The Revenge Playbook (26 page)

“Hey, there, Trev. What have I told you about talking to this girl?”

Ugh. And speaking of the email, I can't see Chad without wanting to cause him bodily harm because of all the things he wrote.

“Oh, um . . .” Trevor's eyes dart back and forth between us, but I don't want to see who wins this tug-of-war.

Nothing has changed. They still own him. The seedling of hope sprouting in my chest dies.

“I'll see you later,” I say sadly.

“No, Liv, wait!”

He chases after me, completely ignoring Chad's continued heckling. I wonder how he'll pay for that
later.

“I'm sorry. Just ignore him. It doesn't change what I said.”

“Now's not a good time. Maybe later, okay?” His face says he wants to argue. Over his shoulder I see Weston attempt to drive-by hug one of the bikers. A chair is flipped. Punches are thrown. I point in their direction. “You should probably go see about your boy.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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I
tap my pencil against my desk while Coach Mayes passes out the quiz sheets. I studied so hard, and I'm itching to get started before all that knowledge up and evaporates. The first question is an easy one, and I breeze through it. Every time a problem starts to trip me up, I just imagine Rey's calm voice explaining the angles.

It's going great until Coach Mayes steps out of the room. That's when Casey and Nate start whispering—first about what they think the answers are, and then about Angelica Davies's sudden change in cup size.

“I don't care how big they are,” says Nate. “You can always see her nipples through her shirt.”

Casey snorts. “And this is a bad thing, why?”

“Because they're always going in different directions, and it freaks me out. Like one'll be pointing north and the other'll be going southeast.” Nate mimes multidirectional nipples with his fingers. “It's creepy.”

I have to work extra hard to block out
that
mental picture, and even harder when Casey decides it would be a good idea to flick rolled-up balls of paper at me. I have to reread question six about
eighty billion times—it'll be a miracle if I get it right. Somehow, I finish and even have time to check my work before Coach Mayes gets back and calls time.

“We're going to spend the rest of the day on the library computers. There are some interactive geometry games I want to show you guys.”

Everyone races to get their stuff together because library time pretty much means free-for-all. I hang back.

“Hey, Coach?”

He shuffles the quizzes into a neat stack. “What's up?”

“I was wondering. Is there any way you could keep Casey from bugging me? Like, especially during quizzes and stuff? It makes it really hard to concentrate, you know?”

“I can take care of that. Sure thing. You don't need to go tattling on me again.” He's grinning like it's a joke, but there is most definitely a flicker of annoyance in his eyes.

“All right.” I feel good, but also a little uncomfortable. “Thanks, Coach.”

I go to the library and find an open computer and start following the instructions on the handout. Casey plops down beside me and starts checking his email. I wait for the inevitable. It doesn't take long.

“Hey, Church Girl, I mean, Peyton. Hey, Peyton.”

I resist banging my head against the keyboard in front of me, but seriously, if I have to sit through Casey talking to me for the rest of the class, someone is going to need to put me out of my misery. I look around for Coach, but he's on the other side of the room grading our quizzes.

“Hi, Casey,” I say in the most bored, sarcastic voice I can manage, which for me isn't saying a whole lot.

“So, what do you think of—”

Smack! One of those little foam footballs beams Casey in the back of the head and ricochets around between the table and computers.

“What the hell?!”

We both turn around to see Nate and Brian duck behind one of the bookshelves laughing.

“Oh, you're gonna pay,” Casey half yells because apparently, football players are exempt from using indoor voices in the library, along with everything else. He grabs the football and chases after them.

Saved.

I take a deep Casey-cleansing yoga breath, and stretch my neck from side to side. That's when I notice the screen of Casey's computer. His email account is still open. My fingers twitch against my keyboard. I could probably find The List. Right now. I'm sure it's still there. A guy who has—I glance at his screen again—1,486 unread emails probably didn't delete it. Just thinking about it makes my heart beat itself practically to death against my chest. What if he catches me? What then? I do this combination flip-my-hair-over-my-shoulder, turn-my-head-and-look-at-him move that I'm sure is the very opposite of stealth. He's still on the other side of the library, engaged in an all-out war with Brian
and Nate. The football flies over five stacks of books and disappears, and the boys chase after it. This is my shot.

