Chapter 7

Georgina

“Well, damn! New boy is sexy as hell!” Macy giggles.

I look over and see Jake standing next to AJ with his top off, his defined torso glistening with sweat, gulping down a large bottle of water.

Katy and Robyn have stopped rehearsing and are drooling next to Macy. I roll my eyes.

“You are friendly with him, aren’t cha Gina?” Katy twirls her golden hair around her finger. All three pairs of eyes reluctantly drag from eye-fucking my best friend and fix on my face.

“Well, kind of…I mean…sure.”

Across the field, I can see AJ grinning as he talks to Jake. Whatever he says makes Jake nearly lose the mouthful of water he’s just taken. His loud laugh booms over the grass, gaining my friend’s attention again.

“So you have his number then, yeah?” Macy says over her shoulder.

“I’m not giving out anybody’s phone number without them first agreeing. And I know Jake won’t want any of you to have his number.” I’m starting to get annoyed at the stupid blonde sharks.

“Is someone trying to keep the cute new boy to herself? Come on, Gina, we all know you don’t have the balls to make a move on any guy, let alone a hottie like that.” Macy scoffs, and Katy and Robyn titter along with her.

I growl and stomp off to the change rooms.

***

I sit down at our usual table in the cafeteria, my standard little bowl of salad in my hand.

~God, I hate pretending I don’t like to eat.~

Katy is, as usual, attached to her phone. She has a decent-sized Instagram following and likes to read every single comment.

It’s usually gross come-ons by forty-something divorcees, but she eats up the attention.

Robyn is painting her nails, and the strong smell invades my nostrils, almost immediately turning my stomach to the point I don’t think I can even choke down my sad-looking lunch.

Macy, however, looks poised to ask me something. I steadily meet her glare.

“Can I help you with something, Macy?” I try to keep my tone cool.

“I was just trying to remember if you’ve ever told me where you live?”

I freeze, feeling my face pale.

“Katy, has Gina ever told you where she lives?”

Katy tilts her head, tapping her chin with her finger as she pretends to think before shaking her head.

“How about you, Robyn? Has Gina ever taken you home to meet the ‘rents?”

Robyn shakes her head, blowing on her wet nails.

“Yeah. You know it wasn’t until I was talking to AJ…”

~AJ fucking McGabe! I’ll kill that asshole.~

“...that I realized, in all the time we’ve been friends, you’ve never invited us over, or introduced us to your folks, or even really ever spoken about your home life.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as odd behavior, seeing as how we’re supposed to be best friends?”

I swallow, my stomach really churning now. I try to shrug nonchalantly, but Macy isn’t backing down. I can still feel her eyes on me.

“So how come you didn’t tell us you were close enough friends with Jake to have him be living at your house?”

“Yeah? Don’t you know girlfriends share everything?” Robyn tuts.

“I was...uh...trying to protect him. He’s from a small town. He’s innocent. Y’all would eat him alive.”

The three blondes giggle.

“Soooo...you’ll give us his number now, right?” Macy leans forward. “I promise I won’t eat all of him, just the good parts.” She smirks.

I hate it when she does that; her fishy lips go all weird.

“I said no! Back the fuck off, bitch!” I grab my bag and stalk out of the cafeteria, clenching my shaking fists.

***

I avoided my friends for the rest of the week. Jake was really sweet and ditched his new friends to hang with me at lunch.

Cheer practice was hard while being frozen out. Jake tried to make me feel better by shouting encouragement at me across the field, but that only got me more catty comments.

Thursday, I am last to leave the change rooms and walk into the parking lot to find Macy leaning up against Jake, leaning against my little blue Beetle. I walk up behind them and clear my throat.

“Hey, Smidge.” Jake slides out of Macy’s grasp and pulls me into a bear hug.

“Aww, cute nickname!” Macy manages to get her talons around Jake’s bicep again and pulls him back off me. “So, Jake, I’ll see you tomorrow to work on our assignment, yeah?”

“Sure, sure, see ya later, Marcy.” I fight the urge to laugh at Macy’s dismayed face when Jake gets her name wrong. “Come on, George, let’s roll!”

As we drive home, I try to bite my tongue, but the curiosity is actually killing me.

“So, what assignment have you guys been teamed up for?” Jake pauses his game of Angry Birds. I know. He must be the only person who still plays that dumb game.

