This Is So Not Happening (19 page)

“Good plan.” Ally smiled as I slipped my arms around her waist. “I’m not supposed to be in here, you know. This is, like, Gray’s man-cave or something,” she said, though she made no move to go.

“We were never here,” I promised.

Then I kissed her, holding her as close to me as I possibly could without tearing both our clothes off. She clung to my neck and kissed me back, her lips pressed hard against mine. Over the past couple of weeks I had totally noticed a change in the way Ally kissed me. When we first made up, she wasn’t that into it, but now she was back to her old self. I guess calling every day, leaving her random presents in her locker, and taking her out on weekends was working. The lucky thing was,
Chloe hadn’t been around much this month. She’d stopped calling me and she was never around at lunch. I had no idea who she was hanging out with or where, but except for one doctor’s appointment, I hadn’t seen her. Which was good for me and Ally.

But Chloe
was
still texting me stuff that was going on with the baby, like that she’d felt it kick, and that she’d set up an appointment for her next sonogram. Ever since the first time I’d seen the baby move, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, or the fact that I was never going to get to know it. I mean him. Or her. Whenever I thought about that, I felt this kind of weird, awful tug in the center of my chest. Like I didn’t want to miss anything, but I knew I was going to miss everything. So I wanted to be as much a part of its life as I could, even if the baby wasn’t born yet. And I also wanted Chloe to know she wasn’t alone. Now it was like we’d found the perfect balance. Ally didn’t have to have Chloe shoved in her face anymore, but I knew what was up with my spawn.

Spawn. Funny word. Todd had used it one day to describe the baby and it had been stuck in my head ever since.

“What’s that?” Ally asked, pulling back suddenly.

I blinked, confused and already missing her lips. “What?”

She pointed at my jacket and I realized. “Oh, right. I almost forgot. Merry Christmas.”

I tugged out the long, skinny box and handed it to her.

“Jake! I haven’t even wrapped yours yet,” she said, smiling.

“I know. It’s kind of early. But I thought maybe you could use it tonight,” I said. I plopped down on the leather couch and it hissed, the cushion deflating under my butt. “Open it.”

She sat next to me and pried open the box. Her jaw dropped when she saw what was inside—a platinum watch in a diamond
setting. It wasn’t too big or gaudy, because Ally didn’t like that stuff, but it was still bling. The saleswoman had called it “tastefully understated.” Which sounded like Ally to me.

“Jake! I love it!”

“You always wear a watch, every day, but I noticed you never wear one when we go somewhere fancy, so I figured you needed a fancy watch.”

“Fancy? Did you just use the word ‘fancy’ twice?” she joked. She made to get up from the couch. “I have to go tell the guys.”

I grabbed her wrist and pulled her back down again. “Do and die.”

Then I pulled her onto my lap—her silky dress made it easy to slide her right on there—and kissed her again. My hands went around her waist, and then I slowly, slowly, slowly moved them upward, holding my breath while I waited for her to stop me. But she didn’t. I hadn’t even gotten within inches of her boobs in a month, so just feeling them from over her dress was, like, the hottest thing ever right then. I thought she’d pull away, but she only deepened the kiss, pressing herself closer to me, like she wanted more.

Shit. This was the best Sunday night dinner ever.

I shifted a little, giving her a hint I wasn’t sure she would take, but she did. She straddled my legs, putting her knees on either side of my thighs, and just like that I was ready to go. I could have had sex with her through our clothes I was so ready. I was just contemplating my next move when—

Crash.

“Oh, fuck,” I said under my breath.

Ally jumped up and ran for the door. I couldn’t move, thanks to my below-the-waist situation. I closed my eyes and tried
to calm my breathing. Tried to think very un-hot thoughts. I wished I had a bucket of ice.

“What are you doing here?”

I blinked. That didn’t make any sense as a response to two dozen shattered glasses. And also? Ally hadn’t said it. It was Chloe.

Clearing my throat, I got up from the couch. I adjusted myself and buttoned my jacket, hoping to cover up my situation. I stood behind Ally at the door to hide it, but then forgot all about it.

Shannen had just arrived, looking almost hooker-level slutty in a low-cut, shorter-than-short black dress. And she had Will Halloran with her.

