The International Kissing Club (47 page)

“He drives an Escalade. But thanks for the thought. And I’m not quite ready to share this with the others yet, anyway. You won’t tell them, will you?”

“Of course I won’t.”

They pulled into the driveway at Cassidy’s house. Every light was on. “I guess my mom’s home from work,” she said. “Why don’t you spend the night? We can stay up and watch crappy horror movies and sci-fi flicks that Piper always vetoes.”

“Sure,” Izzy said, “I’d like that.” She smiled a little. “I’ve heard pretty good things about
Battlestar Galactica.
Can we give that a try?”

When they opened the front door, Cassidy’s mom was waiting on the sofa in the living room, still in her hospital scrubs.

“Hey, Mom. Izzy’s going to spend the night, okay?”

“Hi, Izzy. Great to see you again.” Her mom’s eyes pinned Cassidy. “Cassidy Michelle, is there something about your trip that you’d like to tell me?”

Cass froze, her mind racing. If her mother was using her middle name, something was wrong. Very, very wrong. International Kissing Club wrong.

“I don’t think so.” She sniffed. “Hey, what’s that smell? Perfume?”

“Take a look in there,” her mom said, nodding to the kitchen, “and then think a bit harder about the answer to my question.”

Cassidy shot Izzy a WTF look. Izzy shrugged. Together they walked across the living room into the little yellow-painted kitchen and were greeted by a ginormous bouquet of white lilies sitting in the middle of the table.

Oh, crap. It was worse than she’d imagined.

“Wow, those are gorgeous. Are they for you, Cass?” Izzy asked.

“I guess so.” She picked through the fragrant blooms to find the card. Not that she needed to—she knew perfectly well who they’d
come from. This many flowers weren’t in Mrs. Gatwick’s budget, after all. Seriously, had he bought out every last white lily in the state?

See you in March, American Girl.

Holy crap. March? That was only … three months away.

She tried not to let her confusion show when she told Izzy, “They’re from Lucas.”

“Who’s Lucas?” her mom asked from the doorway. Between the cloying scent of the bouquet and the condemnation radiating from her mother, she suddenly understood how people could be claustrophobic in a completely open room.

“Um, I think I should go, Cass,” Izzy said, “I have things to do at home, anyway …”

“No, Izzy, please stay.” Cassidy grabbed her arm like she was a lifeline. She
so
did not want to be alone with her mother for this conversation. “Lucas is a guy I met in Australia, Mom.”

“A boy from your school?”

“No, not exactly. He picked me up at the airport.” When she heard the actual words as they left her mouth, she cringed, knowing how her mother would take them. She didn’t need to look to know that her mom’s chin had almost hit the floor.

“A strange guy picked you up at the airport? My Lord, Cassidy, have you lost your mind? He could have been a serial killer for all you knew, or some pervert.”

“No, Mom. Not like that. Mrs. Gatwick sent him. Lucas is sweet and fun and thoughtful, a perfect gentleman in every way.” Her voice caught a little at the end as the dull ache in her chest throbbed with each inhalation of the lily-scented air.

“And you were dating him?” her mom asked.

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you say something?” Betrayal rang in her mom’s voice. “Not once in the past two and a half months did his name come up when we talked. I thought we were close enough for you to tell me
anything
.”

Cassidy chewed on her lip, upset that she’d hurt her mother again. She’d thought it was bad when she told her mom about getting the trip money from her dad, but the look on her mother’s face said this was even worse. “I didn’t want you to freak out, because it was no big deal.” That was a lie. Even she could admit to herself that the reason she hadn’t told her mom about Lucas was because it had been a big deal, bigger than she was ready to accept. And she could see her mom knew it, too.

“Hundreds of dollars’ worth of flowers doesn’t seem like no big deal,” her mom said. “ ‘See you in March, American Girl’ doesn’t seem like no big deal.”

