Epic Fail (6 page)

This was clearly where all the guys who didn’t have dates had ended up—and, given how many of them were passionately watching or playing video games, I don’t think there was any huge mystery to their stag status.

Derek headed toward the Ping-Pong table, which two guys were already using.

All Derek said was, “When you’re done, let us know,” and instantly one player, who was skinny and had zit-scarred cheeks, offered up his paddle, saying, “It’s all yours.” He turned. “Let’s go, Jay,” he called to his short and slightly chubby opponent, who obediently surrendered his paddle to Derek in turn. Grinning and nodding, the first kid led his friend over toward the TV. As they moved off, I could hear him whisper, “You know who that is, right?”

“Does that always happen to you?” I asked Derek as he handed me a paddle.

“What?” He moved around to the other end of the table.

“Do people always let you have whatever you want when you want it?”

“What do you mean?”

I rolled my eyes at him. “You know. Because your parents are famous. Those guys wouldn’t have stopped playing for anyone else.”

“Whatever,” he said. “I didn’t ask them to. I can’t control what other people do.” He tossed the ball in the air and caught it. “Are we going to play or not?”

“I’m really bad at this,” I said. “I’m not sure I was clear enough about that earlier.”

He cocked his head at me. “Why do I have the feeling I’m being hustled?”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. Then, “Of course, if you want to put a little wager on it . . .”

“Loser has to sit next to Chelsea on the way home,” he said, and served.

We played for the next half hour. Derek was much better than me, so it was a totally uneven game, but he didn’t seem to mind. He even came around the table at one point to show me how to hit the ball backhand—I had a bad habit of shifting so I could always use my forehand.

“Like this,” he said and got behind me and put his arm around mine so he could guide me through the motion. I glanced up at him as he gently glided my hand back and forth. His face was close to mine, and I quickly looked back down again. It was the proximity, I told myself. I wasn’t used to being that close to any guy. The catch in my throat had nothing to do with him specifically.

But when he went back to the other side and waited for me to serve, my fingers were suddenly clumsy. I dropped the ball and had to squat down ungracefully to grab it from under the table.

At least I hadn’t worn a miniskirt.

It got harder and harder to remember that Derek was this screwed-up celebrity brat as our game went on. He was livelier and more relaxed than I’d ever seen him before. He even flashed a real smile now and then, not just the creepy ghost one.

“You really
are
bad at this,” he said, after I hit the ball so hard in a downward motion that it bounced straight up, almost to the ceiling, then back down again—still on my side. But his tone was teasing, not critical.

“Told you.” I tossed the ball to him and he served it gently, right down the middle. I easily hit it back. “Now you’re just patronizing me,” I said.

“Do you prefer this?” He slammed the ball at me as hard as he could, and I shrieked and curled my body up, hands instinctively rising to protect my face.

“Patronize me!” I said, peeking through my fingers. “Patronize me, please!”

“If you say so . . .”

I retrieved the ball from the floor. “No wonder people play Ping-Pong,” I said as I stood back up. “It’s like doing squats.”

“Yeah, that’s usually not such a big part of the game.” He served gently, but I still missed the return. “Hey, I have a question for you,” he said when I had retrieved the ball and tossed it back to him.

“What’s that?”

He held the ball and raised his paddle but halted in that position. “Do you smoke?”

“Smoke? Cigarettes, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Never,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just . . . I saw you giving one to your little sister. I’ve been wondering.”

I suddenly realized what he was talking about. “Oh, you mean in the parking lot the first day of school! That was
her
pack—it had fallen out of her pocket. And I wasn’t giving it to her; I was reaming her out for having it in the first place.” I laughed. “You should have seen the expression on your face as you drove by us.”

“I was a little shocked,” he admitted.

“Yeah, I can see why. But I swear I was confiscating it.”

“I believe you. You don’t smell like an ashtray.”

“Cool,” I said. “I passed the sniff test without even knowing I was taking it.”

“So Layla smokes? A little young, isn’t she?”

“She claimed she was holding the pack for a friend.”

“Hmm,” he said.

“Exactly.” I turned the paddle around in my hands, gently stroking my fingers over the pebbled surface of its face, and then glanced up at him. “Every big family has to have a problem child, right?”

