30

I didn’t see Sara or Jordan for the rest of the day, but I didn’t see TJ either. Apparently, he wasn’t as brave as I was.

When I realized he hadn’t come to school, I sent him a text. Thanks for letting me face the firing squad alone.

He wrote back, Sick last night, better now. Can you come to the barn to talk after school?

Sick. A likely story. Still, I agreed to meet him.

My foot pressed hard against the brake when I turned onto the street between the Carusos’ house and the farm. Parked off to the side, in the same spot as the night Charlie and I first spied on TJ, sat the car with the Templeton decal.

I parked my car and got out, circling the other vehicle slowly, like I expected it to come to life and shout boo in my face. There was nothing remarkable about it: older model Honda, drab blue color, relatively clean interior. Nothing noteworthy except the heart pendant hanging from the rearview mirror.

Yep, it was definitely the same car. I leaned closer to the driver’s side window to take a better look. Undecorated, the hearts were silver and almost industrial looking, identical to the one suspended from a chain of silver beads, like a dog tag necklace. As much as I wanted to believe it was a weird coincidence, I had a nagging feeling it was more weird, less coincidence.

I headed across the street, ready to find out.

“You don’t look sick,” I said when the barn door swung open, revealing TJ in jeans, a thermal Henley, and a knit cap. He looked pretty freaking hot, actually. Charlie hadn’t been off base with her comment about the effects of lifting trees on his upper body. I had to look away before a full-body blush won out over the frigid temperature.

“I’m not anymore. I had a stomach thing, but it must’ve been one of those twenty-four-hour viruses. I’m fine now.”

“I’ve heard of that virus.” I stepped inside, unwinding my scarf from my neck. “It’s called ‘utter humiliation and dread.’ Supposed to be a bitch and half—” I stopped when I saw the tall, thin boy sitting on TJ’s worktable. “Um, hi.”

He scooted off the table and nodded at me. “Hey. What’s up?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Marisa, you remember Eli,” TJ said. His expression hardened. “You’ve, uh, seen me with him before.”

“Right.” I nodded and turned to Eli. “You work on the farm.”

But something told me that had nothing to do with why he was currently sitting in TJ’s barn.

I glanced from TJ to Eli and back again. When no one said anything, I broke the silence. “What’s going on here?”

TJ’s eyes locked with mine, his expression unreadable. Finally, he nodded in the direction of the loft. “Come upstairs. It’s kind of complicated.”

I followed them up, wishing TJ’d knock off the drawn-out suspense. Being in the dark had gotten old about a hundred years ago. Eli sank into the armchair while TJ collapsed onto the faded sofa and hugged one of the throw pillows against his chest, calling my attention to his dumb, stupid arms again and making my mind replay the way it felt to have them around me. I didn’t want to be attracted to him. I didn’t need another distraction in the form of warm skin and soft lips and strong hands and—

UGH!

I was so busy trying not to notice all the things I couldn’t stop noticing that I hadn’t realized TJ was looking at me, waiting for me to sit down. Next to him. On that impossibly small couch. I perched at the edge of the cushion, trying not to look as uncomfortable as I felt.

“All right, here’s the story.” He curled his hands around the corners of the pillow and tucked them under his arms. “Kendall moved back from Arizona in the middle of junior year, and to say she was unpopular when she started at Templeton is an understatement. She got wait-listed for the Hartley program, and she and her mother made a huge deal, complaining that it was unfair. I probably don’t need to tell you that Kendall’s not great at taking no for an answer.”

I nodded, feeling a little queasy. This was a very different story from the one Kendall had told me. I specifically remembered her bragging that the slots had been full, and they’d let her in anyway.

So if TJ was telling the truth, then what else had Kendall lied to me about?

“Making waves right off the bat didn’t sit well with a lot of people, especially the girls who felt like she was trying to take their place at the top of the food chain,” TJ continued. “In their minds, she needed to work her way up from the bottom. But Kendall had ranked in the top ten at her school in Arizona, and she saw being left out of the honors program as a demotion that was going to sabotage all her hard work. She wouldn’t let it go. So the top brass fought back by making her life hell. I’m talking pranks, bullying, the works.”

