Deadly Little Secret Part 9

I shake my head, surprised there's a tidbit of gossip I haven't heard yet.

"Anyway," he continues, "when my aunt asked if I wanted to live here with her-two hours away from my hometown-so I could go to public school again, I said yes."

"So you could could go to public school?" go to public school?"

"As you can probably guess, when you have a rep like mine, public school is sort of a drag."

I nod, remembering what Matt said-how after the trial Ben got ridiculed so badly he had to drop out of school. I'm tempted to ask him more, but before I can, he tells me he'd love to learn sculpture one day and it'd be great if I could teach him.

We hang out for another couple of hours-through full-on Nate-and-Kimmie matches of basketball and baseball and a tire-swing compet.i.tion-eating up the rest of the picnic lunch as well as the makes.h.i.+ft s'more dessert he made using oatmeal cookies, chocolate fudge sauce, and marshmallow spread.

"You'll never go back to the old campfire style," he says, handing me one.

I take a bite and a long, embarra.s.sing moan escapes my mouth before I can stop it.

"That good, huh?"

"Better than good." I finish it off.

"You're really great, you know that?"

I smile, totally caught off guard. I try to think up something clever to say back, but instead I just tell him, "You're pretty great, too."

Ben wipes some chocolate from my lips with his napkin. "I'm really glad we did this."

"Yeah," I say. "Me, too."

"So, does that mean you want to do it again?"

My face grows warm, and my lip trembles slightly.

Ben moves in a little closer. And then I do something totally out of the ordinary for me-something I didn't plan.

I kiss him.

My mouth presses against his, and he kisses me back, sending tingles all over my skin.

I start to draw him in closer-to run my fingers down his back. But he pulls away, and our lips make an unpleasant smacking sound.

Then he stands up. He tells me we'd better get going and then starts putting away all the empty food containers.

"Wait! What just happened?" I ask.

Ben doesn't answer. He just folds up the blanket and tosses it over his shoulder. Grabs the basket and takes off, without any explanation. Without so much as a good-bye.

21.

Instead of dropping me off right away Kimmie cruises around-with her brother's approval, thanks to some edible incentive via Mickey D's drive-through, so that I can give her the full report.

"Well, I can't say I'm not relieved," she says of the disastrous end to my date. "I mean, when I said I wanted you to get out more, I didn't expect you to pick the creepiest boy of the bunch."

"Whatever." I sigh.

"At least nothing super-icky happened when you kissed him." She proceeds to remind me how in the eighth grade she threw up on Buddy McTeague when he insisted on kissing her, even though she'd warned him she had the stomach flu.

"No, nothing icky," I a.s.sure her. "The kiss was amazing-at least it started out that way."

"Details, please."

I close my eyes, my lips still buzzing from his kiss.

"Were there a bunch of little kisses that led up to one great big giant fat one?" she continues. "Or did he just go in with tongue from the get-go? Was there superfluous slurpage? Distracting sucking sounds? Weird or unpleasant odor? Exchange of food bits or drink? Did your tongues swirl in sync, or just kind of b.u.mp into each other?"

"Whoa," I say, putting a halt to her list. "Let's just say it started out well, but ended sort of sucky."

"No pun intended."

"I'm such an idiot." I sigh.

"No, 'idiot' would be me," she says, feeding another s...o...b..-Doo CD into the player.

I take a peek at the backseat, where Nate is bouncing up and down in antic.i.p.ation of s...o...b.. Snack Tracks Snack Tracks #1. #1.

We end up driving around a bit more, until just before seven, when she finally drops me off with a promise to call me later.

I wave good-bye to her and make my way up the front steps, noticing how the streetlight in front of my house has gone out, leaving the area in near darkness.

Just a few steps shy of the door, I hear something behind me-a scuffling sound. I turn to look, but I can't see too much in the dark, and the sound seems to have stopped now. The only thing I can hear is the noise coming out of Davis Miller's garage-turned-music-studio down the street.

I turn back around to open the front door when I hear the scuffling again, like footsteps against the pavement.

Like someone's coming this way.

"Kimmie?" I call out. I strain to see, wondering if I left something in her car. But no one answers, and I don't see her car anywhere. I fish inside my pocket for my key ring and finally find the house key among the collection I've got going. I go to stick it in the lock, but the ring falls from my grip, landing on the welcome mat.

