Present Day
Not long after Seth and I fled the record store, I finally got word that the girls had arrived. They were with Ethan and Tristan outside, by the Off-Kilter van, which was parked at the row of parking spaces nearest to the freeway.
I wasn't crazy about the black, outdated van with tinted windows that these guys rode around in when they were doing band stuff. Sure, it was practical and spacious enough for various equipment but it was also incredibly creepy.
On the other hand, it was a genius choice if they wanted to be left alone. People did tend to stay away from these types of vehicles. The giant decal of the band's name on the side kind of defeated that purpose, however. I supposed complete anonymity wasn't ideal, either.
All five of our other friends were on top of the low concrete wall that separated the mall property from the street. While most of them sat facing the lot, Tristan stood with his back to us, playing a handheld game.
"Dude, we thought we'd lost you," Ethan called out, laughing, as Seth and I walked toward them. He was sitting right in the middle of that wall, looking very pleased with himself.
"I should kick your ass . . ."
"Try it, fool." Ethan made a dorky kung-fu style hand gesture.
Seth grinned, ran to the wall and leapt up to his side. Both laughing, they tried to shove each other off the wall but they were evenly matched so they gave up and soon enough had their arms around each other's shoulders.
"Dumbasses," I muttered under my breath and rolled my eyes.
"Move," Seth told Ethan when I got to the wall. Ethan scooted over and Seth reached out to help me up. I shrugged off the offer in favor of grabbing hold of the wall with both hands and hoisting myself up, and wound up sitting between him and Ethan.
"I don't know why you're so mad," Ethan spoke to Seth over my shoulder. "We're the ones they caught up to. How'd you give them the slip, anyway?"
Seth shrugged. We caught each other's eye and chuckled. "Just lucky, I guess. Where'd they get you?"
"Food court," Tristan butted in, sitting on his haunches to talk to us. "Darnedest thing, they said they'd leave us alone if we took a picture with them. Then they said it was only fair because we've taken a million pictures with this one girl--"
"It wasn't a million pictures. God!" Everyone gave me a funny look and I composed myself. "I'm sure it wasn't a million pictures."
"What else did they say?" Seth asked.
Tristan told us that the Saint Agnes girls had seen countless pictures, taken at multiple locations, of them with the girl in question. I had to grit my teeth to keep from protesting once more. And then he and Ethan went on to relay the Saint Agnes girls' description of the girl in the picture, who was actually me, but neither he nor Ethan seemed to make the connection.
"Those girls were probably making it up." Seth kept a completely straight face. Sometimes it was scary how good a liar he was. "You know that never happened."
"Yeah, I'd remember if it did. That girl sounds hot," Ethan nodded. I rolled my eyes. It was such an Ethan thing to say.
"I swear I could remember taking that picture!" Tristan sounded a little too excited. Who could blame him? It seemed like the kind of extraordinary event that dorks like him would be interested in.
He wasn't the only one into it. Erin turned to us, and in a low keening voice, said, "Maybe you're being haunted . . . by fans from the beyond!"
"Nobody said she was from the beyond!" I exclaimed, taking issue with being referred to as a ghostly figure.
"I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation for what must have happened," Seth began. I turned, wondering where he was going with this. "Too bad we'll probably never know what it is."
I shook my head in disbelief.
"You guys are turning this town upside-down," Beth scolded. "We were just inside and you know what we heard? Some deranged fan of yours had a meltdown earlier and harassed two hipsters or something."
"That's a load of crap!" I blurted out. I really was all over the map. First, I was a spook and then a deranged fan? Was this how strangers saw me?
"Speaking of deranged fans..." Alex got an indignant look on her face. "Did Adrian tell you she was threatened by a certain number one Off-Kilter fan earlier this week?"
Of course Alex just had to bring up Cassidy. It really wasn't my day.
"Hey," Seth turned to me and frowned, looking concerned. "What's she talking about? When was this?"
"It's nothing." I shot Alex a warning look. In my opinion, the less Seth knew about Cassidy, the better.
"That makes no sense anyway, Alex." Ethan waved a dismissive hand. "Any sane person who actually wants to get close to us would know enough to stay on all of your good sides. Right, Adrian?" And then, all of a sudden he started tickling me in the ribs. I almost jumped out of my skin.
"Hey stop it! Get away from me!" I protested with a shocked laugh. I had to use both arms to keep him away from me and in the process leaned back against Seth, who was laughing, too. Ethan was in an awfully good mood. I'd never seen him so giddy. "The hell's the matter with you?"
He stopped tickling me and straightened up. "You used to be more fun," he told me.
"You didn't," I replied.
"Shows how much you know," he said, smirking.
"So what's the plan for tonight?" Alex interrupted. She was never one for just loitering when there's fun to be had. "It's Friday and we're all here! What should we do?"
"Anything that doesn't involve going back to that madhouse," Beth said, gesturing toward the mall.
I was with her on that. I would probably be asked to leave anyway, if I stepped back inside.
"Actually, we can't stay," Seth said, looking apologetic.
"You just got here!" I complained.
"Yeah, in fact, we have to go right now, but it's been fun. We should do this again soon," Tristan said. He jumped off the wall, making a skidding sound when he landed, and stood to face us.
"Well then that makes it girls' night. Any suggestions?" Alex waved them off and turned to us, already over being bailed on.
"Adamson kids are having a party," I announced.
It was the first thing that came to mind and it seemed to catch the guys' attention as well. They stopped in their tracks and exchanged looks before turning back to us.
"Huh. Where'd you hear about that?" Seth asked.
"Basketball practice."
"Basketball-?" This came from Tristan, who then broke into a grin. He waved a finger in front of my face. "Old Matt still hasn't given up, huh? Has it finally happened? Has he worn you down?"
