The Heartbreakers (23 page)

Take a sneak peak
at
The Crushes,
the sequel to
The Heartbreakers

Raven threw the bag of trash in the big trash can and closed the lid to wheel it out to the street. She hated this chore. She'd tried getting out of it by hurrying out of the house to meet her friends, but her mother caught her at the back door.

“Before you leave,” Mrs. Valenti said, “make sure you take out the trash.”

Raven grabbed hold of the handle, tipped the can back on the two wheels, and lugged the thing out from behind the garage. She rounded the back corner of the house and heard a scraping noise coming from the street. It was like metal scraping against wood.

Someone rode a skateboard down the street toward a homemade railing about knee height. He jumped and slid the skateboard down the railing.

Raven watched as he made a perfect landing and then kicked the board up with a foot.

It wasn't until he looked over at her that she realized she'd stopped in the middle of the driveway to gawk.

“Hey,” he said, tipping his head.

“Hi.” Raven tried to kick-start her brain into thinking again and dragged the trash can the rest of the way down the drive. She set it along the curb and was about to hurry inside, when the boy skated over to her.

“You live here?” he asked.

She pursed her lips and nodded.

The boy was new to her. She'd never seen him around town before, let alone on her street.

Blue eyes peered at her from beneath the straight brim of a DC baseball hat. He had on baggy jeans, a black T-shirt, and white DC shoes. The skateboard slung beneath an arm said B
LAKE
across the length of it with a silhouette of an alien at the bottom.

From what Raven could see beneath the baseball hat, his dark hair was cropped close to his scalp.

“My grandpa lives across the street.” He pointed over his shoulder at the two-story Tudor. That was Mr. Kailing's house. Raven didn't know he had grandchildren. He mostly kept to himself and never had people over. He was nice, though. Last summer when Raven had a flat tire, Mr. Kailing had come out and changed it for her. He might have been close to seventy, but he still got around well.

“Your grandfather, huh? That's nice,” she said, nodding quickly. “Well, I have to go.”

“Hey, Blake!” someone called.

The boy, presumably Blake, glanced at Mr. Kailing's house and Raven couldn't help but look, too. The man who'd yelled from the front porch had one of those deep, husky voices that you couldn't help but follow.

A large black man waved from the porch.

“That's my…uh…uncle,” Blake said.

Raven raised her brow. “Really?”

Blake
looked
one hundred percent white, but maybe he had some African American in him? Like Raven. Mr. Kailing was white, but that didn't mean one of Blake's parents wasn't black.

Blake dropped the skateboard and put a foot on it. “It was nice meeting you…”

“Raven.”

He smiled. “Raven.” He propelled the board forward with his left foot. “I'll see ya ‘round, Raven,” he called over a shoulder before disappearing inside Mr. Kailing's garage.

The man standing on the porch waved Raven a peace sign before heading back inside. The screen door closed behind him.

Raven went inside her own house and passed Jordan in the living room.

“Why are you grinning like a goon?” Jordan said.

“What? I'm not.”

But she was.

Now that she had a boyfriend, Alexia was finding it difficult to have “friend” time. She had had good intentions to split her time between her friends and Ben, but it seemed that when she had a free afternoon, her friends were either working or out with their boyfriends.

Not to mention, spending time with Ben always seemed sweeter. She felt like such a terrible friend for thinking that, but it was true.

It felt like it'd been forever since they all got together, so they'd made plans to get together today. Alexia pulled into Bershetti's parking lot and parked next to Sydney's SUV.

Inside, Alexia pulled her sunglasses off and stuffed them in her bag.

Bershetti's was a nice-size Italian restaurant in the middle of Birch Falls. It was owned by the Bershetti family, who had opened it some fifty years ago. It'd been updated since then and was one of the nicer restaurants in town.

A deep Concord purple Venetian plaster covered the upper half of the walls while white wainscoting spanned the bottom half. A thick chair railing met the two around the entire restaurant. Candle sconces hung on the walls every three feet or so. There were real plants everywhere. Some sat in the window partitions between the lower-level dining room and the upper dining room. They hung in planters from the ceilings.

Alexia's mom told her that most of the plants were herbs and that Mrs. Bershetti used a lot of them in her food.

The host, a forty-something woman with silver and black hair, greeted Alexia with a wide smile. “How many?”

“I'm meeting my friends here,” Alexia said, scanning the restaurant over the host's shoulder. “Oh, there they are.”

Kelly, Sydney, and Raven sat in the lower level of the restaurant in the very middle. Kelly waved.

Alexia made her way through the upper level of the restaurant and down the five stairs to the lower level. She sat down next to Kelly, across from Raven and Sydney.

“I'm so happy we're all together!” Kelly said, clapping her hands. “I've been bored out of my mind. Being single isn't so fun anymore.”

Unfortunate but true, Kelly had taken over Alexia's previous role as the single girl of the group, though something told Alexia that Kelly was dealing with it better than Alexia had. There was nothing like feeling unwanted and uncool. Being boyfriendless until your junior year of high school was bordering on lame.

“I'm glad we're getting together, too,” Raven said. “I sent Horace off to Detroit today. I feel like if I stayed home, I'd go stir-crazy.”

Despite the foul mood Raven seemed to be in, she looked stunning per usual. She had on a white flowing skirt that grazed her knees. She'd gone with a plain purple tank top that seemed to match the Venetian plaster on the walls. She'd pulled her dark, wavy hair back in a ponytail and slipped on a white headband.

