Unforgettable (3 page)

Julian ran his hands along the tops of the leather chairs but kept his eyes on Tinsley’s. He had on a blue pin-striped Abercrombie oxford with the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows and a pair of baggy True Religion jeans that were grass-stained at the knees. “This is awesome. Our own private movie theater.” Tinsley stood up slowly and took a step toward him. She could feel the heat radiating off his body. “You mean,
my
own private movie theater,” she purred, not touching him. He smelled slightly sweaty, and Tinsley knew his lips would taste salty and manly. But she wasn’t ready for that yet.

He tried to put his hand on her hip but Tinsley swayed out of the way. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable,” she ordered in a sultry voice.

Julian obeyed, sinking backward into the recliner Tinsley had just vacated. Some boys felt the need to challenge her, but what she liked about Julian was that he understood her rules.

And she planned on rewarding him for that. Once Julian was seated, Tinsley carefully perched herself on the right arm of his chair, stretching her legs across his lap, boot heels tucked under the left armrest.

“I saw you coming out of Stansfield with Benny today. Those boots,” he said, groaning. He shook his head and traced his finger around the top of one of the boots before slowing running his hand up to Tinsley’s knee, squeezing it gently. She giggled before slapping his hand away.

Julian pretended to be offended. “Dude, you torture me with your sexy texts all day, wear this insanely sexy hippie-girl outfit, drag me down to your secret lair, and now you won’t even let me touch you?” Julian leaned his head back on the set, his handsome face taking on a pained expression. “You’ve got to give me
something
.”

“You didn’t look very tortured at lunch, when you were chatting up Celine Colista.” She slid along the armrest toward Julian until she was practically touching him.

Julian gave a deep, gravelly chuckle. “So is that what this is about? I’m being punished for being friendly?” She liked that he could tell she was joking. Like she’d ever be worried about someone liking fat-ankled Celine more than her. “That’s right. You’ve been very, very bad.” Julian groaned again as Tinsley traced her long nails around the inside of his collar, clearly enjoying the feel of her fingernails against his neck. She leaned toward him with deliberate slowness, her lips inching toward his a millisecond at a time. When she was about two inches away, close enough to see the tiny golden sparkles in the irises of his eyes, Julian leaned forward abruptly and pressed his lips against her own. A thrill ran through her body—his lips
did
taste salty—and she slid off the armrest and onto his lap.

“I’ve got to get to practice,” she said breathlessly. She wasn’t really thinking about practice so much as getting away from Julian. Something about feeling so comfortable with a boy made her a little panicky.

His long arms wrapped themselves around her. “You are
killing
me. I thought we were going to watch a movie—sneak in
Casablanca,
pretend we were stranded in the desert… .” He kissed her gently on the collarbone. “I like this spot,” he said before kissing it again.

Swiftly, Tinsley extracted herself from his arms and stood up, straightening the hem of her dress.
Deep breaths. He is not Humphrey Bogart, and you are not Ingrid Bergman. He is your freshman boy toy, and his time is up.

“Do you want to get together tonight at Maxwell? Have coffee? Make out in some dark alcove?” Julian grinned and got to his feet slowly.

“Julian,” Tinsley chided, running her fingers through her hair, “we’ve got to be discreet. We can’t just show up at places and make out.” “Well, what if I came to you? In the dark?” Julian started digging through his pockets for something. He pulled out a platinum Zippo with the initials
JPM
on it and held it out to her. “Take this. After the sun goes down, I’ll watch your window. Light it three times, and I’ll know it’s safe to sneak over.” Tinsley giggled and stared at the lighter in his hand. It was cheesy, sure, but also unbelievably adorable. She grabbed it from his hand.

“Just don’t get caught,” she warned as she sauntered toward the door.

“I’ll wear my cloak of invisibility, promise.” Julian put his hand to his heart in a mock pledge.

Tinsley paused in the door frame and opened the lighter, flicking it a few times. She gave Julian her best smoldering look, then turned on her heel and disappeared.

Always leave them wanting more.

Instant Message Inbox

BennyCunningham:
Juicy alert: saw Mr. Kentucky and Betty Boobs chatting on the quad today, looking less than friendly.

HeathFerro:
Guess the honeymoon’s o-vah! Think he’s back with Georgia peaches?

BennyCunningham:
Don’t think so. Callie’s not one to forgive and forget so quickly. But I’ll find out 4sure 2nite at the Women of Waverly meeting.

HeathFerro:
WTF’s that?

BennyCunningham:
Sorry, Heathie. Girls only.