“One time they stole her car keys and left a dead mouse in her trunk,” Eli added.

My eyebrows floated toward my hairline as they spoke. Any pretty, popular girl was bound to have her enemies. Add in a strong personality like Kendall’s and it wasn’t hard to believe she’d had her share. But an entire fleet of students turning on her and torturing her sounded straight out of a nightmare.

And just like that, the ever-precarious scales that measured my love-hate relationship with Kendall tipped violently in her favor.

“She was in my math class and I was one of the few people who’d talk to her without an ulterior motive,” TJ continued. “Eventually we started doing homework together and hanging out after school. I realized that yeah, she was super-driven, but it was mostly because the girl is terrified of failing. Not only at school-related stuff, but everything. She wanted people to like her, and I think, in her mind, that meant she had to be the best at everything. Once I understood that, it was easy to overlook what everyone else saw as her flaws. And then one day, one thing led to another and…” He shifted in his seat and my stomach clenched. He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hear it.

“Uh-huh. Got it.”

“Anyway, she was different than I thought. She lives in this fancy house with fancy cars, but she never cared that I didn’t. She had a sense of humor and she cared about her grades.”

TJ snorted and threw a glance at Eli, who nodded ever so slightly.

“Not long after Kendall and I got together, our math teacher asked me to stay after class,” TJ continued. “He’d been giving me extra credit for tutoring other kids, including Kendall, while he was busy coaching track, and so he’d given me the keys to his classroom. All of a sudden he’s asking me if I went through his desk drawers, telling me I need to level with him. I had no idea what he was talking about.” He grabbed a loose thread from the bottom of the pillow and twisted it around his finger. “Supposedly the test scores from all his classes had shot up with the last exam. Only he didn’t think my tutoring had anything to with it.”

I sat up straighter. “Wait a minute. Are you saying the same thing that’s happening to Charlie happened to you?”

TJ looked at Eli, then at me. “I’m saying I was set up. And I think Kendall might be the person who did it.”

“You—what?” It took me a second to digest his statement. “Then what are you still doing with her? Were. Why were you still with her?”

“Marisa, I broke up with Kendall months ago. She wouldn’t accept it, so maybe in her mind, we were still together, but whatever she hired you to catch me doing, it wasn’t cheating. Up until the other day, we were still hanging out, trying to make it work as friends. Because I didn’t have proof that she took advantage of me or swiped the keys, and I didn’t want to completely cut her out of my life. I do care about her, despite what you think.”

My posture stiffened. I wanted to ask, Then why did you kiss me? But I wasn’t about to do it in front of Eli.

So even though his statement sat rotting in my stomach, I didn’t touch it.

I said, “Kendall called me the morning after…the morning after you gave me my bracelet.” His eyes held mine, acknowledging what else happened that day. “And she told me you broke up with her.”

“I did, in a way. I told her I didn’t think we should see each other at all anymore. She kept making it clear that she wanted to get back together, even though I kept making it clear that wasn’t happening. How could I, without knowing if she’s been lying to my face?”

“No,” I said, more to myself than to him. “She’s competitive, but she’s not desperate. She’d die if she got caught doing something like that.”

TJ’s lips thinned and his jaw hardened. “She hasn’t been caught.”

“Yet,” Eli said pointedly.

“Are you telling me you’re trying to trap her?” My eyes widened as something finally clicked. “Holy crap, you’re Hood Boy!”

Eli laughed and flipped the hood of his sweatshirt up over his baseball cap. “At your service.”

I spun back to TJ, trying to ignore the flutter in my belly when he looked at me through those dark lashes. Now was not the time to get all hot and bothered—not that it had ever been.

