Addison Blakely: Confessions of A PK Page 10

  Ms. Hawthorne studied my eyes for a moment then nodded once. “All right, then.” She moved on to the student behind me and continued taking up the papers.

  That was it? I had a stomachache half the day for that? Part of me wanted to call her back and point out the misery I’d been in all day, but the other, smarter part of me hollered to shut up and count my blessings.

  Beside me Luke leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Lucky break.”

  Maybe so.

  The rest of class flew by in a blur, and I became the epitome of the model student, raising my hand to volunteer when no one else would, picking up my neighbor’s pen when they dropped it, reading out loud when asked. I copied down the homework assignment twice, just in case I needed proof I’d been paying attention. When the bell rang dismissing us, I took my time gathering my papers, giving Ms. Hawthorne one more time to change her mind and reprimand me. At least this way it’d be privately, though I don’t see how any punishment she could have doled out would have been more embarrassing than falling out of my chair. Maybe that’s why I’d avoided any consequences—she knew I had put myself through enough.

  I stalled at my desk until the classroom almost cleared. Then Austin pushed past me from the back of the room. “Must be nice to be the favorite.” He shook his head as he kept going, and at first I was so relieved he hadn’t made a pass at me that it took a minute for his words to sink in. The favorite? Like, teacher’s pet? Really? Guess he hadn’t gotten his attitude “realigned” that day after all.

  “See you tomorrow, Addison,” Ms. Hawthorne called from her desk with a knowing smile, as if guessing why I continued to stand in the empty room. That was it. Free and clear.

  But the whispers and furtive glances my fellow classmates shot my way told me I was anything but.

  After the day I had, ice cream was a must. I stood in line at Screamin’ Cones after school and wished Marta were there to share the fat grams and encouragement. I’d invited her on my way home, but she’d had to get back to her host family. Apparently her fill-in mom had planned a shopping spree that she refused to let Marta out of, wanting her to take plenty of “American” clothes with her when she went back home in the spring. I’d secretly envied the opportunity to shop with a real mom figure, but Marta barely tolerated it. “Mrs. Davidson is so nice, but she thinks I need to look like the cover of Seventeen magazine.” Marta had shaken her head as she closed her locker door. “I don’t really see many kids looking like that.”

  We took a shared glance around the crowded hall of Crooked Hollow High. No verbal agreement on my part had been necessary.

  “Next.” The harried-looking college student working the ice-cream counter motioned me forward. Apparently I wasn’t the only person having a bad day, judging by the way the line now snaked out the door.

  “Two scoops of strawberry in a waffle cone.” I dug through my coin purse for my money. “With sprinkles.”

  She keyed in the order on the register then plunged her hand into a plastic glove as she went for the strawberry bucket. “Four thirty-two.”

  I stared at the dollar bill in my hand and the three pennies in the bottom of my coin purse. “Um, without sprinkles?”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she plucked the glove off. Punched more buttons. “Four dollars even.”

  Odd that sprinkles cost thirty-two cents. I jingled my change, trying to sound confident. “One scoop. Plain cone.” I frowned. Good-bye sweet waffle bliss.

  She didn’t reglove, wisely doubting my financial ability. “Two ninety-five.”

  I stared at the dollar bill then tried to send her a “have pity, I’ve had a rough day” vibe. She was a hormonal young woman. Surely she’d understand. I widened my eyes and tried to think of puppies. Lost. In the rain.

  She wasn’t buying it. “Next!”

  Dismissed—unless I wanted to purchase a solo cup of sprinkles. The guy behind me jostled me out of the way as he stepped up in line, clutching a five-dollar bill. Must be nice. Apparently I’d spent more of my meager allowance on mochas lately than I’d realized.

  With a growling stomach and rising temper, I stomped outside. My backpack felt heavier now that my afternoon of homework (yes, I was going to do it!) faced me without the assistance of cold, creamy calories.

  “Why the long face, PK? You’ve missed me that much?” Wes fell into step beside me on the sidewalk, and for once I wasn’t even surprised at his sudden appearance.