Will and Shannen stood in the double-wide doorway, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder. Chloe stood on the other side of the room in her silvery-white maternity dress, her face red with confusion. Between them, on the floor, was about two tons of shattered glass.

“Omigod! Is that my mother’s good crystal?!” Quinn cried, tears already streaming from her eyes. “What’s the matter with you guys?”

The Idiot Twins backed themselves into a corner fretfully, Todd clutching an unbroken glass.

“It’s okay. It’s not,” I told Quinn, stepping forward, being careful to avoid the destruction. “Your mom’s stuff is packed away for you. Those were the new ones my mom just bought.”

“Are you sure?” Quinn asked, her bottom lip quivering.

For the first time since I’d known her, I felt protective of her. Maybe I
was
becoming a big sister.

“I’m sure.” I looked around at the couple dozen frozen classmates around the room. Half the girls were wearing skimpy high heels. With all the glass, this place could turn into a bloodbath pretty quickly. “I think the party’s over in here. Quinn, you want to take everyone into the theater until dinner?”

“Okay. Yeah,” she said, sniffling.

She shot the Idiot Twins an uncharacteristically evil look before grabbing Hammond’s hand and leading everyone out, skirting the destruction. The only people who didn’t move were me, Jake, Chloe, Shannen, and Will. So I guess this was Shannen’s plan. Shove everyone in a room together and see what happened. For the past couple of weeks the whole Will situation had seemed less urgent to me—probably because Jake had been back to his old self and had barely mentioned the baby, and Chloe had gone kind of MIA. But apparently Shannen had spent that entire time coming up with and executing this scheme. I only wished that she had warned me, because about two seconds ago I had been seriously considering letting Jake get to second base—maybe even letting him round third. This was like getting shoved into a cold shower.

“Hey, Chloe,” Will said.

He slid his hands into the pockets of his gray suit. His light brown, longish hair fell low over his forehead and he looked seriously handsome in a crisp white shirt and red tie. He smiled at Chloe, but she didn’t smile back. She was too busy nervously darting her eyes around at the rest of us.

“Hey,” she said offhandedly. “What’s up?”

He took a step forward, then paused, thinking the better of getting near the glass. “I … Shannen told me you had something for me. A Christmas present or something?”

I felt Jake stiffen next to me. The blood drained out of Chloe’s face.

“Shannen? Can I talk to you for a second?” Chloe’s voice was shrill.

“Sure.” Shannen opened her arms at her sides, holding her clutch purse out. “What’s up?”

“Not here,” Chloe said through her teeth.

She carefully stepped around the outer rim of the crash zone, took Shannen’s hand, and dragged her out of the room toward the foyer. Okay. There was no way I was letting this conversation happen without me.

“I’ll be right back.”

Jake and Will were like roman statues as I chased the other two down. I found them in the hallway between the foyer and the living room. Chloe had practically pinned Shannen against a gilt-framed painting with her baby belly.

“What do you know?” she demanded as I came around the corner.

“I don’t know anything,” Shannen said innocently. “What do
you
know?”

“Can we just drop the whole wordplay thing?” I said, walking up to them. “We’re supposed to be friends here.”

They broke eye contact with each other. Chloe turned around, chewing on her thumbnail as she paced to the opposite wall. Shannen stood up straight and waited. Looked like I was going to have to be the one to start.

“Chloe, we know you and Will were going out last summer,”
I whispered as a round of laughter sounded from the garden room, where the adults were indulging in music, cocktails, and hors d’oeuvres.

“And it’s obvious he still likes you,” Shannen said.

Chloe looked over her shoulder at us. I recognized the look in her eyes as hope. “You think so?”

“Dude. He refused to come here with me until I told him you wanted to see him. Guys don’t turn
this
down unless they’re jonesing for something else,” Shannen said, gesturing at her tight-ass dress.

Chloe bit her lip and looked at the floor.

“Chloe,” I said, stepping closer to her. “Is there any possible way that Will could be the father? Because if there is, you
have
to tell him.”

When Chloe looked up at me, her eyes were swimming. And I knew. I just knew. My heart felt like it was suspended on a tightrope, hanging on for dear life.