“She’s the one in yours?”

“Well, it’s certainly not Juliana,” I said. “And Kaitlyn’s pretty normal.”

“I nominate you for the position. You seem like a troublemaker to me.”

“Me?” I said. “I’m a saint.”

“Saint Elise, huh?”

“Yes, and don’t you forget it. Are you ever going to serve, or are you just going to stand there posing?”

He served, but he continued to go so easy on me that I caught up to him.

“Okay,” he said when the score was nineteen to nineteen. “I’m facing a bit of a dilemma here. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to let you win. But we’re playing for high stakes. I’m not sure I’m willing to make the sacrifice.”

“Ah, you see?” I said. “I’ve lulled you into a false sense of security. This is when I put the blitz on and destroy you.”

“Really?” he said, and slammed the ball hard at me.

“No!” I said, cowering again. “I can’t blitz! I don’t even know what a blitz is!”

Five seconds later, he’d beaten me. We met halfway around the table and shook hands. “I’m not trying to get out of the bet or anything,” I said, “but there is a slight logistical problem I should point out.”

“What’s that?”

He was still holding my hand. I had to clear my throat. “I’ll try my best to sit next to Chelsea, but we both know she’s going to be trying even harder to sit next to you—and I think her will may be stronger than mine.”

He gave my hand a squeeze that could have been a reprimand or something else entirely. “Deal with it, Saint Elise. You made a promise.”

“You’re just hoping to see a catfight.”

He shook his head. “Oh, please. Just because I’m a guy, you think I like catfights.”

“You mean you don’t?”

He grinned. I swear:
Derek Edwards grinned
. “I didn’t say that.”

The guys we had originally bounced from the Ping-Pong table must have seen us put down our paddles, because they were drifting back toward us. Derek released my hand.

“What should we do now?” he asked, like it was a given we’d stick together.

“I don’t know.” I glanced around the rec room. Nothing inspired me. “Let’s go back upstairs and see what’s going on up there.”

The second we moved away, the boys darted forward and grabbed our paddles.

“Thanks for letting us play,” I called over my shoulder, and they bobbed their heads in a kind of salute.

“I should probably find Juliana at some point,” I said as we headed up the stairs. “Except—”

“What?”

“I’m not convinced she wants to be found.”

“I know what you mean. I’ve never seen Chase so—” He stopped. At first I thought he just didn’t want to finish what he was saying, but then I realized he was staring up the steps, where a long angular figure was tromping rapidly down toward us. Webster Grant.

“Hi!” I said, happy to see a friendly face in a house full of strangers.

“Elise Benton! My long-lost cousin!” He took my hand and pressed it warmly. He was wearing a light blue polo shirt that matched the color of his eyes. “Hey, Derek!” he said. “How’s it going, buddy?”

Derek’s smile had vanished, leaving his face cold and rigid. He ignored Webster, just brushed past him and continued trudging up the stairs with heavy, deliberate steps.

“Um, good-bye?” I called out to his retreating back.

He looked over his shoulder at me. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Kind of saying hello to a friend here?”

“I’ll be upstairs.” He kept going and vanished into the hallway above.

I stared after him. “A little moody, isn’t he?” I tried to sound lighthearted but I was truly stunned at Derek’s sudden transformation. We’d been having fun together. At least, I thought we’d been.

Webster patted me on the arm consolingly. “Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. How’d you end up hanging out with him anyway?”

“We came in the same car. My sister and Chase wanted to come to this together, and we both tagged along. And then we played Ping-Pong—”

“Not pool? I always assumed he was a billiards man—I mean, it’s so handy the way he keeps a stick up his—”

“Hey, hey,” I said, laughing. “That’s Melinda Anton’s wittle baby boy you’re talking about and don’t you forget it.”

“Oh, are we allowed to forget it? I thought there were laws against that.” He glanced around. “So where were you on your way to, young Elise, and may I escort you there since your companion appears to have abandoned you? His loss, I might add. Which may well turn out to be my gain.”

“I’d like to find my sister. I’m ready to head home, but she’s my ride. Well, the Baldwins’ limo is literally my ride, but she’s my connection to it.”

