Buzz Kill (17 page)

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said. “I get it.”

“How weird that I never saw a woman here,” Chase mused. “I mean, I used to be here a lot.”

“Yeah. Weird.”

Then Chase and I stood staring at each other, as if neither of us knew what to do with the clues we'd found, even though it was pretty clear that somebody had “bugged out”—which seemed like guilty behavior, if you asked me.

I was also mildly irritated to think that even Mr. Killdare—he of the armpit stains and belly hair—seemed to have had a serious, if secret, girlfriend. Maybe one who'd been passionate enough about him to kill him. Not that I wanted
that,
but still, to be the single-most important person in somebody else's universe . . . That was kind of enviable.

My expression must've given away my further deteriorating mood, because all at once, Chase abandoned investigating and said quietly, “Hey, Millie, I know something that might cheer you up.” And before I could insist that I didn't need or want cheering up, he slapped his hand against his thigh and said, “Baxter, get over here.”

Maybe whatever was going to happen would make me happier, but that poor basset hound looked downright dismayed as Chase reached down and hoisted him up, grunting, “Come on, buddy. You know the drill!”

“Look how cute he is!” I cried, piling more bubbles onto Baxter's head, so it looked like he was wearing a little hat. “I wish I'd brought my cell phone.”

Chase reached for a cup on the edge of the tub. “I don't think Bax wants this moment to be captured forever. Look at his face.”

The wet dog, already clearly miserable at the indignity of being bathed, did seem even more despondent about the insult I'd added to injury. His eyes pleaded for rescue, while Chase's requested permission. He held the cup aloft. “May I?”

“Oh, all right,” I agreed reluctantly. “But you have to admit, he looks adorable.”

Covering Baxter's eyes with his hand, Chase dumped water over the dog's head, noting, “I never thought you'd use the word ‘adorable.' That doesn't seem like something that would be in Millie Ostermeyer's vocabulary.”

The dog bath seemed to be ending and I sat back on my heels. “Well, what sort of words would you expect me to use?”

“Definitely nothing in French,” Chase joked. “And your Spanish seems sketchy, too—”

“Hey!”

Chase ignored me, reaching past me to pull the drain plug. His arm brushed my shoulder, and even though the touch was slight, I could feel rock-hard muscle. I could also smell that soap or cologne that I was starting to associate with him. But any momentary flutter I felt in my stomach was squashed when he said, “But ‘adorable'—that just seems way too ‘girly' for somebody who wears Adidas, eats like a linebacker, and likes something as ugly as this mutt.” He dropped the towel over the dripping dog in question and lifted him out of the tub. “Don't most girls like Chihuahuas? Dogs they can tuck into their purses?”

I honestly hadn't been drawn to Chase back when Laura'd teased me about watching him in the gym, but the more I was around him, the more I had to admit to finding him attractive. Still, I wasn't about to pretend to be anybody except who I was, even if I didn't fit his feminine stereotype. Heck, how could I do that, even if I'd wanted to, when I was wearing a black “Nihilists for Nothing” T-shirt?

“I don't like purses, let alone dogs that can fit into them,” I advised him. “But I'm not a guy, either.”

Shaking off the towel, Baxter took off for the hallway, while Chase sank down on the floor at my side, resting back against the tub and grinning. “I didn't say that you were, Millie. I definitely didn't say
that.
”

I shifted, too, so we were sitting shoulder to shoulder. “Yeah, you kinda did.”

“Sorry.” He leaned forward to meet my eyes, as if he wanted me to see that he was sincere. “I didn't mean to do that. And I don't
think
that.”

Yeah, but you don't think I'm feminine, either.

The mood—at least my mood—had lightened during Baxter's bath, but as Chase and I sat side by side, studying each other the way we'd done in French class, we both got solemn again. And quiet. A silence that lasted for what seemed like a long time, until Chase ventured, “What do you think of me, Millie? Huh? Because I used to get this feeling that you hated me—and maybe everybody else in school, too.”

“What?” I wasn't sure I'd heard right.
Me? A hater?