  “I’m not in the mood, Keegan.” I quickened my pace, unable to bear any more lectures or life analogies from my own personal dark angel. It was his fault I’d had a crappy day anyway. If I hadn’t gotten lost in his rare showing of vulnerability inside Got Beans, I’d have done my homework and not been mocked about being the teacher’s pet the rest of the afternoon.

  Wes increased his stride to match mine. “So the PK has mood swings. Where’s all that goodness and light?”

  I stopped at a crosswalk and waited for the light to change, determined not to look at him. “There’s nothing good about an ice-cream craving denied.” I wanted to tell him to leave me alone, but I was tired of lying to myself. Wasn’t going to start lying out loud, too. As much as I didn’t want him there, I did.

  See how complicated life gets without ice cream?

  “That’s what the attitude’s about?” Wes grabbed my arm, preventing me from crossing when the pedestrian light turned white. I shook it free but felt the impression through my sleeve in a wave of heat. “Ice cream?” He looked like he wanted to laugh but wasn’t sure if he’d get decked. Smart man.

  “Leave me to mourn in peace.” It wasn’t just about the ice cream, of course, but I wasn’t going to spill my guts—heart, whatever—right there on the sidewalk.

  Especially not without a little frozen dairy courage.

  “Wait here.” Wes turned and jogged down the sidewalk without a backward glance, as if he just expected to speak and I’d obey. I snorted and started to walk in the opposite direction. Forget that. Let the poodle girls of the world fall all over his demands. I was independent. I was my own woman. I was—

  Was he going inside Screamin’ Cones?

  I stopped and waited.

  He appeared an eternity later, after I’d decided that Hydrangea Street had thirty-seven cracks in the sidewalk from the traffic light all the way to the front door of Screamin’ Cones.

  He stopped in front of me and handed me a cone. I was so elated that it took me a minute to realize it wasn’t strawberry. It was cookies and cream. Black and white.

  Nice.

  I wanted to shove the cone into his smirk—see, I knew he smirked!—but I really wanted the treat more. I took a bite and my tongue froze over. Bliss. After a third lick, I swallowed. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” He didn’t point out his color scheme, and I wasn’t about to. Somehow the silent agreement upped my opinion of him another notch—not to mention the fact that he’d even gotten me ice cream in the first place—and we walked together toward my house.

  “So what are you doing besides rescuing damsels in distress today?” I thought about offering him a bite, but I thought that might give him the wrong idea. Too intimate, sharing a cone.

  Plus, I didn’t like to share.

  “Hung out at Got Beans for a while. Hit the music store.” He shuffled his feet, kicking at a rock on the road before rejoining my steady pace. “Weed-Eated my dad’s yard.”

  I nearly choked. “You mow?” Somehow I couldn’t conjure a picture of him wielding the noisy machine, carefully tending a flower bed in his leather jacket.

  “Sure.” He nodded, straight faced. “Then I read books to some kids at the library for story hour, got a mani-pedi, and knitted my granny a scarf.”

  Loser. I’d almost fallen for it. “You had me until the scarf.”

  He laughed out loud, the sound sudden and surprising and—perfect. I’d never heard him laugh like that, had never caught him off guard that way before. I couldn’t help but s
tare at the way his face transformed, all guards down.

  I liked it way more than I should have.

  Wes stopped walking once we reached my street, his expression carefully arranged into a picture of fake innocence. “Did I mention the condition that came with the ice cream?”

  So much for Mr. Nice Guy. “No, somehow you missed that step.” I held up my half-eaten cone. “What if I refuse? A little late, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, it’s never too late.” He took a step closer to me, and I held my ground despite the shiver that started in my stomach. He tilted his head to one side, the familiar spark I could only describe as Wes now firmly back in his eyes. “Go out with me.”

  “What?” I nearly dropped my cone but thankfully recovered before I smeared it across the front of his jacket. Or maybe he needed the wake-up call. Me, go out with Wes?

  “I didn’t stutter.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and waited, rocking slightly back on his heels.