HeathFerro:
But that’s my favorite kind of club!

Brandon Buchanan grabbed a freshly laundered Lacoste jersey tee from his top dresser drawer and paused before pulling it on to examine his biceps in Heath Ferro’s cloudy full-length mirror. He’d been doing more lifting at the gym ever since Julian McCafferty had joined the squash team and he’d found himself having to work a little harder in practice, move a little faster, react a little quicker. He wasn’t about to let a frosh take his spot as the star player on the team. For the past two weeks, he’d headed to Lasell after practice and put in an hour or so with the free weights. It was boring as hell, and his muscles ached the next day, but he was pretty sure he was starting to see results.

And he was pretty sure Elizabeth had noticed, too. Elizabeth, the funky St. Lucius girl who’d showed up at the party in Dumbarton trying to track down Jeremiah and had ended up spending all her time with Brandon. Elizabeth, with her pleather jacket and crunchy shoes, who Brandon could absolutely not stop thinking about. At one point on the Saturday night when they were making out in the dark tunnels beneath campus, she had squeezed his bicep and whispered in his ear, her breath warm on his face, “
Nice
.” Brandon had assumed she’d been talking about his muscles, anyway, and not his Hugo Boss deodorant, although he might have been mistaken. Elizabeth was one of those girls who seemed insanely unpredictable—even by girl standards.

Which was part of the reason she was so much fun to think about. She wasn’t like all the uptight Waverly girls he was used to. He had no idea what she’d be doing right now—was she still in class? Maybe she was back in her dorm room, dancing around to KT Tunstall in her underwear. He’d been pleasantly distracted with thoughts of her ever since she had slipped onto her sea green Vespa and he’d watched her taillights disappear into the darkness as she floored it back to St. Lucius. When he got back to his room, Brandon had been thankful to find that Heath was still out—he’d probably coerced some poor Dumbarton girl to let him sleep in her bed because he “needed to be held.” Brandon had been able to fall asleep thinking about the smell of Elizabeth’s perfume—something natural and cit-rusy—instead of the overwhelming scent of Heath’s ego.

He’d waited a few days to call her because he knew all too well how easily girls were turned off by the too-eager vibe. But now the waiting was over. He slipped his Bluetooth wireless in his ear and did one last bicep curl in the mirror for luck, but before he could dial Elizabeth’s number the door flew open and Heath stormed in, panting.

Brandon quickly stepped away from the mirror, waiting for the inevitable “What were you doing? Making out with yourself?” or “It’s not going to get any bigger if you just stare at it in the mirror.” But Heath was too distracted to give more than a nod in his direction. He collapsed to his knees next to his own unmade bed, dragging out random shoes and pieces of rancid laundry and tossing them onto the middle of the floor. Brandon eyed the pile he was creating disdainfully. “Finally find a peephole into the girls’ showers? Need your camera?” “I know it’s under here somewhere,” Heath muttered as he shoved his head and shoulders under the bed and thrashed around for a minute before extracting himself. He halfheartedly tugged at a Louis Vuitton duffel wedged under the bed before immediately giving up. He hopped to his feet, sneezing loudly, his shaggy blond hair covered in dust bunnies, and strode over to Brandon’s bookshelf. He tapped his fingers impatiently against his stomach as his eyes scanned each shelf.

“What are you
doing
?” Brandon sighed heavily and turned away. He grabbed his deodorant from his dresser and swiped at his armpits.

“Hardy, Eliot, Hemingway. What do you need so many fucking books for?” Heath sneezed again.
Great. Spread Ferro germs all over.
“Aha!” Heath snatched a black leather-bound book from the third shelf down and Brandon caught a glimpse of gold writing: The Waverly Handbook.

“Looking for new ways to get expelled?” Brandon asked, taking a seat on his navy Nautica comforter.

Heath flopped backward onto his bed and flipped distractedly through the pages of the handbook. “Nah. Hey, you hear about your buddy Walsh yet?” Despite being focused on whatever the secret task was at hand, Heath clearly couldn’t resist spreading a little gossip.

Brandon repressed a groan at the sound of Easy’s name. “What now?” “Nothing, apparently.” Heath squinted thoughtfully at one of the pages before flicking to another, his right index finger running along the paragraphs, searching for something. “Just heard that Jenny gave him the boot. Callie too. Tired of his shit. Moving on, et cetera, et cetera.” “No shit.” That was pretty good news. Even if Brandon
was
pretty much over Callie by now, he still didn’t want to see her with slimebag Easy Walsh. And Jenny was waaaaay too good for him too.
Finally
that jackass was getting what he deserved. Maybe there had been some kind of cosmic alignment, the forces of good in the world coming together to keep Walsh from getting away with jerking around two of the prettiest girls on campus. About fucking time. “That true?” Heath shrugged, still not willing to tear his eyes from the handbook. “That’s what my spies tell me.” Brandon pulled his Bluetooth from his ear and tossed it onto his bed. He’d call Elizabeth later, from somewhere private and Ferro-free.