I take a deep breath, trying to stay calm. I kneel to pick up my keys, but can't keep my hands from shaking. I decide to ring the doorbell, knowing that my parents are probably home. But before I can actually reach up to press it, someone touches my shoulder, making me jump.

"Ben," I say, completely startled to see him.

"I'm sorry I scared you." He takes a step back.

"What are you doing here? How do you even know where I live?" I glance over his shoulder, but I don't see his motorcycle. "I looked you up in the phone book. I hope that's okay."

"So why didn't you call?"

"I wanted to talk face to face," he says, venturing a little closer. "I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry about earlier."

"Don't worry about it," I snap, moving toward the door again. "No-wait." He takes another step. "Can we talk?" Part of me wants to tell him no-that this whole scenario is just a little too weird. I glance up at the porch light, wondering why my parents didn't turn it on. "Please," he insists. "It'll only take a couple of minutes." I hesitate, but then notice his troubled look, as if he really does need to tell me something important. "Okay," I say, hoping I won't regret it.

I sit on the top step. Ben sits beside me and stares up at the moon. "I meant it when I said that I think you're pretty great," he says.

"Well, then, why all the mixed messages?"

"There is a good reason."

"Which is?"

"I didn't mean to scare you," he repeats. "And what I'm going to say . . . I don't want that to scare you, either."

"What are you talking about?" I peek toward the driveway at my parents' car, relieved to know for sure they're home.

"It was me."

"What was you?"

"In the parking lot . . . behind the school. It was me who pushed you out of the way when that car was coming toward you."

"And why are you finally admitting this now?"

"Because you're in danger," he says, his eyes wide and intense.

"Excuse me?"

"It sounds crazy, but it's true."

"And how do you know this?"

"I can't tell you, and I realize it's a lot to ask, but you have to trust me."

"I don't even know you, really."

"Exactly. Which makes this all the more difficult."

"I'm not in danger," I a.s.sure him.

"You are," he says, tensing his jaw. "At first I didn't want to believe it, either, but after today, I'm sure of it."

"After today?"

He looks back toward the moon. "Just think about it. Has anything weird or unusual happened lately? Is there anyone around you that you don't trust?"

"Wait-did you hear something? At school? Is there something that I should know?"

He shakes his head. "It isn't anything like that."

"Then what?"

"You're in danger," he says again. "But I want to help you."

I shake my head, my mind hazy with questions. "I think I should probably go in. My parents are probably wondering where I am."

He nods and studies my face, his gaze lingering on my mouth. "Just think about what I said. And know that I'm here if you want to talk. You can call me anytime-day or night."

"Thanks," I whisper, not knowing what else to say, or if I should even say anything at all.

Ben nods and walks away. I watch him go until he's swallowed up by the darkness. A few seconds later, I hear his motorcycle rev and take off.

Instead of going inside, I sit for several more minutes on the front steps, wondering what just happened. And what it means.

It just seems so weird-that I'm supposedly in danger. So weird, because his girlfriend was in danger, too.

22.

It's almost seven thirty when I finally go inside. "Hey, sweetie," my mom calls out. "Dinner's not for another half hour. Soma noodle surprise with tempeh chunks and zucchini-prune juice."

As if that's supposed to tempt me.

I head into the kitchen to see if she needs any help, but she and my dad are in the living room, doing partners yoga. My mom's lying on the floor in front of my dad, whom she's got knotted up in the lotus position. Her feet are elevated and locked around his neck. "Care to join us?" she asks. "This is wonderful for digestion."

My mom's family alb.u.m-the one she normally keeps locked up in the cedar chest-is sitting out on the coffee table. It's open to the picture of Mom and Aunt Alexia when they were kids, posing by the Christmas tree.

"I'm not really hungry," I say, wondering what's going on, if Aunt Alexia is in some kind of trouble again.

My dad, a conservative tax attorney by day and my mom's yoga victim by night, gives me a pleading look. But, unfortunately for him, my downward-facing-dog days ended around the age of twelve, when my mom paid a visit to my cla.s.s on career day and talked about the benefits of colon cleansing.

"Matt called for you again," she says, her voice rising above the Buddhist monk's chant coming from our stereo.

"What do you mean, again again?"

"He called yesterday, but maybe I forgot to tell you."

"Is it something important?"