Bookish Boyfriends Page 6

  I made my way over to the table mounded with shrimp and fruit and cheeses, but none of it seemed appealing. My skirt didn’t feel as swishy, my heels felt unsteadier, and while I knew Eliza had painted on my makeup like an artist, I felt like a kid playing dress-up. Even my hair itched, and when I raised a hand to pat it, it felt crunchy and fake instead of elegant. Loopy. I slouched around the table to hover near an ice sculpture.

  “There you are!” Dad strode over, holding a glass of red wine that he’d miraculously managed not to spill on his tie or shirt yet. What can I say, I came by my staining skills honestly. “What is with you girls hiding tonight? Where’s your sister?”

  “Last I saw, Rory was roving with a glass of punch.” My voice sounded as squashed as my ego. I scanned the room and pointed. “She’s been cornered by one of Trent’s aunts.”

  “I mean your other sister.” He said it lightly, but his lips were sticking to his teeth like his smile was too tight. “I’ve been looking for her for twenty minutes.”

  “Lilly? You’ve lost the bride?”

  “She’s got to be here somewhere, but . . .” He glanced around the room and took a long sip of his drink. “Your mom and I haven’t been able to find her, and the senator’s been asking.”

  “Oh!” No wonder that vein in his neck was pulsing. I raised my hand in salute—MoH reporting for duty. “I’m on it.”

  8

  The party spilled out of the ballroom. People clustered like grapes around the small tables and benches in the lobby and out on the decks. But Lilly was in none of them.

  I saw Trent standing in a bro-group, one more Ken doll in a herd of wax-statue attractiveness. Perhaps I should have gone over and asked if he knew where Lilly was, but . . . gah. He was such a paste eater. I swear his molecules were made up of manners and this is my best side poses. I didn’t feel like getting stuck in a loop of “Allow me to come with you to look for her.”/ “No, thanks. I’m all set.”/ “Please, I insist.”/ “No, really, it’s not necessary.” / “Oh, but it is.” / “Oh, but I’m going to smack you right in that toothpaste-commercial smile.”

  Yeah, definitely better that I dealt with my future brother-in-law in small doses.

  Lillian wasn’t in the bathroom either. And I felt like a creeper calling her name and checking under stall doors.

  I wandered down an empty hall, past windows that overlooked tennis courts instead of golf greens. The only people in it were two guys in crisp shorts and polo shirts with racquet bags at their feet.

  The first guy was deep in kiss-up mode. “You looked good out there. Get any better and I’ll think you’re gunning for my spot on the team. You’re not, are you?”

  But his friend with the dark curls wasn’t paying attention. He lifted his eyes from the dusky flowers printed on the carpet. They were shockingly blue. They were shockingly clear. And then they were shockingly pinned to mine. Oh, I wanted to freeze the moment and stay caught in his stare. It made my toes curl against my shoes. The hallway suddenly felt way, way too warm.

  I was five steps past before I recognized him as the guy from this morning. The emo-mystery. The headmaster’s son! And if I met him now, I wouldn’t need Toby to introduce us. . . . Except—Lillian! Maid of Honor! I wanted to turn around and have some magical meet-cute moment, but I was an MoH with a mission: find the bride.

  I gritted my teeth and entered the locker room. It was empty.

  He was gone when I came back out. Mystery unsolved. Opportunity missed. Sister still missing.

  I found Lilly in the darkened pro shop. A pearl-wearing silhouette among chrome racks of polo shirts and spindly shadows of golf clubs.

  “What are you doing? Everyone is looking for you. I don’t think you’re supposed to be in here. Wait. Are you crying? What’s going on?” I shut the door behind me, praying it wouldn’t lock.

  Lilly wiped at her eyes. “I’m fine.”

  “You are so not fine.” I pulled tissues from my purse and passed them to her.

  “It’s stupid . . .”

  “You wouldn’t be crying if it was stupid.” I put a hand on her arm. “Tell me who I need to beat up.”

  She sniffle-snorted, a noise like a pug with a cold. “It’s just . . . a lot of pressure. Senator Rhodes—she—she—”

  I had to grit my teeth so I didn’t jump into her pauses with my own complaints about the woman. How dare she be so bossy, so organized, have such well-behaved hair.