"Shut up, Tristan," I swatted his hand away. "I ran into him after talking to Coach Liz and he mentioned something about the party."
"Oh my God, is he taking you? Are you finally going on a date?" Alex looked like she was about to cry.
Sheesh, my own mother did not make this big of a fuss over me.
"Shut up about Matt already," I grumbled, on the verge of tears myself. I was sorry I even said anything. This was the thanks I got for trying to find something for us to do. "Don't be such jerks. He's your friend, too."
"Was our friend," Ethan corrected. "And then he outgrew us. He's not like us anymore."
"What's like us?" I asked, strangely affected by this comment. None of us had that much in common with each other. In fact, I always wondered if I'd have been friends with a lot of them if I hadn't met them so early in life, before our differences started to matter.
"I'm sure it was all a misunderstanding," Alex said. She was never one to bear a grudge. Besides, all her hostile feelings toward Matt in the past had been on my behalf, rooted in his so-called rejection of my affection in the eighth grade. She'd been more charitable towards him ever since he became interested in me.
"No misunderstanding. He made the basketball team on the first try and decided he was too good for us," Ethan said in a fake light tone.
"Adrian's like, the only one of us he talks to anymore," Tristan added, grinned suggestively at me. "Because, you know . . ."
"Why? 'Cause I'm athletic, too?"
"Tsk. So naïve."
I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth. I knew getting worked up and reacting so fantastically was making this all the more entertaining for Tristan but I still couldn't help myself.
"Fuck that guy," Seth bit out after not having spoken in a while. Tristan burst out laughing like this was the funniest thing ever and was promptly . I threw my hands up, officially done with this conversation.
"God, what is it with you guys and that jock?" Erin interrupted. "Feels like around this time every year, his name comes up."
"Only because these jerks won't give it a rest!"
"It's a long, drawn-out saga that began in middle school," Beth replied with a sigh. I was glad there's at least one person besides me who didn't find the whole thing so amusing.
"Yeah, when she rocked his world!" Tristan laughed and pointed to me.
I threw my backpack at him and jumped off the wall. "That's it, I'm kicking your ass!"
He sprinted off but the little geek was no match for me. I was confident I could catch him in no time.
"Dammit, guys, we don't have time for this," Seth said. His tone meant business so I picked my book bag up, and dusted it off, allowing Tristan to live to annoy another day.
When I returned to the wall, Erin was looking at me, her mouth quirked in a strange smile.
"What?" I asked.
"I'm impressed that one kiss from you turned poor Matt into a stalker," she said, laughing. Apparently, Beth had filled her in on the details.
"That's not funny!" I glared at her and Beth. I fully intended to keep my word about being nicer to Matt, but these guys weren't making it easy. "You know what, forget it. I don't even want to go to that stupid party. Let's just all go home and be in bed by ten."
"That settles it," Seth agreed, maybe a little too quickly. "You wouldn't want to go there anyway."
"Yeah. It's just gonna be a lot of underage drinking on a muddy riverbank, anyway," Tristan added. "Totally not you girls' scene."
Wait a minute . . .
I gave Tristan a look. "Who told you it was at the riverbank?"
Seth and Ethan turned to him angrily. "Dude!"
"Oops!" Tristan laughed weakly, and then shrugged it off.
"Hey, what is this?" Alex demanded. "Were you planning to go to that party without us?"
"What? That's ridiculous!" Ethan protested. The three of them locked eyes.
"Run!" The three of them shouted at once and hurriedly went inside the van. Tristan took the driver's seat, and Seth and Tristan, the backseat. Then they sped out of the parking lot.
"Idiots," Alex muttered, scowling.
My thoughts exactly. Did they think we would run after them or something?
"Totally," Beth agreed. "What do you think that was about?"
"Obviously they don't want us to go to that party," I said, feeling righteously pissed off.
"Or," Erin put in. "They're trying to make us want to go to that party."
"No they're not that clever," I argued. It would have worked, though. "They definitely don't want us there. But why?"
"Who knows?" Erin shrugged. "Secret honeys?"
"Those jerks?" I said, a little too emphatically. It made the three of them look at me funny. "I mean, if Tristan ever got a date, he'd probably shout it from the rooftops. As for those other two, well, they've never been discreet about that kind of thing."
"Yeah, but they're famous now," Erin pointed out. "They need to be careful how they conduct their personal lives."
A sinking feeling came over me when I heard that. I'd expected as much, of course. I just wasn't prepared to deal with it so soon. It was bad enough seeing Seth with girls out in the open, but having to wonder what he was hiding, especially with our unresolved business? That was a kind of torture I didn't think I could handle.
I had to talk to him. Get things out in the open. Tonight.
"But we're their friends!" Alex sounded exasperated. "Why would they feel the need to hide that from us as well?"
"Maybe they don't want any more stuff about them spread all over social media before they're ready," Beth said, with a subtle roll of her eyes. I snickered. "I still can't figure out how you managed that."
"Oh my God! I do know how to use social media, okay? I just choose not to let it consume my life like you guys." Alex flipped her hair, ignored the collective scoffing from the rest of us and turned to me. "You can get directions from Matt, right?"
I nodded and took out my phone, glad to not be the one to suggest it and somewhat surprised it was Alex who had done so. Normally, it was the guys following her around, not vice-versa.
"But no more giving me grief about texting him," I warned them before I sent the message.
"Fine."
"So what, we're gonna go crash a party on the outskirts of town just to spy on our friends?" Beth asked, in a disapproving tone. "Is that really the best way we can think of to spend our Friday night?"
Leave it to Beth to provide a little perspective. It would be wrong of course, not to mention pathetic.
"Yes," Alex, Erin and I replied without one of us even batting an eyelash.