Tempted (11 page)

“I didn’t feel like it,” Julian said, as if that explained his absence. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his cords, completely indifferent to her acknowledgment that she’d been the one looking for him. But at least he wasn’t walking away.

If Julian hadn’t gone to the party, he clearly hadn’t seen Jenny’s triumphant ascension to the stage, a thought that cheered Tinsley. There had to be something left between them, didn’t there? She blinked her violet eyes and decided to tell him once and for all how she really felt.

“But even if I had gone”—Julian shifted his canvas backpack from one shoulder to the other—”I wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with
you
.”

The words weren’t shouted, or spat out, or said with any overt cruelty, which made them hurt all the more. Julian was simply telling her the absolute truth—as if she had known it already.

The door to Maxwell Hall opened and a couple of girls in brightly colored rain gear came bounding down the steps, giggling and opening their mail.

“Julie!” Alan St. Girard called out to Julian from across the quad, where he and Ryan Reynolds were tossing around a Frisbee. Julian raised a hand to the guys, and with a last, almost pitying glance in Tinsley’s direction, he turned his back on her and walked away without further response.

She watched as Julian’s figure receded in the distance. He caught up with Alan, and soon they were joined by a crush of boys headed toward the dining hall.

What. The. Fuck?
Everyone
wanted to be around Tinsley Carmichael—didn’t they? A sick feeling overcame her as she grasped for the mental roster of nice things she’d done for her fellow Waverlies. She’d started cool clubs like the Cinephiles to bring a little cultured fun into their dreary lives. She’d helped Callie get over Easy, at least the first time around. She’d thrown the party at the Miller farm, which had ended up even more exciting than she’d planned. She … well, the list went on and on.

I wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with you.

The words cut so deeply Tinsley couldn’t remember where she was going, and she sat down on the steps. She folded up her knees and rested her chin on her hands. One last damp, half-ruined art history study card lay disintegrating on the walkway, looking a lot like her heart felt right now.

Email Inbox

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Date:
Friday, November 1, 12:39 P.M.

Subject:
Re: Meeting

Sebastian,

Since I didn’t hear from you about my previous e-mail, and you didn’t get in touch with me at the Halloween party—perhaps that wasn’t the right place to discuss things, anyway—I thought I’d try again. Are you free to get together sometime this weekend and practice some Latin? I’m free all weekend, so please let me know.

Best,

Brett

Jenny spotted Zorro—aka Drew Gately—lingering around the benches at the edge of the senior parking lot. He stood among a group of senior guys in lacrosse windbreakers and girls in puffy jackets and chinos. She paused in the rain and listened to the drizzle smack against her black-and-white Marimekko umbrella, readying herself to infiltrate the crowd of people. But instead, Drew seemed to sense her presence, glancing in her direction. With a couple quick words to his friends, he stepped away from them and headed straight toward her.

Wearing slightly frayed khakis and a blue Abercrombie & Fitch button-down under a hooded navy Le Tigre jacket, Drew looked like a prototypical boarding school boy: well-bred, lacrosse-playing, Ivy league—headed, and devilishly sexy.

“No practice, huh?” Drew ran a hand through his short, sandy blond hair and grinned down at Jenny. He was taller than her—of course, he’d be a midget if he wasn’t—but was probably only five-nine or so. At least Jenny had gotten something right this time. Maybe this would work out better than falling for ginormous guys like Easy and Julian and feeling unbearably silly in comparison.

It would certainly be easier to kiss him.

“Canceled.” She twirled her umbrella over her shoulder, enjoying the feel of Drew’s friends watching her. There were some-familiar faces—a girl everyone called Jinxy who lived on the first floor in Dumbarton, a guy she’d seen hanging around Tinsley a few times—but mostly she didn’t recognize them. “The monsoon makes it a little hard.”

Drew gave her a loopy grin and pulled a faded Mets hat onto his head. He glanced down at her beneath the low brim. “That’s too bad. Those field hockey skirts are pretty adorable.”