  Lilly sniffed. “She really wants the best for Trent, and she means well, but it’s hard hearing everything I’m doing wr-wrong.”

  I shifted my weight in my shoes—another complaint: the senator always wore heels and never teetered. “I hope someone fills her pillow with porcupines.”

  Lilly’s raccoon eyes widened. “You wouldn’t.”

  “If I knew where to get porcupines, I might.” I handed her another tissue. “You shouldn’t be crying at your engagement party because of her.”

  Lilly blew her nose. “It’s not just that. It’s being around Mom and Dad at the store all day, and they’re so worried about finances, but they’re fake-smiling and pretending everything’s fine. And this wedding is so stupid expensive. And then Trent picked me up after work and we went in that boutique next door, and there was this stupid hipster pillow—a disgruntled cat with a mustache—like I said, stupid. But I picked it up and . . . Trent laughed and made it clear there won’t be a place in our house for things like that. And one of his exes is here tonight and she made a comment about how ‘Some brides really should be avoiding the cheese tray.’ And I don’t need a hipster pillow—mustaches are passé, I know this! And I don’t care about Veronica’s opinion of my thighs. I know my size. I love my size, my thighs, my belly, jiggle and all. Trent does too. It’s just . . .” She raised a shaking hand to her mouth. “I wanted that pillow, you know?”

  Nope. It sounded hideous. And I really wasn’t following her ramble. “So . . . which are you upset about? The senator? The ex? Or the pillow?”

  She snorted and blew her nose. “It’s just . . . everything? Mostly everything. And maybe one too many cocktails on an empty stomach.”

  Maybe this was a good time for a MoH pep talk? Because I felt like a failure. Less than two hours after I’d been given the title, my bride was hiding and crying. “You know that you are the best big sister ever and that I adore you and Trent is the luckiest guy and you are the smartest and the prettiest and most amazing and neither of us would trade you for anyone in the world, right?” Okay, so I was no Shakespeare and that was no Saint Crispin’s Day speech, but it was the best I could come up with off the top of my head in a dark golf shop. “Um, can I do anything?”

  “No, but I can!” She said it firmly and raised teary eyes to mine, staring fiercely from between mascara gone clumpy. “You’re right. I am pretty awesome. And I need to stop playing doormat. When we first started dating, I asked Trent’s mom’s opinion on everything. I just wanted her to like me so badly. And now . . . Well, I let her get away with deciding for so long—what I wore, where we ate . . . I think the only words I said to her for months were ‘What do you suggest?’ She doesn’t even know I have opinions . . . so why would she consult them?”

  “It’s not too late,” I said, and she nodded so vigorously that I cautiously added more advice: “You don’t have to get married.”

  “Yes. Yes, I do! And I want to. I love Trent. He’s good and he’s kind and he’s patient and he loves me so much. He’s the best person I know. I just need to—I need to tell the senator to back off and let us be us.”

  Lillian was taller than me, but she always somehow felt smaller. Not smaller weight-wise, except for that horrible period her freshman year of college when she came home all bones and angles and celery sticks and sadness. But despite therapy and the army of people who’d have swallowed fire for her, she’d never been able to shrug off even the slightest criticism. She wore her vulnerability like a fluorescent shirt. It always made me want to protect her and alwa
ys made her a target for the cruel, the bullies—or in tonight’s case, Trent’s jilted ex.

  As for Senator Rhodes, she could forget vetting my toast, and she was lucky I wasn’t old enough to vote.

  “I can do this!” Lilly said.

  “Yes, you can!” I agreed.

  “I’m not going to let anyone make me feel small or tell me what I think!”

  “Absolutely!” I clapped. “Me neither!”

  . . . Except I’d apologized for a garbage mistake that very morning. I was still reeling from not tempted. Who cared if Mr. Recycling was tempted? Who asked that jerk to be tempted? But that feeling from this morning still clamped down on my stomach: the Disney songs, the itchy longing that practically sizzled on my skin. I yearned. Not for him, obviously. But for something.

