The Way to Game the Walk of Shame (29 page)

When Kimmy leaned her head toward me, I tugged at the pink scrunchie on her head and combed my fingers through her curly locks. Separating her hair in three sections, I braided it, concentrating on keeping each section even.

She fiddled with the strands on my quilt. “So did you? Mom told Dad that you did, but I didn’t believe her.”

My hands paused at the nape of her neck. “Yeah. I did.”

“Oh.”

The room got quiet as she rocked back and forth on the bed, waiting for me to finish. I took my time tucking in each of the strands that tried to escape until the braid was perfectly trailing down the center of her back. I finished the braid and tied off the end.

She scratched the bottom of her chin with the end of her braid. “Was it his fault?”

“No, not really. It was—we couldn’t—” How was I supposed to explain our relationship to a nine-year-old? Heck, I didn’t understand why we couldn’t be together. I mean, I knew the reasons, but I couldn’t help thinking they were stupid now. I was stupid. “It’s complicated.”

“Did you want to break up?”

“No,” I admitted, unable to lie to her.

Her lips puckered into a pout. “Then it has to be his fault.”

I couldn’t argue with that logic. “Maybe.”

She leaned back against my chest and let me hug her. “Taylor?”

“Yeah?”

“I miss him. He was nice. I don’t think any other guys would let me put makeup on them.”

I laid my chin on the top of her soft head and closed my eyes. “I miss him, too.”

After Kimmy left to watch TV, I finished rearranging my bookcase by genre and favorite authors and dove into the closet next. I’d already divided the clothes that I would bring to college, the ones I’d leave behind, and the ones I’d give to charity, but there was no harm in double-checking. Maybe there was something I was missing. Something I’d need in the future.

And that’s why I was partially buried in T-shirts and sweaters when Dad came in with a plateful of cookies. “Do you want to take a break for a minute?”

“Sure.” I carefully maneuvered around the piles and came over to sit with him on the bed. “Do you have—” Without waiting for me to finish, he slipped two extra plates from beneath the plate of cookies and handed one to me with a grin. “Thanks, Dad.”

“No problem. Wouldn’t want any crumbs to fall on your immaculate carpet, now would we?” he asked, leaning backward against my pillow. “Who taught you to be so clean?”

I stifled a laugh. He was such a dork sometimes. “That would be you. Remember? As soon as you married Mom, you taught me that organization and structured plans were the key to happiness.”

“Yeah, I forget how brilliant I am sometimes.”

I laughed and was about to pop the cookie into my mouth when I realized that it was homemade. “Uh, where did this come from? Did Mom bake?” I asked, sniffing the cookie. It looked safe enough. And it was my favorite—oatmeal chocolate chip.

Dad grabbed one for himself and set it on his plate. “Good god, no. Do you hear the smoke detectors buzzing? I think someone gave a whole basketful to your mom. She didn’t tell me who, though.”

With a sigh of relief, I took a huge bite. It was delicious. Sweet and chewy. Within a minute, I had inhaled two more. I swear, I didn’t even need to chew. I just blinked, and they were gone.

Chocolate really is the key to happiness. I was feeling better already, although the sugar crash would probably get me later. The cookies did make me feel kind of wistful. They reminded of the desserts Evan’s mom used to make for me. And of course, that made me think of Evan, and
bam!
We were right back where we started.

Dad had a major sweet tooth, so I was surprised that he only ate two of the cookies. He dusted his hands over the plate before setting it aside on my nightstand. “So, are you ready to leave the ol’ nest?”

I rolled my eyes and laughed. “Graduation’s not for a while, Dad. And I’m not moving until the end of July. Believe me, there’s plenty of time.”

“It’s one month, three weeks, and two days until graduation. I have a feeling time is going to fly by.” Dad jabbed his thumb at the overflowing chaos on the floor. “Why are you packing so early if there’s still ‘plenty of time’? Are you that anxious to leave?”

“No, of course not. I just…” I shrugged. “I just didn’t have anything else to do today.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Is it because of that Evan boy?”

I shoved another cookie in my mouth to delay answering him. If I lied and told Dad no, he’d just interrogate me some more and find out the truth. But the thought of talking to him about boy problems made me want to throw up all the cookies I’d just eaten. This was one time where having a lawyer for a dad sucked.

