None of the Regular Rules (8 page)

“We’re camping,” Grace said.

“I see that,” Johnny said, grinning at her. “I also heard you talking about pizza.”

“You
were
lurking!” I cried. “And listening. That is so wrong.”

“Oh, come on,” Johnny said. His voice was low and rough, as though he’d just woken up and hadn’t talked to anyone else yet. It was incredibly sexy and teasing, too. “You were practically screaming in here. I can get you pizza, you know. If you’re interested…”

“You’d buy us pizza?” Ella asked suspiciously. “Why would you do that?”

“I did not say I’d buy you a pizza,” Johnny teased. “I said I can
get
you pizza. But we’d need a car. Sophie, you have a car, don’t you?”

“I do—”

“Well, then. Let’s go get some pizza.” Johnny laughed and began to unzip the tent again.

I wasn’t going anywhere. “We don’t have any money,” I said, once again jumping straight to the logical problems in a plan. I wanted to suck the words back in, just go with the flow, but I’d already said it.

Johnny stepped out of the tent. “We don’t need money. We’ll have to work for it, but it will be worth it, I swear.”

I wanted to ask more questions, to press him on how we were going to get free pizza, but then I thought about how I’d
just
been complaining about never doing anything without thinking it through and finding every possible obstacle first.

“Okay,” I said with a smile. “I just have to run inside and grab my keys.”

CHAPTER
TEN

“You know Peter Martinson, right?” Johnny asked after we’d all piled in the car a few minutes later. I’d quickly gone to the bathroom and changed into a pair of jeans and a soft sweater while I was inside. I didn’t change because of Johnny, I told myself. Rather, I slipped on something that would be much more comfortable than my Disney sleep T-shirt and flannel pants. It also made me look seventeen instead of six. That was a plus.

“Yeah,” I said, glancing at him beside me. Ella and Grace had hopped into the backseat together, leaving the front seat free for Johnny. I didn’t know if Ella had coordinated the seating arrangements, or if it just worked out that way. But I was grateful to whatever fates had intervened. I could smell him next to me, and I liked that I could look at him out of my peripheral vision without making a big deal about it. “He lives on my old block.”

“Oh, right,” Johnny said, chuckling. “The tale of the borrowed Barbie dolls.”

“He doesn’t still play with Barbie dolls,” Ella piped up quietly from the backseat. I grinned, realizing she was defending her crush. As if Peter needed defending. I glanced over at Grace in the rearview mirror and caught her yawning. She smiled sheepishly at me before pulling out her phone to text Ian—probably to fill him in on her exact coordinates. Since school started, Ian liked to know where she was at all times, to keep watch over her or something. I thought that sounded really tiring, and somewhat codependent-bordering-on-obsessive, but she didn’t seem to mind. I had a feeling Ian wouldn’t be happy if he knew we were out on a joyride with Johnny Rush. He didn’t respond well to Grace being in the company of other guys.

Johnny shrugged. “Barbie dolls or not, I have a score to settle with that guy. Peter Martinson is on my list. Ladies, we are going on a bit of a scavenger hunt.”

I felt my stomach tighten. “What kind of score?” I asked. “You don’t want to fight him or anything, do you?” I pictured myself in a mug shot, an accomplice to a beating of some kind. I’d checked my hair before we left, and it looked okay. I’d learned that you’re supposed to tilt your chin down and fluff up your lips in mug shots—that’s what all the celebrities do. What if I had to call on that know-how now, tonight? But Johnny wasn’t the kind
of guy to beat someone up. At least, I hoped not.
That was more of a Trever German and crew thing—the beefy, ugly guys who wore trench coats and challenged one another to the modern-day equivalent of duels behind the middle school.

Johnny laughed—that short, almost angry-sounding burst of a laugh that I’d heard on so many nights down below my open window when he was hosting parties. “No, I don’t want to
fight
him. Jeez, what kind of guy do you think I am? I’m just looking for a little payback.”

“Okay,” I said reluctantly. Johnny didn’t say anything more, so I just kept driving toward Peter’s house. “But you’re going to have to give me a few more clues as to where we’re going first. Or I can just drive around all night. But that’s not going to get us the pizza you promised.”

Johnny tapped his knees and said, “Okay, go right. Here.” I followed his instruction and turned right, cringing as my car whined in protest. “What do you feed this thing? It sounds terrible.”

“It came like this. It’s old,” I said, shrugging. “It has a few quirks.”

