The Bookworm Next Door: The Expanded and Revised Edition (11 page)

              Kelly couldn’t look away from her older brother.  Tears started to form in her eyes. 

              “I know you love me,” Brady stated softly, removing his hand.  “I know you just want to protect me against the evils of girls that aren’t worthy of my time, but that is my decision.  I like Hannah, I could love Hannah, but I need you to stay out of it.  Okay?”

              “Okay.”

              “She is still your friend.  You can still hang out with her without me, but don’t ask either of us for relationship details.  If Hannah and I don’t work out then that is between Hannah and me, not you, Hannah, and me.  Can you handle that?”

              “Yes,” she said with a weak sob.

              Brady pulled his little sister into a hug, “I do love you, you know.  No matter what, or who enters our lives, you will always be my little sister.  I’m going to protect you to the best of my ability.  You can stop feeling guilty about my broken arm.  That car was speeding and you didn’t do anything to purposely hurt me.  Do you understand?”

              “Yes.” 

              Looking at the piece of paper in his hand, Brady briefly considered the invitation.  Holding it up to where Hannah could see it as he walked her towards her Chemistry class.  “What do you think?” 

              Scanning the paper, “David’s throwing a party?”

              “Not according to what Kelly is saying,” he paused to roll his eyes.  “Aimee manipulated David into hosting the party.  I think Aimee is throwing it and using David’s name as a way to get people to come.” 

              “Figures,” Hannah grumbled.  “I wish I knew what she did to get him in her back pocket.”

              Shrugging, “I don’t know.”  Changing the direction of the conversation slightly, “Do you want to go?”

              Looking sideways at her boyfriend, she pondered his question for a moment.  “I think I’d rather go to the movies or do something else.”  Kissing him quickly on the cheek, Hannah disappeared into her classroom. 

              A second later his phone lit up with a text,
Maybe we’ll go.  It might be a good way to go public with our relationship.

              David stood back as Aimee and Will prepared for the “Massive Party to End All Parties”, as Aimee called it.   All he had to do was provide a location and bribe the neighbors with promises of yard work if they didn’t call the cops. 

              Will and a few of his football teammates brought in coolers filled with drinks.  Aimee supervised as David’s brother, Peter, brought in a keg; he really didn’t want to think about how much Peter had been paid to do that.

              All David did was pack up the breakables and photos before locking them in his mother’s bedroom.  Hesitating on the stairs, he turned back around and locked all of the doors except the one leading to the bathroom.  With the people Aimee was likely to have invited, he didn’t want to have to do any next-day room checks. 

              Honestly, he didn’t want to have the party at all.  David desired having the time to curl up and sleep instead of dealing with the people he called his friends.  The mask he wore claimed that he cared about the meaningless, trivial, mundane things that Will and Aimee talked about day in and day out.  The face beneath the mask was bored. 

              He was popular.  He was supposed to be happy about that. 

He was far from happy. 

The sight of Christmas lights and paper lanterns in the trees, on bushes, and around the tree house didn’t cheer him up. 

David had only agreed to the party to get Aimee to leave him alone about throwing one.  He failed to factor in Drunken Aimee Antics and was now wondering if he could hide out during his own party.  He didn’t even imagine taking into account what Sober Plotting Aimee was capable of doing.

Where could he hide?

Maybe Mr. Davis wouldn’t notice if David went over there to hang out in his kitchen.  He could picture Delilah’s face if he did go over there to disappear.  She would end up reminding him that he had made this particular bed filled with these particular friends and he would have to lie in it. 

              He could admit that not everybody in his “new” group of friends was all bad; Kyle was always good for a discussion, but the odds weren’t likely that Kyle would be coming to this party.  However, it was also difficult to predict Kyle’s actions or thought process so anything could happen. 

              That was really the problem: anything could happen. 

              ‘Tonight was the night,’ Aimee thought. Tonight she would make David see that they should be together. 

              She had a lot of celebrate.  Nobody had been able to prove that she was the mastermind behind destroying Mr. Wallace’s car.  She had successfully ended three of David’s relationships before they had even reached the one month mark.  She had managed to do the same with several of Kelly’s brother’s relationships; at least until Savannah and Hannah came on the scene.

              She was really proud of getting away with destroying Mr. Wallace’s car.  She had to hire a few people and figure out where Savannah kept her spare car key.  The car key part of the plan was easy; Savannah frequently accidently locked herself out of her car.  Finding people she could pay off had been harder, but it only took a hundred dollars and the agreement that she wouldn’t ask what they were going to do with the money. 

              Aimee was good at making plans; they never failed.  She would get David back if it was the last thing she did.

