The Boyfriend App (26 page)

Alec pressed a black button. “Send them up to get her,” he said into an intercom.

I braced myself. For security, for the FBI, for whoever was coming to take me away and lock me up for illegal hacking and software pirating. I was guilty of it; that was for sure.

We never go down without a fight,
my father used to say when we watched Notre Dame football on TV, making us a part of them.
Even when we’re outmatched.

I yanked my buyPhone from my pocket.

Alec’s black eyes were wild. “Call whoever you like. Who do you think the world will believe? Public, or a thieving high-school student? How do you think the law punishes a person who steals multibillion-dollar property?”

Shut up, Alec.

I tore across the room and hung my head over the ledge into the center of the spiral. BuyWare could be activated by targeting individual cell numbers, and the original Boyfriend App stored every contact number registered. I copied and pasted the lacrosse teams’ digits. I tried to keep the dizziness at bay as I stared hundreds of feet down to the first floor where the Harrison lacrosse team waited with my mom and my friends. I spied Aidan sitting on the edge of a sofa drinking a Coke. Maybe it wasn’t the worst idea to activate him, too—Aidan’s smarts plus the lacrosse brawn. Unbeatable.

I added Aidan’s number. Nerves shot from my feet to my fingertips.

“Hey, guys!” I screamed down into the spiral. Everybody looked up.

IT’S ON

The lacrosse guys jumped to their feet. Xander moved first. He sprinted past the wall of gushing water and the mermaid-receptionists. “Audrey!” he yelled.

Aidan watched the team tear past him. “Audrey?” he called back up at me. “You okay?”

I shook my head. And then Aidan started sprinting, too.

Alec’s seawater vein throbbed. He was saying something about me regretting the day I messed with his institution, but he was drowned out by a single word echoing up the stairwell.

Audrey! Audrey! Audrey!

“What the—?” Alec said beneath his breath, moving to the spiral and taking in the dozens of guys circling the sloping floors and screaming my name.

“Security!” he blared into his intercom.

Aidan’s dark head of curls mesmerized me as he rounded the spiral.

Xander glanced up. His hazel eyes blazed—just like in the cafeteria. He lunged forward, and the rest of the team followed, banging into fancy chrome desks and tipping over cartons of writing utensils. Public employees screamed and bolted out of the way of the herd. One skinny guy seemed to miss the point, and cheered instead: “Go, lacrosse players!” And then when Aidan passed him: “Go, hot techie guy!”

Woody Ames knocked into the man from outside with the pink Mohawk. His paper coffee cup crushed between them. A Public employee who looked like Usher dove on top of his keyboard to save it from the Mohawk-man’s coffee spillage.

The Guys in Dark Suits were back—materializing on different levels of the spiral—but there were only eight of them, and there were two dozen lax players, plus Aidan. The Guys could only tackle one player at a time, and each time they released one, he’d spring to his feet and start the climb again. I heard Xander’s voice shouting some kind of battle cry as the Guy in the Dark Suit who drove my mom and Lindsay chased him. Xander turned to see how close the Guy was and crashed into a mammoth printer. By the time he scrambled to his feet the Guy in the Dark Suit was too close. I was sure he was going to get him when Aidan stopped short and jutted his leg in front the Guy’s feet. The Guy went flying into a skinny Public employee and they smashed into bright orange beanbag chairs.

Aidan’s eyes were wild. Xander high-fived him, and they ran along with the rest of the team around the final level of the spiral. My mom and Lindsay sprinted a few levels below. “Sweetie?!” my mom screamed.

Alec slammed the button on his desk over and over. “Security!”

Woody Ames darted in front of Xander. “Audrey,” Woody said, reaching his arms forward like he was either going to hug or tackle me. But then Xander shoved Woody into a marble stand topped with a miniature version of the Alec Pierce sculpture from outside. “Not again, Woody!” he shouted as Woody and the sculpture crashed. Alec Pierce’s nose broke off and rolled down the sloping floor. “I know you did it with Blake, scumbag,” Xander said as Woody groaned and rubbed his shoulder.

