TMI Page 9

  The bus reached Meg’s stop. “Bye. Oh, um…thanks for…you know, just thanks.”

  Chase stood up to let her by. She walked down the steps, jumped to the curb, and drew in a breath of the cool spring air, wondering if she’d ever feel warm again.

  “Chase, this isn’t your street.” Meg reminded him when he fell into step beside her. Chase’s house was around the block. Meg could see his bedroom window from hers and often lay in bed at night, refusing to shut her eyes until his window went dark.

  “I know where I live, Megan.”

  They walked beside the freshly cut lawns, the crocuses, and tulips bursting from sleep and around the corner to Meg’s tiny house.

  “So why aren’t you going there?” she finally asked him.

  “I’m walking you home. And then you’re going to invite me inside so I can make you hot cocoa.”

  Meg arched an eyebrow, tried not to let her galloping heart escape from her chest. “Again, why?”

  “Because you’re upset. Because you need to know Bailey’s not the only friend you have.”

  Bailey. Just the sound of her name had Meg’s vision going Alizarin crimson again. She shouldn’t do this, not with Chase, but damn it, better he was with her than with Bailey. Besides, she knew more tears waited behind her eyes, and as soon as she was alone, they’d drown her. “Faience Blue,” she murmured.

  “What?” he asked on a laugh.

  “Never mind,” she said and sighed. “Come on then.”

  They sat in the kitchen, an open bag of stale marshmallows between them on the old oak table with the scarred top. Meg sat with her legs curled under her, looking around the room her mom loved so much. It was big and sunny. Pauline had an herb garden growing in one window and one of Meg’s early paintings hung on the wall over the table.

  “Your mom’s not here?”

  Meg shook her head. “No, she won’t get home until after six.” And then she’d head right back out.

  “What do you do all by yourself until then?”

  Meg’s eyes tracked the gentle rise of vapor from her cup. “I’m not usually alone. Usually, I have Bailey to keep me company.”

  “So what would you and Bailey be doing right now?”

  “Homework. Giving each other advice on stuff.”

  The corner of Chase’s mouth twitched.

  “Maybe we’d make a few snacks or watch a movie. We’d shop. Read. And we’d talk. We talked a lot. I’ve been trying to convince Bailey to get a computer science degree.”

  Chase nodded. “Yeah, she told me about the video game. She never showed me any of it though. We just talked. It sounds really complicated.”

  Meg’s mouth tightened. The night Bailey had told Chase about the video game had been the night he’d hugged her. She squirmed in her chair.

  “You okay?”

  “Um…yeah.” She felt her face flame.

  Inspiration struck. Maybe there was a way to beat Bailey at her own game.

  Ha.

  Meg tugged Chase’s hand, leading him upstairs. “Come on. You have to check this out.”

  She led him into her room, cluttered with half-finished sketches, brushes and paints, canvases, and clothes that didn’t look good on her, but she didn’t care about the mess.

  “You gonna show me your sketches, Megan?” Chase waggled his eyebrows.

  Meg rolled her eyes. “Shut up and come over here.” She searched the bookcase over her desk for the binder she and Bailey had filled with ideas, outlines, character sketches, and plot threads. “Here. Look at this. I sketch these out for her when I have time.” Meg handed the pad to Chase, who was busy looking around the canvases hung or propped on every wall like he’d fallen into another dimension.

  Meg’s heart dropped a few inches when his gaze settled on her easel, which she’d forgotten to cover.

  “Chase?”

  “Oh. Sorry.” He came back to his senses and leafed through the binder for what felt like hours. “These are good. I mean, like, really good.”

  “I know, right?” Meg took the binder back and leafed to a page she knew by heart. “This all started with a bad grade on a history test. I told her she should think of history like a video game with various levels, and next thing I know, she’s got all these worlds designed around our history lessons.”

  “I like this.” Chase pointed to one of the plot arcs circled in the margin. “It’s like a Da Vinci Code thing.”