“Oh my God. You read the note?” Cassidy couldn’t believe her mom would do that. All her life, it had been just the two of them. The Barlows against the world. They were in it together, and their entire relationship was based on trust. Trust that had never been doubted. Of course, she’d never given her mother a reason not to trust her until this whole trip had come up and she’d called her dad. Still, it hurt. They’d never had a fight like this. “I thought you trusted me.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“You didn’t answer mine.” They stared at each other for a minute, and from the look in her mom’s eyes, Cassidy knew she wasn’t going to win. But she couldn’t let it go, because as she stood here talking to her mother, it really hit home how much Lucas
wasn’t
like her father.

“Did you sleep with him, Cassidy?”

“Mom, no. I can’t believe you would ask that.”

“Well you must have been doing something with him, because a guy doesn’t spend this much money on flowers for nothing.”

She felt the words like a slap. “Stop it, Mom. He’s rich. The money’s not important to him.”

“If he’s got that much money, then why would you think you’re important to him?”

“Why would you think I’m not? Because no one ever spent that kind of money on
you
?” Her mother’s eyes widened in shock and
Cassidy knew she’d gone too far. She felt her throat close with tears she couldn’t shed, at least not until she made her mother understand.

“Don’t you think I haven’t thought about that, Mom? Haven’t you been telling me since the time I could walk that I should respect myself, not fall for the first guy that looked at me twice? Well, I listened. I listened so well that now I can’t trust any guy. Not even one who acted like I was the most perfect girl in the world. A guy who would have done anything for me. I treated him like crap and ran away because I couldn’t let myself believe what he was saying to me, that he loved me.”

The tears ran hot and sticky on her cheeks now. As she swiped at them with the back of her hand, she was painfully aware of Izzy watching every second of her breakdown, but the tears wouldn’t stop. She had hurt Lucas, and he’d done nothing, nothing but love her. Remembering the wounded look on his face the night she’d run away, and then the next morning at the airport—that she had caused it made the pain in her heart so much worse.

Then her mother began to cry too, making Cassidy feel even more horrible. “Oh, baby girl,” she said, coming to wrap her arms around her. “You’re so young. I just want you to make better choices than I did.”

“I know that, Mom, but I’m not you. I won’t make your mistakes. Whatever happened between Lucas and me, it wasn’t a mistake.”

“You’re in love with him,” her mother said. It was a statement, not a question.

Cassidy sighed heavily, exhausted by the whole argument. “I only knew him for ten weeks. That’s not a long enough time to fall in love with someone, right?”

Her mom laughed, a sad, cynical little sound. “Honey, love doesn’t follow a schedule—it just shows up, usually when you least want it to. Unfortunately, while there’s nothing I know of to stop it, there’s also definitely no mistaking it when it does happen.” Her mom pulled away, kissed her on the cheek, and then, with a sigh, left the room.

“Are you okay?” Izzy asked, her comforting hand on Cassidy’s arm.

“I don’t know,” she answered. She glanced at the little card she still held in her palm. See you in March. March!!!

Cassidy couldn’t help the quick jump in her heartbeat when she reread the words. She woudn’t let herself believe it—that after everything she’d done to him, he would still come all the way to Texas to see her. She was afraid to get her hopes up.

She didn’t know what frightened her more, the idea that he might come. Or that he might not.

Chapter 27
Izzy

It was supposed to get better once her friends came home.

For ten weeks, she’d lived in solitary misery, so lonely she’d started hanging out with Germaine, for God’s sake. Having Piper, Mei, and Cassidy back in Paris should have fixed all that. Instead, it was worse.

The fight they’d had the other day at Dairy Queen still hung in the air. They were all miserable, but no one seemed able to talk about it, least of all Izzy.

On one hand, she’d finally told someone the truth about River. That horrible weight had been pried off her shoulders. And better still, Cassidy hadn’t leaped down her throat, ripped out her stomach, and used it to beat some sense into her. Which was pretty much what Izzy had expected Cassidy to do.

