Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
HARPER
Unlike back in Selbyville, the cafeteria at Westfield Prep smells delicious, all the time, even though half the kids eat off campus, anyway.
I’m wedged between Caleb and Sara, finally able to delight in my ooey-gooey cheese pizza without guilt since I know Z is at home gorging on a fresh batch of Helen’s cookies.
For once, everything is going perfect. Z is settling in as well as anyone with a disposition akin to a rottweiler can.
But today, I’ve decided not to worry about him.
He’s safe. He’s fed. And Helen’s Word of the Day calendar word today was Equanimity.
To have emotional composure or balance, even through life’s difficulties.
I’m choosing equanimity, bitches.
I take a huge bite of burning cheese while around me, the guys argue about something completely idiotic.
“I’m just saying,” Miles says, gesturing with a french fry, “if you had to fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses, the clear answer is—”
“The duck,” Kevin interrupts. “Obviously the duck.”
“That’s insane.” Miles pushes his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose. “A horse-sized duck would have a beak the size of your torso. It could literally impale you.”
“But a hundred tiny horses?” Kevin’s eyes are wide with mock horror. “That’s a stampede. They’d trample you to death.”
“Tiny hooves,” Derek interjects. “How much damage could they actually do?”
Sara leans over to me, stage-whispering, “They’ve been having this exact argument since sophomore year.”
“Different animal combinations,” Miles corrects without looking at her. “Freshman year was bears versus sharks in various environments.”
“The shark won,” Kevin adds solemnly.
“On land?” I can’t help asking.
“In three feet of water,” Derek clarifies. “It was a very specific scenario.”
Caleb shakes his head, but he’s grinning. “You’re all idiots.”
“Says the guy who argued for twenty minutes that Die Hard is a Christmas movie,” Kevin shoots back.
“Because it is,” Caleb says, and the whole table groans in unison. “The whole movie literally takes place at a Christmas party!”
“We’re not doing this again,” Sara says firmly. “Harper, back me up. Die Hard is not a Christmas movie.”
I look at Caleb, who’s giving me these puppy dog eyes, then back at Sara. “I mean... if it takes place at a Christmas party?”
“THANK YOU.” Caleb throws an arm around my shoulders, pulling me against his side.
The casual touch makes my stomach flip, but I try to play it cool.
“Traitor,” Sara mutters, but she’s smiling. “I thought we had female solidarity.”
“I don’t even know what Die Hard is,” I admit.
The entire table goes silent.
“I’m sorry,” Miles says slowly. “Did you just say—”
“How is that possible?” Kevin looks genuinely distressed.
“I didn’t exactly have a big DVD collection growing up,” I say with a shrug.
“We’re watching it this weekend,” Miles declares. “This is a cultural emergency.”
“It’s not even December yet,” Derek protests.
“Die Hard transcends seasonal boundaries,” Miles says seriously, and I can’t tell if he’s joking or not.
“Exactly!” Sara says. “Because it’s not a Christmas movie!”
Caleb’s thumb is tracing absent patterns on my thigh underneath the table, and I’m trying very hard to focus on the conversation and not on how good that feels.
Except—they’re not absent patterns. Not really.
I’ve started to notice. Four circles clockwise. Four circles counterclockwise. Then he starts over.
Every time. The exact same pattern.
Does he even know he’s doing it? Or is it automatic, like breathing?
I lean into the touch anyway. It’s soothing. Like he’s grounding himself by touching me.
Or maybe I’m grounding him. I really like that thought for some reason.
Kevin and Miles are moving on to quoting movies at each other when Marie suddenly runs up from behind me, breathing hard.
“Give me your leather jacket. And scoot over.”
I turn around and look at her like she’s nuts, but I start to scoot away from Sara to make space for Marie at the bench.
“Hey, I love your hair.” For once, she’s wearing it down instead of in the tight double braids she always, and I mean always, wears it in.
Marie looks not just harried but panicked as she shakes her head. “No, the other way!” she flutters her hands at where I’m sitting. “And your coat. Now!”