  Maybe Lilly had had the right idea after all, because hiding in here sounded great. “Let’s just stay here until the party is over,” I suggested.

  “No. I’m fine.” Lilly fixed a stray piece of hair and straightened her dress. “I’m better than fine. Just had a moment and too many toasts. I’ll go back out there and stick to seltzer and eat some protein. And tell the senator that I absolutely don’t want bagpipes at the church.”

  Bagpipes? I grimaced. “Yikes. Well, stop in the bathroom first to wipe your face. And here—Eliza packed my clutch. It’s got makeup.”

  Lilly laughed. “She thinks of everything, doesn’t she? Tell her thanks for me.”

  I nodded. “Want me to come with you?”

  She shook her head. “I want a minute to pull myself together. I’ll see you back out there, MoH.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek before heading toward the exit. At the door she turned and whispered, “And Merri? I’d stuff a pillowcase with porcupines for you too.”

  9

  The pro shop door opened and I turned to ask Lilly what she forgot, but Lilly wasn’t a guy. A tall, shadowy silhouette of one. Standing between me and the door. Me and everyone I knew, everyone who could hear me scream “stranger danger!” And it was way too late to hide, since I was standing directly beneath a skylight in a dress that glowed as bright as the moonlight hitting it.

  I took a step backward, snagged my heel on the strap of a golf bag, and then oh-so-gracefully, with full windmill arms and a slo-mo “Nooooo!” fell into a tower of golf ball boxes.

  Which have really pointy corners! Corners that can pop open and crush beneath even five-foot people—causing small white balls to shoot out in every direction, like a popcorn popper whose projectiles were hard, loud, and bouncy.

  “Are you okay?” The voice was closer, but I couldn’t see anything but the rack of clubs that loomed precariously overhead. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Which I guess was a better thing to hear while lying on a pile of destroyed inventory than “Police! Hands up!” or “How attached are you to your skin?”

  “I’m—” Well, I was bruised, embarrassed, still slightly hyperventilating from the scare—and so, so grateful my dress hadn’t fallen down or hiked up during that maneuver. I needed a stunt double. Or a bodyguard.

  “Here, let me help you up.” The guy stepped from shadows into moonlight and offered me a hand.

  But I could only stare.

  It was the guy. The one from the hall, the one from this morning. My mystery.

  “Can you move?” He stepped closer and ran a hand through his curly hair, making it chaotic in ways that disarmed and charmed me.

  “Oh, right.” Maybe introductions were better done while I wasn’t lying on my back in a ball pit made of golf balls. I brushed some off my dress, then accepted his hands. He pulled me up and steadied me as the world still wobbled. I thought it was because of how close we were and how hot he was, but really it was a golf ball beneath my shoe.

  “There you are,” he said, letting go of me—which made me want to whimper in protest. “Sorry again for scaring you. I . . . well, I saw you in the hallway earlier, and I wanted to meet you.”

  His eyes were ice blue, Siberian husky blue, the kind I thought only existed in books—and they stared back into mine.

  The way he looked at me made my throat dry and my knees weak. Two clichés I hadn’t really believed in before. My heart was racing, my cheeks were warm—four clichés! Was that what romance was? The moment you found out clichés were real? In that case, should I bite my lip and look up at him through lowered lashes?

  No! Wait! Talk! It’s not a conversation if I don’t participate.

  “I wanted to meet you too,” I squeaked. My yearning felt like it had been dialed up to eleven. My nerves were at a thirteen.

  He took a step closer and they shot up to sixteen.

  This guy I’d noticed first thing in the morning, well before Rory told me about his freshman fan club and Toby gave his “one of my best friends” stamp of approval—this guy who was among the most beautiful humans I’d ever seen, had tracked me down. He’d seen me and then sought me out. And if Lilly could be brave about the senator and bagpipes, I could be brave about boys. Apparently the idiot in the other room was wrong. Not every guy thought I was icky. I kicked aside a golf ball as I swayed a step closer to him. “I’m really glad you were tempted.”

  Wait. What? Had I said that aloud? I’m really glad you were tempted? What did that even mean? This was why I’d die alone and unkissed. Because I had the social skills of a hyperactive puppy. I covered my face with my hand and mumbled between my fingers, “And I’m going to shut up now and die of embarrassment.”