“After Mr. Katz accused me of tampering with his tests, Eli told me he saw Kendall coming out of his classroom after school,” TJ said. “I was at work and Mr. Katz was at track, so the room should have been locked. When Eli mentioned it in front of Kendall, she said she’d been taking a makeup test but she got so…weird. I don’t even know if I can explain it, but we’ve been suspicious ever since. The more I thought about it, the more I think she took my keys, stole the data, and put the keys back before I ever noticed. I think she wanted me to take the fall. Eli’s been trying to prove it.”

“Prove it how?”

Eli’s heel bounced against the floor. “I’m trying to find people who cheated and get them to talk, which is a lot harder than it sounds.”

“But don’t you go to Templeton?”

He and TJ exchanged a look. “I’m not what you’d call the most popular kid in school. I only transferred there because my mom remarried.”

“And his stepbrother is a jackass. Another jerk who can’t handle new people on his turf. So it’s not exactly shocking that Eli got framed too.”

I turned back to Eli. “You did?”

“Not for cheating,” Eli said. “My asshole stepbrother set me up. Took me to the school one night with a few cans of spray paint like we were gonna bond writing graffiti or some shit, then calls the cops and takes off laughing like a little bitch.”

“And so…you and TJ bonded over your false accusations?”

His chin jutted in TJ’s direction. “T covered for me. Told the cops I was there to meet him about a project and the paint was part of it. He had my back, and now I’ve got his.”

I looked at TJ, slightly dizzy from the back-and-forth. “What were you doing at the school then?”

He’d wound the pillow thread so tightly around his pointer finger that the tip had turned purple. “I was working on a project. I used to write for the school paper, and I’d borrowed the digital media department’s camera to take pictures of the campus earlier for this big story about Templeton’s fiftieth anniversary. After I got home, I realized I’d lost one of the lenses, and there was no way I was blowing my money to replace it. So I went back to find it. Guess I was in the right place at the right time.” Coming from TJ, it didn’t surprise me at all that he’d refer to accidental involvement in vandalism as a good thing. “It was bad enough that the teachers all looked at me like I should’ve had a giant scarlet C on my chest for cheater. I didn’t want to see Eli get blamed for something he didn’t do.”

“Okay.” I nodded, trying to process everything they’d told me. “I guess my next question is, why all the secret meetings? Don’t you two believe in cell phones?”

As if on cue, Eli’s phone rang in the pocket of his jeans. He pulled it out and, looking at the screen, announced, “I gotta jet.” He rose from his chair and put the phone back in his pocket without answering it. “I’m supposed to be grounded and Mom’s gonna kill me if I’m not doing homework when she gets home.”

“All right, man.” TJ extended his hand, which Eli grasped for a bro handshake.

“Later, Marisa. Nice meeting you.” Eli stopped to shake my hand too. He held it a beat too long, and half his mouth quirked up into a grateful, crooked-toothed grin. “I’m glad TJ has someone else in his corner.”

With that, he let go and bounded down the stairs.

“To answer your question,” TJ said, “Eli’s mom keeps tight reins on his internet and cell phone usage. He’s spent some time with the wrong crowds, and even though he’s cleaned up his act, it’s her way of making sure it stays clean. Meeting in person eliminates a lot of prying ears and eyes.” He looked at me and snorted. “Or so we thought.”

I sat back, letting all this information sink in. My head spun with it. So much so that I hadn’t even asked Eli about the heart in his car. But it didn’t seem important anymore, not compared to what they’d told me about Kendall. She’d flat-out lied to me, and she’d possibly driven TJ out of Templeton. The Kendall I knew was competitive and, yes, a little manipulative. But I didn’t want to believe she was capable of something as awful as this, because if she was, then that meant…

It all came together in my head and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t made the connection sooner.

“Oh my God,” I said. “Kendall’s the one who stole the information from Mrs. Pace’s laptop.” I looked at TJ, expecting him to appear angry at Kendall’s deceit or even smug at my blindness.

What I didn’t expect was the look of total disgust on his face.

“Or maybe someone gave it to her?” he leered.

I blinked. “You think Jordan is in on this?”

“Don’t you think it’s a little convenient that she’s rubbing elbows with the chemistry teacher’s son? Kendall’s very good at getting what she wants from people.”