I slide into his chair and spend two blank seconds that feel like an eternity staring at his screen and freaking out because I have no idea what to do next. It's not like I can wrinkle my nose and the email will magically appear. I take a deep breath. A search. I can search for it. Yes, I've used email searches before. I can do this. A low giggle that is not altogether sane escapes me as I type
LIV
into the search window and click
ENTER
. It's searching! This is so exciting! I am totally a spy! I check over my shoulder again to make sure I won't be a dead spy, but the boys are still occupied. Pelting each other with a football and objects found around the library requires a lot of attention.

A few hits come up, including one with
THE LIST
as a subject line. Well, that was easy. I click on it, and skim for the part about Liv.
LIV LAMBROS. THIS SLUT HAS HAD SEX WITH MORE GUYS IN MORE PLACES—

I cringe. This is it, all right. I start to click
FORWARD
. No, wait! That leaves a trace! I open my own email and copy and paste the message into a new email instead. I feel like I'm taking forever. I hope no one's watching me. I type in
LIV
, and her email address comes up, but as I move the mouse over the
SEND
button, it's like my finger doesn't want to press it.
Should I really be sending this to her? The things in this email are horrible. What if she reads it and—

“Hey, Peyton!”

Uh-oh. It's Casey. I hit
SEND
and then close both our emails, and not a moment too soon because he's right behind me.

“What are you doing?”

“Huh?” I blink up at him with wide, innocent eyes. “Oh, sorry, I thought you were done. I closed your email. My computer was being funny, so I wanted to check my email on yours.”

I can't believe how calm my voice is. It's like listening to someone else talk who isn't freaking out. I hope he can't see my hands shaking.

“Oh, that's okay.” Casey grins at me. “You can use anything of mine you want.”

And then, I kid you not, he looks pointedly at his crotch. There is some kind of justice in it being his email that we finally used to get The List.

“Awesome,” I say in a voice that clearly means it is anything but.

“Pack it up. Let's go,” barks Coach Mayes over the not-at-all-quiet-anymore library.

Everyone gets their stuff, including Nate and Brian, who didn't sit in front of a computer for a single minute of the library visit, and who are getting away with it because life isn't fair. Coach Mayes catches Casey by the shoulder, and I'm so surprised, I trip, and Jimmy Ferraro runs into me.

I wait for Coach to say something about Casey bothering me during class, but instead he says, “I need to talk to you about one of your answers on today's quiz.”

Oh. Oh,
wow
. Did he catch him having the same answers as Nate or something?

“I don't think you understood what I was asking with question number three. I just want to make sure you get it.”

“Thanks, Coach.”

Casey grins, and I get the feeling this has happened before.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

W
hen I check my phone between classes, there's an email from Peyton. Subject line: The List. Ohmygosh, is she serious?! I open it. She is! She totally got The List! I feel like doing a victory dance in the middle of the hallway. And then I read a couple sentences, and my stomach drops. I can't read this at school. Not unless I want to look like I spent last night binge-watching
The Notebook
. So I spend the rest of the day taking out my phone and staring at the email I can't read. Opening it. Closing it. Reconvincing myself that saving it for later is the best policy.

And then, because it's a football bye week, I have to go to dance team practice even though it's a Friday. Peyton asks me if I've read it, and when I tell her no, she says I have to call her when I do. Before I do anything drastic. As if
I
would ever do anything drastic. Although, if I don't get to read this freaking email soon, I just might.

