The Queen B* Strikes Back (2 page)

I didn’t have to wait long to prove my point. As soon as we got on campus, the in-crowd recognized Brett’s SUV and moved like a herd to surround it.

More than one jaw dropped when I got out.

Summer pushed her way to the front of the dumbfounded crowd. The head cheerleader was clad in a bikini top that highlighted her surgically enhanced cleavage and a pair of designer denim cutoffs that were so short her pert little butt cheeks were hanging out. She tossed her expertly highlighted dark hair over her shoulder and looped her arm through Brett’s. “What is she doing here?”

Summer didn’t have to point or even look in my direction. The whole crowd knew she was referring to me. “I was taken against my will,” I replied.

Brett glared at me, but Summer waved me off. “Then leave, Alexis. No one wants you here anyway.”

Of course, that made me want to do just the opposite, if only to piss her off.

Brett replied before I had a chance to fire off a witty comeback. “I did.”

Summer choked on a hoarse cough, which brought me a measure of satisfaction, and narrowed her eyes at me once she caught her breath. “I have no idea why.”

Brett shook his arm free from her. “Alexis is a member of our class and should pitch in on our fundraising projects. Now let’s go.”

With the crowd all following him, he started for the collection of hoses and soapy buckets reserved for the popular kids, but stopped after a few steps to look at me. “You coming?”

It would’ve been so easy to go along and make every single person in that group uneasy. After all, most of them had been highlighted on my blog before, and I’d be sure to dig up some more dirt on them if I spent all morning in their company. But that meant I’d have to listen to their brainless bullshit for hours.

I spied a group of band geeks with their own washing station. “I’ll go hang out over there.”

His face was a hard, emotionless mask as I turned and went in the opposite direction.

The band geeks responded the same way the popular kids did when I walked over to them—stunned silence mixed with a hefty dose of fear.

Good to know my Queen B* powers hadn’t waned during my ride with Brett.

A Mercedes rolled up, and I grabbed a sponge from one of the buckets. “What?” I asked, daring any of them to challenge me.

Jing, the drum major, took an uneasy step toward me. He was a virtuoso on several instruments and, from what I’d heard, had already been accepted into Juilliard, but at that moment, he looked like some skinny kid who’d been offered as the sacrificial lamb. “Um, do you have something against us?”

“Nope.” I marched over to the car and started on the windows. “If I have to endure this carwash, I can at least surround myself with intelligent people.”

They all waited for Jing’s nod of approval. The problem with high school was that everyone wanted to belong somewhere, but in order to belong to a certain clique, you had to obey the leader. The popular kids deferred to Summer and Brett. The band geeks deferred to Jing.

I deferred to no one. Hence, the twinge in my gut as I prepared for him to tell me to get lost.

But he didn’t. His shoulders relaxed and relief flooded his face. “Sure.”

Half a minute later, the rest of the seniors on the marching band joined me in soaping up the Mercedes, the driver of which donated a hundred dollars to our class gift in exchange for a shiny set of wheels.

As the morning went on, I scanned the parking lot and took note of the different groups. The popular kids were front and center, flanked on either side by groups of second-string jocks and fashionistas. The nerds had their own group, as did the drama kids and artists. The goth kids like Morgan wouldn’t have been caught dead at something like this, and the stoners were too stoned to be up this early. Everybody had their place, their circle of “friends” that offered them protection and companionship so long as they assimilated.

High school was the friggin’ Borg.

But the band geeks seemed to tolerate my presence, and I kept my mouth shut as I helped them wash one car after another. As I listened to their conversation, I learned they had dirty minds that would make my best friends blush. I heard phrases like “tongue harder, finger faster” tossed out, and I prayed they were referring to playing an instrument and not some sort of kinky game they played at band camp.

Someone had procured a white board, and each team’s tallies were posted on it, turning the fundraiser into a bit of a competition. Summer’s group was at the top of the rankings, which only drove me harder to help the band geeks out. By noon, we were within ten dollars of the Queen Bee and her mindless hive.

Jing ran over to speak with the owner of the car we were working on and nodded toward the board. The man pulled out his wallet and handed over a twenty-dollar bill.

We were in the lead, and Sanchez didn’t like that. The star wide receiver was the epitome of everything that was wrong with dumb jocks, from his sexist jokes to his constant bullying of others. He grabbed a hose and aimed the spray at Jing. “Losers!”

I waited for the other members of marching band to rally around their leader and defend him, but they all lowered their heads.

Screw that!

I threw my sponge into the bucket and yanked the nearest hose out of one of my teammates’ hands. Since I was one of the few people in the school who could make the wide receiver’s testicles retract, it was time to use my Queen B* powers for good. “Hey, Sanchez, shut up!”

I blasted him with the hose, aiming first at his face then lowering it to the center of his swim trunks.

He sputtered something incomprehensible but angry and turned around, dropping the hose to cover his groin.

The other band members took my act as a rallying cry, and those with hoses turned them on the popular kids.

Summer’s shriek marked the beginning of an uprising.

The band geeks were striking back.

The minutes that followed were a blur of water and soap suds, of attacks and evasive maneuvers, of screams and giggles. And I had no idea which side they were coming from. I dodged a soaked sponge the size of my head and immediately turned the hose in that direction to get the person who’d thrown it. A jet of water struck me from the side, and I ran to find cover and launch another attack. My heart pounded, my lungs burned for air, but I didn’t want to call a time out. The parking lot turned white from bubbles, and the high school senior class played like a bunch of kindergarteners at recess.