I have no idea what she’s going on about, but I’ll always help out a friend in need, and Marie clearly needs my leather jacket, if the way she’s peeling it off my shoulders is any indication.
Still breathing hard, she swings the jacket around her shoulders and slides her arms through at the same time she plonks down on the long cafeteria table bench, all but landing in my lap in her attempt to sit between Caleb and me.
“What the hell, Marie?” I laugh, scooting over to give her more room.
“I’ll explain in a minute,” she says, her small shoulders heaving. She glances behind her and almost breaks her neck swinging her head back around to stare at the table and hunch in her chair.
“Wanna clue me in now?” I ask, looking over my shoulder to see what on Earth this could be about.
I start to get a clue when I catch a glimpse of the Queen Bitches entering the cafeteria with McKenzie Davis at the helm.
“Oh Jesus, what do they want now?”
McKenzie zeroes in on our table, and a vicious little smile creeps up her face.
I roll my eyes.
“It’s not me they want this time,” Marie whispers, her dark eyes flashing up at me. “Just follow my lead, okay?”
I frown at her, but before I can ask what her cryptic statement means, McKenzie and her posse, flared out behind her, have reached us.
“I always knew there was something off about a delinquent like you,” McKenzie annunciates loud enough for the whole cafeteria to hear. “But frankly, I didn’t have the imagination to consider that you’d fuck your own brother.”
I feel my mouth drop open, and I shoot to my feet, ready to throw down.
“Excuse me?”
Unexpectedly, Marie pops up at my side, her high-pitched voice joining mine. “Yeah, excuse me?”
McKenzie frowns, momentarily distracted and clearly surprised to see her. “Screw off, pipsqueak. This has nothing to do with you.”
But Marie just puts her shoulders back, so different from the cowering girl I met on the first day. “It does, too, if you’re referring to my Caleb.”
It’s good I already swallowed the bite of pizza I was chewing so I don’t choke when Marie flings her arm around Caleb, who looks just as startled as I feel.
Marie reaches down and snatches his hand, then looks at me, bottom lip trembling. “I’m sorry we’ve been hiding it from you, but your brother and I have been dating for a few weeks now.”
I look past her to Caleb, whose brows are at his eyeline.
He looks completely shocked at every word out of Marie’s mouth, and his eyes shoot to mine.
I can see the denial about to grace his lips.
I don’t know why Marie’s doing this, but I’m fast to pick up context clues.
So I quickly aim past Marie’s skinny legs underneath the table to kick Caleb lightly in the shin.
“You’re just gonna hook up with my best friend and not tell me about it?” I accuse Caleb, trying to tell him with my eyes to go along with it.
For a long moment, maybe even too long considering our audience, Caleb just stares at me, dumbfounded.
His jaw clenches. I count it—can’t help it now that I know to look for it. Once. Twice. Three times.
On the fourth clench, I kick him again.
He stands up and looks at Marie.
“I thought we weren’t gonna tell anyone, lovebug,” he finally manages to get out through his clenched teeth.
Marie flashes him a hundred-watt smile. “Well, the cat’s out of the backpack, so to speak.
” She laughs at her own joke. When nobody laughs with her, she cuts off abruptly and swallows hard, eyebrows furrowed, still looking meaningfully at Caleb.
“Someone snapped a picture of us on the road this morning.”
Oh fuck. On the road.
This morning.
I do remember hearing a car go by. When I was wrapped around Caleb and then dragged him into the woods, thinking about nothing except the feel of his—
Caleb has enough control of himself not to look at me, though I have a feeling it’s taking everything for him not to.
I can see his hand tapping his thigh from the corner of my eye.
Tapping twice. Three times. Four.
He stops.
Then starts again. One-two-three-four.
He’s counting. Using it to stay calm and keep his face neutral.
To not look at me.
But McKenzie’s eyes are narrowed on me. “Isn’t that your leather jacket?”
