He lets off a string of cusswords.
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
He meets my eyes, and I don’t know if he recognizes me from Laila’s house or if he just realizes that I’m a teenager and undeserving of his verbal abuse, but his expression softens. “It’s not a big deal,” he says gruffly. “Just watch where you’re going.”
“Yeah, I will.” Not sure if Laila is done yet, I grab a stack of napkins off the counter and start wiping his shirt.
“I’m good,” he says, and storms to the bathroom.
The man behind the counter is staring at the mess on the floor.
“Sorry,” I say, about to drop down and use the napkins there.
“It’s okay. I’ll get the mop.”
My shirt is wet, and my face and arms are sticky. When I turn back around, Duke is smiling. “Good one,” he says as I sit down.
“What was that all about?” Ray asks Duke.
I give Duke a look that I hope tells him not to air Laila’s dirty laundry, and he says, “Oh, nothing, that guy just cut us off on the road earlier.”
I pull my wet shirt away from my skin. “I’m going to need to change.”
He unzips his backpack and whips out a purple jersey with the name Rivers across the back in gold print.
Not in a million years, I want to say, but he has the cutest expression on his face. I take it. “Thanks. I’ll be right back.”
After I change into Duke’s football jersey, I stare at myself in the mirror. It’s so not me. I feel like a fraud. Not only am I swimming in it, but it’s like an advertisement to the world that I belong to Duke. People will think I asked him if I could wear it.
My hair only adds to my fraudulent look—I’ve been straightening it ever since Duke told me it looked hot that way, and I feel as pathetic as that sounds. Now my hair is sticky with soda and attempting to curl on one side. I free an elastic band from my pocket and pull it up into a ponytail. I tuck the front of the jersey into my jeans and make myself feel better with the fact that I can change into my emergency outfit when I get back to school. Suddenly I don’t feel quite so neurotic for keeping (and continually replacing) that outfit in my locker.
When I exit the bathroom, everyone is filing out of the restaurant and piling into their cars. Duke and Laila are waiting for me. Even Laila knows I shouldn’t be wearing the jersey, because she curls her lip when she sees it. But Duke smiles and lifts me into a big hug. “You are so adorable.”
As we walk out of the restaurant, Poison is standing by his car, holding a to-go bag and staring at his tires.
“Man,” Laila says, “that sucks.”
I want to push her and tell her not to draw attention to herself, but that would only add to it.
Poison turns slowly, then looks her up and down. His gaze travels to Duke and then lingers on me. I lower my head and pull on Duke’s arm, wanting to walk faster, but Duke just stares at him and then says, “Can we do anything to help?” in the friendliest voice ever.
Poison wrenches open his door, throws his bag inside, and pulls out a cell phone from his pocket.
“I guess that’s a no then?” Duke says. Laila laughs.
As we drive away from Fat Jacks I turn around and smack Laila’s leg. “You are seriously demented. That guy is going to kill you. His name is Poison, Laila, remember? And did you see those tattoos on his arms?”
She leans back in her seat and laughs harder. “He’s a pathetic druggie. A hardcore loser.” Her laughter trails off, and she says in a voice I’m sure she intends to be light, but I can hear the pain behind, “Just like my dad.”
CHAPTER 16
NORM-trap: n. a device used to trap a Norm (okay, fine, I got trapped too)
Monday at school, Trevor, Rowan, Stephanie, and I sit in Trevor’s car. My notebook is propped on my knees, and all our ideas for “dare completion” are listed out.
“What happens if we fail?” I ask.
“They get bragging rights for the rest of their lives,” Stephanie says. Her sour expression—which I’ve decided is her face’s default setting—is present. “We are not failing.”
I doodle a couple of split lines on the corner of the page. “I say we add a rule to the dessert game that the dare must take place the night of the loss. None of this, ‘On Monday you have to steal the principal’s bobblehead toy off the dashboard of his car.’”
Rowan raises one eyebrow, and one corner of his mouth rises with it. Default setting = creep. “Are you scared?”
“What?” I blow air between my lips. “No,” I say, when really the thought of breaking into the principal’s car ranks right up there with suffering through one of my mom’s mind patterns.
“I still think me distracting the principal right when he comes back from lunch, and one of you climbing into the car before he has a chance to set his alarm is the best option,” Rowan says, pointing at my notebook. “Oh, and while you’re writing things down, Addison, write down the name Luis Vasquez. Look him up, Trevor. Last year he had a major back injury during a game. Does his name sound familiar? It should, because he was up for All-American, just like you.”
“This isn’t helping our current situation,” Stephanie says.
“I agree,” Trevor says. “I’m for the borrowing-the-principal’s-keys-out-of-his-office idea.”
“But then someone has to put them back,” Stephanie says. “And that’s assuming he doesn’t keep them on him.”
