was wiping up a beer spill on the island counter when Shane walked up to her.  “Hey,” he said.

She looked up at him, a lock of her blonde hair escaping from her ponytail and obscuring part of her face and eyes.  Amanda had an uncanny ability to look incredibly sexy, even when doing something as entirely mundane as cleaning her kitchen.  “Hey,” she answered.  She smiled, though Shane thought the expression was guarded.

He cleared his throat.  “Um,” he began carefully, “I wanted to—”

“I’m not mad at you,” she interrupted, turning to throw a wad of beer-soaked paper towels in the garbage can.

“Oh.”  Shane was surprised.  “Well…
that’s—”

“I mean, I
was
,” she amended.  “I
was
mad at you.  But I didn’t realize there was something going on between you and Cadie.”

“Oh, well—”

She held up a hand to silence him.  “I know you want to keep it on the DL because of Felicia.  I just don’t get why you didn’t tell me about Cadie in the first place.  Like, why did you have to lie to me?”

“I don’t know,” Shane answered, grateful at finally being given permission to speak.  “I didn’t really realize there was anything going on between me and Cadie.  I mean, I was kind of
hoping
…  Anyway… I guess I just didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“You didn’t want to hurt my feelings, so you lied to me?”

“I didn’t say it was a foolproof plan.”

Amanda smiled genuinely this time.

Shane leaned against the counter.  “So, listen,” he said, broaching the subject casually as if it was not the reason he had come over here in the first place, “do you know Andy Vandevander?”

She snorted.  “Yeah, he was that drunken fool that was hitting on me earlier.”

“Really?”  Shane did not think that kid would have had the balls to hit on her sober.  “Well, do you know where he went?”

Amanda narrowed her eyes at him.  “Why?”

Shane shrugged.  “Cadie’s little sister is friends with him and she couldn’t find him.”

Amanda nodded in the direction of the staircase.  “He was hammered, so I put him to bed in the guest room.”

“Okay, thanks.”  As Shane turned to walk away, a thought occurred to him.  He paused and looked back at Amanda.  “Which one is the guest room again?” he asked for clarification.

“I’ll show you.”  Amanda led him upstairs and stopped at the first door on the left.  She opened the door to the darkened room and reached to switch on the overhead light.  Shane grabbed her arm to stop her as the light from the hallway fell over the bed.

Andy was on the bed, and he was not alone.  He and Susan Marcus were wrapped together in a passionate embrace.  Their lips were welded fiercely together, and neither was wearing a shirt.  Mercifully, Susan’s bra and both pairs of pants remained.  Both of them were too deeply involved in each other to notice that they were no longer the only people in the room.

Shane could only stare at the tableau before them in horror.  Fortunately, Amanda had the presence of mind to pull the door shut.  The scene was gone from their vision but not from Shane’s brain.

“Well,” said Amanda brightly.  “Found him.”

Shane was stricken.  What was he supposed to tell Cadie and Melody?  Melody’s best friend was making out with the guy she liked.  She was going to be in a tizzy over this all night.  Cadie would be upset that her sister was upset, and Cadie did not need any more reasons to be upset.  Also, Shane’s chances of getting any action at this party had just decreased dramatically.  He thought quickly.

“Yeah,” he remarked.  “That sucks for him.”  He made a face at Amanda.

She looked at him curiously.  “What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said confidentially, “Susan was hitting on me earlier, but she said something like, she wanted to wait a few weeks until something she had ‘cleared up.’ ”  Shane made air quotes with his hands.

Amanda gasped and put a hand to her mouth.  “She has VD?” she hissed.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“What do you think she has?”

“Gonorrhea.”  It was the first STD that came to his mind and he blurted it out without thinking any further.  “Yep.  She has gonorrhea.”

Amanda glanced at the closed guest room door.  “Can you get gonorrhea from kissing?” she whispered.

“Did it look like all they were going to be doing was kissing?” Shane countered.  Truthfully, he had no idea whether or not gonorrhea could be spread by kissing, but he was not about to admit that to Amanda.

Meredith appeared from around the corner.  “Hey, guys,” she greeted them.  “What’s going on?”

“I’d better go,” Shane responded before Amanda could say anything.  “I’ll catch you girls later.”  He patted Amanda on the shoulder before walking away.

As he headed down the hallway, he could hear Amanda whispering excitedly to Meredith, and he smiled to himself.  That may not have helped the situation at hand, but he thought in a few days, Melody would be glad to hear the rumor that Susan had the clap.

Melody had gone into the backyard to continue her search for Andy.  Cadie made her way upstairs, ostensibly to look for Andy, but actually to find Shane and see how much he was talking to Amanda.

She found him at the end of the hall near the master bedroom.  She tried not to think about why he got that terrified look on his face the second that he saw her.  Instead, she tried to smile brightly at him.  “Hey, did you find—”

He interrupted her by grabbing both of her arms and pulling her with him into a bathroom.  He reached around her to firmly shut and lock the door behind him.

Cadie leaned back against the door, dazed, as he crossed the room to shut and lock the other door, which led, she presumed, to the master bedroom.  The room was dark except for a night light that was plugged into an outlet above the double sink.  Her heart was in her throat as he walked back toward her, his features in shadow.  He held her shoulders, his eyes two lanterns blazing in the dark room.  Weakly, she tilted her head back and closed her eyes, her breathing shallow.

“Andy and Susan are making out in the guest room,” he said.

Cadie’s eyes fluttered open and she blinked several times.  “What?”  Her voice sounded unnaturally high-pitched.

“I just thought I should tell you.”

She stared at him.  His face was just a few inches away from hers.  Why were they not kissing?  What had happened? 
Something happened,
her brain told her sternly.