              “Kelly, we need more lights over there,” she shouted from her perch on a chair. 

She missed Kelly’s glare as the other girl grabbed an armful of twinkle lights and moved in the direction that Aimee had pointed.  Sometimes Kelly really disliked her best friend.   

              It was all planned out.  At some point during the night David would go upstairs and hide out in his room.  She would be ready and waiting for him there. 

              She would give him an hour.  Aimee knew that he didn’t want to throw the party but he never could tell her ‘no’ for anything that she wanted.  She failed to realize that David found humoring her easier than going against her wishes. 

              Aimee didn’t take into account the locked bedroom doors.  It took longer than necessary to find the right room and time was starting to run out.  With only moments to spare, she slipped into his room, relocked the door, and used the time it took David to unlock it to remove all of her clothes. 

              Who could resist a naked girl in his bed?  It was fool proof; those movies that used this tactic couldn’t be all wrong.  Why would it be a common plot in those teen romantic dramas – except for that really old one with the whipped cream bikini – if it didn’t work? 

Not that Aimee ever paid really close attention to the movies; she was usually making out during them instead. 

              Apparently they could fail…

              “What are you doing?” David hissed, shutting his door as soon as he saw her in his bed.  Annoyed, certainly, but mostly he just didn’t need somebody walking by to use the upstairs bathroom – or test the bedroom doors – only to see Aimee naked in his bed and jump to the wrong conclusion. 

             
What would be the right conclusion?
he mused silently. 

              “I thought we could take our relationship to the next level,” she purred.

              “We have no relationship!”  Turning to face the door, “We broke up two years ago!”  Shaking his head, “I don’t want to know how you got in here, but when I get back you better be gone!”

              Slamming the door behind him, David disappeared along with all of Aimee’s carefully crafted plans. 

              Aimee fumed.  She’d get him back somehow.  Maybe if he thought she had moved on… Even though the logic of this new scheme was sadly lacking in details… It was still a common element in those movies she never really paid attention to… Not that her first plan had been fool-proof. 

              “Just stop thinking,” she hissed to herself.  The problem with allowing things to begin spiraling out of control is that it was nearly impossible to put oneself out of the spiral once it had begun.

              Pulling out her phone, she quickly called Will.  “Hey, meet me in the backyard up in that old treehouse.” 

              It was a weak plan, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and Aimee was feeling desperate.  It wouldn’t be so bad if Amanda would answer her e-mails. 

Her plans never failed until today.

              Delilah stared out of her bedroom window, unseeingly, as the mass of bodies clustered around the drinks moved to the beat of a song she could just barely understand.  “Why do people think the louder the music the more of it can be heard?” she thought aloud. 

              She could recognize a few of the familiar faces.  Kyle was watching the crowd as he pretended to drink from his cup; even Delilah could tell that his drink was a decoy.  Or maybe she could tell because she was watching everybody who was next door instead of working on the reading assignment for
The Great Gatsby
. 

              She could tell from her window that Wesley was standing around beside Kyle.  It was obvious that the golden boy was the designated driver for the group that he had come to the party with, especially with Wesley being on his third red Solo cup in an hour and a half. 
At least he is pacing himself
, she idly thought. 

              She imagined that the girls they arrived with were the same girls trying to decide if they should dance on the picnic table or on the picnic benches.  Delilah was torn between the probable show of the table tipping over and breaking, again, or the girls not injuring themselves or others with the evitable table collapse. 

              It was really difficult to miss the patch job from where they had broken the table by trying out their homemade parachutes when they were ten. 
At least I was able to convince him not to jump from the treehouse
, Delilah mused at the memory.

              She missed Aimee and Will climbing into the treehouse. 

All it took was a stumble from the middle of the stairs while Charlotte Davis was reading from a play.  One moment Delilah’s sister was upright and the next she was screaming in pain and clutching an arm.  It was enough to jerk Delilah away from the window and her pity party.   

              “I can’t be a stage manager with a broken arm!” she cried.

After loading her into the car, Mr. Davis started to back-up before coming to a sudden stop.  A familiar silver car was blocking the drive way. 

              Groaning from the back seat, “That’s Aimee’s car,” Delilah supplied.

              Charlotte turned to look at her sister and snarled, “I know you don’t like her, but get that car out of the way.”  The end of her sentence came out more as a growl than actual words. 

              “I’ll check the treehouse,” their father stated.  “David’s probably hiding out.”

              Delilah was right behind him, scanning for David.  It would be much easier to spot him in the crowd than it would be to spot the much shorter Aimee.  Where David was Aimee should be close behind.

              Mr. Davis’ angry shout was clear.  “What do you think you are doing in my treehouse?!?”  His voice echoed through the crowd.

