CHAPTER 31 Code Word Want
Code Word: Want
“Why, Ev, what a pleasant surprise.”
If this was his way of getting back at me for chickening out on our date, he was more delusional than I could possibly say. He was my mission, not my boyfriend, and I was not jealous.
“Guys,” Jack said, smiling at his legion of loyal fans, “this is Everybody-Knows-Toby.” He paused. “Although,” he said, looking thoughtful, “I suppose you all already knew that.”
Oh yeah. He thought he was really cute.
The girls clustered around Jack obviously thought so, too, but I remembered what Zee had said.
These girls weren’t his type—Jack had Conditioned Cheerleader Aversion, and most, if not all, of the girls were either JV cheerleaders or varsity wannabes.
As such, they were completely torn about what to do once I showed up.
On the one hand, they would have liked to devour me whole for taking even a microscopic bit of Jack’s attention away from them.
On the other hand, I was varsity, and that meant that their futures were in my hands.
“Of course,” one of the girls said, offering me a plastic smile. “Everybody knows Toby.”
Another girl tilted her head to the side. “Are you the one who’s related to Calvin Klein?”
“Those are great boots.”
“Did you really date Prince William?”
They were on a roll now.
“Actually,” I said, lowering my voice, “I didn’t date Prince William, but …”
Jack watched, bemused, as all of the girls leaned toward me, eyes wide.
“… but I heard that Jack did.”
Two of the girls frowned at me. One cast a suspicious look at Jack. The fourth was a little behind on processing and just stood there, smiling and nodding.
Jack grabbed me by the elbow. “Excuse us, ladies,” he said. “Toby”—he emphasized his use of my actual name—“and I were going to go grab some punch.”
With a great deal of expertise, he steered me away from the girls before I could suggest that he’d dated any more of the world’s most eligible bachelors. Smart boy.
I didn’t know where he was taking me until we ended up outside on a veranda. Alone.
Uh-oh. Not good, I thought. We were supposed to end up alone, but not here.
Somehow, I had to get him to take me to his dad’s office.
I was also unsure as to his state of mind.
Some guys—okay, most guys—would probably greatly resent the insinuation that they’d dated the heir to the throne of England.
I tensed my body slightly. If Jack was feeling like lashing out at me, I wanted to be ready to lash back. Actually, I wanted my foot to be ready to lash back. The rest of me would just go along for the ride.
Jack opened his mouth, and I waited for him to yell. “Did you see their faces?” he asked quietly. “I can’t believe you … and they …”
I shrugged. He didn’t sound particularly murderous.
“Ev, you told them that Prince William and I were an item.”
I scuffed my foot into the ground. “Better you than me.”
“Better me than you,” he repeated, and then he laughed, loud and long. “You’re …”
“Clever?” I suggested.
“You’re something,” he finished. “When I figure out what it is, I’ll tell you.”
I had to remind myself that this was Brooke’s ex. Chloe’s ex. He had a substance abuse problem, and the substance was cheerleaders. He hadn’t even known who I was pre-Squad. He was my mission, and I was not the girl who fell for a guy just because he had a really contagious laugh.
“So what are we going to do out here?” I asked. I meant to sound somewhat seductive, but it came out sounding confused. What was I doing? More to the point, who was watching me make a fool of myself through the handy-dandy necklace camera?
“What do you want to do out here?” Jack didn’t move toward me at all with the words. I appreciated the respect for my personal space.
“Why don’t we race?” It was a stab in the dark, but I never claimed to be good at this.
“Race to where?” Jack asked. It was a pretty small veranda.
“To the car,” I said. “Winner decides where we go from there.”
Given the fact that I was almost positive that I could beat him in a fair race, it was a stroke of genius.
“Race to the car,” Jack tried the idea out by saying it out loud.
I nodded.
“This thing really isn’t your deal, is it?” he asked.
“What thing? The party?” I asked, planning to press the whole “race to the car” thing.
“The party,” Jack confirmed. “The squad, the whole popularity thing.” He paused. “You’d rather those girls think that I dated Prince William than that you did.”
“Your point?”
“Why are you a cheerleader?”
He sounded suspicious. Darned Cheerleader Aversion.
“If I tell you, can we race?”
He nodded. “Why the hell not.”
I mulled the question over, trying to come up with an answer that was at least partially true. “I like to do things that people tell me I can’t,” I said finally. “And nobody ever thought I’d make the Squad.”
Least of all me.
“Huh,” Jack said. And then, without another word, he bolted off the veranda and back into the party. It took me a couple of seconds to figure out that he was headed to the car.
“Cheater!” I yelled after him. I quickly scanned the surrounding area.
He had enough of a head start that there was no way I could beat him taking the same route.
Luckily, there was one other route available.
Casting a single dubious look at my boots, I climbed on top of the railing, jumped off the veranda, and landed on the ground outside, a full story below.
Not knowing how much time I’d bought myself, I ran full blast for the car.
By the time Jack got there, I’d taken off my boots and was pretending to buff my nails.
He looked from me back up to the veranda. “You jumped.”
I nodded.
“Cheater.”
I could feel the smile spread across my face. Ah, the sweet taste of victory.
Gallantly, he walked around to my side of the car and opened the door for me. I snorted. He ignored me.
After he’d settled himself in the driver’s seat, he turned to me. “So,” he said. “Where are we going?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say his dad’s office, but something stopped me. I wasn’t the first one to use Jack to get to Peyton. If I asked to go there directly, who knew what kind of memories I was going to stir up? The last thing I wanted was for him to compare me to Chloe or Brooke.
“I don’t know where we’re going,” I said slowly, “but I know what we’re doing.”
Jack waited.
“Actually,” I said, divinely inspired, “I know what you’re doing.”
“What I’m doing?”
“It involves a Xerox machine and your butt,” I said. He blanched, and I continued. “Such is the price of defeat.”
“You want me to xerox my butt?”
I shrugged. “It beats this place. Where’s the nearest copy shop?”
Jack, still unsure whether I was mentally unstable or just highly unpredictable, turned the car on and put it in drive. “I’ve got someplace else in mind,” he said.
“Does it have a copy machine?” I asked. Translation: is it your dad’s office?
Jack didn’t answer. Instead, he smirked and pulled onto the road. “You know, Ev,” he said, “this obsession with my butt is getting old.”