And it gets worse. Because when my mom picks me up, she announces we're all going to family dinner together at the restaurant on the way home. My phone is burning a hole in my pocket, but I have promised myself I am only reading this email in my bedroom, all alone, on my laptop, ideally with a metric ton of chocolate on hand. The seconds tick by with painful slowness while my brother and sister attempt to use silverware like civilized humans and my mom asks me questions about school and stuff. I have no idea what I tell her. All I can think about is getting home.
I AM NOT GOOD AT DELAYED GRATIFICATION, PEOPLE!

By some kind of miracle, I finally get back to my bedroom and barricade my siblings out. I open the email, and also a square of extra dark with sea salt, just to be safe. And I read.

Gentlemen,

A new school year is upon us, and a new crop of Varsity players is chomping at the bit to get on the field. And you know what that means. It's time for The List.

We have certain standards here at Ranburne High, and while I'm sure you all thought you were hot shit when you were on JV, you're not. You turds don't know shit about shit, and you definitely don't know shit about women, which is why we have to help you out every year by making certain you're not dating fat, ugly losers. We just want you to live up to your potential, gentlemen. We do this because we care.

1. Abby Clayton. I'm pleased to see we only have one whale to spear this year. Greg, we have a rule on this team—no one is allowed to date a girl fatter than Coby's girlfriend. (He likes his girls thick, and
she has an ass kind of like Beyoncé's, so we let it slide.) Greg, your girlfriend does not have an ass like Beyoncé's. She has an ass that is 50 percent cottage cheese and 50 percent bacon grease, and every time she wears shorts I throw up in my mouth a little bit. Seriously, whenever I see her eating (which is often), I lose my appetite. Greg, you are embarrassing us all, so I'm only gonna say this once. Spear. The. Whale.

Everyone knows fat girls don't have feelings because their blubber insulates them, so just dump her and get it over with. If you give her a gallon of ice cream as a parting gift, she probably won't even care.

2. Natalie von Oterendorp. Jacob, let me be honest here. Your girlfriend's face looks like a Proactiv before-picture. Now if it were just that, I'd say buy a paper bag and be done with it, but it's not just that, Jacob. It's a lot of things. So many things I think you must be trying to piss me off on purpose. She's in the band. Her teeth need their own zip code. She wears Winnie-the-Pooh sweatshirts. For God's sake, the girl snorts when she laughs. You need to break up with her, stat, in case whatever she has is contagious. And speaking of contagious . . .

3. Liv Lambros. This slut has had sex with more guys in more places than Casey's mom in the '80s. (Sorry, Case, your mom told me about her groupie days the last time she was drunk.) I wouldn't even get in a hot tub with her for fear of catching something the CDC has yet to identify. There's slutty-hot and there's slutty-gross, and this girl is GROSS. Trevor, you need to break up with this walking cesspool of venereal disease. Quickly. Like before your dick falls off.

4. Carrie Sullivan. There is nothing inherently wrong with Carrie. She's a freshman cheerleader. She's pretty. She wears those adorable little necklaces with the owls on them. She is also Big Tom's little sister. And given the size of Big Tom's neck, I have to ask, Mason, are you a fucking idiot? No, really, I'm going to need you to email me back with the number of hits you took to the head on JV last year because I think you might be brain-dead. Did you really think you could hit on Carrie at the field party last weekend without Big Tom finding out? Whenever a guy flirts with Carrie, she goes on and on about it at dinner, so if you do it again, Big Tom will know, and the only way you'll be eating dinner for the rest of your life is through a tube.

That goes for all you assholes. Stay away from Carrie Sullivan because I can't be held responsible for what Big Tom does to your face after.

Honorable Mentions

Danny—Your girlfriend is not a whale. Yet. But she's only a few cheeseburgers away, so if you like her, I suggest you put that fatty-in-waiting on a diet. Get her to go running with you. Make her eat a few salads. Hell, I don't care if she throws up her food in the bathroom as long as I don't have to watch her stomach get any bigger. Do this for me, buddy. I don't want to have to break out the spears.