Sitting next to her, Sydney was Raven's complete opposite. Sydney's straight black hair hung loosely around her shoulders. She had on a white polo and had worn jeans despite the summer temps.

The girls all settled in around the table and started talking, but Alexia couldn't help but watch her friends inconspicuously over the top of her menu. At the beginning of this year, they'd barely hung out. That is, until Kelly, Raven, and Sydney all lost their boyfriends on the same night.

It was because of Alexia's Breakup Code that all three girls had gotten over their heartache. And in the long run, all four of them had gotten closer.

When they were together like this, Alexia couldn't help appreciating her friends, appreciating the little time they seemed to have to hang out together.

Sometimes she wished they still had the Breakup Code or something similar to it to keep them together. The Code had bridged any gaps between them.

“Oh my god,” Kelly said, bringing Alexia out of her reverie.

“What?”

They all followed her wide-eyed expression to the front of the restaurant, where a group of guys had entered.

“That's the guy I had my kickboxing lesson with today,” Kelly breathed.

Her cheeks had gone pink.

“You took kickboxing today?” Raven said.

“What guy?” Sydney asked. “Which one is he?”

“The one in the front,” Kelly answered, still staring. “The one with the biceps.”

“Holy crap,” Raven said as the group of guys made their way toward the lower-level dining area. “He's hot!”

“I know.” Kelly raked her teeth over her bottom lip. “You should see him in one of those Under Armour shirts.”

Sydney rolled her eyes and picked her menu back up. “He's probably a muscle moron.”

Kelly shook her head. “He wasn't a moron. He knew every muscle in the human body. Muscles I had never heard of.”

Alexia appraised the guy Kelly couldn't stop drooling over. The sleeves of his navy blue T-shirt hugged the dip between his deltoid and bicep. The rest of the T-shirt wasn't formfitting enough to show definition so it was left to Alexia's imagination.

Alexia wasn't a huge fan of guys with muscles, but coupled with a smoldering scowl, strong cheekbone structure, and striking green eyes, Kelly's mystery man had Alexia's attention.

Seems he had the attention of every other girl in Bershetti's, too. Well…except for Sydney's.

When he and his friends passed the table, Kelly's kickboxing instructor stopped and shot a white smile at Kelly.

“Hey! How are you feeling?”

Kelly's mouth hung slightly agape. She stared at the guy for several long seconds before Raven kicked her beneath the table.

“Sore,” Kelly said. “A little bit sore.”

“That happens on the first day. It'll take a day or so and you'll feel fine.”

“Yeah.” Kelly nodded and kept nodding as if she was stuck in that gesture.

“Hi,” Raven said, offering her hand. “I'm Raven. A friend of Kelly's.”

“I'm Adam.” He reached across the table to shake. “Kelly did kickboxing with me today.” He looked over at her, smiling quietly as if kickboxing was their little secret, as if Kelly had done him a huge favor by working out with him.

Kelly blushed and looked away.

Alexia didn't blame her friend. She'd only witnessed that smile as a bystander and
she
wanted to melt.

“Well, I better go before my friends start harassing me. It was nice to meet you all. Nice to see you, Kelly. You should come back next week with your brother.”

“Yeah, okay.” She nodded as he walked away.

“Wow, he was hot,” Raven said. “How have I not seen him before?”

“He's new,” Kelly said. “He's a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania but came here for the summer to work at Family Center. His uncle owns the place.”

“UPenn?” Sydney arched an eyebrow, clearly impressed with his school yet unwilling to admit it.

“So that makes him…what, like nineteen?” Raven said.

Kelly nodded.

“You should ask him out,” Raven went on. She tugged on the necklace, hanging near her collarbone, that Horace had given her.

“What! No!” Kelly shook her head. “Did you see him, Ray? He's like so out of my league!”

Raven sipped from a glass of water. “No one is out of your league, Kel. No one.”

Kelly's mouth hitched up into a subtle smile. “Thanks.” The expression fell and she shook her head again, her strawberry blond hair sliding in front of her face, hiding her expression. “Even if he would go out with me, I don't know how to ask him out. I'd be so lost. Will was the one who did the asking when we got together. No way could I be the pursuer.”

Alexia sat forward, butterflies fluttering in her stomach. “A crush code,” she said just as suddenly as the idea had struck her.

Sydney set her menu down. “A what?”

“To help Kelly get that guy or whatever guy she wants. We could create a crush code for her to follow just like the Breakup Code.”

“No way,” Kelly said. “Come on, you guys. I don't need another code to follow and I would never in a million years get Adam!”

“We could all use it,” Alexia said, “as a way to keep our own relationships strong.”

“I'm in,” Raven said. “I could use it while Horace is gone to
not
fall for a crush.”

“Yeah,” Sydney said. “And I could use it to put the spark back in my relationship with Drew.”

“Let's start now. Here.” Raven handed Alexia her napkin.

“No.” Kelly shook her head for emphasis. “No-no-no-no.”

Sydney pulled a pen out of her bag. “The Breakup Code worked for all of us. A crush code might work, too.”

Kelly sat back against her chair, grumbling to herself. This would be good for her, Alexia thought. She just had to give it a shot.

Alexia grabbed the pen and began to write.

Excerpt copyright © 2008 by Pamela Wells.