“I hear that.” Johnny opened his window and leaned his head out to look at the side of the car. I slowed down, unwilling to watch him plummet from the window and go rolling down the street. “I can take a look at it for you, if you want,” he offered, sliding his body back into the car.

I shrugged. “Sure. Do you know anything about cars?”

“Not really,” he said, laughing. “But I’m great at pulling stuff apart. I can usually get it back together again. I don’t offer a money-back guarantee, though, just in case I can’t.”

We all laughed. “I think I’ll just let it be, then. No offense.”

“Probably a wise choice,” Johnny said, and looked over at me with a smile. I felt my stomach flipping again, and my mind jumped to Mackenzie. What would she say if she knew her boyfriend was out with three other girls? Was she the kind of person who got jealous about stuff like that?

I suddenly realized something. “Hey, what are you doing home from school anyway? Are you home for the weekend or something?”

Johnny shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Not exactly.”

Grace poked her head between the two front seats eagerly. “Did you drop out?” she asked.

“Not that either.” Johnny’s lips were pressed into a thin line, and I could tell he wasn’t enjoying the conversation anymore.

“So—where exactly are we going anyway?” I asked, trying to change the subject. It wasn’t any of our business to know what was going on with Johnny and school, and I didn’t want to be the reason someone felt uncomfortable in my car. The lack of appropriate padding in the passenger seat already made it uncomfortable enough; we didn’t need to put him through the third degree, too. I was just as curious as Grace about why Johnny wasn’t at Madison, whooping it up with Mackenzie at the moment, but he could tell us the reason for it on his own time. In the meantime, I looked over at him in the passenger seat and said, “If we could avoid right turns as much as possible on this scavenger hunt, that would be great.”

Johnny smiled at me gratefully. “We will make it a specific part of our evening’s mission to avoid right turns,” he said quickly. “We eventually need to get to Sammy’s, the one on Park Drive.” Sammy’s was the best pizza place in town—really, the only one that wasn’t Godfather’s or Domino’s.

Peter worked as a delivery guy at Sammy’s. We all knew this because Ella spent most of her babysitting money on Sammy’s delivery, on the off chance that Peter would deliver it to her. I don’t know if she fantasized that maybe he would realize she was the love of his life as he handed her a white cardboard box. At any rate, we ate a few too many pizzas. I knew Johnny had worked at Sammy’s, too. He’d delivered a few of the pizzas we’d ordered over the years.

Johnny pointed to the left, at the road that led past the old, abandoned elementary school. “If we hang a left here, this road will gradually get us up the hill and we won’t have to take any sharp turns at all.” Again, I followed his directions. “Impressed?”

“Very,” I said. Grace leaned back in her seat again, obviously disappointed that I’d staved off the gossip.

When we got to Sammy’s, I spotted Peter’s car in the lot. It was a tiny, old sports car, the kind with flashy spoilers and an ugly yellow paint job. Ella held her boobs a little higher and peered anxiously out the window at the pizza shop. A few minutes later, Peter emerged from the glass front doors with a stack of five insulated pizza warmers and headed toward his car. Johnny motioned for us all to stay quiet and duck down. “Nice! He’s got a multirun. This is going to be perfect. If you want a pizza, you’ve got to trust me and get your sneak on,” he said.

I looked back over my shoulder at Ella and Grace, who were giving each other a questioning look in the backseat. They both looked at me warily. Grace was probably nervous about getting in trouble, and Ella was probably concerned about what Johnny was planning to do to the love of her life.

“Now follow him,” Johnny instructed, popping up and giggling as Peter’s car sailed out of the parking lot and down the hill. “Give him a little lead time so he doesn’t hear your car. We’re not exactly incognito in this beast.”

“Respect the car,” I cautioned. “I don’t know what you have in mind, but your revenge is made possible thanks to my vehicle.”

“Ooh, look,” Johnny said happily, when Peter pulled up in front of a white stucco house with a long, curving front walk. “He’s making his first delivery already. Now turn off your lights,” he instructed. I did as I was told. “Okay, just pull up as close as you can to his car, and try not to get noticed. When I get back in the car, we all need to hide. Got it?”

I cringed. “Got it.”

“Don’t worry,” he said, recognizing my anxiety. “No one will get hurt.”

Peter got out of his car and made his way to the front door of the stucco house. He’d left his car running, and it was obviously unlocked. Johnny opened the front door of my car noiselessly and slipped outside, crouching down next to the passenger’s side door. As soon as the front door to the house opened, Johnny scooted up to Peter’s car and opened the back door. By the time Peter had turned to walk back to his car, Johnny was already back in my car with a pizza in hand.