Finally, I just nodded and kept my gaze down.

“I can’t say that I’m sad that you two broke up. I mean, he seemed all right at first. But that was before you two—I’m not saying that you—hopefully you didn’t. It’s just that I know boys are into, hmmm…”

Oh god. Now I was considering deliberately throwing up to distract him. I’d never seen him stumble over his words so much. Not even when he accidentally ran over some lady’s dog and ended up having to pay for the cremation.

Dad let out a sigh. “You’re my little girl. To be honest, I don’t think I want you dating anyone. Ever. At least, not while I’m still alive. Or while I can still see.”

“Well, that’s not really a problem now…”

“But I don’t want you to be sad, either.” He tugged on a strand of my hair. “I’m only going to say this once, so listen up. Organization and structured plans
aren’t
the key to happiness and success. It might make life easier if things were perfect all the time, but they won’t be. You can’t plan everything. Things happen. And that’s okay. You shouldn’t do something just because it’s easy and neat. Because sometimes messy isn’t that bad.”

My eyes widened, and I gaped at him. “Can you say that again? I think I need to record that as evidence that you’ve gone crazy.” I dug out my phone and held it up.

“No way, I already told you I’m only saying it once.” He gathered up the plates and headed toward the door. “Besides, you know that in order to use the recorded conversation as evidence, both parties would have to consent, and I already said I wouldn’t. Therefore, this conversation would be inadmissible in court.”

I smiled sweetly up at him. “And
you
know that rule only pertains to certain states. And a good lawyer could always find a precedent in the conversation and obtain it as evidence if needed.”

He laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea for you to go to law school. God help me if you get any smarter than you already are. I’m just saying that if it’s something or someone worth fighting for, you should fight for it. It’s not called a fight because it’s easy.”

As usual, he was right. I munched on another cookie as I considered his words.

Dad paused at the doorway. “By the way, your mom wanted me to tell you that she bought more ingredients to make tuna. Should I tell her that you don’t need it anymore?”

“Tell her to put it away. Maybe I’ll need it later, but I’m good for now,” I said with a smile. It was better to be prepared. There’s no telling what would happen next. Life was unexpected like that.

29

{Taylor}

My eyes darted around the cafeteria at the booths and tables that were set up. A bunch of juniors and seniors wandered around to check out all the stuff. I let out a satisfied sigh. The first half of Career Day had gone according to plan and was awesome. Tons of people showed up (mainly because it got them out of class for the day) and got information about work-study programs and internships. The only thing left now was the presentation in the auditorium. All I had to do was start the slide show and introduce our guest speaker.

I shuffled through the papers in my arms, pretending to be busy looking for something so people wouldn’t talk to me. I actually should have been practicing my speech, and I sort of was, but I couldn’t help glancing up every time a blond guy walked in.

Where was Evan? He should have been here by now. The presentation was mandatory attendance for all seniors. Not that it had ever bothered him before. But still, he knew how much this meant to me. I thought he would at least show up.

“Ms. Simmons.”

I plastered a bright smile on my face when Mr. Peters came up to me with a pretty Asian woman in a simple yellow dress. “This is Mrs. Ann Nguyen. She’s the special speaker for today. She graduated—”

“Top of her class at Columbia, and not only is she the youngest partner at Ludwin, Pennington, and Nguyen—where all the partners are women—but her dream is to someday be on the Supreme Court. Something that she’s clearly on the right track for,” I recited, a little in awe that I was actually talking to Ann Nguyen.
The
Ann Nguyen. She was my idol. She even edged out Dad on my hero list (although I would never tell him that).

“I think I only mentioned the Supreme Court dream once in a university article when I first started law school.” Ms. Nguyen gave me an admiring smile. “I’m surprised you found that.”

“Well, Taylor has always been on top of everything. This entire fair was planned and organized by her,” Mr. Peters said with a hint of a smile. “Someone told me before that there’s nothing that she can’t do, and he was right.”

Looking at him in surprise, I beamed with his praise. It was almost indirectly admitting that he was wrong about me. Not exactly an apology, but I’d take it.