“Jake has been nothing but good to you,” I whispered hoarsely. “If the baby’s not his, he deserves to know too.”

Tears spilled out onto Chloe’s cheeks and she sniffled, her nose sounding completely clogged. “Do you have any idea what my parents will do to me?” she whimpered. “Do you have any idea … the guy they hired … to work on our house. The electrician’s son? Do you have
any
idea—?”

“Is he the father?” I demanded, my blood starting to boil. “That’s what matters, Chloe. Is Will the father?”

Chloe covered her entire face with her hands and let out a very tortured, very wet “yes.”

My mind went weightless. Not “I don’t know.” Not “maybe.” Just “yes.” She was that certain.

Then she buckled at the waist and just cried, pressing one hand against the wall to steady her off-kilter body. Shannen shot me a
holy crap
kind of look before putting her arms around Chloe and letting her sob on her shoulder. I took a couple of steps backward and sat down on the skinny bench near the top of the hall. My legs felt numb. My hands felt numb. All the blood rushed to my head and it suddenly weighed ten thousand pounds.

Jake is not the father. Jake is not the father. Jake is not the father.

“Are you sure?” Shannen asked, rubbing Chloe’s back.

Chloe nodded into her shoulder. “I didn’t know for sure at first. I thought it was Jake’s when I first told him because of the timing, but then the doctor told me … a while ago … when the baby was conceived. I was with Will then. It was, like, a month before Jake and I—”

“How could you do this?” I said quietly, my voice shaking with rage. “How could you do this to him?”

“Ally, I’m so sorry,” Chloe said, her face streaked with mascara and eyeliner. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You didn’t know what to do other than fuck up Jake’s entire life?” I whisper-shouted.

Shannen and Chloe both stared at me. I never cursed. Almost never. So they knew I was serious.

“I just … I just … I just …”

“Just what? You wanted it to be him, right?” I said, thinking of what Annie had said the night of the bonfire, of what Shannen had said when I’d told her. “You couldn’t stand the idea that some Norm knocked you up, so you just started lying your ass off.”

“Ally,” Shannen said. “You know what her parents are like.”

“And now you’re defending her?” I cried.

“No, I’m just—I’m just saying, I get what she was thinking,” Shannen said as she rubbed between Chloe’s shoulders. “And it’s not like Jake didn’t do the deed. He just as easily could have been—”

“Yeah, but he’s
not
.”

I turned my back on both of them and tried to catch my breath. I breathed in and out, in and out, listening to Chloe’s muted crying. Listening to the sound of my own heart.

Shannen was right about one thing. Nothing mattered more to the Applebys than being the cream of the crop, the A-number-one most revered family on the crest. Chloe would have known that just learning their daughter was pregnant was going to destroy them. It would tarnish their image, it would make them doubt who they were, and it would make everyone look at them differently. But finding out that she was pregnant by some electrician’s kid from the other side of town? Yeah, that would probably kill them.

But so what? She couldn’t screw with Jake—not to mention Will—just to save face. How could she not see how wrong that was?

“You have to tell him. You have to tell both of them,” I said. “Jake has a right to know he’s free, and Will deserves a chance to be there for you.”

“She’s right, Chloe. You’ve gotta fess up,” Shannen said, pushing some of Chloe’s hair away from her tears and back from her face.

“I’ve tried, okay?” Chloe said. “I almost told Jake a million times. And Will, he cornered me at the bonfire as soon as he
heard I was pregnant and asked if it was his. I wanted to tell him the truth, but I just couldn’t. It physically wouldn’t come out of me.”

“Well, you have to make it come out,” I said firmly.

Chloe shook her head at the floor. “Everyone’s going to hate me.”

That’s what she was worried about? I wanted to scream so badly my throat hurt.

“Chloe, I swear … if you don’t tell them, I will,” I said.

“No,” Chloe responded. She took in a deep breath. “I’ll tell them. I promise.” She turned toward me and made a move to touch me, but thought better of it at the last second. Which was a good thing. Because I wasn’t sure what I would have done if she had. “Just let me do it, okay? I don’t want them hearing it from someone else.”

I glanced at Shannen. She gave me a slight nod.

“Fine,” I said with some effort.

“Promise me you won’t tell Jake,” Chloe said.