Foreign Exchange (2 page)

Sawyer’s
grin tells me he’s eating up the attention. When I close the Jeep door, the girls stop and stare at me momentarily. Why would
I
be getting out of Sawyer’s Jeep? The question is written all over their faces. Even if I am his sister’s best friend, everyone seems to know how
not
normal this is.

“Um, thanks for the ride, Sawyer.” I say the words more to his Jeep than to him, and back away, trying hard not to feel like the friendless geek of the group.

Girls always want what they can’t have, and I know in the recesses of my mind that’s the only reason I’ve never been able to take my eyes off of Sawyer Bishop.

Without Tristan
here to keep me in check, I’m just like the rest of them.

C
hapter Two

The reinvention of Jamie Monroe is indeed short-lived.

I barely sp
eak to anyone in the hallways or in my other morning classes, and even though I’m angry with myself for not making more of an effort, so far I’m not doing anything to change it.

Arrive early. Find a seat. Keep my head down.
That’s
become my new life. It’s not like I don’t have other friends besides Tristan. But she’s the social one. She brings out my more outgoing and friendly side. Without her I feel like a non-person.

World Architecture is just before lunch, and I’m looking forward to it the most out of all my classes. This is the class students have to be enrolled in to go on our upcoming Barcelona trip. It’s only open to juniors and seniors, and I’ve been waiting for two years to get in.

As with my other classes, I’m one of the first to arrive. Mr. Echols is at the front near his desk. He’s so tall and thin, that he looks like one of those bendy toys. He’s talking to Amelia, one of the student leaders for the class trip.

The only other person I recognize is Sawyer Bishop, seated right at the back.

Sawyer’s in this class?

In a burst of motivation to change my stupid shy self,
I head for the seat beside him.

“James,” Sawyer says,
looking up when I get near.

That helps. There’s nothing like the most gorgeous guy on the planet masculinizing your name and reminding you
that you’re like family—specifically, a brother—to help you put your tongue back in your mouth.

“Um, yeah,” I say. I'm sure no one in this school believes I’ve lived next to this guy for over five years. I barely believe it myself. “
How’s...school?” I have no idea what else to ask.

He runs a hand through his hair. His bangs are long and dark and they don’t stay back very well when he pushes them there. Each time they fall forward, though, they seem to frame his face a little nicer.
“It’s...school.” He copycats my tone playfully.

I force myself to keep my eyes
an inch from his and sit down.

“
Have you noticed, no one will shut up about Tris’s trip,” he says in his always-casual voice. “I didn’t know I was her new publicist.”

I
hadn’t noticed, since I hadn’t been talking with anybody, but I’m so eager to keep any kind of conversation going, I say, “You too?” I place my book and pencil on my desk. “I can’t believe how many people were talking to me about it.” I’m surprised to find myself slightly more relaxed with Sawyer when he’s not surrounded by girls wanting to molest him.

Sawyer nods. At least
now I have someone who I’ve talked with. Even though I’m not being honest. But it’s still nice.

I reach
down to the side of my book bag for my water bottle. When I sit up, my pencil is gone. I scan the floor for it.

A second later, Sawyer’s tapping it on his desk. “Thanks.” He salutes with it. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“You’re in this class too, huh?” I ask, trying to divert myself from his flirty voice.
Way to ask a riveting, non-obvious question, Jamie. You’re just stellar at this conversation thing.

He nods. “It’s my favorite. I took it last year
, too. You’re lucky you got on the trip. I’ve heard awesome things about Mr. Echols’s class trips.”

“
You’re not going?” I ask, like the Neanderthal that I am. We've had three trip meetings through the summer and I know exactly who’s on the list. Besides, Sawyer going to Europe would have probably driven Tristan to murderous tendencies—his once again getting something that should be solely hers.

I’ve never known sibling rivalry. My brother’s five years younger,
severely disabled, doesn’t talk, and barely walks. It’s not like we’re competing for anything. But even on sitcoms I don’t think I’ve seen a level of rivalry like Sawyer and Tristan’s.