“
Te amo
, Audrey!” screamed Xander’s teammate Ken Hanks, who pronounced words like
enchilada
in a Spanish accent even though he wasn’t Spanish, like Alex Trebek does.

Xander came closer, panting. His arms went around my waist. But then Aidan was suddenly next to me, too. He smelled like a heady mix of sunblock and grass. He shouldered Xander out of the way and pulled me close. “Give it a rest, Knight,” he said levelly. He seemed shockingly calm for someone whose hormones were being stimulated by an app. “She’s not your girlfriend,” he said.

Xander stood his ground. “Oh, and she’s
yours
?”

Aidan stepped toward Xander. He still had me pressed against his side. He was a few inches taller than Xander, and he looked down at him and growled, “Why don’t you ask her who she wants?”

I could barely breathe. It felt
incredible
to be pressed against him. I reached up and touched the line of his jaw—I didn’t care that all the other guys could see me do it. I’d wanted to for so long. And now I could go for it without worrying about what he’d do, because of the app.

Aidan looked at me with more heat than anyone ever had before. My heart thrummed in my chest. His arms tightened around my waist and my legs went weak. And then he titled his chin and I couldn’t think anymore.

His lips touched mine and we melted into each other. His lips were so soft. They opened, and his kiss grew stronger and more insistent until I felt his body tighten against me. I couldn’t catch my breath. It didn’t matter how many times I’d fantasized about making out with him—it was so much better than anything I could’ve imagined. I wrapped my arms around his neck and returned his passion until I could hardly stand up. I was like a rag doll in his arms.

It’s not real.

The words broke into my thoughts uninvited, like an accusation.

I pulled away. “Aidan,” I started. I could barely speak.

It’s not real.

My heart felt twice its size. I couldn’t think straight. The only thing I knew was that I needed to get out of there, and fast.

I opened my mouth to tell Aidan we needed to go, but he was already scooping me into his arms. I heard my mom, Lindsay, and Mindy on the outskirts of the crowd, asking me if I was okay. Then the lacrosse players closed in on us and pushed Aidan and me away from Alec. Aidan’s arms held me snug against him. He gazed longingly into my eyes, and I tried to remind myself over and over that it was all fake. It was about to be over as soon as I pressed a button.

I looked over Aidan’s shoulder and caught Alec’s glance.

Know your opponent.

The Public security team was scrambling through the mayhem when Alec called them off, and even though I’d just had the best kiss of my life and my mind was spinning, I was suddenly very sure of something: Alec wasn’t going to turn me in to the authorities because doing so meant implicating us both—me for hacking, him for using hormone-inducing software on unsuspecting teenagers for financial gain.

His oil-spill eyes caught fire. “You’ll regret this,” he promised.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

chapter twenty-nine

For immediate release:

PUBLIC DISQUALIFIES

HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENT FROM PUBLIC APP CONTEST

Theft of Intellectual Property Leaves Public Corp “No Choice”

Public is saddened to announce the disqualification of Audrey McCarthy from their nationwide mobile application contest. Upon review, it has been brought to our attention that Audrey McCarthy stole intellectual property for the Boyfriend App from fellow classmate Blake Andrea Dawkins. An anonymous source provided us with the following email messages from the Public Party archive:

Blake Dawkins: “What’s up, trog? Maybe you should use your computer skills to get yourself a boyfriend. Hey, a Boyfriend App! That’s an awesome idea for the Public contest. I’m gonna get working on it stat.”

In an exclusive statement, Dawkins told Public: “I never wanted to say anything because I felt so bad for her. She hardly has any friends, let alone an original idea.”

The grand prize for Most Popular App has been awarded to runner up Aurora Baker, creator of SmittenKitten, an app that delivers baby cat photos to your buyPhone daily. Aurora joins Aidan Bailey and Nigit Gurung, creators of PhilanthrApp, as the gifted students receiving two hundred thousand dollars in college-scholarship money.

“We are incredibly disappointed here at Public,” says CEO Alec Pierce. “We’d like to take this moment to remind all innovators: Take steps to protect your creative work from pirates like Audrey McCarthy with our latest apps, CopyrightIt and PatentApp.”

