Tempted Read online

  “Your Marc Antony has to be here, right?” Brett bumped her hip into Jenny's as they strode into the dimly lit ballroom. At least Brett had knee-high lavender go-go boots to keep her warm on the way over—in her completely weather-inappropriate sandals, Jenny had practically frozen to death, the cold, wet grass tickling her bare skin on their trek across the quad.

  “Speaking of.” Jenny pushed the one stray curl that refused to stay in place behind her ear. She glanced at the long line in the beverage corner. “Where's your, uh, Scooby?”

  Across the room, she spotted Callie in a baby blue princess gown, a glass of orange punch in one hand. Jenny wasn't even mad at Callie anymore—but she just couldn't even imagine being friends with anyone who would actually try to get her blamed for arson and kicked out of school.

  “Nonexistent.” A gloomy look briefly crossed Brett's face, and Jenny could tell she was thinking of Jeremiah again.

  “You look great, Jenny! I’m totally voting for you!” a masked girl with a fan of peacock feathers taped to her back squealed before disappearing into the crowd of students at the sound system, waiting to make requests.

  “Who was that?” Jenny asked, feeling dazed.

  “I think it was that Emmy girl.” Brett shrugged. “Listen, I think I’m going to go say hi to Callie.” She touched the tiny gold heart locket around her neck. “I know she's been pretty miserable about the whole Easy thing.”

  “Oh, yeah. Of course.” Jenny bit her lip. She knew Brett had been trying to patch things up with Callie, and of course she had every right to—but it was still an awkward situation.

  “I’ll be right back.” Brett squeezed Jenny's bare arm.

  Jenny watched Brett disappear into the crowd. “I need a Scooby Snack!” a handsome guy dressed as a Sopranos-like gangster in a slouchy black suit and greased-back hair shouted approvingly in Brett's direction, and Jenny giggled.

  Across the room, she spotted Brandon Buchanan and Sage Francis, looking like they'd stepped off the red carpet, and decided to head their way. Jenny stepped around a gaggle of beefy football guys dressed as Waverly cheerleaders who shook their pom-poms at her and hooted in appreciation, and past a couple of mummies who looked like they'd been toilet-papered making out on the dance floor. A few freshmen dressed as Trekkies all made fainting gestures as Jenny sashayed by them. (She really, really hoped one of them wasn't her secret admirer.)

  “Hey, Jenny. You want to dance?” Jenny whirled around to see Spider-Man holding out his hand. She paused for a moment, and he pulled off his Spider-Man mask to reveal Ryan Reynolds, staring at her neckline.

  “Maybe later.” Jenny shook her head regally. “I’m not really in dancing mode yet.”

  Ryan nodded and rubbed his lips. “Well, uh … anytime you are, just say the word.” He pulled his mask back on and pretended to shoot spiderwebbing across the room.

  A small smile played on Jenny's lips as she walked away, and she couldn't help wondering where Tinsley was and what she was wearing. Sage and Brandon had started slow dancing, and it looked like they were whispering in each other's ears, so Jenny turned instead toward the beverages.

  The white letter W in the sign over the punch table had been altered by some enterprising Owls, and it now spelled out BITCHES BREW. None of the faculty had done anything about it yet, and Jenny wondered if maybe they relaxed a little on Halloween. In fact, the only two adults in sight were dancing on the ballroom floor: sexy American history teacher Mr. Wilde, dressed as some kind of eighties hair-band star, with tight torn jeans and a shaggy, frosted blond wig, and Jenny's English teacher, Miss Rose, dressed as Minnie Mouse.

  A gawky freshman looking like something from Tales from the Crypt stepped toward Jenny. “Would you like a glass of punch?” he asked, holding out the cup to her. But apparently bringing Jenny a drink had made him nervous, and he bumped her arm, sending a spray of punch down toward the floor, narrowly missing the hem of her white dress. “Oh, shit, sorry.”

  “Um, no, thank you.” Jenny blushed. Even though she was embarrassed for the guy, she didn't exactly want to spend her evening with him. She glanced around the room, looking foran escape route, but Brett was still talking to Callie. Heath and Kara, in matching Batman and Batgirl costumes, were taking pictures of themselves with an iPhone on the dance floor, next to Brandon and Sage. When did everyone get all coupled up?

