Chapter Three: Bringing Sexy Back

Chapter 3: Bringing Sexy Back

 

I walked down the hall with Kelly, Ali, Ashley, and Stacie Ferguson. Everyone else got to finish second period. Us? We had ISS—in school suspension—for the rest of the day and for the rest of the week.

“What room is it in?” Stacie asked, who obviously had never been to detention.

“B29.” I said, looking at the paper Mrs. Chapmen had given me to give to the ISS teacher.

We walked to room B29 and I paused at the door. Ali pushed down the knob and shoved the door open. I brought the paper up to the teacher—Mr. Delabar—and he read it.

“Have a seat girls. Did you bring something to work on?” he asked.

“No,” we all answered, except for Stacie. She nodded and held up a thick book, looking about 700 pages long.

“Damn girl, how much boringness can you have?” Ashley asked, smirking, as she took a seat in the back. We took up the whole back row, and I knew it was so we could text so we couldn’t get in trouble.

As soon as I sat down, my gym bag vibrated.

 

Kelly: i hate mrs. chapman

Tay: who doesnt?

Kelly: amanda, lindsay, and rayne like hr i think cuz they sed the real story instead of goin by my story

Tay: i kno! i hate them!!

Kelly: hey can u get on the internet on ur phone?

Tay: yah

Kelly: get on MySpace and IM me

Tay: k get the other on IM 2

Kelly: u kno it gurl

 

I slid my phone shut when Mr. Delabar looked over and then hid it in the opening of my purse so he couldn’t see it. I opened it back up and tapped on the MySpace button. I signed in and tapped on the IM button at the bottom. Everyone was just signing in.

TAYtay- hey guys

Ashleyyy- hi hi!!!

Aliiison- hey

KellyKins- hello

Ashleyyy- i cant believe this

TAYtay- i kno we hav this all day 4 the rest of the week

KellyKins- screw this i wont be here 2morrow im gonna ditch

Aliiison- sounds good

Ashleyyy- im in how bout u taylor?

TAYtay- totally

KellyKins- so wat we gonna do?

Aliiison- we hav 2 go somewhere where no1 we kno goes

TAYtay- we can just hang @ my place cuz my mom is gone all day

Ashleyyy- wat bout ur dad?

TAYtay- my dad lives in Maine

KellyKins- sounds great! wait do u hav a bro or sis?

TAYtay- i hav an older sis but she ditches all the time so she wud make sure we dont get caught

Aliiison- i luv ur sis and i havent even met her yet lol

 

We talked about random stuff for the rest of the day without getting caught. So far, I liked Mr. Delabar for being so unobservant. I just didn’t like him enough to come to school tomorrow.

I closed my phone and shoved to the bottom of my gym bag. I couldn’t believe I was ditching for the first time ever. I was kinda nervous about it, but Courtney would make sure none of us got caught.

Riiiing!

We all jumped out of our seats and flooded into the lobby. The rest of The Committee walked up and we strutted out to the parking lot together.

“So, you guys wanna ditch for the rest of the week?” Ali asked.

“Duh!” Nicci exclaimed.

“You know it.” Brendan said, smiling.

“Where are we gonna be?” Meghan asked.

“My place.” I said. They all nodded. Jade stayed silent.

“Jade! You in or out?” Kelly asked, glaring at her.

“Uh... out. I have perfect attendance and my mom will find out.” She said.

“You’re out?” Nicci and Meghan gasped.

“Yeah. Sorry guys. I won’t tell anyone that you’re ditching, though.” Jade promised.

“You better not.” Kelly snapped. “And by the way Jade, if you don’t ditch, you’re out.”

“I know. That’s what I said. I’m out.” Jade muttered, her brows furring together in confusion.

“No, like, if you don’t ditch, you’re out out.” Nicci explained, smirking at Jade’s unapparent stupidity.

“Yeah,” Meghan said. “You kinda gotta go along with it, or you’re done.” Jade had tears in her eyes. I felt bad for her, but being with The Committee all day made me realize something: every man for himself; if your not in, you’re out.

“Well, I guess you’re out.” Ali said, and walked out to her car with Meghan and Nicci. Kelly, Brendan, and I followed after, smirking at Jade’s pathetic tears.

“Guys! I’ll do it! I have an idea!” Jade called out, hoping for her spot back in.

“Too late!” Kelly called over her shoulder. She stopped at Meghan’s red corvette.