I glance at my cell. “Well, lunch is almost over, so we’d better figure it out soon.”
“Okay, let’s try the distraction technique,” Rowan says. “Who’s going in for the bobblehead?”
Stephanie’s head immediately whips toward me.
Not me. “Why me?”
“Because you’re the one who had the pathetic dessert.”
“She had no idea about the game, Stephanie,” Trevor points out.
Everyone stares at me, and I find myself saying, “No, it’s fine.” I close my notebook and tuck it into my bag. “I’ll go in. You just better keep him occupied, Rowan.” There is no way I’m getting kicked out of Norm school over a stupid dare.
“I will. I’m an expert at distraction.”
“I’ll help Addison,” Trevor says. “Stephanie, you be backup for Rowan.”
“Yeah, okay.” She blinks several times, then looks up. Just when I start to wonder what someone said to upset her, she pulls down her lower eyelid and sticks her finger in her eye.
I gasp, but no one else reacts.
“My contact is bugging me.” She pinches a thin, clear film out of her eye, and since nobody else finds this at all disturbing I try to control my facial expression.
I must not have done a good job because she says, “What’s your problem? You don’t know anyone who wears contacts?”
No, actually. A Norm lesson about subpar vision is skirting just outside my memory. I need to get a memory program fast, because I seem to have forgotten all our lessons.
“You have it back in?” Rowan asks, and Stephanie nods. “All right, break.” He ducks out of the car like he thinks he’s a spy. Stephanie follows.
“He needs some theme music,” I say, hoping Trevor doesn’t ask about my reaction to Stephanie’s contacts.
“Mr. Buford has some he can borrow.”
I laugh and move toward the door, my feet crunching papers as I do. “Your car is a mess.”
“You’re disgusted.”
“No, I’m not,” I say too fast.
He laughs. “Your face says otherwise.”
“Disgust is the wrong word. It’s not like it’s littered with half-eaten food or dirty socks.” I reach down to pick up one of the many crumpled papers. “It’s just …” I start to unfurl the paper.
“Negative,” he says.
“Negative? Did you seriously just use that word?” The paper is crumpled up into a pretty tight ball, and I can’t open it as fast as I want to.
His eyes twinkle with a smile, but he grabs my wrist. “Addison, drop the garbage.”
I laugh. “If we weren’t in such a hurry, I’d fight to see what caused Mr. Laidback to use the word negative as a command.” I drop the paper with the others, and he releases his hold.
A few moments later, Trevor and I crouch behind the tailgate of a truck, waiting for the principal to pull into his spot. “Are they lists of people you want to kill?” The fact that he wouldn’t let me look makes me want to know that much more. I’m really good at keeping a secret, but when I know someone is keeping one from me, it drives me insane.
He smiles, and I decide he has one of the nicest smiles I’ve ever seen. “Yes, pages of them.”
“Okay, love letters?”
“Absolutely not.” He stands and stretches his legs, then squats down again.
I bite the inside of my cheek, thinking. What would a quiet, easygoing guy like Trevor not want me to see? “You write. You’re a writer.”
He raises his eyebrows in the do-you-seriously-think-that’s-a-possibility? look.
“Maybe your stint in the library inspired you to pen your memoirs.”
“You’re making a bigger deal of this than it is.”
“Negative,” I say, stealing his word. “You are. Anytime you make something a secret, it becomes a big deal.”
He smirks. “Are you going to keep guessing until I tell you?”
I nod once. “Yes.”
“So if I tell you, you’ll drop it?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Here’s the huge secret: I draw a little and fail at it a lot.”
I thought finding out what the paper really was would make me want to see it less, not more. “You draw? What do you draw?”
He gives me the didn’t-you-say-you-would-drop-it? look, then peers around the tailgate. “You ready? He’s here.”
I turn and see a black SUV pull into the principal’s spot, Rowan already standing on the sidewalk ready to distract him when he exits the car. “Let’s go.”
“Principal Lemoore,” Rowan says, when the principal steps out of the car and shuts the door behind him. I approach the back passenger-side door, slowly opening it. Trevor stands behind me, waits until I’m all the way in, and closes it. I crawl along the floor but pause when I see the principal’s back in the driver’s-side window. Couldn’t Rowan have led him farther away? I hold my breath, tempted to wait, but I know I need to get it and get out before he sets the alarm. I start to crawl over the shorter middle seat and into the front. That’s when I notice a briefcase sitting on that middle seat. Crap.
I duck behind the driver’s seat just as I hear Rowan say, “Wait, what are you doing?” The front door opens. The principal grumbles and grabs his briefcase, then shuts the door again.
Another door opens and closes, and Trevor whispers, “I’ll get it, Addison. You just go out the back.”