Webster whistled. “A limo? How very West Side of you. What’s it like living the good life?”

“The ride is smooth, but the company stinks,” I said, and he grinned. I felt slightly guilty. It hadn’t been that bad, had it? I mean, Chase was a nice guy and Derek . . .

I didn’t know what to think about Derek.

“In that case,” Webster said, neatly pivoting on his heels so we could head up the stairs together, “how about I take you home? I ain’t got no limo, but I can offer you a ride in one smoking hot Chevy Aveo. It’s small, it’s slow, I bought it used, and if you wanted to find a cheaper car, you’d have to go to India. . . . But it works and it’s all mine.”

“I don’t know,” I teased. “The limo had carpeting. And snacks!”

We had reached the top of the stairs. He stopped and looked at me. “Seriously, Elise, I’d be happy to take you home. Honored, even.”

I thought it would be kind of nice to be alone in a car with Webster Grant and his light blue eyes, especially since it felt like I’d basically been dumped by everyone I’d come with. “I just have to check with my sister. I promised to stay by her side tonight.”

Webster laughed. The guy had the greatest laugh—it bubbled up from deep inside his chest and instantly made you want to join in. “I hate to tell you this, but you failed at that job.”

“Hey,
she
abandoned
me
.”

“Well, there you go. You don’t owe her anything.”

I touched his arm. “You said when we had more time, you’d tell me why you and Derek stopped being friends.” I’d been wanting to bring that up again since Derek had walked away.

“Oh, right.” He made a face. “Honestly, it’s not much of a story. The short version is that his little sister—” He stopped and started again. “Derek and I used to hang out sometimes, and she—” He laughed sheepishly. “It’s embarrassing to say, but she kind of got a crush on me. I didn’t even realize it. I mean, I was nice to her, the way you are to a friend’s little sister, and I even gave her a couple of rides home from school. Which turned out to be a mistake, because then she said something about how we were ‘going out’ to Derek. He didn’t even ask me what the truth was—just went ballistic.”

“What do you mean?”

“He wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t let me explain, wouldn’t let Georgia so much as say hi to me anymore.”

“Sounds way over the top,” I said.

“He’s just super-protective of her. To be fair, I think Georgia made it worse by getting all Romeo and Juliet about it even though it was nothing like that. You haven’t met her yet, but the girl’s a little . . .” He hesitated. “Oh God, I don’t want to be mean about her. She’s sweet and all. She’s just . . . not all there. Which I guess is why she made up this whole fantasy in the first place.”

“That’s kind of sad,” I said.

“No kidding. I couldn’t be mad at her—I just felt sorry for her. But it ruined my friendship with Derek.” He swung up onto the landing. “Come on. Let’s go.” He pointed to a poster on the wall as I followed him. “Look.”

It was dark so I had to move closer to see it. “
Ship of Cool?
I saw that movie!”

“Everyone saw that movie. It was the second biggest hit of 2007. And guess whose studio made it?”

“Whose?”

“Jason’s mother’s.” He swept his arm in a circle. “This is the house that
Ship of Cool
built.”

As we moved into the dark upstairs hallway, I noticed that the couple Derek and I had stepped over were still making out. No, wait . . . on closer inspection (but not too close), it was a different couple.

“I have a confession to make,” Webster said, after we had tiptoed our way around them.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“It’s not easy for me to tell you this, but it’s important that our relationship be built on a foundation of perfect honesty.” He halted and bent down to put his mouth close to my ear. His breath felt warm against my skin and I shivered a little—and hoped he didn’t notice. “When I said the car was all mine, I lied. It’s actually my parents’. It’s our family’s one car, and it was only because my mother has the flu that I managed to score it this evening.” He took a step back. “Think you can forgive me?”

“I’m not about to criticize anyone’s car situation. Have you seen the Benton-mobile?”

“No, why?”

“Three words.” I counted them off on my fingers. “Green. Old. Minivan.”

Webster gave a mock shudder. “Good God, woman,” he said. “Lower your voice. You could get thrown out of a party like this for less than that.”

“Exactly.”

“You know what?” he said, taking my arm. “You and I had better stick together.”