“Well, you always act like school is beneath you,” Chase said. “I see you in French class, reading anything but the textbook, like you don't
want
to learn the language—maybe just because you're supposed to.” He gestured to my shirt. “And then there are the T-shirts with the ironic cartoons and the philosophy jokes that seem designed to go over most people's heads.”

Forcing myself not to get that flutter in my stomach again—this time over his correct use of “ironic”—I started to protest, because first of all, the cartoons weren't really meant to be viewed that way. Couldn't a girl genuinely like Schopenhauer
and
Snoopy? And as for learning French . . . Well, maybe he had a small point about that. Regardless, Chase wasn't done yet.

“Plus I never see you with anybody but Laura or Ryan.” He shrugged. “I just thought you were a snob.”

I nearly laughed. “I thought the same about you because you never hung out with
anybody.
And talk about being superior. I know the movies you like!”

We kept searching each other's faces, as if looking for evidence of lingering pretentiousness, until I said, “Maybe we were both wrong, though.”

Chase continued watching me, to the point that I almost started to squirm. “Yeah, maybe,” he finally agreed.

Then I asked quietly, almost like I didn't want to scare him off with the question, “Why do you talk to me, Chase? I mean, you must feel like hanging out with the guys on the team sometimes. But you've kept aloof for more than a year. Why talk to
me?
”

He seemed almost as confused as I was. “I don't know, Millie. There's just something about you . . .” He paused, watching me blush just a little. Then, his gaze shifting to my cheeks, he asked, even more softly, “Why were you crying tonight?”

“I wasn't—”

“Millie . . . I can still see the tear stains on your face.” For a second, I thought he was going to touch my cheek. He lifted his hand—then dropped it. “So why?”

Oh, gosh.
Maybe Chase wasn't sure why he talked to me, but I was pretty sure why I opened up to him. Because when he really unlocked those eyes, they weren't just magazine
-
picture pretty. They were really beautiful in a different way. That stuff he'd gone through had obviously given him a capacity for empathy that I didn't think my other classmates had yet. Even Laura and Ryan, who understood me pretty well, didn't quite get pain the way I thought Chase did.

I wanted to spill my guts right then and there, but I didn't exactly answer him. Instead, I asked my own question. “Chase . . . Does your dad ever date?”

He shook his head. “No, he's too busy.”

I picked at my shoelaces, avoiding his gaze. “Would you hate it if he did?”

“No.” But he quickly added, “I think it's different for me, though. My parents fought all the time. I'd be okay if either one of them found somebody who made them happier.” I felt him shrug again, his shoulder brushing mine. “Maybe my mom already has.”

“Why can't I feel that way?” I muttered. “Why can't I be happy that my dad is dating my librarian?”

Chase bent to try to see my face again. “You ‘have' a librarian?” He frowned. “That's different.”

“Yeah. I do have one,” I confirmed, still avoiding his eyes. “And she's been seeing my father.”

“So . . . What's wrong with that?” Chase nudged me with his shoulder, trying to cajole me back into a better mood. “Does she shush you too much outside the library?”

I finally looked at him again, and the expression on my face wiped the smile off his. “No,” I said. “Ms. Parkins is wonderful, actually. Perfect. A lot like my mom. And she and my dad are
in love.
”

“Hey, Millie . . . It's okay.” I hadn't even realized that a tear had spilled out until Chase really did brush one finger across my cheek. “It's okay.”

“Why can't I just be good with it?” I asked, my voice catching. “Why did I have to be a jerk to both of them?”

And how did it feel to be comforted—touched on the face—by a guy my age who wasn't Ryan? How strange was it to feel Chase put his arm around my shoulder, even tentatively? Although he sounded pretty confident when he said, “The whole thing is probably worse because this Ms. Parkins is ‘perfect.' If I were you, and had been close to my mom, I'd be terrified that she'd replace her. Maybe, if I were you, I'd push your librarian away and act like I
hated
her. Because some people . . . You just never want them to be replaced. Or
erased.
”

Oh, he totally understood the whole dilemma, had articulated exactly what I was feeling. And I was pretty sure I knew why he was able to do that and could get how scary it was to think that someone might be “erased.”
That person he hurt in the accident—the part of the story he held back . 
.
 . He can't let that go.
But I didn't bring that up. It wasn't the right time. And I didn't want to break the moment between us. I didn't want Chase to pull away because—even though I'd hardly cried since my mother had died—my stupid eyes were betraying me again and really welling up. Forcing myself to smile, I raised my face to Chase's and ventured a joke. “Jeez, Albright. I guess you've really learned something from watching all those old, gloomy movies. You definitely understand pathos.”