He was grinning and giggling.
A
moment later, Peter was in his car and driving away. “You stole a pizza!” I said.

“That I did,” Johnny said, opening the cardboard box. “Let’s see what we scored.” The smell of fresh pizza filled my car, and my stomach grumbled hungrily. “Nice! Olive and green peppers. A classic. The person who ordered this has exceptional taste.”

“But what about Peter?” Ella demanded from the back seat. “You took one of his pizzas.”

Johnny shrugged. “Payback. At least, the first part of it.”

“What did he ever do to you?” Ella asked.

“He’s done plenty,” Johnny said. “Don’t worry about poor Peter’s feelings or anything. This kind of thing happens all the time at Sammy’s.”

“You steal pizzas?” Grace asked, wide-eyed.

“One time when I went out for a delivery, I came back to the car and found that every single one of my pizzas was gone. It was Super Bowl Sunday, so I had fourteen pies in my car. I’m sitting there wondering what I’m going to do, when Peter and a couple of his buddies come driving by in an old pickup truck and Martinson yells out the window, ‘Don’t forget to lock up!’ Then they threw an empty box out the window of the truck and it beaned me on the head. Fourteen pizzas. They took fourteen pies!”

“What about the people who had ordered the pizzas?” Grace asked. “Did they ever get them?”

“Eventually,” Johnny said, taking a slice of pizza out of the box and biting into it. He spoke with his mouth full, which was oddly charming. “I had to pay for the ones I lost, and then I didn’t get any tips on top of it, since I was so late with the deliveries. Peter should feel lucky that I only stole one.”

“When will he realize it’s gone?” I asked. “He didn’t seem to notice it was missing.”

“Ah, yes, that’s part of the fun of stealing them one by one, instead of taking everything. It’s a lot less obvious, and the payback is drawn out over a period of weeks—you never know when to expect it.” He grinned. “Peter’s going to drive all the way to his next delivery, reach into the back of the car, and find an empty warmer.” He cracked up. “He’ll only have to pay for the one missing pie. Or maybe he won’t, since it’s only one and the late-night managers are more relaxed about that sort of thing. But anyway, he’s going to be so pissed that he let himself get pranked. That’s the best part of this whole thing. Oh, and that we get pizza.” He handed the box into the backseat. “Help yourselves, ladies. After all, I got this for you.”

***

We ate pizza and drove around town for a while, listening to Johnny tell us stories of pranks that had gone wrong between him and his friends. He also proudly confessed that he’d been one of the organizers of a group of people who had filled our former government teacher’s yard with Democratic political signs, a prank that had gotten quite a bit of coverage in our local news.

During his time at East Central, Mr. Hennen had been inappropriately outspoken about his super-conservative views, criticizing “those foolish liberals” for having loose morals. Then he accidentally impregnated a student’s (married) mom—and it soon came out that he was also having an affair with three students, as well. Needless to say, Mr. Hennen wasn’t a hero—and a few weeks after it all went down, someone stole hundreds of campaign signs out of other people
’
s yards and filled Mr. Hennen’s lawn with sign after sign supporting the loose-moraled liberals. Johnny was obviously proud of what they’d done.

By the time we returned to my house, it was well past midnight. We said good night to Johnny, crawled into the tent, and I could hear both Ella’s and Grace’s breathing slow into sleep almost immediately.

I couldn’t fall asleep that fast, though. I kept thinking about our night, and about Johnny. I had to get him out of my head, but I just couldn’t stop myself from wishing he still lived next door. I let myself wonder, my thoughts flying into space. What would it have been like if we’d become something more than strangers when he was my neighbor? Would we have become friends?

Why was he home from college anyway? Mackenzie had told me she was leaving after that first week of school, at Johnny’s party. Surely they would have gone together. But now that he was home, for how long was he here? Most people didn’t come home for their first visit after leaving for college so early—not before Thanksgiving, or even Christmas. At least, not the people from our town. Once someone left, they never came back if they knew what was good for them.

A tiny piece of me wondered if maybe something had happened between him and Mackenzie. Maybe they’d had a fight, and he needed to come home to get away for a while. Maybe he’d be home often. I could only wish and wonder, and finally, late in the night when I was sure everything else around me was asleep, I drifted off with Johnny’s face etched into my mind.