“Who wants a ride?” Meghan asked, smiling. Everyone answered by climbing into the back seat. Ali had shotgun; Brendan, Kelly, and Nicci got the backseat; and me and Ashley sat on the headrests of the backseats, inbetween the three’s heads.

“So, where we off to?” Meghan asked.

“How about my place?” I asked. “We can talk to my sister about how we’re going to work out this whole ditching thing.”

“Sounds great.” Meghan replied as she revved the engine. She slammed on the gas and sped out of the parking lot. The tires squealed as she turned and me and Ashley had to tangle our fingers in Brendan’s hair so we wouldn’t be thrown out of the topless car.

“Ow!” Brendan shrieked, ripping our hands from his head.

“Sorry,” we replied in unison, giggling. Brendan looked back at us and rolled his eyes.

“Tay, where do you live?” Meghan asked, slowing down so she could read the street signs.

“497 Blackwood Springs Boulevard.” I told her. Meghan slammed on the brakes and turned to face me.

“What?!” she gasped, eyes wide. Everyone in the car was looking at me, but I was focused on the cars swerving around us.

“What?” I asked.

“That’s the most wealthy neighborhood in town.” She said, oblivious to the horns honking around us and all the fingers we were getting.

“Yeah?” I said, but it came out as a question. What was so bad about that? I wondered to myself.

“Yeah? You must be really rich!” Ali exclaimed, eyes wide. Oh. That. Yeah, I guess I was pretty wealthy, but I never really thought much of it.

I mean, sure, Courtney has a silver Porsche. Yeah, I had a two-story house with a 30-foot long pool that only took up about a fourth of the yard and the biggest trampoline you could get. And the fact that my mom looked like a model with all her designer labels. And yeah, I had four credit cards. Big whoop. I didn’t pay much attention to money. Whatever I wanted, I could buy it without having to think about it. Money was never a problem. Until now.

“Um, yeah I guess. Is there something wrong?” I asked. Did they have some rule that no rich people could be in The Committee.

“More like something right!” Nicci squealed.  “This is going to be so cool. So do you, like, have a really cool car like Meghan?”

“Um, I don’t have a car yet.” I explained. “I’m going shopping this weekend with Court.”

“Awesome!” Brendan exclaimed. “You think I can come? Maybe I could help you pick out a really fast one.”

“Yeah, sure.” I told him.

“I get to come too.” Kelly muttered to Brendan, her bottom lip slipping into a pout as she ran her finger down his arm.

“Yeah, totally.” He said, not taking his eyes off my face. Uh-oh. Kelly and Brendan were dating. That meant to every other girl at the school couldn’t even look at him funny, or they wouldn’t be at school for the rest of the year. And he was looking at me.

“Hmph.” Kelly mumbled, sitting back in her seat. Meghan started up the car again and turned into Blackwood Springs Boulevard. I watched as the five-acre houses passed by. Mine, in fact, was the smallest in the subdivision. Meg pulled into the looped driveway and we all jumped over the doors.

“Wow,” Ashley muttered as we walked up the brick steps to the huge oak door. I got out my pass card and ran it under the laser-card-reader-thing. After five seconds of reading the data on the card, there was a click. I pushed open the door and looked back at everyone’s awe-struck faces.

“Different much?” I asked, smirking.

“Like, majorly different.” Nicci said, rushing inside. To the left of the door was the dining room, and to the right was the carpeted staircase. I walked past the stairs, down the short hallway, and into the living room. There was a flat screen HDTV bolted to the wall and three full-sized black-leather couches. In addition to the marble coffee table, the north wall was almost all glass, which looked out on the enormous pool.

“Whoa,” Meghan whispered, walking over to the windows.

“Can we go swimming?” Nicci asked.

“We don’t have swimsuits.” Ali said.

“You can borrow some of mine.” I told them. “You guys are probably my size.”

“What about me?” Brendan asked.

“You can use my brothers.” I told him, already walking back down the hall and up the stairs. Everyone immediately followed.

“Okay,” I said when we reached the top of the stairs. On the top floor, all the bedrooms were side-by-side along the back wall. “Brendan, go to the fourth door, and the rest of you, follow me.” Brendan walked over to the last door and went in just as I closed the door behind us.