She’s told me why—their mom forced them into child
acting when they were barely crawling and living in L.A. Sawyer was a natural in front of the camera and got a lot of work. From what I understood, without making Tristan actually say it, she…did not. Their mom has always treated Sawyer better because of it. The latest perk was the Jeep.

But
Tristan found modeling, something she excels at, along with some small town fame. Her mom is supportive, but it doesn’t stop Tristan from her long-held grudges.

Sawyer shakes his head, looking a little sad about
the trip.

“Do you know what time Tristan will get to Milan?” I ask
as a subject-changer.

Sawyer shrugs and I meet his eyes by accident.
The second I do, that gravitational pull is back. “I really haven’t seen her much since I’ve been back, so I don’t know many of the details.”

Sawyer spends the summers at his grandparent’s in Vermont.
To be honest, I’m kind of glad. I can usually do a decent job of ignoring Sawyer when Tristan’s around and we’re all busy with school. It’s easy to avert my eyes and pretend I’m pissed off with him right along with Tristan. But it would definitely be more difficult if he were hanging out without a shirt in his yard all summer or something.

“
She’s going to email me when she gets to Newark,” Sawyer says. “She’ll probably email you too.” He gives me a wink, which makes me forget to breathe for about ten minutes. Sawyer must mistake my lack of oxygen for doubt, because he says, “Why don’t you come over after school, and we’ll check out what she’s written.” Another breath-stopping wink.

I nod, not even really caring what I’m
agreeing to. Every girl in this school would cut off her left leg for an invitation like this from Sawyer. It’s his untouchableness—literally—that makes him irresistible. To others, I mean.

Mr. Echols interrupts
whatever kind of verbal response I might have come up with, and tells the class we need to get down to business if
some of us
plan to leave for ten days in Spain this month.

When I look ahead, I see Matt
Driediger for the first time. He’s three rows up and glances back with a smile. I grin. He’s the other student leader for our trip. He had a crush on me in middle school, and even though he’s leaned out into a pretty good-looking guy, I don’t know, I think I’ll always see him as the slightly pudgy, but really nice kid.

Still, I’m making an effort to be nicer to him as we’re getting ready for the trip. He’s part of Tristan’s
and my plan, and even though I feel slightly guilty about using him, Tristan assures me he wouldn’t mind, even if he knew my motives. “Guys like attention from pretty girls, no matter what the reason,” she always says.

“So, Matt Driediger, huh?” Sawyer says.

My face catches fire
. But I peek in Sawyer’s direction and he’s focused on his open notebook, not even trying to make me feel stupid like he totally could.

Suddenly I
think a really crazy thought: Wouldn’t it be hilarious if I started hanging out with Sawyer and sharing my secrets with
him?
Maybe not all the big secrets, but some of the little ones. Could he be a replacement for Tristan for the next three months?

But when I say, “Yeah, may
yyybe,” in Sawyer’s direction, he taps his pencil and twists his lips like he doesn’t even hear me.

Whatever. It was a crazy thought.

Mr. Echols passes out a pop quiz—
on the first day—
to see where our basic geographic knowledge lies. “Some generalized questions. Don’t forget to put your name at the top.”

When he gets to my desk, he says, “Jamie,
I still have your passport. You forgot to pick it up after our last meeting.”

“Oh!
Right!” He’s already headed for the front of the class. The fact that he even knows my name makes my insides flutter. I was only a sophomore when I signed up for the trip and it’s well known at Ainslea High that Mr. Echols used to be a professor at a college, and he prefers to work with mature young people, not childish young people.

I
skitter up to the front and take my passport from him, barely believing I could have been so careless with something so vital to my trip. Then again, Amelia had asked me for help jotting down information at the meeting, and it’s a common response for me to get caught up helping others and in the process, forget about taking care of my own stuff. I’ve missed finishing homework tons of times because looking after my brother distracted me.

I
put my passport straight into my book bag when I return to my desk.