              Delilah hurried to his side, phone ready.  When she saw Aimee and Will in various stages of undress she quickly snapped a picture and hurried off to find David.  There were only a handful of places where he could be hiding. 

              Scanning the backyard and the growing number of people turning to look at Aimee and Will leaving the treehouse, Delilah hurried into the house.

              “We told David that nobody should block the driveways!  If that car is not moved in five seconds I’m calling the cops!”  Mr. Davis yelled. 

              David wasn’t in the kitchen.  He wasn’t in the living room where Delilah saw more red Solo cups than she could count littered across his mother’s massive bookcase.  There was only one place left where he could be hiding.

              Pounding her way upstairs, hearing the shouts of, “All of the bedrooms are locked!” below her, she went to bang her fist on David’s bedroom door.  “David Carver, I know you are in here!”

              Opening the door, he was greeted by the photographic evidence that Aimee didn’t love him quite as much as she claimed. 

              “We said that nobody could block the driveways.  Aimee has her car blocking ours and Charlotte just broke her arm.  Fix this!”  With a toss of her ponytail, Delilah ran back down the stairs and to her father’s waiting car.  “I found David.  He’ll take care of it.”

              David stared at the empty doorway where the furious Delilah had stood.   It had already been a long night with his finding Aimee naked in his bed, and now he had to deal with this.

              He didn’t really care that Aimee had been with Will in the treehouse; he had suspected that they had been more than just friends for a while.  All it did was prove that Aimee was more obsessed with getting what she thought she deserved than with what either of them actually felt about the other. 

              Without hesitation he picked up the phone, “Hi, I’d like to report a noise violation.  It’s a party and I know that most of the kids will scatter as soon as they see a cop car or two.  I’d just like the party to be over; somebody keeps blocking the driveways in the neighborhood and they promised that it wouldn’t happen.” 

              Pausing for a moment, he answered a question, “Sure, it’s…”  David was tired and he was done.  He gave the address and hung up.

              “Hey, Kyle,” David whispered, coming out of his room to warn some of his friends about what was happening. “Can you and Wesley hide the keg in the treehouse?  It’s probably empty by now, knowing Will and his friends, so it shouldn’t be too heavy.  After that you might want to take off and go home; I heard that somebody called the cops.” 

              Kyle, red cup in hand from where he had been pretending to drink all night, just nodded his head before disappearing in the crowd with Wesley on his heels.  Wesley had taken the time to study his friend a bit closer. 

              Once they were out of ear shot Wesley asked Kyle, “Do you think he called them himself?”

              It didn’t take Kyle a moment to think about his friend’s question.  “I wouldn’t put it past him after Aimee blocked the neighbor’s driveway.  Remember, it was the one thing David was dead set against happening.”

              A moment later, David found Hannah and Brady sharing a wooden lawn chair, having decided to go to the party at the last minute, and whispering to each other while Kelly studied them.  “Hey, guys, you might want to get a move on.” 

              Brady stared at him for a long moment.  “Somebody blocked a driveway.”

              “Yeah,” was all David said in response.

              Kelly piped up, “It was Aimee wasn’t it?”

              “Yeah,” he repeated.

              Hannah added, “And she blocked the Davis driveway too, didn’t she?”

              “Yeah,” David blandly repeated for the last time.

              The trio watched him walk off to warn somebody else before starting their commentary concerning the conversation.

              “Aimee needs to get over David,” Hannah stated while they started to walk towards Brady’s truck. 

              Kelly looked at Hannah, “What?  Why?”  She wanted somebody else’s opinion even though she’d thought the same thing a few times herself.

              Brady spoke up, “It was the way that David looked over at Delilah’s house when Hannah asked if it was their driveway that was blocked.  I think he regrets dismissing Delilah like he did.” 

              “But he won’t do anything about it,” Hannah concluded. 

              Kelly, unaware of several factors thanks to her near constant proximity to Aimee, asked, “Why not?”

              Brady looked at his sister, “Popularity is an addictive drug and David isn’t going to want to alienate the friends he actually likes.”  He said staring in the direction David disappeared, “Come on; let’s get out of here before the cops arrive.” 

              “There’s nothing wrong with Aimee,” Kelly protested as they went to Brady’s car.  “She’s a great person.”  It sounded weak even to her ears.

              Kelly conveniently left out all of the schemes and the way that Aimee would sometimes use her as a minion.  She was so lost in thought about Aimee’s antics that she completely missed the look Brady and Hannah exchanged after hearing her defensive comments.  

              Even they had heard the weak protestation Kelly had given in defense of Aimee.