  Meg smiled and shook her head. “No, it’s more than that. She knew the only way I’d ever play the game was if it had something to do with art. I told her she should use famous works from each period and add in the artists as backstory, but she said no. That was too much like Assassin’s Creed. So we kept adding stuff, tweaking ideas until it covered all of tenth-grade history. She has the whole thing worked out in her head.”

  “I know. She told me.” He laughed. “When she said it was a little like Dance Party Central, I nearly lost it.”

  Meg’s excitement faded. Every time she remembered their hug that night, that flare of envy tinted her vision. “Right. I forgot. Now you’re building it for her.”

  He looked at Meg sharply and his voice dropped a few degrees. “‘For her?’ You don’t think she can do it herself, do you?”

  Meg gasped, insulted. “No, she doesn’t think she can, so she doesn’t bother. Her biggest goal right now is to marry rich so she can afford to pay somebody to code this for her.” Abruptly mad, Meg tossed the book back on her desk. “That’s what got the whole Simon thing started in the first place. She figured he’d build it for her.” Meg ran fingers through her hair, the tug on her scalp easing the pain in her heart when she thought about Bailey. When Chase didn’t reply, she glanced at him and saw his fairy eyes cloud with annoyance.

  “What?”

  Chase shook his head and waved a hand. “I’m sorry.”

  Meg’s eyebrows shot up. “For what?”

  “For what I was just thinking about you.” He shrugged. “You look out for her.” He smiled. “It’s…um, cool. It really is.”

  Cool. Meg blew out a loud breath and carefully tucked the binder back on her shelf. “I try. She doesn’t make it easy.”

  “Well, maybe you could cut her a small break—you know, forgive her because she wasn’t ready to share this guy with you yet?”

  Meg’s brows drew together and her face got hot. Chase hit a nerve, but she wasn’t quite ready to admit that yet, so she quickly changed the subject. “Let me ask you something. Do you think she’s pretty?”

  Chase stared at Meg, agape. “Um…yeah,” he finally admitted. “Why?”

  She ignored the knot in her belly, the little flare of jealousy. “She…well, she’s really insecure, Chase. Every time she meets a new guy, she…she just loses herself in him. Everything she’s ever been into, it’s because she wanted to impress a guy. Rock climbing. Heavy metal. Acting. Working out.” She ticked the hobbies off on her fingers. “I can’t even remember who got her started on gaming.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s still into it, so that’s got to mean something,” he pointed out.

  “True.” Meg lifted a shoulder. “But it’s more than just picking up a guy’s hobbies. She believes anything they tell her, Chase. Whatever they say, she believes it, and it really annoys me.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “Because.” Meg flung out her hands in frustration. “She doesn’t see herself! For every guy that gives her the time of day, she falls hard and then totally changes herself for him. Simon thought she was sexy, so she started talking about getting a boob job.”

  He snorted, and when Meg turned to face him, he was looking at her sideways. “That’s a girl thing. You all do that.”

  “I have never and will never consider a boob job.”

  His eyes flicked down and immediately back to hers
. “Um…good. That’s good. But that’s not what I meant. I mean, girls are always trying to change themselves. Even you.”

  “I do not!” Before he could argue, Meg stated her case. “I would never change myself for some guy. That’s exactly why I—” Abruptly, she snapped her teeth together.

  Chase angled his head, an unspoken acknowledgment of what she didn’t say. “No. You’re right about that. But I was talking about not being happy with your looks.”

  “I know exactly what I look like.” She waved a hand at the mirror over her dresser. “I’ll never get any modeling contracts, but I’m not hideous. I have nice eyes, even though they’re brown, and my skin looks good. I’m too skinny and my hair needs an intervention. None of that matters all that much to me or I’d do something about it.”

  “Wow, do you even hear yourself?” He crossed the room to stand next to her, took her shoulders, and spun her around to face the mirror. “What exactly is wrong with having brown eyes?”

