The Taming of the Drew (35 page)

The only person still churning forward was Sander’s mom.

Drew said, in her direction. “I think it’s time for the birthday cake,” and she began shoving in a slightly different direction, people now moving a little out of her way. She waved a hand above the crowd at caterers, who joined her in the effort from all directions, converging on a refrigerator.

With his jaw against my cheekbone, his arm around my waist, Drew said, “You’re going to tell me what I should feel and do? Is that right, Vic?”
 

“But,” said Vic, “you’re the
Dog
,” making a gesture at me, like that should explain everything, like girls were fashion accessories and I was a mismatched, tacky one.

I felt Drew’s arm tense harder at my waist, and this time I leaned back into him, molding myself against him. He went still, then said, his voice like dry ice, “How the hell do you think you know
anything
about me? How do you know I haven’t been chasing
her
the last two months?”
 

“Right,” Vic said with a snort of disbelief, glancing sideways for support from the other guys, who didn’t return the glance, but stared, shifting and uncertain, at Drew.
 

That’s when Drew turned me, so that I stood in his arms. “Those guys are idiots,” he said, not raising his voice, like there was no one else in the room but us two, like they no longer deserved his attention. I saw shocked surprise on all the guys’ faces and it was so profound, like a punch to the gut, that I knew this was the first time Drew had done something like this — to reject them in public. For a girl.

“And it’s my birthday.” He tucked a wisp behind my ear. My heart beat a loud, frantic drumbeat of warning, faster and faster.

But it was too late — because his next words were, “Kiss me, Kate.”

I heard the distant oof sound of an expensive refrigerator door closing. Sander’s mom was talking in the background. The masses of people around us were a shh, shh breathing sound.

His eyes bored into mine, like he was telling me, the way I’d told him in the clearing with Celia,
trust me. Do this without question. Please
.

“Here?” I said, unable to blink, unable to look away from him.

“You want to go somewhere else?” He asked with a wicked smile and my face exploded with all the color it had been missing. People laughed around us, and the room loosened a notch.

“No, that’s not what…“ I said, not daring to look around.

He put his hand against the side of my face, his thumb cradling the tip of my chin. He leaned in until I could see only his eyes, and there was a new intensity there. He spoke low but even so, I knew some of the people around us heard what he said. “Then kiss me, Kate,” he said, “Kiss me like you mean it.”

I knew then why he did it like this, his hand tender on my face, waiting for me. He did it so everyone would know better. Every guy in the entire Legacy school, every guy in the city, would be petrified to ever bother me again. I knew Drew did this for me, and my heart broke because of it.
 

It wasn’t the way a first kiss should be. Not here. Not in front of everyone. Not for the wrong reasons. I shook with fear and embarrassment and I knew he could feel me trembling.

But I kissed him anyway.

I could try to pretend I did it to defuse the situation, to end a fight before it began.
 

But that would be lying.
 

What can I say? It was my one chance to kiss him, my only chance, and my heart made me grab it before it disappeared forever.
 

So I said, “Well, okay,” and leaned in to meet him. His lips touched mine and held and waited, warm and firm and then I stood on tiptoe and my arms went around his neck and his fingers slid into my hair, his forearm tightened on my back and I was dimly aware of whooping and cheering and then the Happy Birthday song bellowed out. I pulled back, my hands pushing his chest and he almost followed me, his eyes half-closed like he didn’t want to stop, even then.

I blinked, put a hand to my hair, aware that I needed to stop panting because it made my too-tight corset top shift and wriggle as I breathed. I looked around the room like someone waking from a spell as cell-cameras clicked and clicked. I looked for my friends, buried and jostled by the crowd and in the place where they’d been standing I saw my own cell-phone, raised high by Celia. Against the mass of people shifting forward, I saw Helena shove backwards, trying to reach Celia to stop her, but unable to get there before Celia pushed send and lowered the phone.

In that moment, I knew the photo of me wrapped in his arms and kissing Drew — my first kiss — had been posted and sent to the entire world.
 

Including his mom.

