“Absolutely. Listen, I gotta run,” Charleigh said abruptly. “Pounding headache. Call me tomorrow if anything changes or if you hear anything else at all.” She slammed the phone down in its cradle, then eyed the ceiling as if she could see through it, all the way to Nellie’s room.
She walked over to the liquor cabinet, splattered a bunch of tequila into the bottom of the blender, tore open the can of frozen mix, dumped it in, and pressed Blend.
Now she’s finished her second glass, the edges of her vision growing murkier.
If Alexander hadn’t been acting so funny when they came home from the shooting range, she’dmaybefinally want to have this conversation with him. But when he walked through the back door, he looked spooked, out of sorts, and Nellie pounded the stairs up to her room, slammed the door.
“What’s going on?” Charleigh asked.
“Nothing! Why?” Alexander replied, his voice edged with nerves. He stuck his neck in the fridge, rooted around for leftovers.
“What’s up Nellie’s butt? Why’d she storm—” Charleigh tried again.
“Hell if I know,” he snapped back.
Charleigh crossed the room, went over to him, tried to put her arms around his neck, but he gently shrugged her off. “Not now,” he said.
Stung, she retreated inside herself, stopped her line of questioning. Nellie probably acted like a gigantic asshole the whole time they were at the range, taking her teenage bullshit angst—or her rising guilt and fear over Blair’s accident—out on poor Alexander.
Charleigh swirls her third drink around in her glass, takes in a tangy mouthful. Picks up the phone again, dials Jackson’s hotel in Dallas. The line just rings and rings and rings. She hangs up without leaving a message.
76
Nellie
Smoke from my clove cigarette swirls above my head, then wriggles out the window.
It’s 2:00 a.m., and I’m in my room, smoking the rest of the pack Luke gave me, making the air in here wavy, hazy. Which makes me feel even tipsier than I really am, which isverytipsy. Me and Luke drank so much tonight. On our date.Our date!I had a date with Luke. Well, sort of.
I still can’t believe it; that’s why I’m still up, smoking, processing it.
Earlier today I was locked in my room, hiding from Mom, who is a freakingmessright now. I heard Blair woke up yesterday, and now there’s this whole deal with the police and them thinking that what happened to Blair wasn’t an accident.
Mom told me about it at breakfast, her crazy eyes burning holes into my face as she manically talked, like she was trying to get me to fess up without coming out and asking me directly.
God, she’s so annoying.
I just rolled my eyes, grabbed my Pop-Tart, and stormed out of the room.
Then the phone rang, and it was Luke. Luke!
“Nellie! You have a call!” Mom shouted up the stairs. “It’s that boy Luke!”
I felt like I’d heard her wrong. My hands shaking, I picked it up.
“So…you wanna hang out tonight or something?” His voice made my insides explode, my vision blurry.
“Yeah, sure,” I said, trying to not sound too excited. I mean, we hadn’t really talked since I caught him in the woods with Blair, so I didn’t want to sound desperate. “And do what?”
“I dunno. I just thought with all this stuff going on with Blair, you might be stressed, need a break. So I could pick you up. We could go somewhere and drink. Just us?”
Just us.
And all the stuff going on with Blair… I wanted to ask,Is she your girlfriend? Aren’t you all twisted up?But I bit my tongue. I didn’t care about it right that second because he was asking me out!
I could hardly breathe. “Um, yeah, I guess that sounds cool.”
“I’ll pick you up at eight.”