When I
look down at my quiz, my name has already been filled in on the blank. Except it’s not
my
name. And it’s not even James today. It says “
Hottie
Monroe.” I roll my eyes and glance at Sawyer. He’s looking down, but suppressing a grin.

I know
he’d do the same thing to any girl in the class. And heck, he’s friendly and super-cute, so why can’t I just enjoy the compliment and move on?

I dig for a spare pencil in my b
ook bag. Unfortunately, the only one I can find does not have an eraser. I roll my eyes again, scribble out “Hottie” and add “Jamie.” I scribble some more, hoping Mr. Echols won’t see me as a “childish student” on the very first day.

After we hand
in our quizzes, there’s a brief lull while Mr. Echols is getting reorganized. I turn to Sawyer. “Thanks for helping me put my best foot forward with Mr. Echols. At least he’ll know that even if I’m not smart, I am hot.”

“And conceited,” Sawyer says,
with an eyebrow cocked.

I purse my lips, trying to think of a
witty comeback, but as usual, words fail me, and I just end up smirking at him through the rest of class.

Chapter T
hree

I’m still smiling big on my way out of the World Architecture classroom. All morning I’d been concerned about who I would sit with at lunch, and wished I hadn’t given up my tutoring responsibilities so quickly.

But now, I don’t know. I’m kind of excited to go to the cafeteria. Other people must
pick up on my feelings too, because Tristan’s friend Georgina actually stops me in the hall.

“Hey, Jamie! I heard Tristan’s on her way to Italy. She must be stoked.”

“Yeah, she totally is!” I figure now that Sawyer got me started, I could keep trying to be this confident version of myself.

What’s more,
now that I don’t have my head down,
two
more girls talk to me from my locker to the cafeteria—all excited to hear about Tristan.

I don’t know all the details about Tristan’s program, but I know enough to chat with one of the
tables of girls who invite me to sit with them.

“So she already left? Just like that?” Jennifer, a girl from my last year’s history class asks from across the table.

“Well, she’s been planning it for months,” I tell Jennifer. “It’s a great opportunity with a foreign exchange program.”

“What’s the name of the program?” Jennifer asks.

I twist my lips. “Um, it starts with a B, I think. I’ll have to ask her again.”

The others at the table are talking about fashion in Italy and speculating on what Tristan will be wearing when she returns.

“I’d love to find out more about the program, if you can get any info,” Jennifer says, her face serious.

I nod. “There’s a
Web site and a brochure and stuff. I can ask her parents for them.”

The chitchat goes on, about Tristan, about traveling, and where everyone wants to go after graduation. All in all, it’s about the best lunch hour I could have imagined.

***

“Hey, James, you want a ride?”

Sawyer
’s suddenly beside me, at my locker, after school. I drop my books and they scatter on the floor.

If people weren’t watching us before, they are now. We both bend down to gather up my
things. I can’t help watching Sawyer’s hands. Some of the girls in our school talk about his perfect hands, but I’ve never seen them up close. They really are beautiful, with perfect nails, yet still big and masculine. They’re so smooth, I want to reach out and touch them.

Just l
ike every other female within an eight-mile radius. I shake my head.
Get over yourself, Jamie.

“Um, thanks,” I say as we both stand.

“So…” He stares at me with this amused-because-Jamie-can-barely-remember-her-own-name-when-she’s-around-me grin and my mind is a barren expanse.

Oh, right
––I still haven’t answered him about the ride. It feels like such a betrayal of Tristan. But at the same time, isn’t it stupid for me to walk all by myself if we’re both going to the same place? Besides, I have to keep forcing myself to be more outgoing or I’ll slink back into my shell again.

Sawyer
looks at me with his face scrunched up, probably because I’m taking so long to answer a simple question. It’s the first time I’ve seen him look less than adorable. Well, he
is
still adorable, just not in a typical way. “You were going to come by my place so we can check my email, right?”

My place
makes it sound like,
“Hey, baby. Wanna come back to my place?”
which immediately gets my pulse thumping. But this is about Tristan, I remind myself. “Sure. Okay. I’ll meet you there?”

