Get Lucky: A YA Anthology Page 9

  I’ve lived with them since I was a ninth grader, which offered me the fresh start of a new school, since they lived outside of my old district. An emergency nurse and a foreman at one of the large construction companies in Camarillo, neither of them are around a ton, but they always make sure we’re taken care of. Part of April’s belief is that, by having us raise each other, we’re more connected. Not unlike what Ms. Moyer said yesterday, which might be part of the reason I reacted so badly.

  Which means that Cam was probably right, and I owe him an apology.

  The bus swings around the circular bus lane in front of the school, and squeaks to a stop. At the front, I’m always the first one off, slipping into school through the side door. Today, I pause when I get onto the sidewalk, raising my brow at Cam where he leans against the retaining wall.

  He’s gorgeous, with tousled brown hair, hazel eyes, and casual clothes that scream style. He’s been my best friend since freshman year when we quickly learned we both had secrets we weren’t ready to share with the world. Unlike me, Cam isn’t ashamed of who he is. He simply understands that being gay in high school makes you one of a few things: an oddity, a target, or a zoo animal, always being stared at. He’s chosen to be quieter about his sexuality because he wants to be none of those things.

  “Hey there, stranger. How’s it going?”

  I walk over to lean against the wall next him. “Nothing like a bumpy ride on the early bus to make my day great.”

  “You could have called me for a ride,” he says.

  I look over at him, sliding my fingers up the inside of my straps until they rest near my shoulders. He tracks the move, raising a small brow but not commenting. “Could I have? You were pretty mad yesterday.”

  He nods his head, smoothing a hand through his hair. “Yeah… I think maybe I overreacted.” He blows out a breath. “It’s just that I’m kind of tired of being on the outside, of ignoring people, of waiting for them to react the way I assume they’re going to react. Something hit me a few weeks ago and I… I don’t know, I just don’t think the same way I used to.” He shrugs. “Maybe… maybe people aren’t all the same.”

  We start walking, the tension from our fight gone, but not the sentiment. “I think you might be right. And I think you might have had a point yesterday,” I say.

  Cam’s lips quirk. “You think?”

  “I might not agree with everything you said,” I clarify with a smile. “But maybe I am a little pessimistic, and a little sensitive. And, maybe not viewing every interaction with another human being as a battle of life and death would make my life easier.”

  “Let’s put that thought to the test.” Before I know what he’s doing, Cam’s raising his hand and waving. “Hey, Gage! Kennedy and I were just talking about you.”

  Traitor. I glare at Cam, my eyes promising pain and punishment, but he just smiles. I shift my attention to Gage, ignoring the small bit of appreciation that flutters in my stomach when I notice how well the Giants t-shirt he’s wearing fits his broad shoulders.

  Ignore, ignore, ignore.

  “Handy, since I was just coming to say good morning to my girl.” Then, he holds out a cup of coffee with my name scrawled on the outside, a little heart underneath it. “Morning, Kenny, how’d you sleep?”

  Gage

  Quartered

  Kenny eyes the vanilla latte like it’s a homemade bomb instead of a nice gesture. Her friend, Cam, is smiling at me, which helps to ease the knots in my stomach that formed when I saw them standing together.

  Call me crazy, but I really don’t want Kenny to have a boyfriend.

  Before I can ask her if she’s allergic to coffee, or just nice gestures, her friend speaks up. “Look, Kennedy, Gage brought you a coffee. Isn’t that nice?” I’m ninety percent sure Kenny thinks this gesture is a lot of things, nice not being one of them, but, after another second of hesitation, she reaches out and takes the travel cup from me.

  I hold onto it just long enough that she has to drag her fingers against mine. The contact brings a little bit of heat to her cheeks, turning that olive skin a gentle pink.

  “Thank you.” She doesn’t choke on the words, though they sound a little rusty.

  “You’re welcome.” We stand awkwardly for a second, me staring at her, her staring anywhere but me, and Cam watching us both. If her plan is to ignore me, and wait for me to leave, she’s about to be disappointed. Rather than fidgeting or trying to make small talk that I know she’ll shoot down, I stand next to her and enjoy the view that is Kennedy Russo.

  Her brown hair is piled on top of her head today, and, for a second, my fingers itch with the urge to sink into it and pull it free, just to watch is cascade down around her. I stick my hands into my pockets, allowing my eyes to trace a line down her figure and back up. She’s small—like a foot shorter than me, small. Her legs look nice in dark jeans, though, and I smile when I see her Chucks again. She’s wearing a teal hoodie, zipped up almost all of the way. The small expanse of skin I can see inside of the small jacket is smooth and tanned.

  How I missed the hotness that is Kenny in the last three years, I don’t know. It has to be straight population related—fourteen hundred students, only one Kenny.

  Whether he really has some place to be, or he’s giving in to the discomfort and fleeing, Cam clears his throat and makes his exit. I can’t say I’m sad to see him go.

  “Whelp… I need to get some help on my math homework. You two kids have fun.”

  Kenny’s head whips up. “I can help you,” she begins, but he’s already halfway to the door, leaving her glaring after him.