“You really think Jordan would just hand over his mother’s lesson plans?”

TJ stuffed the pillow into the corner of the couch. “God, Marisa, you really have no clue when it comes to him, do you? It didn’t occur to you for one second that he might have something to do with it, did it?” He stood up and threw his hands in the air. “Why would it? You’re never going to be over him.”

I sat there shell-shocked, tripping over my own tongue. “I am over him,” I finally managed. “And—and you’re one to talk, keeping Kendall in your back pocket on the off chance that you might be wrong about her.”

TJ looked at the floor and scraped the toe of his boot against it. “All things considered, it didn’t seem important,” he mumbled.

“Ugh! You’re just like the rest of those guys, aren’t you? She’s a person, not a minor freaking detail.”

I hadn’t realized how much I wanted him to be different from other guys I was asked to investigate. How much I needed him to be the exception to the rule. Because if he wasn’t, then maybe one didn’t exist.

“I broke up with Kendall long before I asked you to the dance, and things were rocky between us a long time before that. I didn’t do anything wrong.” TJ’s eyebrows drew together. “Whose side are you on here?”

I massaged my temples, suddenly exhausted. “I don’t know. Not Jordan’s.”

“I saw the two of you at the Templeton game. I was there meeting Eli, and I saw you.” He pushed his hands into his pockets and turned away from me, but not quickly enough to hide the darkness in his eyes and the disappointed set of his lips. He was hurt.

Because he liked me. A lot.

“Nothing happened between us at the Templeton game.”

He turned back to me, his forehead creased with indignation. “We both know where it was going if Charlie hadn’t interrupted.”

White-hot embarrassment flushed through me. My mouth opened and closed. I knew what Jordan had intended to do, but he hadn’t done it. I’d never stopped to think about an alternate ending.

“That’s not fair. You’re making assumptions about something that never happened.”

“What if it had?” His eyes bored into mine. “Tell me the truth. What would you have done if Jordan kissed you that night?”

I pressed my lips together, feeling heat climb up my neck. Could I honestly say I would’ve pulled away? Would I have kissed back? Would I have fallen into his trap again, or would I have realized he wasn’t the one I wanted to kiss anymore? It didn’t matter, because it hadn’t happened.

And I’d come to that realization on my own.

I stood up, moving closer to TJ until I stood right in front of him. I looked up at him and lifted my hands to let my fingertips linger at his rib cage. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if he kissed me that night,” I murmured, gently tugging his shirt around my fingers. “But I know what I’d do if you kissed me right now.”

His hands came up to wrap around mine, enveloping them in warmth. His thumbs slid against my palms, gently massaging the insides of my hands, and he exhaled that delicious cinnamon-and-chamomile scent that turned my insides to pudding.

Detaching me from his shirt, he pressed my fingertips against his bottom lip. “I’m not going to,” he said softly. “I think we both have some things to figure out before this goes any further.”

“But I—”

The sound of the barn door banging open interrupted my protest. Our heads turned at the same time and in two seconds flat, six feet of space had grown between us. Too late though.

Kendall looked up at us from the main floor, her arms folded across the chest of her camel-colored coat, making its white, furry collar bunch up against her jawline.

“What are you doing here?” she sneered at me.

“What are you doing here?” TJ countered.

She kept her eyes on me as if he hadn’t even spoken. “I have no idea why I’m surprised that you decided not to take me up on my offer. It’s not like I expect you to care about my side of the story after what you did to me.”

I had no idea what offer she meant, and I didn’t care. I gripped the loft railing and glared down at her. “What I did to you?” My knuckles turned white with the effort of restraining myself from saying more. There were so many accusations I wanted to throw at her, so much venom I wanted to spew until her honey-golden locks dripped with it. But I knew if I ever planned to get to the bottom of her deception once and for all, I had to control myself. I gritted my teeth. “And what offer are you talking about?”

This time, it was me she ignored. Giving both of us a derisive once-over, she told TJ, “I hope she’s worth it.” Then she turned and stormed out of the barn.