  “Would you like to dance, then?” the geeky frosh pressed, his Crypt-Keeper wig sticking out wildly in every direction.

  Jenny took a step away, mumbling something about needing to go to the bathroom. She heard a deep voice to her left say, “I’ve been looking for you all night.”

  Jenny turned her head slowly to face the voice. She squinted, trying to see past the black mask that covered its owner's eyes. She didn't recognize the shock of sandy blond hair peeking out from under a wide-brimmed black fedora, nor did she recognize the muscular physique under a tight-fitting black shirt and black pants. Whatever he was, he looked good. As he stepped closer, the pleasant scent of Armani's Acqua di Gio touched her nose.

  “Excuse me?” Jenny asked, trying to play it cool despite the rapid beating of her heart. The gawky freshman shuffled away, sensing he didn't have a chance.

  “You look stunning, Cleopatra,” the stranger said. He held out a cup of orange punch to her, his brilliant green eyes flashing from beneath his mask. “I promise not to spill this on you.”

  “I normally don't take drinks from strangers,” Jenny said coolly. Her own voice sounded, in her ears, like Tinsley's. Was it something with her outfit—was she actually channeling mega—ice queen Tinsley Carmichael? It was kind of fun. “But I’m willing to make an exception for you.” She took the plastic cup of punch, his hand brushing lightly against hers.

  “A lot of people are talking about you,” the masked boy murmured confidentially, looking around the room. Everyone seemed to be holding little white slips of paper and jotting down names with tiny miniature golf-course pencils. “I think you're going to win tonight.”

  “Who are you, exactly?” Jenny ventured. She was referring to his costume, but she also had no clue who he was. She figured he was dressed as one of those horror movie villains, like Jason or Freddy. She'd never been able to watch scary movies growing up because they terrified her so much. Her brother, Dan, loved that she scared so easily, and whenever he wanted her out of the room, he'd pop in The Exorcist.

  “Zorro,” the stranger replied, giving Jenny a slight bow before pulling out a silver sword from the scabbard at his side and expertly drawing the figure of a Z in the air.

  “That looks dangerous.” Jenny smiled appreciatively.

  Zorro leaned toward her and whispered in her ear. “It's plastic.”

  Jenny forced herself not to giggle—she doubted Cleopatra giggled—and tried to channel her inner Tinsley again. She took a sip of the weak punch and let her eyes wander around the party.

  “I’m Jenny, by the way,” she announced, hoping the stranger would introduce himself in return. The scent of his cologne set her senses tingling, and she was dying to find out who exactly this guy was. Was he a junior? A senior? He had to be attractive beneath his mask, because only hot guys were this bold.

  “Tonight, you're Cleopatra,” the stranger said, his lips curling into a grin. He had the trace of a scar on his full bottom lip, and Jenny wondered if that meant he'd been in a fight. She'd never kissed someone with a scar on his lip before. “And I’m Zorro.”

  “What are you the other three hundred sixty-four days of the year?” Jenny paused, waiting for him to say his name. She raised an eyebrow expectantly, meeting his cat-green eyes with her own brown ones. When he didn't blink, she said, “Okay. Nice meeting you, Zorro.” It was totally a Tinsley move to walk away in the middle of a heated conversation, and as Jenny took a step away, she felt a surge of power.

  She felt Zorro's gloved hand on her bare arm. “I’ll tell you tomorrow, okay?”

  Jenny pressed her lips together, prete
nding to consider it, and enjoying the feel of his leather glove against her skin. “How do I know I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “I’ll make sure you do.” Zorro smiled mysteriously, his perfect white teeth reminding Jenny of Chiclets. “That is, if you don't almost get kicked out again.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m still here.” Jenny took a sip of her punch. “For now.”

  Zorro took her glass and refilled it without asking. The sugary punch was giving Jenny a stomachache, but she took the glass nonetheless. “I’m glad it … worked out.” He winked at Jenny and touched the brim of his hat. “I’ll see you around.”

  Jenny opened her mouth to say something, but lost her train of thought. Glad it worked out. Something about the way Zorro let the words slide from his kissable lips gave her a chill. Could he be … her secret admirer?

  She watched as he sauntered back into the crowd. When he turned back to smile underneath his sexy black mask, she quickly turned away, her cheeks flushed. She didn't really know the Zorro story and wondered now whether the black-clad masked adventurer was good or bad.