  Swinging a friendly arm around her shoulders, I feel Kenny tense, but I ignore it. “Looks like it’s just the two of us, my darling life-partner. Why don’t we go somewhere, so we can talk about our next five weeks while you drink your coffee?”

  She stares after Cam for a second longer, and though the urge to pull her closer is strong, I resist. I’m ninety percent sure they aren’t an item, but I have to ask before this goes further. Because, while I’m finding I like the idea of things going further with Kenny, I’m no homewrecker.

  “You can call your boyfriend about his homework later.”

  Her head snaps around, shoving her face into my side before she tilts back enough to look up. “Why do you keep saying that?”

  “What?”

  “Boyfriend. Cam’s my friend. I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  Booyah. My expression stays neutral, but inside my mind is a-wandering. “You do have a life-partner, though.” I give her a smile. She frowns, and, though I think her eyes instinctively try to go to slits to convey her loathing and irritation, it also appears that she’s battling that instinct, choosing instead to show only mild disdain for my statement. Interesting.

  “About that,” she says, all brisk business. Why it’s appealing to me I’ll never know. “I outlined a plan last night in a Google doc, so I can print a copy for you.”

  “Then, let’s head to the library.”

  Between the bus drop off and library, Kenny pulls a few ninja maneuvers and sneaks out from underneath my arm. I could countermove, but I play it low key instead, letting her walk a safe two feet away from me in the empty hallways, lest anyone see us together. In the library, I head to a cozy chair in the corner while she signs on to a computer and prints her outline.

  Since it’s still early—way earlier than I’m usually at school, mind you—there’s only a few other students scattered throughout the space, and one librarian behind the large U-shaped desk. I sit in the deep-seated chair, and watch Kenny, enjoying the way she ignores everyone else while she completes her task and searches the library for me. When she spots me, she frowns, but heads over, holding out a clean piece of white printer paper with a rather simple outline on it.

  I skim over it, raising my brows when I see that it includes questions to be answered and uploaded. Nowhere on the outline does it show actual time spent together. When I’m done, I look up at h
er.

  “You want to plan our future through a Google doc?”

  She takes the chair snugged across from mine, sitting on the edge while she sips from the coffee, nodding when she lowers the cup. “It’s more practical. This way, you don’t have to keep seeking me out, and neither of us have to change our lives. We just get our assignment each week, upload them to the doc, and answer them.” She must see my face because she frowns. “The instructions never explicitly say that we have to discover these things about our partners in person. They just said we have to get to know them.”

  I nod. And then I lean forward, making sure Kenny can see the outline when I rip it in half. Taking those halves, I place them together and rip once more. “Try again.”

  Kennedy

  Week 1: The Honeymoon Period

  “This is not a real assignment.” I look up from the screen of his phone where directions for this week’s assignment are suggesting we act like we’re on a first date.

  The look Gage gives me says, “What can you do?”

  Use my Google doc, that’s what. But he won’t, and it doesn’t appear he’s budging.

  “You can’t expect me to ask you these questions, and go through this asinine process,” I say. Ms. Moyer has graciously decided that Life Science is also about living in the moment and only looking so far ahead. Rather than outlining each of our weekly requirements on one paper, she uploads them one at a time to her teacher website, surprising us with our task and some prompts and activities to get us going at the beginning of each week.

  After he mangled my outline, Gage dropped his phone in my lap to show me week one. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think I was looking at an eHarmony instruction manual.

  “This isn’t relevant to learning, or our future, at all.”

  Gage shrugs, all good natured and blasé even though a thirty-something year old woman is meddling in our lives and requiring us to divulge secrets about ourselves. His easy-going acceptance makes me even more agitated. “Who cares what my favorite color is? How does that help me plan for my future?”

  “Teal,” he says, stopping me mid-tirade. “I’d bet fifty dollars your favorite color is teal based on the polka-dots on your backpack and the hoodie today. Yesterday, your shirt was gray, but your earrings had teal beads on them.”

  I gape at him. He just smiles and continues. “And, maybe it’s not about the future, per se, but about the kind of people we’re becoming, if we honestly think learning personal information about other people is in no way relevant to who we will become.”

  “Who are you?” I can’t stop the question, or the irritation in my voice, any more than I could stop the sun from shining. “Seriously, who are you? Because I can guarantee no one else is this invested in the assignment.”

  Face serious for the first time, Gage leans forward, so we are knee-to-knee, looking straight into my eyes. “That’s probably the first thing you should learn, Kenny. I’m not like other people.”

  * * *

  There is no changing Gage’s mind, and, after my conversation with Cam this morning, I’m trying not to panic about it—or rage, which is always so much more comforting.

  It’s only five weeks—and the fifth week is mostly by ourselves—and though the circumstances are not ideal, I can still control some of this. Like this week—the questions are juvenile, but they aren’t life altering. We have to talk favorite colors, foods, and bands; this is something I might not want to do, but that I can do. Minimal answers which require little on my part. I’ll deal with the more personal questions as they come.

  My phone vibrates with a text between first and second period. My stomach bottoms out, and then skyrockets to my throat, when I see Gage’s number pop up—the same number he programmed in before I escaped to class this morning.

  Gage: Mexican or Italian?