“Not when they’re covered in mud.” Jenny glanced over Drew’s shoulder at his friends, who were all watching the two of them. She kind of wished he’d invite her over to meet them. In her wide-leg James jeans and Doc Martens, and a super-soft gray angora sweater, Jenny felt very boarding school chic herself. As she opened her mouth to suggest getting a cup of coffee out of the rain, Drew spoke again.

“Want to go for a ride?”

“You have a car?” Jenny asked, surprised. She pulled the belt of her raincoat tighter around her as the rain started to fall more heavily. “I thought they were just for day students.”

“It’s my roommate’s,” Drew explained. “He got his parents to write some kind of bullshit medical note that says he needs a car.” They started walking toward the parking lot, and Jenny fought off a wave of disappointment that she wasn’t going to meet his friends. Well, even if no one saw them, it would still be nice to spend some time alone with Drew. After all, she had to find out if he was her secret admirer. Drew unlocked the doors of a black Mustang convertible and opened the passenger door for her. He grinned down at her, blushing irresistibly, like he’d been thinking about kissing her.

Suddenly, the memory of her and Julian’s first kiss jolted her like an electric shock. Sitting on the tree stump, outside the barn, under the clear night sky filled with stars like diamonds. Their kiss had been so unexpected, and yet so natural, as if they’d both known all along it was going to happen.

Well, it
had
been perfect … until she found out he’d been fooling around with Tinsley Carmichael. Those first few days after he’d told her about Tinsley had been terrible. All she could think about was Julian comparing her kisses to Tinsley’s. He’d sent her e-mails, and texts, all trying to explain, and asking her to please give him another chance. But it was too late. It was impossible to think about kissing Julian again without thinking about Tinsley Carmichael’s tongue in his mouth.
Ew
.

Drew slid into the driver’s seat as Jenny eased into the passenger’s. “I, uh, don’t think I’ve been in a Mustang before,” she noted, hoping he couldn’t detect the hesitation in her voice. The car was pretty cheesy. Its all-black leather interior gleamed as if it had been recently polished with a soft cloth diaper, and there were no signs of the normal McDonald’s wrappers or crushed cigarette butts. But the smell of Drakkar Noir permeated the interior and Jenny cracked the automatic window a tad, just enough to let in some fresh air without soaking the car with rain. A giant platinum
S
encrusted with what Jenny hoped weren’t real diamonds dangled on a chain from the rear-view mirror.

Drew blushed as he adjusted the rearview mirror. “Pretty classy, huh?” He traced the sparkling
S
with a fingertip. “I guess I’ll have to make sure your first time in a Mustang is an experience.” He put the car in reverse and stepped on the gas. Jenny felt her stomach drop a little as the wet gravel spun beneath the tires and they whirled out of the parking lot. The bare branches of wet trees reached for the sides of the car as they sped through the Waverly gates. Jenny settled back in her seat, not sure where they were going—or why, exactly—but she was definitely going to appreciate it.

“Find some music if you want.” Drew wiped a slash in the fog on the windshield with the sleeve of his Le Tigre jacket.

Jenny settled back in her seat and flipped through a worn CD wallet with a Dropkick Murphys sticker plastered on the front. She watched the tiny stores in Rhinecliff flash by and wished it were sunny out so they could wander around arm in arm.

“My roommate’s from Jersey, and he’s got some kind of guido tastes.” Drew nodded toward the CD case. “He’s cool, though.”

“Where are
you
from?” Jenny asked. She wondered what her father would say about her going for a ride with a boy she’d just met—well, she knew what he’d say. But somehow, she felt totally comfortable around Drew. Jenny flipped past Bon Jovi and My Chemical Romance, looking for something a little more … she didn’t know. A little less Jersey, maybe.

“I moved around a lot as a kid,” Drew answered, running a hand through his short, sandy hair as the other remained poised on the wheel. “San Francisco, Chicago, Vermont, a couple years in Guam, a little time in Germany.”

“Really?” She had no idea where Guam was, but it sounded exotic. “That must have been interesting.”

“Not really. I kind of just wished I could, you know, have a less complicated answer when someone asks where I’m from.” Drew’s mouth curled into a half-grin. “So where are
you
from?”

