Page 112 of The Cheerleader

“Let’s raid the kitchen for drinks,” she says, taking my arm in invitation to join her, the kind of invitation I can’t say no to without making a fuss.

In the kitchen, she rushes to the refrigerator in the back, towing me with her. I expect her to open the fridge door, but she turns to me, flushed and excited.

“This is it. I’m going to flirt shamelessly with Penderly and make Bryan so jealous that we might need to break up a fight.”

“That’s so bloodthirsty.” I say this while I try and make sense of her plan and whether she’s crazy or I am. The only thing that’s clear to me is that she’s still as attached to the idea of Bryan as her boyfriend as ever.

“You don’t really think that’ll work, do you? This isn’t an episode of Three’s Company where that kind of crazy hijynx ends up working.”

She laughs. “Don’t worry. I’ve been watching him and biding my time, trying not to be too pushy, and now I think he’s ready for a shock to his system—not to mention a blow to his ego. Once he thinks someone else is interested, he’ll step up. He’ll be shocked into realizing what he’s missing.”

I shake my head, alternatively wondering when she turned into an I Love Lucy screwball comedy character and wondering whether she’s right and I’m the one out of touch.

“Besides,” she adds, “those kind of scheming scenes in sitcoms always go wrong because it’s funnier that way. In real life, jealousy isn’t funny at all.”

“That’s right. It’s not. It’s serious, and I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“You never doubted me before.” The disappointment flashes and disappears from her face like it was a mirage, and a smile crashes through. “Don’t worry so much.” She grabs a few cokes from the fridge, and we return to the dining room.

When I catch Bryan’s eye, I try to communicate some kind of warning. I end up feeling like the character in a sitcom as he gives me a squinty, puzzled look in return.

Liz starts right in as she sits, pulling her chair right up against Penderly’s like she’s creating a love seat. She leans in and whispers something in his ear to make him laugh and hands him a coke with a shockingly suggestive look on her face, as if she’s handing him the keys to her room. Then she pulls a nip from her purse, and after they take a few sips from the cokes, she splits the vodka nip between their drinks.

“Sorry I only have the one nip,” she says, gazing into his eyes. “I drank the other two earlier to get through my accounting homework.”

I’m sitting on her other side, and Bryan is across from me. I want to leap over the table to join him, to put my hand over his eyes. Not that I want to desert Liz. Even if I think her plan is nuts and she’s acting like a cartoon character, I’m on her team all the way.

She was my friend first. Before my crush on Bryan took over, taking me by surprise and seems to have a stranglehold on me now.

Except how I feel is more than a crush. Too much more. I need to crush my bigger-than-a-crush crush. If I only knew how.

As Bryan bites into his sub, ignoring my side of the table, my tension grows because Liz and Penderly are doing an excellent job of acting the role of hot new couple, all into each other and all over each other. I need to diffuse the atmosphere and search for something to say.

“How’s your animal husbandry class going?” I ask Bryan out of nowhere. The ridiculous question has the effect of getting everyone’s attention and making Penderly crack up.

“It’s coming along,” Bryan says with a straight face.

Penderly’s laughter doubles up, and Liz snickers, reaching across the table to slap Bryan’s hand. The gesture is part sisterly scolding and partly intimate and knowing. But after a quick smoldering flicker of her eyes, she turns her attention back to Penderly.

I’m surprised when she kicks me under the table, and I have no idea what she wants me to do, but for once, I don’t care. I make up my mind to protect Bryan from whatever fall-out her manipulation may bring, in case he really does have feelings for her that he’s not acknowledging.

“I suppose you get straight A’s in your Ag classes,” I say, absently picking at my food.

Bryan has no problem eating his sub. Right up until Liz throws herself onto Penderly’s lap as he tickles her, and she giggles, holding onto him, as they morph into a couple tangled in a sexy pose not meant for others to watch.

I move my chair back and stand. When I look back at Bryan, he’s already out of his chair, eyes averted, wrapping the uneaten half of his sub and shoving it in the bag.

“I’m outta here.”

Liz snaps her attention to him. “I can give you a ride.” Pemberly looks disoriented as she slides from his lap back onto her own chair.

“No. I’d rather walk.”

I flinch on Liz’s behalf at the harshness of Bryan’s words. But Liz absorbed the sting because she’s an eternal optimist and maybe partly because she’s past buzzed and on her way to drunk.

I manage to catch up with Bryan as he pushes through the back door, and I grab his arm, surprising myself with the aggressive move.

Chapter Twenty-Nine