  He wasn’t kidding. My heart jump-started in my chest, and a hundred different warning signals clanged in my head. I drew a deep breath to regain my composure, to fight back the tiny, niggling feeling inside that was nothing short of desire mixed with victory. Me. Wes wanted me.

  Not Sonya.

  But it was still impossible. Reality smacked me across the forehead. There was no way. I couldn’t even get through a missed homework assignment or stay out past curfew without risking cardiac arrest. No way could I do something this blatantly against my dad’s rules. Not without giving myself an ulcer or two. And no way could I ask permission, either. I could just see how that conversation would go. As if.

  I took another bite of ice cream, trying to appear cool when really I feared I might hurl on his black boots. “I’m afraid that’s going to cost you an entire buffet of ice cream, buddy.”

  “Not a problem.” Wes took another step closer, and I suddenly realized we were standing together—rather closely—in broad daylight on the corner of my street, where all the neighbors could see. And tattle.

  Welcome to the fishbowl of PK life.

  “You don’t have to answer yet.” Wes reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear before shoving his hands back in his pockets. “Just meet me outside your house tonight after your dad goes to bed. I’ll convince you.” He winked and then walked away, his casual stroll testifying that this life-changing moment for me was nothing worth breaking a sweat over to him.

  I stared at the black-and-white ice cream melting in rivulets down the side of the cone onto my hand, wishing I’d just been able to find another stupid dollar and ninety-two cents in my coin purse.

  Chapter Thirteen

  You are a lemon drop.”

  I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror and tried to look assured. Confident. Independent. Sour. “You. Are. A. Lemon. Drop.”

  But my pink polka-dotted pj top pretty much said the opposite.

  I rested my forehead against the mirror with a groan. Who was I kidding? I was a gummi bear through and through, and if I didn’t quit downing so many mochas and ice-cream cones, I’d be just as jiggly as one.

  I looked back at the brown-haired, blue-eyed girl in the mirror, hiding behind flannel pj’s and Hello Kitty house-shoe boots, and wondered what a lemon drop would even look like. I gathered my limp hair on top of my head in a messy updo and pursed my lips. Nope. Not helping.

  Dropping my hand, I let out a sigh. Dad had finally gone to bed after dozing in his recliner in front of the ten o’clock news, and when I dared to peek out the window, I saw Wes’s shadow lurking under the light post and about fainted with nerves. Hence the not-so-helpful pep talk in front of the mirror. But I couldn’t go out there. I wasn’t what Wes wanted, he wasn’t what I needed, and that was that. I’d played by the rules this long; there was no turning back now.

  Right?

  Meandering my way back into the living room, I peeked through the blinds for the fourteenth time. He was still there. How long would he wait? I tapped my foot, which was harder to do inside a fuzzy boot than I thought, and crossed then uncrossed my arms. Maybe I should just go outside and tell him I wasn’t coming. That would have been the responsible thing to do. After all, if I was turning him down, he shouldn’t stand on the street all night. It was cold. That wasn’t fair.

  My actions justified, I slipped a purple hoodie over my pj’s and eased open the front door. My boots shuffling across the cold grass, I made my way to the street, where Wes’s gaze roamed up and down before landing a double take on my footwear. “Hello Kitty, huh? That’s not exactly my definition of sex kitten.”

  “Didn’t realize there’d be a vocabulary quiz.” I crossed my arms against the cold and made sure to stand a few feet away and outside of the circle of light. “Listen, I can’t stay.”

  Wes didn’t move toward me as I’d expected him to, just studied me with confusion etched in his expression. “Let me get this straight. You came all the way out here, in the cold, to tell me you couldn’t come out here?”

  “Exactly.” Hearing my logic out loud sounded even worse than it had in my head, but there we were.

  His lips twisted into a grin, and he reached one arm out to me. I stepped forward on instinct, and his arm caught me around the waist before I could backtrack. “You know, I’ve never been a fan of polka dots before, but on you, this works.”