“New York,” Jenny proclaimed, a little surprised at how proud she was of the fact. She spotted a CD with a black-and-white photograph of an elephant in a top hat. “Oh, I love the Raves.” She slid the CD into the player and turned the volume up. “My brother turned me on to them,” she added, not wanting to brag about the fact that she’d actually spent a lot of time hanging out with the band, part of the reason she’d been “asked” to not return to Constance Billard last year.

“Where does your brother go?” Drew turned the volume up a little, which Jenny took as tacit approval of her choice in music.

“He’s at Evergreen,” she said. “Out in Washington State.” She missed Dan and hoped he’d forget the lame plan he’d e-mailed her about last week. He was thinking of spending Thanksgiving working on Habitat for Humanity houses in Spokane. Couldn’t he for once be normal and come home for some of Rufus’s famous overcooked suckling pig, stuffed turkey, and cranberry-marshmallow-yam pie? She smiled at the thought. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“What’s your favorite place in New York?” Drew asked at the same time, his fingers drumming the steering wheel. They both laughed.

“Central Park, probably,” Jenny said, surprised at how quickly it came out. “The Strand, of course. The little shops on St. Mark’s. The Met.”

“I love Central Park,” Drew offered.

He turned the car onto a heavily wooded street, the almost bare trees forming a dark canopy over their heads. “Have you even been down here before?” he asked, glancing at Jenny. “This is where the Rhinecliff elite live.” He slowed the car down as they passed the first house, a sprawling Tudor with a red Porsche in the driveway.

“Not bad.” Jenny spotted a modern-looking house that was all glass and wood and sharp angles. It looked just like the house Brett had said Eric Dalton lived in. She wondered if he was inside right now, hooking up with some other underage girl, or if he’d cleared out of the area altogether.

Drew rested his hand casually on the stick shift as they passed a monstrous Georgian with two Hummers in the driveway. “So,” he asked suddenly, his voice low and suggestive. “Are you glad you didn’t get kicked out?““Duh,” Jenny answered playfully, shifting in the leather seat to face him. She tossed her curly brown hair back over her shoulders. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be riding in a Mustang right now.”

Drew’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. “That’d be my loss.” They turned off the wooded street and headed back toward the main drag, disappointment surging through Jenny. She’d kind of hoped Drew would want to … she didn’t know. Park somewhere? It sounded sketchy when she thought about it.

“Someone told me you had your bags packed and everything,” he added. “Is that true?”

Jenny remembered that awful afternoon, randomly flinging clothes and her personal belongings into duffel bags and suitcases, trying desperately to hold back tears. She shuddered and shifted in her seat. She wanted to play it cool with Drew. “It wasn’t a big deal.” She traced her finger in the fog forming at the bottom of her window. “I don’t have that much stuff.”

Drew chuckled. “Well, I’m glad it worked out.”

There it was again, the same thing he’d said to her at the Halloween party. What did he mean by “worked out”?
Just say it,
she thought. She turned and smiled at him and he smiled back. “Yeah?” she asked, trying to prompt him to say more with her eyes. Could it really be Drew who’d paid off Mrs. Miller to say her cows started the fire? If so, how long had he been watching her from afar? How come he’d never said anything before?

“Yeah,” Drew replied easily. “If you’d left Waverly, we never would’ve met.” He glanced at her as he pulled out into Main Street traffic. “And I really wanted to meet you.”

Jenny giggled. “Well, I’d really like to meet whoever saved me.”

“Would you?”

“Yeah, of course.” Jenny bit her lower lip playfully. She searched Drew’s face for some unmistakable sign, but he was concentrating on the road. An old lady stepped into the crosswalk in front of Nocturne, the newish twenty-four-hour diner that had quickly become a favorite Waverly hangout. She waved her cane angrily in the air, as if Drew had come too close for comfort.

“What would you say to him?” Drew asked, a devious look coming over his face. He accelerated as the old lady cleared the crosswalk.

Without missing a beat, and not really knowing where it came from, Jenny said, “Maybe I wouldn’t say anything. Maybe I’d show him.” A ray of sunshine blasted through the rain clouds momentarily and then disappeared. Jenny wished that they could take the top down and that everyone could see her with Drew as they rolled through the streets of Rhinecliff.