  Meg met his gaze in their reflection, wondering how the hell he could even ask that question. His hands tightened on her shoulders, and then he trailed one hand slowly down her body, stopping at her hip.

  Meg’s heart skidded to a thought-scattering, life-shattering stop.

  “I like what I see. Why don’t you?”

  She opened her mouth to retort but realized that with his hand on her body, she had no answer to give, even if she could form words.

  “Maybe you do care?” He filled the silence.

  Holy Moses, she was going to faint. Chase Gallagher touched her. Chase Gallagher was still touching her.

  And she liked it.

  Unable to tear her gaze away, Meg watched his impossible-colored eyes darken and drift to her mouth. Her entire body tensed, and her mind screamed “Run!” but she didn’t.

  She couldn’t.

  He turned her to face him.

  He bent his head lower.

  When had he grown so tall? When had his jaw formed those contours that just begged for her fingers to trace?

  And then he touched his mouth to hers, the lightest of touches. Sweet. Friendly even. She’d replayed this moment a dozen, a hundred, a hundred dozen times since the first time he’d kissed her, and each time—every single one of them—she’d imagine coolly stopping him, reminding him they’d never be more than just friends.

  But that’s not what happened.

  She exploded. There was a split second of hesitation, and then Chase went wild. The hand gripping her hip tightened and his fingers pressed into her flesh. The hand on her shoulder snaked around her back, reached into her hair, and pulled. Her head came up. Her mouth opened in a gasp, and he swallowed the sound, touched his tongue to hers. She held on, held tight while he poured a year’s, a decade’s, a lifetime’s worth of love into his kiss, and she cried at the beauty of it, cried that she’d denied them this for so long.

  Reality came skipping back home at that moment, dragging with it every memory of every time she’d heard her mother sob late at night when she was supposed to be asleep, and she froze.

  Chase was suddenly across the room. “I should go. You gonna be okay?” His voice was a deep rasp.

  Meg blinked, nodded, and leaned back against her desk, suddenly too dizzy to trust her legs. “Um…yeah, sure.” Her voice was just as raspy.

  “You mind if I borrow that?” He jerked his chin to the binder. “I can do some basic flat files for you guys.”

  Her mind clutched at that single sane thought. “Oh, sure. That…that would be awesome.” What the hell was a flat file?

  In two steps, he had the binder, and in two more, he was at the door again.

  Suddenly, Meg didn’t want him to go. “Thanks for the…um…company.”

  “No problem.” He turned at the door. “By the way—and I know this doesn’t matter much to you—but I think you’re pretty too.”

  He grinned his toothpaste commercial smile, and Meg struggled to breathe.

  Chapter 14

  Bailey

  Bailey’s will had remained brick-solid right up until the final bell rang and she saw Meg, shoulders slumped and face long, drag herself onto the bus.

  She elected to walk home, even though the sky was overcast and the humidity was doing terrible things to her hair. She headed out of the school parking lot, her bag already too heavy for her shoulder, and tried to remind herself that Meg never looked happy, even when she smiled—and that only happened when Chase was around. All she wanted was time, just a little bit of time to enjoy the sparkle and tingle of a brand new friendship that hinted at more to come. The weight on her shoulder felt like it had gotten inside her. Her steps slowed, and she raised a hand to rub at her chest.

  Okay. Okay, she admitted it. She shouldn’t have ditched the movie or the mall trip or not texted. It wasn’t nice to be forgotten or abandoned. Hadn’t she been mad at her mom for forcing her dad to do just that to her? But it wasn’t intentional. Or…well, not entirely intentional. She got caught up in all that sparkling and tingling, and she would explain that to Meg, apologize for that much at least. Meg would understand.

  That put a hitch in her stride.

  Meg would not understand, not one bit.

  Meg didn’t allow herself to sparkle and tingle and sink into that soul-soaring feeling you got when a boy looked at you like you were the sun itself. Meg didn’t let herself get caught up in anything except school and painting, and even when she was up to her eyebrows in a project, she’d never forgotten plans with Bailey.