Someone grabbed me from behind and whirled me around. The hose fell from my hands. My limbs stiffened and braced for impact. I was certain I was about to be tackled to the pavement. Instead, I remained upright, flush against a hard-muscled body. A set of fingers tickled me under the ribs until laughter burst free from my chest.

“I knew you’d have fun today, Lexi,” a warm, familiar voice whispered in my ear.

My breath froze, and the chaos around us subsided for a moment. I looked up and confirmed that my worst fears were coming true.

Some people had that recurrent dream of coming to school naked or puking all over the person they liked. My nightmares now involved people finding out about everything that had happened between Brett and me in the last week.

Dozens of eyes stared at the scene we made, but Brett made no move to release me. He kept his arms around my waist, holding me close like we were some kind of couple.

Which, of course, we weren’t.

But that wasn’t what the rest of the class was thinking.

Horror dried the spit in my mouth, and I wrested free from him. A quick jab of my elbow had the desired result, and he released me. As much as I would’ve liked to have stayed in his arms, I couldn’t. I refused to let the in-crowd know my weakness. And I couldn’t let them think I’d gone soft, especially over Brett Pederson.

Summer’s glare was as sharp as daggers, and the scowl on her lips signaled that she was three seconds away from ripping my hair out in a catfight of epic proportions.

So I did what I had to do.

I picked up the hose and fired at the center of Brett’s chest.

He stepped back from the impact and raised his arms to shield his face. When I finally relented, he looked at me with those sad, puppy-dog eyes. An urge to apologize welled up in my throat until it almost choked me. The only thing he’d ever done wrong was like me, and I was too much of a bitch to appreciate it.

But I had to be the bitch. If I acted soft, I’d lose everything I’d worked so hard to gain over the past three years.

I threw the hose down and turned for the main road. “I’m out of here.”

Footsteps sounded behind me, but halted as soon as Summer said, “Let her go, Brett. Like I said before, nobody wants her here anyway.”

I winced from the ache forming in my chest. It only intensified when Brett said nothing in my defense this time.

My pride isolated me, but it also kept me from being hurt. And right now, I was glad I hadn’t depended on him to do what a true friend (or even a boyfriend) should do.

I pulled my dripping wet phone out of my pocket and prayed it still worked. After shaking the water from it, I was able to dial the number of someone I could count on.

Richard answered with a sleepy, “I love you, Alexis, but not before noon.”

“Well, I’m in luck because it’s 12:01. Now come rescue me from hell.”

“What happened?” His voice was tight with worry, and the ache in my chest eased. This was my true friend.

“Brett dragged me to the senior carwash, and I’m making a break for it, but I don’t want to walk all the way home, so please, can you give me a ride?”

“Brett? Oh, this I gotta hear. I’ll be there in a jiffy.”

He hung up, and I plodded on. My shoes squelched with each step, leaving little puddles on the sidewalk. Water dripped from my hair and camouflaged the lone renegade tear that managed to escape.

As much as I wanted to be Brett’s friend, the reality was that I couldn’t trust him. And if I were to open myself (and my heart) up to someone, I needed that person to stand up to Summer and the rest of her cronies, not be one of their sheep.

Chapter Two

Richard lived only a few blocks away from Eastline, and his grandmother’s pale gold Lexus pulled up to the curb in less than ten minutes. His dark hair was neatly spiked for someone who’d just woken up, but his clothes looked like he’d grabbed whatever was nearby. He shook his head as I opened the door to climb in. “Oh, no, sweetie, you didn’t tell me you were soaking wet.”

“Tough.” I got in and yanked the door closed. “Just get me away from here, please.”

The pain in my plea was enough to make him floor it. But he didn’t take me home. Instead, he took me to a nearby park and turned off the engine. “We need to talk, and while we’re doing that, you can be drying off. Now get out of my car.”

He didn’t wait for my response before getting out, and I didn’t have the energy to argue with him. The morning had already zapped me, and I still had hours left in the day.

He stood in front of the car watching me, arms crossed over his chest and his foot tapping in impatience. For a skinny, gay Chinese kid, Richard Wang was still a force to be reckoned with, which was why we’d become such good friends. But times like these, when my soul was battered and confused, made me wish he wasn’t insisting on one of his interventions.

I crawled out with a heavy sigh and gave him a meek smile when I noticed the watermark I’d left on the leather seat. “Um, I can clean that up.”

“Of course you will, but let’s go.”

I followed him in silence down the trail from the parking lot to the small lake in the center of the park. Kids making the most of the last warm days of summer splashed in the water while their parents drank their lattes. Richard strode past them at a determined pace that left me panting to keep up with him.

He finally stopped in a secluded spot on the opposite side of the lake and turned to me with a no-nonsense pucker. “Now, I want details about you and Brett, and don’t you dare leave anything out.”

“I’ve already told you the important stuff.” I slumped down on a rock that had been warmed by the sun and waited to dry out.

“And I’m calling bullshit.” He moved between me and the sunshine. “Let’s start with your sudden interest in football, hmm? Or what you two were talking about behind the scoreboard yesterday.”

I lowered my gaze and turned away. Richard already knew that I’d been invited over to Brett’s house for breakfast last weekend. None of Brett’s previous girlfriends had even made it past the front door. But if he kept probing, Richard would uncover things like those hot kisses that I’d rather keep to myself.

“Aw, shit!” Richard grabbed my chin and tilted my head up. He studied my face in a way that would make an FBI agent proud. “There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”

I jerked free. “No, there isn’t.”

“And I know when you’re lying. Come on—we’re supposed to be friends.”

I dared to cast a sideways glance at him and immediately regretted it. The boy was the king of the sympathetic pout, and my resistance crumbled.

“Okay, fine. Yes, there’s more than just that.”