There was a bit of shouting on the other side of the cafeteria. His head jerked up, and the familiar frown crossed his face as he excused himself.

Grateful as I was for his compliment, I let out an inward sigh of relief when he walked off. He was nice (sort of) and all, but with all the stress of the past couple of weeks, I definitely wasn’t going to be missing
him
when high school was over.

Ms. Nguyen took a few steps closer to me. “So I heard that you’ll be heading to Columbia next fall.”

I stared at her. “I just found out this past weekend. How did you know that?”

Her index finger rose to her lips, and she winked. “You’re not the only one who’s good at research.”

I just blinked. This would have been a perfect time to show off my wit and charm, but nothing came to mind. At all. “You look a lot younger than I thought you would,” I blurted out, inwardly wincing. Yeah, maybe I should have just stayed quiet.

“It’s the genes. People thought I was twenty-one all through law school. It was annoying back then when I couldn’t get into clubs, but now it’s not so bad.”

Okay, she just kept getting more and more awesome. Any type of small talk that I had planned evaporated with each second that I spent with her. Thank god the cafeteria lights started flickering on and off, signaling the beginning of the presentation, before I had asked her about her dog or something and she figured out I was a stalker and a complete idiot.

She smoothed at the nonexistent wrinkles in her dress. “Are you ready?”

“Of course! I…” A familiar greenish-gray car zoomed right by the window in front of us, momentarily distracting me.

Rudy.

My feet automatically raced forward, and I leaned out the window just in time to see Rudy park right outside the auditorium entrance down the street. I could sort of see Evan’s shadowy form inside the car, but he didn’t move. He just kept sitting there, drumming his hands against the steering wheel.

Why wasn’t he moving?

A light hand touched my shoulder, bringing me back to reality. “Is everything okay?”

I nodded but couldn’t help peering out the window again in case he disappeared. My heart leaped at the sight of that rusty old car. And the person inside it.

Ms. Nguyen glanced toward the window and gave me a small smile, like she understood. “You can go if you have something to do.”

“But your introduction—”

“Someone else can do it. Heck, even I can do it. Who knows me better than me? And, well, you,” she joked with a wave of her hand. “Go.”

With a grateful smile, I stacked all the papers and notecards together. My stomach was bouncing with a different type of anticipation now. Looking around, I spotted Lin standing on the side with a scowl as she peered at everyone walking around. “Here, Lin, you can do the speech.”

Her mouth dropped, and she stared down at the pile in her hands like it was a ticking time bomb. “What are you—I can’t—I’m not ready…”

“Look, the slideshow is already loaded and set. Just click Play and read off the notecards.” My hands waved in wide circles as I explained, already backing away toward the stairs. A twinge of regret and disappointment hit me for missing the presentation and for all my wasted work, but I shoved it deep down. It wasn’t as important. There was somewhere else I needed to be. Someone I needed to be with. “Give the speech and take all the credit. You know you want to.” Before she could respond, I spun on my heels and left her sputtering.

Mr. Peters’s mouth dropped open as I ran past him. “Taylor! Where do you think you’re going? You need to start the presentation! You can’t just leave before it even starts!”

His stern words made me want to pause. Especially because he was so loud that everyone turned to stare at me. But I forced myself to just think of Evan and run even faster. The pointing and whispering followed me out the door and down the hall, but for once I didn’t care, because I knew that Evan was just outside, and he was the only one who mattered right now.

I ran down the sidewalk toward him just as he got of the car. I skidded to a halt behind him, barely able to stop before I smacked into his butt as he bent over the backseat to get something.

My eyes widened as I soaked in the sight of him. When I spotted him through the window, I couldn’t actually
see
him that well. He was standing on the sidewalk next to Rudy in a handsome suit. I repeat, in a
suit
. Black suit. White shirt. Black tie. Simple and classic.

Oh. My. God.
My heart started slamming in my chest, and the suit was only part of the reason. I’d been waiting, yearning, to see him for days, and now that he was finally here, I barely knew what to say. I wanted to apologize. I wanted to congratulate him. I wanted tell him how proud I was of him, but only three words kept running over and over through my mind.