The scrunched up face again, which reminds me of thirteen-year-old Sawyer who used to spray us with water guns in the summer and then cringed when we retaliated.
“Why don’t you just ride with me.” It’s not really a question.

I’ve been holding back out of guilt, but t
he truth is, I’m kind of sick of Tristan being so domineering with me. Her fight with Sawyer is just that:
Her
fight. I’m going to do it.

B
ut before I can answer, Marci Voytek struts over and runs a finger down Sawyer's jacketed arm. He flinches, but doesn’t pull away.

“Hey Sawy
yyy,” she says, which sounds like “Soy” and seems a little weird to me. Then again, I’m not much of a nickname person. She goes on, without acknowledging my presence. “I thought maybe we could go back to
my place
today?”

Sawyer’s words to me sounded nothing like
that
, which makes me feel better and worse at the same time. I glance at the outer doors, ready to tell Sawyer I’ll see him around, but then he says, “Sorry, Marci. I have plans today.” In shock, I turn back to him. He meets my eyes and says, “Right?”

Do I want to be the reason he
turns down a popular senior like Marci Voytek? And more importantly,
why
does he want to turn down an invitation back to her place to show me an email from his sister?

“Um.
If you want,” I say, finally.

A hint of a smirk plays on his lips and I just know he’s going to say, “No, if
you
want,” like we used to throw things back at each other when we were pre-teens. But then he smoothes his lips together and wipes off the smirk.

But still, I know he was going to say it.

“Well, another time, then,” Marci says, eyeing me carefully. But come on, who could be jealous of
me?

The ride back to
Sawyer’s house is even quieter than the one to school this morning. I do a pretty decent job of keeping my mind out of the gutter, and instead focus on remembering our fun banter in World Arch.

It’s not until we’re in
side his house and he turns off the alarm system that I consider the fact that no one will be home this time of day. I rub at my thumbnail. It’s not like I’m scared of Sawyer trying anything. First of all, he doesn’t touch high school girls. Secondly, we’re neighbors who have witnessed all the awkwardness of each other’s pubescent years. Besides, it’s not like he’d ever need to pressure a girl into anything.

I guess
I’m stupidly nervous about my own feelings. We’ve never been around each other this much without Tristan’s presence, and ever since Sawyer got back from his grandparents’ this year he’s more muscular, more manly. And I can’t seem to stop thinking of myself as more womanly when I’m with him.

It’s ridiculous, I know, but I’m actually worried that in a moment of insanity I’ll throw myself at him.

“You coming?” he says from the stairway.

I’ve been standing, stunned by my own thoughts for far too long. I clear my throat and follow him, only registering when we’re on the stairs that we’re headed for the bedrooms. That’s all that’s up there.

I wipe my palms on my jeans while he’s ahead of me. I haven’t been in Sawyer Bishop’s bedroom for at least three years. The last time, Tristan had only led me in there to pilfer some of his Halloween candy.

He pushes open the door and again I find myself holding my breath, like I don’t want to know what sex smells like.

Even though secretly I do.

His bed is a mess of crumpled blue blank
ets and sheets. I avert my eyes and turn to his desk, where he’s already booting up his laptop.

“This thing takes forever to get going,” he says, like he hasn’t noticed my discomfort in the doorway. He
strips off his jacket, tosses it onto his unmade bed, and then motions me inside.

I force myself over the threshold. My eyes keep trying to go back to his bed, but I don’t let them.
How many girls have been in that bed?
That’s enough to bring back a jolt of reality.

Along with a hint of curiosity.

Sawyer’s attractive. That’s obvious. But what’s he actually
like
with girls?

“Here,” he says, standing
and offering me his desk chair. I wonder where he’s going to sit. How did I even get here, in his bedroom? Did he seriously invite me over to see if there’s an email from Tristan, who we saw seven hours ago? Suddenly it all seems so strange.

Though
... not unpleasant.

Once I’m in his warm chair, he places a hand on the backrest and
moves forward over my shoulder to reach the keyboard. Apparently he’s not going to sit. He’s just going to…lean. He’s so close I can’t help but inhale his scent. I wonder if Jean Paul Gaultier is laced with some sort of heady pheromones.