“I knew it!” Heath yelled suddenly, holding up the handbook in triumph. Before Brandon could even ask what he knew, he was running out of the room, waving the book over his head and looking more gleeful than if he
had
found a peephole into the girls’ showers.

Sometimes, especially with Heath, it was better not to ask.

Callie Vernon hurried home from class on Tuesday afternoon, eager to unload her heavy leather Chloé luggage bag and change out of her Cynthia Rowley pencil skirt. The zipper at the back kept digging into her spine, and Callie was ready to tear it off. She paused for just a moment outside the Pardees’ door, where Benny and Rifat Jones and a few other girls were huddled, listening to the fight going on inside.

“They’re really going at it,” Rifat whispered as Callie approached, pulling a maroon Waverly sweatshirt down over her long, thin torso.

“You just missed some serious name calling,” Benny snickered, leaning casually against the wall, already in her practice sweats. “It was great.” It was always fun to listen to the Pardees’ fights—all the other dorms were jealous that Dumbarton got the most volatile faculty couple—but Callie had stuff to do. She raised her eyebrows at Benny and hiked up the stairs.

As Callie opened the door to Dumbarton 303, she paused. “No, really, Dad, things are going fine here.
Really
,” Jenny was insisting into her Treo. Callie stood in the doorway, the heavy tote thumping against her hip, the zipper snagging the delicate fabric of her sateen Diane von Furstenberg jacket.

Damn it
.

Jenny whirled around, her brown eyes opened wide at the sight of Callie. The forced-happy tone in her voice didn’t match the sad look in her eyes. For the past few days, she had sort of managed to convince herself that Jenny wasn’t really so bothered by the whole Easy thing, after all. Jenny knew that Callie and Easy had gone out to dinner together with Mr. Walsh, but she most certainly did
not
know about their intense closet make-out session, where they had practically inhaled each other. And looking at her sad little roommate, Callie definitely didn’t want her to find out.

She started to mouth the words,
Should I go?
but Jenny shook her head vigorously, her mass of dark curls dancing around her pale face, and then turned her attention back to the small black phone held to her ear. “I just … wanted to say hi. I’ve got practice now, so I’ve got to run, but I’ll talk to you later… . Love you, too.” Callie flounced into the room, deciding that if she seemed extra cheerful maybe Jenny would catch on and not look so depresso. She dropped her tote crammed with boring

Spanish textbooks onto her bed and tried not to stare at Jenny’s puffy-looking eyes. Had she been
crying
? But then Jenny sneezed a cute little rabbit sneeze, and Callie felt a little better, because maybe Jenny was just allergic to autumn or something, and not calling her father for Easy-related solace. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your phone call.” Jenny set her Treo down on her dresser and gathered her long hair back behind her head, expertly sliding an elastic from her slim wrist to hold it in place. “No, don’t worry about it. My dad just likes me to check in once in a while, or else he starts to think I got, I don’t know, inducted into a sorority or something.” “Parents worry way too much.” Callie nodded conspiratorially. “Although my parents would probably be thrilled if there were sororities at Waverly.” She liked Jenny, she really did, but Easy loomed over them like a storm cloud, and she was pretty sure they could both hear him rumbling in the distance. “It’s like they think boarding school is another planet. I know it drives my mother crazy that I’m out of her line of sight when I’m here.” Jenny sighed as she fumbled through a drawer for her practice clothes. “My dad’s worried that I’m going to, like, take my first step or something and he won’t be there to see it.” “That’s sweet.” Callie pulled her Ralph Lauren sleeveless mock turtleneck over her head, disappearing for a moment into a tunnel of hair-frizzing static and cashmere. Jenny really
was
just a kid. She was what, fifteen? “My mom worries I’m going to do something to embarrass her, and she won’t be there to yell at me for it.” She shrugged her shoulders. She could picture Jenny’s dad as some super-nice favorite-uncle-type guy who wore chunky hand-knit sweaters and hiking boots and gave the best bear hugs, the kind where you get picked up and spun around.
Her
mom gave her air kisses when she saw her.