  Either way, he was interesting.

  6

  A RESPONSIBLE OWL TAKES HER DUTIES SERIOUSLY … ESPECIALLY WHEN DOING SO WILL HELP HER GET INTO BROWN.

  The first strains of Michael Jackson's “Thriller” blared over the speakers, and the sound of a werewolf howling filled the ballroom. A mist of fog seeped out of the dry-ice machine. Brett strode across the middle of the dance floor, her purple go-go boots pinching her toes. She'd tried talking to Callie, but it was impossible—while she looked like a perfect Disney princess, she insisted on taking swigs out of some ghetto flask made from a perfume bottle. She'd seemed distracted the whole time, her eyes searching the crowd, probably for Easy. Brett quickly gave up and scanned the crowd for Jenny.

  Or Sebastian Valenti. But since she didn't exactly know what he looked like, she figured she was excused from her duties for a night. Brett recognized Ruby Edmonds, a senior in her advanced Latin class who was dressed as a nurse—though not one Brett would ever want practicing medicine on her. Ruby wore a white minidress and white knee-high nylons, a cap with a red cross on it perched jauntily on her short brown curls.

  Finally Brett caught a glimpse of Jenny. She was chatting with Sage and Brandon over by the sound system as they scrawled their votes for best costume down on their little white ballots. Angelica Pardee, in a dorky Dorothy-from-The-Wizard-of-Oz getup, was collecting the ballots in a giant plastic pumpkin. Brett headed their way, almost getting stepped on by a guy doing the Macarena in a black mask and an orange shirt that read, THIS IS MY COSTUME! GIVE ME THE DAMN CANDY.

  “Watch it!” she cried, stumbling backward and crashing into someone else. She quickly spun around.

  It was Jeremiah, dressed up like Fred, Daphne's counterpart on Scooby-Doo, the king and queen of the cartoon prom. Her eyes ran up the costume, which was little more than a tight-fitting white T-shirt pulled over an old blue-collared shirt, blue jeans, and Fred's signature ascot (which looked suspiciously like an orange cloth napkin.) But Brett couldn't help grinning. “I like your costume,” she said breathlessly.

  “Yours is better,” he replied, standing back to take in the whole ensemble. As his familiar green-blue eyes took her in, Brett felt an equally familiar chill run down her spine. “Wow. You look even hotter in that costume than I imagined you would.”

  Brett felt her whole body flush, and inexplicably the memory of the weekend she'd spent with Jeremiah and his family at their Nantucket beach house washed over her. Jeremiah had spent practically the whole weekend in his navy and orange Abercrombie & Fitch swim trunks, and Brett could conjure up the image of his bronzed chest glistening with droplets of salt water, his long reddish hair wet from a recent plunge in the Atlantic. Just standing near him, she suddenly felt warm in the drafty ballroom.

  “How'd you know?” she asked, stepping out of the way of the Village People (a bunch of sophomores on the cross-country team) as they hooted across the ballroom to the opening beats of “YMCA.” “I mean, what to wear?”

  Jeremiah placed a hand on Brett's elbow and steered her off to side of the room, out of the way of any other dorky YMCA-ers. “I got this text from Heath telling me he saw you walking around in purple go-go boots, and so I guessed.”

  “Heath?” Brett glanced at the giant movie screen, where Scream II was playing. A guy in a black cloak and white mask jumped out at someone. Why was Heath trying to help her and Jeremiah? She felt a wave of affection for him. He was so happy with Kara—maybe he just wanted her to be happy too. Or maybe he was nervous that a single Brett was a threat to his own happiness. But it didn't really matter.

  “Ah, he knew I couldn't stop thinking about you,” Jeremiah answered. Brett stared at her toes, her heart beating loudly in her ears. “I mean, I tried not to think about you,” he went on. Another cloud of fog floated across the room, partially obscuring his face. “Because whenever I would think about you I’d wonder if you were with Kara, and then I’d start to wonder about all those times we were together and you said you were hanging out with your girlfriends, and if there could have been more going on… .” Jeremiah's words were coming quickly, and Brett could hear his shallow breath through the vanilla-scented fog. “I mean, it sort of sent me into a tailspin.”