And how weird was that? Cassidy—the one who’d always relentlessly ragged on any girl stupid enough to have sex in high school, the one friend Izzy had been sure she could never tell—was the one she had told. Weirder still, Cassidy had been understanding—though she had called River’s cell and left a message on his voice mail that could earn Cass fifty years to life if he ever disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

But even Cassidy’s vivid description of River’s mangled body parts couldn’t ease the sick feeling in Izzy’s stomach as they entered the yogurt shop to meet Mei and Piper. During homeroom earlier that
day, she’d choked out an apology for her behavior at their reunion. Piper had accepted it stiffly. But some warning bell in the back of her mind told her that Piper wouldn’t be as forgiving if she found out that Izzy had been sitting at Germaine’s table during lunch.

Back when everyone was away, sitting with Germaine had seemed harmless. Now, things had changed. And it wasn’t just because Piper was home, either. Izzy had kissed Tanner. Germaine’s boyfriend.

Now that Tanner’s lips weren’t looming over hers, kissing Germaine’s boyfriend seemed like a colossally bad idea. This was
Germaine
. The girl who’d once keyed the car of a new kid because he’d parked in “her” spot in the parking lot. She had a well-deserved reputation for being a mite territorial. Izzy guessed Germaine didn’t yet know about the kiss, seeing as how Izzy was still walking around with all her limbs intact. She wanted to keep it that way. For as long as possible.

Preferably forever.

Which was also how long she hoped to keep the secret about eating with Germaine.

Her plan for keeping all of her secrets? Well, it was simple.

The way she saw it, there were three separate storm systems brewing on the horizon: Germaine, Piper, and Tanner. If all three came in contact with one another, it would be her own perfect storm. Surely in a town of twenty-five thousand people, in a school of almost one thousand kids, keeping Piper from seeing Germaine and Tanner couldn’t be too hard. All she really needed to do was make it through the next week. Then Christmas break would start. If she could just keep her head down for five more days, she could hide in her bedroom and relish her sweet, sweet invisibility.

With that goal in mind, she convinced Piper, Cassidy, and Mei to leave school during lunch to eat at Yogurt Worxx. The four of them, all back together, back at the spot that had started it all, where they’d first decided to go international.

This was supposed to be a happy day, so why did they all look like the photos their history teacher had shown them of Texans during the
Great Depression? Except instead of ancient farming implements, they each held massive cups of yogurt. She knew why she and Cassidy were miserable. She just didn’t know why everyone else was, unless her mood was catching. Sitting at Germaine’s table choking down a steady diet of carrot sticks and criticism had been better than this.

Cassidy was still paying for her yogurt as Izzy approached the table where Mei and Piper already sat. In front of Mei was a tower of mint yogurt, mounded with an equally impressive serving of chocolate chips. The sensible Mei of the past would have gotten a dash of fat-free vanilla and added a topping just so the rest of them wouldn’t tease her. Piper had served herself vanilla yogurt. Without a sprinkle in sight.

The tension in the group was too thick for their forced cheer to cut through. Izzy knew it was up to her to smooth things over, and the words were right there on her tongue, but her own misery kept them trapped in her mouth.

Izzy lowered herself into the chair opposite Piper and dug into her bowl of sour green apple drizzled with caramel. The taste of betrayal, she had decided. More tart than sweet.

She looked up and caught Piper’s gaze, digging deep to muster a smile.

Piper gave a little nod, as if to say she too was willing to put the tension behind them. After a minute, she said, “You know what I missed about Paris the most? Besides y’all I mean.”

Izzy piped up with an answer. “American cheese?”

Piper giggled. “Yeah, right.”

Mei plucked a chocolate chip from her yogurt and popped it in her mouth. “Coffee that doesn’t keep you up all night?”

Piper snorted in disgust. “Who needs that? I’ve been so spoiled by French coffee, I may have to take up drinking tea when I’m not at home.”

“I know what I missed,” Cassidy chimed in, sitting down at the table. “Real Texas guys. Guys who are tough, monosyllabic, and
don’t
talk about their feelings.”