“Some English thing, I don’t really know. I wasn’t paying attention until the bleached whale landed on my desk.”

I burst out laughing. “Oh my god! Jake, that’s so mean!”

He joins in my laughter. “I don’t get how she’s head cheerleader. She has about twenty pounds on the rest of you.”

“So you don’t like her?”

“Fuck no! George, even if she was the goddess herself, Winona Ryder, you told me that your friends were off-limits. Although I still don’t get how you’re friends with those blonde zombies.”

I chuckle.

“I think you’d be much happier hanging with me and my friends. Honestly, you have so much more in common with the Andrews than you could ever have with those girls.”

I wrinkle my nose in disgust. Yeah, PJ and Drew weren’t so terrible. Drew was actually kinda sweet sometimes. But AJ was a hard no for me.

***

The hot water in my bath has started to cool, so I reluctantly close the Netflix app on my phone so I can wash my hair.

Through the sudden silence, I can hear the muffled voices of my dad and Jake’s dad calling out to us that they are leaving.

They found a local bar that hosts a weekly quiz every Friday, and they have quickly become the team to beat.

The routine we have all fallen into is after the Friday night game, our dads take us out for dinner.

Then I have a long bath while Jake does whatever he does behind his closed bedroom door, ending the night with Jake and me curling up together in my bed, watching cheesy horror films.

Jake spent the dinner this evening regaling us with stories of his terrible partnership with Macy.

Over the last few weeks, she apparently tried everything possible to get him to bring her to the house to study alone in his bedroom.

He managed to dodge any and all attempts to get them alone, even calling on help from AJ and his friends when she tried to corner him by himself in the library.

I still haven’t told Jake the full truth about why I didn’t want my so-called best friend coming to the house.

He doesn’t know that Macy didn’t actually know where I lived. He just thought she hadn’t randomly turned up because of some weird idea of girl code.

I noticed my dad glance over at me when Jake was telling us his tales.

My dad spent the first few months questioning why I never invited my girlfriends over and eventually let it be after a week of avoiding and ignoring him.

As I wrap myself in a towel, I hear the doorbell ring. Jake shouts out that he’ll get it, and he bounds down the stairs.

I assume it’s just AJ, who has become a regular visitor but has learned to stay away from me when he’s here. They’ll most likely play computer games for an hour or two before AJ slinks off home.

He’s never stayed later than 8:30 p.m. I am surprised his curfew is that early, but some people have parents who worry, I guess.

I pull on my Batman pajama pants and an oversized hoodie I swiped from Jake’s room.

After roughly blow drying my hair and pulling it up into high bunches on either side of my head, I slide on my glasses and rub a little Vaseline onto my lips.

And then I freeze at the sound of a girly giggle coming from my door.

“Oh my god. Well, this is nothing like I expected, Gina.” Macy waltzes into my room and makes herself comfortable on my bed, leaning back, bracing her weight on her hands.

Jake appears in the doorway, an apologetic look on his face.

“Wh…what are you doing here, Macy?” I can feel my cheeks redden as her eyes lazily scan my room, taking in the photos and posters on my walls.

“I just thought I’d stop by and finish off the English assignment with Jake, and it occurred to me that I’d never seen your bedroom...and they say you can tell a lot about a person by their bedroom.”

She waves her hand around in front of her. “And from the looks of it, and you, I believe that’s true.” She smirks. “Nice glasses, by the way.”

My hand automatically moves to my heavy plastic frames and then up to my bunches, my cheeks now burning under her gaze. Behind us, Jake clears his throat, breaking our stare down.

“I think we should maybe head downstairs and finish that assignment then, yeah? Seeing as how it’s so important that you had to invite yourself over on a Friday night.”

Macy smiles sweetly at Jake and flounces past me, her flowery perfume lingering in my room as she and Jake make their way downstairs.

I throw myself onto my bed, hot tears already worming their salty way down my cheeks.

Now Macy knows where I live, and she’s seen the things about myself I have tried to hide from the girls. I am dreading what she’ll do with the information.

As big of a bitch as I am to people at school, Macy is even bigger.

After a couple of hours, I hear Jake saying goodbye and the slam of the front door before the heavy footsteps pound up the stairs, stopping outside my room.