  Jeremiah pushed a thick lock of red hair out of his piercing blue-green eyes and took a deep breath, staring straight into Brett's eyes. “But the overwhelming thing was that I just wanted to be with you, and just had to know if all that … Kara …” He coughed, saying her name. “The stuff I heard about you and Kara—was it true?”

  Brett suddenly felt thirsty for a glass of the sticky sweet punch floating around the room in plastic cups. She didn't want to lie to Jeremiah outright, but it was such a little thing, something that seemed farther and farther in the rearview mirror every new day. Just a few kisses. She could probably count them on one hand—or two. It would never happen again.

  She could feel Jeremiah's body tensing up for the answer, his muscles pulsing under his costume, and she wanted to feel his warm skin pressed against hers. She knew how she could make her wish come true.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Nothing ever happened between us.”

  A wave of relief passed over Jeremiah's face. He put his strong hands on her waist and pulled her to him, and suddenly Brett felt like they were back on the Nantucket beach again, barefoot, sunburned, and half-naked. His lips tasted like warm beer and it wasn't long before Brett felt drunk too, her head spinning giddily like it hadn't in a very, very long time.

  7

  WAVERLY OWL KNOWS THAT THE TRUTH HURTS, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU'VE HAD TO DRINK WHEN YOU HEAR IT.

  Benny's perfume bottle had emptied out long ago and Callie was nowhere near where she needed to be to last much longer at the Monster Mash Bash. There was still no sign of Easy, her upsweep was collapsing, and her insides were scraped raw with disappointment. She peered over a crowd that had formed around a trio of seniors dressed as the Powerpuff Girls, trying to spot Benny, who had promised she'd find more alcohol. As the party dragged on, the partygoers had one by one dropped their costume accessories—Callie had put her choker in her raincoat pocket when it started to itch, and was holding her baby blue gloves in her hands—and so the Prescott Faculty Club was starting to look like your run-of-the-mill Hamptons party, or, in Callie's case, Hilton Head: girls in pretty, tight-fitting clothes, and guys admiring them.

  Angelica Pardee climbed up onstage, her Dorothy skirt and petticoats puffed out around her. She tapped the mic, sending a wave of feedback through the ballroom. She waited until the groans and snickers died down and the room was relatively quiet. “In thirty minutes, we'll be tallying up the votes for best costume, so please be sure to hand in your ballots!”

  Callie rolled her eyes. She'd heard dozens of people oohing and ahhing about how hot Jenny looked, and how she was definitely going to win best costume. She spotted Jenny now, over by the
DJ stand, looking luminous in a white dress with an elegantly deep-cut back. She certainly looked good, but Callie wasn't really in the mood to see her petite roommate up on stage in all her glory, not after a disappointing night of waiting desperately for Easy to show up. Jenny was a constant reminder of Callie's faults, of the mistake that had driven Easy away. Every night when she and Jenny got into bed in silence across the room from each other, all Callie could think was, People who aren't speaking to me: two.

  Callie shook her head, deciding it was time to go home. She started walking toward the coatroom, then paused. She spied Easy's mop of dark curls in the doorway to the ballroom and quickly moved in his direction, the glass slippers making any sort of elegant sashay impossible. She'd settle for not tripping.

  Easy, however, wasn't so lucky. Right after walking through the door, he tripped, stumbling over an abandoned witch's broom. He caught his balance at the last minute. As Callie pushed through the crowd, eager to reach him, she saw that the broom was only part of the problem. His eyes were glassyas he scanned the room, and she could tell he was trashed. He squinted, his eyes adjusting to the dimness.

  Callie touched her messy updo, wondering if it still looked okay. She tried to meet Easy's eyes, hoping he'd notice her and she'd be like a beacon of light in an otherwise foggy sea. But he didn't see her until she was practically standing on top of him.

  “Hey,” she said, resisting the urge to throw her arms around him and feel the warmth of his body against hers. Easy's outfit looked like some sort of slacker cowboy costume—he'd paired his dirty Levi's with his clunky Doc Martens, and one of his flannel shirts that looked as if one more run through the washer would make it disintegrate. She longed to rub her cheek against the soft fabric.

  “Nice costume.” Easy's words sounded thick on his tongue. He barely glanced at her, choosing instead to focus on the mesh of cobwebs strung over the doorway.