  “Hey.” His voice was so gentle I dared to peek between my fingers. He reached for my hand and tugged it from my face. Tingles! Those were genuine tigles at his touch. “Don’t be. Tempted by you? Yeah, I’d say so.” He stroked a thumb down the back of my fingers, and the blood beneath my skin ignited even before he added, “You’re stunning.”

  I could check “heart skipped a beat” off my list of clichés. This was more romantic than anything I’d ever read in a novel. He was looking at me in a way I’d never been looked at before. Like the words “cute” or “amusing” weren’t even in his vocabulary. I wanted to pause and thank the designers of this dress, the makers of this hair gel, and Eliza’s nimble braiding fingers. And moonlight for making this shop glow.

  And it wasn’t just that he’d called me stunning. And tempting. Or that this night and setting felt crafted for romance. Or that I’d just vowed to be brave. Or Mom’s reminders about her and Dad’s high school romance. Or that I was tired of waiting for my first kiss. It was . . . everything. Like Lilly said, it was mostly everything. And mostly, mostly—I wanted to kiss this boy.

  So even though my hands were shaking, I took the last half step between us. His head tilted down and mine tilted up. We had all the pieces needed for a novel’s epic lip-lock scene: moonlight, mystery man, fancy dress. All I needed was to assemble them and add saliva. I raised an eyebrow, and . . . yes, I did bite my lower lip. I swear I didn’t plan it. But then I opened my mouth and said, “I’m going to kiss you now—if that’s okay.”

  “Yeah.” When he answered, his eyes were black and hazy. Eliza was so right about pupils dilating. “That’s very okay.”

  He cupped my face with long, strong fingers—so far, so good, that was definitely an A-plus hero move. Then he leaned in and brushed his mouth against mine. Also a classic maneuver. As he increased the pressure, our mouths began to figure out their own choreography, starting with the Hokey-Pokey and gradually progressing toward a waltz. And just when I’d managed to get out of my head and into the experience, ready to start looking for tingles, sparks, and all that fuss . . . Oxygen—I needed some. I turned my head away and took a step back, then a second, so I could lean on the wall and catch my breath. I tipped my head against it, feeling my braids brush something behind me, bobby pins poking my skull and prodding me back to reality.

  “I should return to the party. People are going to be looking for me.”

  “But . . .” His face wrinkled in confusion. “Wait—”r />
  “I really can’t.”

  “But what’s your name? When can I see you again?”

  I was about to tell him, until I realized there was something wonderfully romantic about this moment. It was just like when Esmeralda had left Blake at the masquerade ball—right before masks were removed and identities revealed! This guy wanted to see me again! I knew we both went to the same school, I knew he was the headmaster’s son and Toby’s friend, but he had no clue about me.

  “Oh, I’m not worried. I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to track me down.” The words felt so bookishly romantic in my mouth. I could practically see the plot points we’d skip across on the way to our happily ever after. I knew insta-love existed in books, but was it an actual phenomenon? Was this it? Maybe some part of me had known this morning—maybe that’s why I’d been so drawn to him.

  And the actual sparks and get-to-know-you stuff . . . well, that could come later.

  “Can I at least have a hint?” he asked with a smile that made my insides go mushy.

  “Hmm.” I tapped a finger on my lip. “This should help . . . It’s not only freshman in your fan club, Fielding.” Man, I loved his name. “Transfer students think you’re pretty great too.”

  I tossed my head and pushed off the wall—only to bounce back like a human yo-yo, because my hair was caught on something. But he didn’t notice because he was too busy shaking his head.

  “Fielding? Fielding Williams?” He practically spat the words. “I’m not Fielding.”

  I’d been in the middle of trying to wrench myself free from whatever had caught my hair, but the vehemence of his words chilled me. My shoulders stiffened and I would’ve shrunk away from him if there was any room to do so. Instead, I reached back and grabbed the object ensnaring me and yanked on it—

  With no further warning, the room blinked with the blue-white strobe of an alarm, and the scream of its siren filled the air.