“You can come in, Jakey.” I sigh.

“Hey, Smidge.” He pokes his head into the room, worried look on his face. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t think she’d actually come over, seeing as how we had literally like one paragraph to finish editing before we hand it in.”

I sit up in my bed, patting the space next to me. Jake quickly walks over and snuggles up next to me, resting his head on my shoulder.

“It’s ok, Jake. I just...it’s just…” I sigh again.

“You do realize it’s kinda weird that your friends didn’t know where you lived. Macy tried to play it off like you’d moved recently, and she couldn’t remember the address.” He snorted.

“Yeah...that’s because I told them that I’d moved.” I shrug a little as he leans away from me so he can look me in the eye.

“You seriously have never told them, in three years of living here, where you live?” Jake raises his eyebrow incredulously.

I take a deep breath and sit up straighter, making Jake sit up and lean forward, resting his arms on his knees.

“I had to change a lot to fit in at school, and I knew these girls wouldn’t have stayed friends with me if they knew the real me.”

A fat tear escapes my eye and slowly trails down my cheek. Jake swipes it away with his thumb and leans over to press a kiss to my forehead.

“George, you are the most amazing girl I have ever met.

“I don’t understand why you felt that you had to change anything about yourself, and I’m really sorry if I’ve messed anything up by letting Macy come over, but I didn’t know...you never said…”

I shake my head sadly. “No. I’m sorry, Jakey. I should have told you the full reason why I didn’t want you to ask Macy over.”

“Well, I think after telling her that her little bitty titties did nothing for me when she was trying to push all up in my face.

“And her breath smelled like cat food when she tried to kiss me will have put her off trying anything with me again.”

He grins as I try to stop the laughter bursting out, causing me to snort very unladylike.

After a few minutes of laughing at ourselves laughing, we snuggle back together under my sheets and find a new terrible horror flick to watch.

In the flickering light of the TV screen, I find myself grinning at my best friend, squeezing his hand slightly as his green eyes meet my mismatched green and blue ones.

***

The weekend flew past, and Monday finds me sitting in my car in the parking lot, watching the steady stream of students flock into school.

A sleek black Jeep pulls up in the space next to me, and Jake gets out of the passenger side, waving to me through the window, followed by PJ and Drew out of the back.

They both wave too, and a final slam of the door signals AJ has got out from the driver’s side.

I smile and wave at PJ and Drew before turning my hand around and sticking my middle finger up at AJ, who scowls at me before quickly turning his head.

The other guys laugh at him, PJ bumping him with his shoulder playfully and getting pushed away with some force. He holds his hands up in surrender, still laughing.

As they walk toward the front doors, I spot Macy, Robyn, and Katy and try to slide down in my car seat a little more.

Macy, unfortunately, sees my car and changes direction to walk over to me. I feel the anxiety start to bubble in my stomach, but I grit my teeth, ready for the onslaught of cattiness, and open my car door.

“Hey, chick!” Robyn pulls me in for a quick hug. Katy smiles and waves from behind her, and Macy grins.

“You know, you actually looked good in your glasses. You should wear them out more.” Macy pulls me in for a hug, too, laughing slightly at my puzzled look.

“It’s ok, girly. None of us look as sexy as normal when we are relaxing at home.”

“So you guys aren’t pissed at me for not inviting you over before?” We start walking toward our lockers, Macy’s arm linked in mine.

“We were a little bit pissed at first, but it’s ok. I get wanting to be private about some things.” She squeezes my arm slightly.

“Plus, you can make it up to us by inviting us over for a sleepover!” Robyn exclaims excitedly.

“Yeah…ok.” I laugh, relieved that they seem to be letting it go so easily.

***

“So the only people you are permitted to allow inside this house are the three friends each that we have pre-approved of.” James narrows his eyes and points back and forth between Jake and me.

“Yeah, dad. We promise.” Jake rolls his eyes.

“Because Jimmy is letting us stay here as a courtesy, and you better not take advantage of his kindness.” James playfully clips Jake around the back of the head.

My dad pulls me in for a hug. “You sure you’re going to be okay?” he whispers into my ear. I hug him back tightly, nodding.

Our dads are going to Vegas for a stag weekend for one of their friends from college and are trusting both of us enough to let us have a sleepover.