  Me: Are you asking for heritage or food preferences?

  Gage: Both ;)

  Me: Italian on both fronts.

  My phone doesn’t buzz again until I’m seated in class, about to put it away.

  Gage: You’re terrible at this conversation thing. See why we can’t do email?

  Me: I responded. How does this make me terrible at conversation?

  Gage: You forgot to ask me a question, Kenny. It’s only conversation if we’re both invested.

  Gage: I like Mexican, btw. Can’t go wrong with tacos. And I’m Scandinavian, in case you were curious.

  Me: That explains your looks. And your inability to take no for an answer.

  Gage: You calling me a Viking, Kenny?

  Me: A pest, more like. And it’s Kennedy.

  And so it goes for the rest of the day. Every time I’m walking from one class to another—sometimes, even when I’m in class—my phone buzzes. And, every time I look at it, Gage’s name flashes on the screen. I don’t always answer, but it surprises me how much I want to, and how much I look forward to seeing his name on my screen.

  Some of his questions are just words, like “Eggplant?” and others are little games. “Would you rather… look like Mike Tyson, or talk like him?”

  Despite my commitment to remaining annoyed and aloof, so I can keep him at distance, I find myself smiling. A lot. When Cam and I sit down to lunch, he’s quick to call me on it.

  “Are we in the Twilight zone, or is that a smile on your face?”

  I bite into my apple, trying to hide what is most definitely a smile. So annoying. “It’s a beautiful day.”

  “Since we live in Camarillo, where the majority of the days are sunny, it can’t be the weather you’re talking about.”

  I compose myself enough to arch my brow at him. “It can’t?”

  Cam shakes his head. “Maybe it’s the coffee you drank this morning?” His suggestion is loud and clear.

  I shrug, studying my apple. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you’re not.”

  My phone buzzes again, and I’m a little too eager to look at it. I hear Cam’s laugh, but I ignore him.

  Gage: Would you rather… go to the movies, or make memories?

  This question has me pausing. It’s like the others today, but, somehow, it seems as if he’s asking me personally, not just for information.

  “Did Gage Christensen just ask you on a date?”

  I glance at Cam, who is leaning over the table to read my phone screen. I slap at him, and put the phone in my lap, clicking power without answering.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. This is part of our assignment.” But my heart is pounding, the beat erratic while it calls me a liar.

  I finish my lunch without answering, talking to Cam about his math assignment, ignoring his knowing glances and suggestive comments. By the time I’m walking to my next class, I’m ninety percent sure I’ve overreacted, and there is nothing suggestive about Gage’s text. Pulling out my phone, I reply.

  Me: Movies are boring.

  Before I’m in my seat, my phone buzzes.

  Gage: Does that mean you want to make some memories with me this weekend, Kenny?

  No. But my fingers don’t type that. Instead, I click the power off and slide my notebook out, looking straight ahead. I don’t want to make memories with Gage Christensen. I don’t want to make memories with anyone. That’s why I’ve always stayed on the outskirts. Life is easier if I only depend on myself. I can’t let a cute boy with just the right amount of charm and sass make me forget that.

  But I can’t concentrate on the words being said when the teacher starts talking. Instead, all I can hear is the rapid beating of my heart as it drums in my ears.

  Ninety minutes later, when I pull out my phone and see the new message, I read:

  Gage: Come on, Kenny, take a chance on your life-partner.

  Me: What did you have in mind?

  Gage

  Week 1, Part 2: Swing, Batter Batter

  Kenny is waiting on her front step when I pull up to the curb in front of her house on Saturday afternoon.

&n
bsp; All week, she insisted we did not need to spend time together outside of school in order to complete our assignment. Technically, she might be right. The assignment does only say to learn things like favorite colors and hobbies, movies, foods, music. But… it also says, think first date. That’s the part I’m holding onto.

  “I’m a visual learner,” I told her yesterday at lunch. Her friend, Cam, who I have to think might just be on my side, almost choked on his sandwich. “I can’t just know you because we’ve sent some texts back and forth—besides, you’re not very good at texting.”

  Kenny is the person who stops abruptly in the middle of a conversation and waits hours to respond again. And, when she does respond, it’s never with a sure, or a yes. It’s either, no or a question, like why? I thought she was coming around when she asked me what I had in mind for making memories, but then she began back peddling, saying we didn’t need to spend time together, blah blah blah. I cut her off, then I told her I would come to her house and get her Saturday afternoon. Because she’s antagonistic—or just plain ornery—she tried to insist on taking a bus to meet me.

  “Not on your life.” This did not please her, but Cam started nodding his head, so I counted it as a done deal.

  Now, I’m pulling my truck to a stop and she’s already on her way down the walk before I’ve turned the engine off.

  When she wrenches open the door, I raise a brow. “Do I need to come inside and meet your parents? Let them know I’m a safe driver, and my intentions are honorable?”

  I see her lips twitch when she hoists herself in, but she doesn’t let them curve. So stoic, my Kenny. “No one’s here. They went to the beach for the day since no one had to work for the first time in ages.” Slamming the door harder than necessary, she turns to put on her seatbelt. I don’t start the engine, though.