Chapter 11

Something about that kiss was enough. Vic lumbered forward and said, head hanging, “Sheesh, Dog, you could’ve told us.”

Drew didn’t glance his way, but said, over the heads of the crowd, “Can I get a piece of cake here, for Kate?”

So many hands reached up and helped, that the paper plate passed over people’s like a crowd-surfer at a concert.
 

I stood like I’d just been assigned my own body — not knowing where to look, how to use it, where to put my hands. Drew reached down and, still not looking at me, wrapped my hand is his. He took the plate, turned and walked to the huge club chair, tugging me along behind. He sat, put the plate on the armrest and said, knees spread, patting a thigh, “Sit, Kate.”

I knew right then how the Frankenstein monster felt when lightning coursed through him. Anger crackled along my spine. I put a hand on my hip and said, “You really want me feeding you cake? Now?”

There was that wicked Bianca smile and I realized for the first time that it actually was a wicked Drew smile — one that Bianca learned from him.

“I like to live dangerously,” he said. “Besides, I’m pretty sure the cake’s not poisoned.”

I realized everyone was hovering around us, pretending, as they jostled and shifted for cake, that they weren’t listening, but if anything, listening even more closely than they had before.

“You better know how to self-Heimlich, because if you choke, I’m not helping you,” I said through clenched teeth.
 

“I’ll take my chances.” He waited, the smile, if anything, wider and more wicked.

I flounced into his lap.
 

His hand slid up to rest on the back of my neck, his thigh shifted to take my weight and that heat flared again. I fought an almost overwhelming urge to let myself go and lean against his chest, press my face against his neck and hide.

Instead I sat, stiff and prim.

I felt his gaze on the side of my neck and I knew he could see a pulse throbbing there, the way my pulse seemed to throb all through me. I lifted the plate while people watched us and forked up a bite, and turned to give it to him, watching his mouth as he ate it.

His finger begin a slow circle on the skin at the base of my hair and I had to fight the urge to lean into it, the way a cat leans into your hand when you rub behind her ears.
 

“Why are you doing that?” I said, my voice hoarse.

He looked like he was having trouble focusing too. “Didn’t we learn about rewards in psych?”
 

A feeble alarm tried to sound, but my brain couldn’t force it past the din of other sensations right now. I pulled away. And blinked.
 

“Psych?”

He gave himself a shake, and said, his voice throbbing, “Just, thanks. Thank you, Kate.”

I used the armrest to lift myself and shifted away, until I almost perched on his kneecap. I took a bit of cake and pretended I didn’t hear him.

***

Drew led me through all the rooms of the party, twice, his hand tugging me along, his jacket on my shoulders, people clearing a path for us, some saying a shy “Hi,” as we passed. I knew there were baffled looks trailing behind me like a wake behind a ship, disturbing the Uni waters.
 

He’d stop and talk, a hand at my back. I would try to shift away and he’d reach to hold my hand, not seeming to realize what he did. Each time, the ache in my chest grew deeper and bigger until I realized that the problem wasn’t the sidelong looks from the people around me, but the fact that my Drew- radius had shrunk from ten feet to three feet. Any further than the end of his arm and I felt like I pushed myself against a spear of my own making, testing my tolerance for pain. Doing it because I knew that this would all, very shortly, end badly.

***

I think Drew might have known where the Greenbacks were, and waited to go to them until he’d finished with the rest of the party. Which shouldn’t have surprised me because the Greenbacks didn’t need to see the Kate-and-Drew Act.

But he didn’t drop his hand from my back, like maybe he’d forgotten it was there, and, unlike me, he didn’t seem the least bit awkward in front of my friends.

Nate and Curtis still looked angry and sullen. Nate talked to Viola with his frowning stared fixed on Bianca. I heard him say, “So then, which of you guys is good at history?” and, again, some feeble pale alarm tried, unsuccessfully, to ring in my brain. Nameless fears shifted inside my belly.
 

Helena said, “Celia didn’t know your phone was set to auto-post any pictures that you send.”

The group fell silent. Drew turned me and raised an eyebrow. I said, “I know she didn’t.”