  His loose, barely there embrace stole my breath. I couldn’t even fathom the danger I’d be in if he ever held me tight. I concentrated on inhaling and avoiding his eyes. “Like I said, I can’t stay. I just didn’t want you out here all night.”

  “A little arrogant, aren’t you, thinking I’d wait that long?”

  I dared to look up into his eyes, our faces inches apart. “Would you have?”

  His gaze clouded over with something indefinable, and his voice turned husky. “I thought I knew.”

  Dare I believe that I affected him even half as much as he affected me? The thought blew my mind. Impossible. Sonya and those other girls had so much more than me—and I didn’t mean just in regard to bra size, though there was definitely that.

  He stepped away from me, his hand sliding down the length of my arm until he caught my hand and tugged. “Come with me.”

  My heart hiccuped. “On a date? Now?”

  “I don’t date, Addison.” Wes pointed over his shoulders to the bushes, where I finally made out the form of his motorcycle stashed in the shadows.

  I pulled my hand free of his grasp. “But you asked me out.” Pride battled with confusion, and I darted my gaze between him to the death machine lurking behind him. “That was the ice-cream condition.” Ice-cream condition? Man, our whole previous conversation sounded so ridiculous when reenacted out loud in the dark.

  “Right. I said, ‘Go out with me.’ As in, go out. On a ride.” He threw one leg over the seat of the motorcycle and wheeled it off the sidewalk into the street.

  “That’s stupid.” I hated that I misunderstood him, though I supposed this made a whole lot more sense than picturing Wes across a candlelit table for two. Duh.

  “You just said you were going to say no anyway, so why the headache over the particulars?” Wes’s grin lit the shadows, and he held out a helmet. His only one. I shook my head. The hand holding the helmet dropped to his lap. “Come on, PK.”

  The nickname tugged at my stomach, and for a moment everything inside me wanted to jump on the bike. Forget the rules. Forget black and white. I wanted to hug gray. I wanted to ride the line between responsibility and fun and not worry about falling off on the wrong side.

  If God wasn’t listening anyway …

  I chewed on my lower lip. Hmmm. Maybe falling off wasn’t the best analogy to use when referring to a motorcycle.

  He revved the engine. “Last chance.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Sonya wouldn’t have hesitated. But was she really the role model I wanted for my life? I was tired of role models. Tired of being one. Tired of living in a fishbowl.<
br />
  Tired of wondering if Mrs. Kilgore was peering through her curtains right now with a video camera to document all these scandalous details for my dad come Sunday.

  I shifted my weight, waves churning in my stomach. The roar of the bike vibrated inside my chest. I didn’t ask to be a PK. I didn’t ask for a life that meant living like a teenage saint. I didn’t ask for any of it, yet it was asked of me every day.

  Wes was the only one asking for something tonight, something I for once didn’t mind giving.

  That did it. Hello Kitty boots and all, I climbed onto the back of the motorcycle and secured the helmet over my hair then wrapped shaking arms around Wes’s firm, leather-clad back. He didn’t even look at me, just gunned the engine and took off. We soared down the street, my heart riding high above my chest in an adrenaline rush that topped any roller coaster. The wind whipped my hair around my neck, and for a moment I forgot I was wearing my pajamas.

  This was life. This was adventure.

  This was what it felt like to be a lemon drop.

  My exhilaration lasted all the way to the first STOP sign, where I frantically pounded Wes on the back and begged to get off. He slowed to a stop at the corner and rested the weight of the bike on one leg as I slid off the side. My legs trembled at the knees, and I hoped my baggy pajama pants covered their obvious knocking. My mind raced faster than his tires had, and I couldn’t believe what I’d actually done. I pulled the helmet from my head. “I’m sorry, I just—”

  Wes shook his head. “Don’t sweat it, PK. I honestly didn’t even expect you to get on in the first place.”

  Somehow, his saying that just made me feel worse instead of better.

  I tried to calm my breathing, tried to identify the panic that had coaxed me back onto the safety of the street. The foreign thrill of rebellion. The anxiety over breaking the rules. The fleeting thought of my dad finding my bed empty.

  The fear of falling.