His arm
braced on the chair grazes my back, and he leaves it there, using only his right hand to type. I can’t believe he’s touching me. Surely it would be easier to type with both hands. Wouldn’t it? Before I can get anywhere with this useless train of thought, he pulls up his Gmail account.

“Huh,” he says to himself. “Might as well keep myself signed in on this computer
, now that I won’t be sharing it with Tris for a while.” He leans in as he taps the “Keep signed in” box. “What do you know?” He clicks on a new email from Tristan.

I let out a gust of a breath, and try to cover it with a laugh.

“Hmm?” he says, waiting for me to fill him in on the joke.

The joke is that I can’t even breathe properly around him. “Sorry. Nothing,” I say. “Just remembering something Tristan said once.” I can feel him
watching me, waiting for me to elaborate, but I don’t bother trying to make up more lies. I’m not good at that sort of thing.

I use his mouse and scroll down so Tristan’s entire email is on the screen. Then I blink to clear my muddled, pheromone-induced brain, and start reading.

Hey Sawyer,

I’m at the airport in Newark and I miss you guys already.
I’m glad you’re willing to be my go-between with Mom and Dad, because you know what they’re like. Every time I get a little sad or nervous, Mom will make a big deal about how strong I am, and Dad will tell me to just come home. Or worse, he’ll go over there to get me! But the truth is, traveling alone to a new country is kinda huge, right? I’ll stick it out, of course, but I can’t put up a strong front every second for them. So you have to keep convincing them that I’m doing fine, even if I don’t call all the time, okay?

Hugs to
Mom and Dad. Tell them I'll write to them soon. And stay away from Jamie—I’ll write to her too. She’ll be fine.

Love you,
goofball,

Tris

I squint at the message. I guess it had never occurred to me that she’d bother telling her brother to stay away from
me
.

Her jealousy is stupid, really. As if
he’d be interested. But Tristan had a friend back when they lived in L.A.—what she thought was her best friend, Ivy—and she overheard Ivy telling Sawyer before they moved that she’d only been friends with Tristan to get closer to him. Ivy had done all this begging for him to write, and Tristan had smashed Sawyer’s bedroom door open to confront them about it. The way Tristan explained it, it was just as much Sawyer’s fault as it was Ivy’s, but when I asked Tristan why Sawyer never wrote to Ivy, she didn’t have an answer.

Except that maybe
I
had a secret crush on her brother and I was trying to protect him. Obviously I let that subject drop. I’ve been trying to convince her ever since we met that I’m not Ivy.

Sawyer’s mouth is moving and his lips are so full and
soft looking, that I almost miss what they’re saying. “...I hope she’ll be okay on her own,” I catch.

I
force myself to turn away from him and read the message again. It’s hard to believe how
nice
Tristan's being to Sawyer in her email. It’s not like they hate each other, but I guess I’m just surprised by her vulnerability with him. Her nervousness is so out of character, too. It almost reminds me of…me.

I’m tempted to scroll down and see if Sawyer wrote to her first. Maybe he said something in his email that
brought on the insecurity. Normally, if Tristan would keep things from anybody, I’d suspect it would be Sawyer. But I’m not so sure at the moment. Maybe she thinks she needs to act strong with me, too.

My hand is frozen on the mouse. S
awyer places his hand over mine. It’s warm and my breath catches. For a second I think he can read my mind and he’s comforting me. But then, slowly, he slides the mouse pointer to the sidebar and clicks down until he gets to an email he sent her.

Maybe he really can read my mind.

“I sent this from computer class today.” His voice is quiet and his hand is still resting on mine. I can't believe his hand is resting on mine. I blink and force myself to focus.

Hey Tris,

Just wanted to make sure everything’s good and you got to Newark okay. If you want me to keep things cool with Dad, you better remember to do your part and check in.

Jamie looked a little lonely and like she’s missing you already too
, so make sure to keep up with us, okay?