Jake has invited AJ, PJ, and Drew, and I’ve invited Macy, Robyn, and Katy.

My dad picked up on my hesitation of inviting over my friends for the first time on top of having AJ here all night, but I did my best to reassure him.

It is Friday, so we’ve stuck to our usual dinner after the football game, and our friends are due to arrive at nine.

Our dads finally give us goodbye hugs and kisses, and more threats, and leave the house at 8:30. The minute the door closes, Jake and I look at each other, excited grins on our faces.

“It’s muthafuckin’ party time, yo!!” Jake cups his hand around his mouth to yell. I can’t help but laugh.

The boys go straight up to Jake’s room, and before too long, the loud noises of computer games float downstairs.

The girls and I set ourselves up in the living room with a massive bowl of popcorn, a good selection of romantic films, and a pile of beauty products.

Using the downstairs bathroom, we take turns changing into our pajamas. The other girls all reemerge wearing strappy, tight nightwear, putting my baggy T-shirt and yoga pants to shame.

We put Magic Mike into the DVD player and start painting each other’s nails as we have done at all our other sleepovers.

I have been worried about things being weird between us after Macy discovered my bedroom secrets, but they have all been surprisingly normal, the girls asking me few questions about the things I was actually into.

Surprisingly, Katy has heard of many of the skaters because of her older brother.

Halfway through ~Magic Mike 2~, the boys decide to join us, Jake announcing the pizzas he ordered will be arriving soon.

I look up to flash a smile at Jake but catch AJ staring at my chest. I scowl and cross my arms, making him smirk.

The boys make themselves comfortable among us. Macy not so discreetly leans over Jake to get to the bowl of popcorn, her vest top pulling dangerously low on her bust.

He catches me scowling at her and rolls his eyes, making me giggle. I look around the room at the rest of our friends.

AJ has his hand resting on Robyn’s thigh and is not hiding the fact he’s looking down Macy’s top, winking at her when she catches his eye.

Jake is deep in conversation with PJ over the top of Macy’s head, PJ sitting on the floor leaning back in between Katy’s legs, her hand slowly playing with his curly hair. The doorbell chimes and I leap to my feet.

“I’ll go get the pizza.” Nobody looks at me except Drew, who smiles warmly at me from where he is sitting next to AJ on the sofa.

By the time I pay for the pizza and push the door closed, Drew is standing behind me. He clears his throat and scratches the back of his head.

“I... uh... I just came to help you carry them.” He nods toward the stack of boxes in my arms.

“Okay, thanks, Drew.” I smile and offload the hot pizzas to his open arms. He follows me back down the hall to the kitchen.

I call out to the living room that the food is here, and the others all descend to pile plates with slices of cheesy goodness.

Soon it is just me and Drew again. He picks up a slice of pizza and takes a big bite, his eyes flitting over me while he chews. “That’s a cool shirt, by the way.”

I quirk my eyebrows and look down at what I’m wearing.

It was an old Tom Waits shirt with the slogan “Don’t you know there ain’t no devil, there’s just God when he’s drunk.”

I smile and shrug. “You know, AJ loves Tom Waits.”

I try not to let my mouth drop. “You know who Tom Waits is?”

Drew tries not to smile and shrugs nonchalantly.

“Yeah. Like I say, AJ loves that shit. Any old rock, really. His playlist looks more like one my old man would listen to rather than an eighteen-year-old.” He laughs a little.

I shrug again. I only ever heard obnoxious, misogynistic rap coming from AJ’s Jeep, never any decent music. “How come you don’t dress like that for school anymore?”

I nearly choke on my mouthful of pizza. “You remember me when I started school?!” My cheeks start to heat up. Drew shrugs and half-smiles.

“Don’t worry; I don’t think anyone else does. I didn’t until I saw you tonight.”

~Shit! I really hope no one else is as observant as Drew.~

We make our way back to the living room to find our friends cracked open the stash of alcohol Jake and I had managed to hide from our dads.

Jake pours a generous amount of vodka into my coke with a wicked grin.

“Let’s get messy,” he whispers into my ear, pressing a kiss to my temple.

I grin back and down the drink, relishing the burn of the alcohol, knowing the warm buzz will follow soon enough, and hold my glass out for more.

“Let’s get messy, muthafucka.” I tip my glass toward him before knocking back my second drink.