Celia said, from the back of the group, “Why the hell do you people talk like I’m not here?”

Gonzo, beside her, said, “Oh we do that to everyone. That’s what it’s like, being in this group.”
 

Celia turned her back to him, a flush creeping up her neck. “Like I don’t know that,” she said.

Without meaning to, she’d pointed out to all of us the fact that none of the Uni students, much less a group, had talked to her during the entire party.

Tio said, giving a jerk of the head toward Drew, “We talked about it, Kate. You need to tell him.”

The cold night air didn’t keep heat from steaming my face. “It’s your mother. Celia sent a photo of…of the party…as a twitter report.”

Drew said. “Ah.” He gave a shrug.
 

Celia said, “Who says I didn’t mean to?”

Phoebe said, “Do you deliberately do that — make people want to throttle you?”

I saw Celia, hand on hip, say, “Lawyer genes. You think you can take me?” and Gonzo snaked an arm around Celia’s waist to haul her backwards out of the line of fire.
 

But Phoebe looked at Celia, then guffawed, a huge, belly-laugh of pure joy that danced and danced in the night air, making people even across the patio turn and look.

“Oh, honey,” Phoebe said, “I could mop the floor with you.” She sniffed and wiped a laugh-tear out of the corner of her eye. “But what would be the use?” Phoebe looked at Curtis, who stared at her open-mouthed, and said, “Did you get cake? I want cake,” and walked off, Curtis trailing behind, leaving the rest of us open-mouthed, except for Celia and Gonzo, who were having a whispered, angry fight in the fern-fronds.

Viola said, in the silence, “Kate, that’s not what you should tell Drew. You need to tell him about--”

“Don’t!” I said, hand up, my mouth dry.

Helena put a hand on Viola’s arm. “Vi, maybe we ought to let Kate…well, maybe she’ll…” Helena seemed to notice Drew staring at them both and finished, “ C’mon, help me find Sander so I can say thanks for the party, and go.”

I turned to Drew. “Can we go?”

He gave me a long look, like he was making a decision. Now was the time for him to ask
exactly what is it you’re not telling me, Kate
? That’s what a normal person would do.
 

But he said, “You okay? You’re looking kind of green. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a good green. Goes well with the blue dress.”

“Too much supper,” I said with a weak smile.

He walked through the crowd, his hand still wrapped around mine, and said over his shoulder, “Well, that’ll teach you not to hog the churro.”

He kept my hand prisoner for the drive home, his fingers threaded through mine, using both our palms to shift the center gearstick into drive and then park. He pretended to not notice I was plastered against the passenger-side door again.

I scrabbled one-handed at the seat belt before we stopped rolling. I was so nervous about what he might say or do after the car stopped that I pushed the door with my shoulder, standing up but then tugging to a halt, my hand trapped in his, stretched across the passenger seat. He turned off the engine by reaching across the steering wheel and leaned way over, so that he could see me where I stood in the open car door.
 

I yanked my hand away, then held it against my chest like it was burned.

“Kinda eager to go?”

“There’s no one watching,” I said, and despite the dark, it seemed like his eyes got darker.
 

“I noticed.”

“So you don’t have to,” I was suddenly angry at him for putting me in this position. “You don’t have to
you know
.”

He straightened. “I don’t
have
to what?”

“Do anything to, you know. Help me. Like you did with the sleazy guys.”

“You mean the football guys.”

“Same diff.”

There was a gleam of amusement now that only seemed to emphasize that darkness in his gaze. “That’s what you think?”

“About guys?”

“About tonight.”
 

“Of course it is.” He was making me angrier, forcing me to put it all into words. He should have more respect, and be more of a gentleman about it.

He leaned back a bit, pondering. “So what would you call that?”

“What?” I barked.

He leaned forward on an elbow, his white teeth flashing. “The whole thing?”

“What
are
you talking about?” I didn’t hide my irritation.

“There’s got to be a name for it. The walking around together — that’d be a charade parade. Right? And then, what would you call that other part — a pity kiss?”