  Bailey slowed to a stop, found herself in front of a coffee shop, and went inside. She sat in a corner booth, far away from the laughter and teasing from the other students squeezed around a table for six. A horrible conclusion struck her hard, and she covered her face. She was a terrible friend. But yet, thinking it, accepting it churned up all this outrage deep inside her that kept trying to rebel against it. Bailey needed Gran and took out her cell, made the call, and then settled back to wait for Gran to rescue her, wallowing in pity.

  “Bailey.”

  She looked up, saw Simon frowning down at her, and hunched lower in the booth.

  “You okay?”

  She turned away. “Sure. Perfect.”

  “You…ah…need a ride or something?”

  At the other end of the shop, Bailey noticed Caitlyn trying to draw blood with her glare. “I’m good. You should get back to her before her face freezes that way.”

  Simon took a quick look over his shoulder and snorted. “Yeah…okay.” He waited a second and then walked away.

  Bailey refused to look at their table. She sat with her face turned to the window. Time floated around her, but she was outside it. She registered the arrival and departures of various customers, smelled the French fries on trays going by, and sipped the coffee in front of her that she didn’t remember asking for. A hand reached across the table and squeezed hers.

  “What’s wrong, sweet girl?” a soft voice asked.

  Bailey looked up into her grandmother’s familiar face. There were lines there now, a little gray around her temples, but she always looked so beautiful and always spoke so softly—even when she was mad.

  There was no annoyance reflected on her grandmother’s face, only concern.

  Tears burned behind her eyes. “Oh, Gran! I…I really hurt Meg.” The story tumbled from her lips and the tears fell, her earlier stubborn willpower nothing but rubble now.

  Gran listened, sipped her own coffee—where had that come from?—and made little sounds of commiseration. When Bailey was finally done spilling her guts, Gran asked one question: “What will you do now?”

  Bailey stared at her. It was a simple question but still wrapped her in a blanket of love. She could have asked, “What do you think you should do?” Or, as Nicole might have asked, “Why did you do that?” On the surface, the questions were th
e same. But deep down, where it counted, only Gran’s held no hint of accusation or blame or disappointment or even disapproval. After all, she’d just admitted to befriending a boy she’d met online.

  Bailey smiled through her tears and squeezed Gran’s hand. “I know I have to apologize for ditching her, but that’s all, Gran. I’m not sorry I’m friends with Ryder, and I’m not sorry I want to find someone to love, even if Meg won’t. I shouldn’t have to apologize for that.”

  Gran angled her head and tucked her stylish blond hair behind an ear. “Why do you think you have to?”

  “Um—” Bailey wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I always get this feeling that Meg expects me to stay single for the rest of my life so she won’t be alone. But that’s not me! I want to get married and have kids someday. Don’t get me wrong—that’s not all I want. But Meg has no room for that in her plan. She doesn’t get that I have my own plan.”

  “Do you?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “Sort of. I know I want an exciting career, but I don’t know what that is yet. I know I want a family who loves me—husband and kids someday, a lot of them. I don’t know who he is yet. I’m not going to skip any opportunity for finding him and I shouldn’t have to, right?”

  Gran held up her hands, palms up. “This is your life we’re talking about, not mine. It’s not my job to tell you if you’re right or wrong here. That’s up to you to discover and decide.”

  Bailey smiled. “See? This is why I called you. Mom would have lectured me on what’s right. And Meg would have lectured me on what’s right for her. Nobody seems to get that I have my own ideas. Except you. Thank you.” Bailey leaped up and kissed Gran on her nose.

  “Um, well, thank you.” Gran wrinkled her nose and laughed. She angled her head with a sparkle in her eye and grabbed a menu from the holder on the edge of the table. “Now how about we split a really big and fattening dessert before we head home?”

  “Deal.” Bailey wiped her eyes and pointed to the triple-scoop chocolate sundae with a sparkle of her own. They ordered and dug in, and in minutes, the large dessert had been reduced to nothing but a dirty dish.