My eyes were so swollen I could barely see the road. Every time I shut them they burned, so I tried focusing on the yellow lines emerging through the fog while Lindsay drove. The air-conditioning attacked my skin. Claire clutched a Ziploc full of celery and chattered on about the horse club she started. Lindsay was silent.

We’d been in South Bend for less than forty-eight hours, and Alec Pierce had already made good on his promise. He’d figured out a way to hurt me without revealing his own wrongdoings, and still left me unable to defend myself without exposing the things I’d done wrong, too. I couldn’t tell my mom he’d manipulated Blake’s Party archive. And I couldn’t tell Lindsay or Aidan or Mindy or Nigit: not without involving them in something dangerous—something that could get worse if I didn’t keep my mouth shut.

I’d tried texting Aidan a million times. But he wouldn’t text me back. I was freaking out at what that could mean. He could be mad because I apped him. Or what if he was done with me because of what he and everyone else thought I did?

My stomach dropped when we pulled into Harrison. The white Public van was back, chugging through the parking lot.

Lindsay and I pushed through the front entrance and heard the Battery’s voice cackle over the loudspeaker: “Attention, Harrison students. In lieu of homeroom, report immediately to the gymnasium, where Public employees are standing by. Due to recent events, all Harrison students must return their Beast 5.0s. Please have your student-identification card ready as you return your device.”

A groan vibrated through the halls. My cheeks burned. I tried to move faster, but my foot snagged on Wes the Water Polo Boy’s water polo ball. Lindsay caught me moments before a full on face-plant.
“Chin up, Audrey,”
she whispered as she pulled me to my feet.

Goth Girl looked disgusted, but I couldn’t tell if it was directed at me or if it was just the way her black lipstick sloped south at the corners. Nina Carlyle, the Olympic hopeful, snickered. The basketball player with the stitches stopped midconversation to gape.

Martha Lee clutched her Beast (already covered in stickers like
GET ME TO THE TOP OF THE NEAREST PYRAMID!
and a cartoon cutout of a cheerleader who looked like a drunk Barbie doing a split). “It isn’t fair!” she screeched.
Tell me about it, Martha.

The worst was Briggs Lick, who shouldered past me and said, “Not cool, Audrey.”

Lindsay’s grip on my arm tightened. “Just keep going,” she said.

Blake stood at the entrance to the gym. She’d dressed up in shimmery gold pants with charcoal heels. A tight white sweater hugged her C-cups.

I supposed all of this was what her “something big” was. Not that she was going to tell me—but maybe getting me to call her or meet up was part of the plan. It wasn’t clear. And now it didn’t matter.

“We should have known it was your idea,” Mara Perez was saying, twisting her curls into a banana clip while her twin agreed: “Totally.”

“Something this good had
Blake
written all over it,” Carrie Sommers said, gesturing like a skywriter etching Blake’s name in cottony clouds. She reddened when she saw Lindsay and me.

“Are your lips chapped from kissing Blake’s butt?” Lindsay asked Carrie. But her voice didn’t sound as confident as it normally did. She had to know everyone was against me. And now,
us
. “You don’t have to do this,” I whispered.

Blake caught my eye. A flash of doubt passed over her face. It was a rare look for her, but it was one I knew how to spot. But then she sniffed and transformed her expression. “Here they are,” she said with fake pity. “The Cheater and her publicist.”

Harrison kids clutched their Beasts and turned toward me. “Why you do it?” Annborg asked. There was a picture of Blake taped to her Beast.

“Yeah,” Ken Hanks piped in.
“Por qué lo hiciste?”

Don’t say anything, don’t say anything.

“Poor Aubrey, she has nothing to say to defend herself,” Blake said, taking a dainty sip from a massive Starbucks that cost more than my T-shirt. “Cheaters suck.”

Kevin Jacobsen held his Beast with two hands and bounced his hacky sack on top. “Yeah. Cheaters suck!” he echoed,
heh-heh-heh
ing a laugh that turned into a cough.

“And trogs suck,” Joanna Martin said, standing so close to Blake her blond hair made them look like a black-and-white cookie.