This time, Chase was the one not laughing. On the contrary, he seemed almost haunted, informing me in a tight voice, “Yeah, well, it's not just from watching movies, Millie.”

Then we got quiet again, while I continued to compose myself, with the comforting weight of Chase's arm around me.

Well, it was comforting—and something more.

Gradually, as we sat there, my sadness and anger started to be replaced by a new set of equally confusing emotions. And I saw something change in Chase's eyes, too. The slow emergence of an expression I'd never seen in a boy's eyes, and certainly never expected to see in his. Especially not after the stuff he'd just said about me.

Millie . 
.
 . What are you two doing?

Something I really wanted to do—but didn't want at all. Not with Chase.

He'd basically just told me that I wasn't his type. Had enumerated all my flaws. What kind of girl wanted that? Let alone to get a first kiss in a
dead coach's bathroom?
In sight of a toilet, for crying out loud.

And yet . 
.
 .

Chase seemed uncharacteristically uncertain, too, as he continued to study my eyes. My muddy-green eyes, which weren't model-icious, like his. “Millie . . .”

He
sounded
unsure, but I definitely felt his arm tighten, just slightly, around me, and I rested more heavily against him—then pulled right back, because, of course, he felt amazing. Too amazing, probably, for a girl who wasn't even sure she was wearing a clean shirt, which she'd plucked off a pile on her bedroom floor.

All at once, I could hear Chase's critique echoing in my head.

“. 
.
 . Somebody who wears Adidas, eats like a linebacker . 
.
 .”

Not to mention
“There were injuries . 
.
 . Charges against me . 
.
 .”

And that picture in his locker . . .

But the
feel
of Chase pulling me even closer. His reassuring muscle. And those eyes. Those incredible empathic eyes, and the way he was shifting to face me more fully, maybe unsure right then, but obviously experienced, his hand moving to rest under my chin so he could tilt my face upward, his voice even lower and more throaty as he whispered, “Millie . . .”

Forget the setting, Millicent! Forget everything! Just go for it!

Before Baxter comes bounding in!

Only that noise that I was hearing in the hallway . . . It wasn't a dog.

No, of course the sound that was just barely registering in my muddled brain was a
person.
One who interrupted me and Chase's almost kiss with a supercilious “Well, well, well . . . What have we here?”

The realization that I'd almost had my first kiss on a bathroom floor next to a tub that needed to be wiped clean of dog hair was bad.

And the fact that said near kiss had been interrupted by a smirking Detective Blaine Lohser—even worse.

But the look on Chase's face—the regret mingled with near horror that I saw in his eyes as he disentangled us, pulling his arm from around my shoulders . . .
that
was the worst part of the whole farce.

“What the hell did we almost do?”
he seemed to silently ask me. Standing, he helped me to my feet, his grip hard around my hand and his mouth in a grim line.
“Me . . . with YOU?”

Before I could try to convey something similar so he wouldn't think I'd actually wanted that kiss, either, he turned to Detective Lohser, who stood in the doorway, and asked, not rudely, but not exactly politely, either, “What are you doing here?”

“I'm investigating a murder,” the cop in an off-duty, off-brand polo shirt reminded us, no longer grinning. He moved farther into the small room, so I ended up wedged against the vanity and medicine chest. Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I noticed that I looked guilty. Maybe not of murder, but of being a teenager caught with another teenager of the opposite sex, about to do teenager stuff that adults like Blaine Lohser clearly disapproved of. “I saw a car outside the house, and lights on, and . . .” He took a step closer, getting right in Chase's face. “I recalled how criminals often return to the scene of the crime, and thought I'd investigate.”