“Okay, the second door over there”—I pointed to the door opposite of the wall we were at, which was a glass double-door covered in posters of Taylor Lautner, Robert Pattinson, and Avril Lavigne—“is the closet.” I said. I speed-walked to the doors and pushed them open. My closet reminded me of the back of Miley Stewart’s closet—Hannah Montana’s secret one—from her old hit TV show Hannah Montana. The room was a beach theme, with ran carpet and light teal walls. On the left side of the doors were racks and racks of tops—mostly t-shirts—and on the left side was pants—mostly shorts. The racks looked like the kind you’d find on the back wall at the local Target. And on the wall across from the door was a spinning platform that contained uniforms for volleyball and soccer, jogging outfits, my swimming suits for my competitive swimming. To the left of the spinning rack were about ten bikini’s that looked exactly the same, but in different colors.

“Pick whatever color you want.” I told them. I hadn’t finished my sentence before they rushed over to the rack and started grabbing different color, looking at tags, and holding them up to their bodies.

“What do you think?” Ashley asked Meghan, holding up an electric blue bikini.

“That is so cute!” Nicci squealed as Ali held up the red one.

“Where do we change?” Meghan asked as I walked over to my iPod docking station. I pushed on the center button and my lime green iPod began playing “Welcome To The World” by Kevin Rudolf.

“In the back corner behind the blue curtains.” I told her, motioning to the changing-room-like curtained area.

“Okay then,” Meghan muttered, strutting to the corner with a lime green number.

I walked over to the rack and grabbed a dark blue one.

“When you’re ready, there’s sunscreen and towels in the white cabinet.” I told them, walking over to the dressing room. Ashley, Ali, and Meghan were already changed, and were waiting. I walked into the dark curtained room and changed into my plain one-piece. I pulled my hair into the humble ponytail and walked out. Nicci and Kelly walked in together and I started dancing to “Callé Ocho” by Pitbull with Ashley, Ali, and Meghan.

“Ready!” Kelly called from inside of the changing room, then shoved the curtains away. Her and Nicci burst through the curtain, Kelly wearing a bright pink, and Nicci in a deep green. They joined the dance, laughing as we all started grinding against each other.

“Knock knock!” Brendan called from the other side of the door. “You guys done yet?” when all he heard was the laughter and music, he slowly opened the door and his eyes widened at the sight of us dancing.

“Um, wow.” He muttered. “I should’ve come in earlier.”

“Uh-huh!” Nicci shouted over the music, then burst into laughter, which made the rest of us copy.

“Um, Taylor, your mom’s home.” Brendan said. I sighed and stopped the music. I had the girls put the white cover-ups on and we all left the closet, I closing the door behind us. We walked out in a line, which looked really cool because of our matching outfits. Ali had red, Ashley had electric blue, Meghan had bright teal, Nicci had deep green, Kelly had bright pink, and I had dark blue. It was a nice effect.

“Taylor!” Courtney called from her room. “Come here!” I rushed out of my room, making a sharp turn into the room next door and skidded to a stop in front of her desk.

“Yeah?” I wondered, smiling. Courtney looked up at me with her eye-lined, thick-lashed eyes. She had thick blond hair with brown tips. She wore ripped jeans and punk-ish shirts a lot. She’s like my total opposite, but we got along great.

“I was talking to Brendan, and he told me about your ditching plan.” She said. “I was thinking about talking you guys to the Mall of America.”

“Holy s**t! That’s awesome!” I exclaimed.

“I just have one favor to ask.” Courtney said.

“Sure anything. What’s up?” I asked.

“I need you to—for one—get out of that swimming s**t, and to go to Game Stop to pick up a black MP3 player I’m getting for mom for her birthday.”

“Um, okay. I’ll send everyone else home then.” I told her.

“Cool. Thanks babe.” She said, turning her chair back to her computer. I took a quick peek over her shoulder. She was IMing her best friend, Abbey, on MySpace.

I sped out her room, closing the door behind me. The Committee was waiting outside.

“Guys, I gotta go pick up some stuff for Court, but I’ll see you at the YMCA at 4.” I said.

“Okay,” Ali said. “We’ll go change back.” The rest of the girls rushed back into my room. I sighed and rolled my eyes.

“You can keep that swimsuit, by the way.” I told Brendan. He nodded, staring at me. I looked at the ground, suddenly self-conscious. He was doing it again; the thing that would make Kelly mad if she knew. I lifted my eyes to look at his face, which was a lot closer then before.

He hooked his finger under my chin and lifted my face up. We stared into each others eyes for a short moment before he pressed his soft lips to mine. The way our lips moved together was amazing. So amazing I forgot about Kelly.

He moved his hands to my waist and pulled me closer. I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding myself to him.

“What the hell?!” someone screeched. That someone was Kelly. The someone who was kissing Brendan was dead beyond dead.