Marie leans her head on Caleb’s shoulder. “Oh, Harper let me borrow it last week when I said I thought it was cool.”
She’s got acting chops, I’ll give her that. And she has come out of her shell this semester, hanging around me and Caleb’s friends, who have welcomed her into their fold just like they did me.
Caleb’s clearly clued into what’s at stake if a rumor starts going around school that he’s fucking his step-sister because he tosses an arm around Marie’s shoulder.
Except it’s not really a toss. It’s calculated. Precise.
He adjusts his position. Once. Twice. Gets the angle right.
Even faking casual, he can’t help being exact about it.
“What’s up, Kenz? Why do you care who I’m dating?”
His voice is steady. But I can see his foot tapping anxiously. Just slightly. Barely noticeable.
McKenzie is finally knocked off her footing a bit by his direct question. Especially now that she’s made a scene and everyone’s gone quiet around us and is staring at her.
“Oh. It’s nothing. I just thought—” McKenzie looks around her, suddenly realizing the crowd she’s attracted, who seem even more interested now that the throwdown isn’t going her way. The only thing people love more than worshipping a Queen Bee is seeing her toppled off her throne.
“Thought what?” I ask, unable to stop the dig. “Were you about to accuse Caleb of something… improper? In front of all his classmates? Or is it him dating a scholarship student you have a problem with?”
I’m satisfied by the audible gasps I hear from around the room.
“What! No, I—” McKenzie’s head swings back and forth. “No!”
She glares back at me, then her voice goes low and deadly as she leans in so only I can hear, keeping a big smile on her face for all the onlookers. “You think you can make a fool out of me? I’ll make you wish you were dead.”
She pulls back, the biggest, sweetest smile on her face. “I’m so sorry for the misunderstanding. Toodles!”
Then she spins on her heel, and as if choreographed, all her minions do it a second later, and they prance out of the cafeteria.
I shiver a little, but really, after everything I’ve been through in my life, what can some Barbie bitch do to me?
Caleb and Marie sit back down at the table, and everyone takes a breath.
Underneath the table, I reach over and squeeze Marie’s hand. “Thanks,” I murmur under my breath while the rest of the table is back at it, loudly joking about the best Judge Judy quotes. “How did you even know she—?”
“Tyler Morrison was showing the blurry picture on his phone to anyone who would look,” she whispers back.
Shit.
I glance around her to Caleb, who meets my eyes guiltily before laughing at a joke Kevin makes. Back to playing the role of Perfect Kid.
An image I just almost put a serious stain on. Fuck. We’ll have to be way more careful.
I bite my bottom lip. Because I know that even now, I don’t plan on stopping. Usually, with a guy, once I’ve slept with them, it’s like an answered question.
With Caleb, though, each time only makes me hungry for more.
“I saw an episode where she asked a guy if he was stupid or just acting stupid,” Marie says, jumping into the Judge Judy conversation. “And he said, ‘Acting,’ and she said, ‘Well, you’re doing a great job.’”
The table erupts in laughter.
“She once told someone their IQ was room temperature,” Miles adds. “In Celsius.”
“Okay, new game,” Kevin announces. “Best Judge Judy insult. Go.”
“‘Do I have stupid written on my forehead?’” Sara offers.
“‘Beauty fades but dumb is forever,’” Miles counters.
“‘If you live to be a hundred, you will never be as smart as me,’” Derek says. “Classic.”
They all look at Caleb expectantly.
He thinks for a second—longer than usual. His eyes go distant for a moment, like he’s running through options. Calculating which response is the right one.
And I wonder if, for once in his life, he’ll drop the ball. If he’ll be anything less than perfect.
But that’s not the Caleb way, is it?
His fingers tap on the table one more time—one-two-three-four—and then he grins.
“‘You’re like a hemorrhoid. A pain in the ass that won’t go away.’”
Perfect delivery. Perfect timing. Perfect Caleb.
The table erupts in laughter.
But I saw the moment before. The calculation. The effort it takes to be that perfect all the time.