Be Strong & Curvaceous Page 20

  Brat. Color rose in my face like a hot wave.

  “Antony, where are your manners?” Papa demanded. “Come down and behave.”

  “Mr. Aragon, it’s nice to meet you, sir.” Brett shook my father’s hand. “I’m Brett Loyola. The one who shared Carly’s, um, experience recently.”

  “Brett Loyola. Ah. As in Loyola Investment Corporation?”

  “Guilty.”

  “Not that that matters. I’m very happy to meet the young man who helped my daughter so much. I think the two of you make a very impressive team.” Papa took Antony by the shoulders. “This is my son, Antony.”

  “Hi, Brett,” he chirped, all nearly-thirteen cool. “You’re the one with the ’68 Camaro, right?”

  “That’s right. It’s parked outside. Maybe—if it’s okay with your dad—we can go for a ride later.”

  “Cool!” Antony twisted out of Papa’s grip and scampered back upstairs to his video game.

  The warm, spicy smell of a chile verde casserole permeated the condo. “I hope you’ll stay for dinner, Brett,” Papa said. “Carly spent half the afternoon putting it together—it would be a shame to waste it.”

  “You can cook?” Brett looked at me. “On top of everything else?”

  Everything else? “Sure. I’ve been cooking since”—my mother left us— “for a couple of years now. Please stay.” I moved into the big open kitchen, and both he and Papa followed. I smothered a smile as Brett’s nostrils dilated. He must be starving. “And about the movie . . .”

  “Movie?” Papa frowned at me. “What is this? You’re grounded, remember?”

  How could I forget? “You didn’t say anything about having friends over.” Mostly because all my friends were in San Francisco now. And I ignored the fact that, up until this point, I’d kept them away because I’d been ashamed of how we lived. No big house, no BMW in the garage, no acreage manicured by a Mexican gardener who sent most of his paycheck across the border to feed his family.

  But here was Brett, in our suburban condo, dragging in deep breaths of pork-and-Hatch-chile-scented air and looking as if all he wanted was to get comfortable with a big plate of it right this moment. I doubt he’d even noticed that there weren’t any Italian silk drapes within ten miles.

  My father’s lips twitched. “You’re right. I didn’t. I hope Brett doesn’t mind if you take a rain check on that movie.”

  “Actually, I’m thinking it would be kinda cool to see Crossing Blades again.” Brett looked at me. “Leaving out the fact that you’re buds with the director’s daughter, I heard you like historical stuff.”

  Okay, we were moving back into the Twilight Zone. “I have it here.” Had he really said Crossing Blades? My all-time favorite movie? I knew practically every line, but watching it with Brett would make it a new experience.

  “But the extended-version DVD just came out. Do you have that?”

  “No way.” Being grounded meant no fast trips to Circuit City to get the new releases.

  “I had a little talk with your friend Shani and she told me. So I picked it up the other day when I was getting some cables.”

  “You like period movies?” The captain of the rowing team, one of the most popular guys in school? It was like worlds colliding.

  “Sure. Crossing Blades, Pirates, Hornblower, Sharpe’s Rifles, you name it. I draw the line at Forsyte and Bleak House, even if that girl who plays Ada is hot.”

  I laughed. “If you know that, you must have watched them.” Military strategy and wonderful dresses. Clearly we were made for each other. It was a sign.

  The oven timer pinged. I tore myself away from him and got the plates down out of the cupboard. “Dinner’s ready. Papa, can you unplug Antony from his game and tell him to wash his hands?”

  I threw together a salad, set out chips and my latest experiment with red chile salsa, and ten minutes later I was sitting next to Brett Loyola eating casserole. Worlds had collided. And he didn’t seem to mind at all.

  After a meal during which Papa grilled Brett on everything from his GPA to his golf handicap, my father obligingly disappeared. Naturally, Antony did the same before I could rope him into loading the dishwasher. Instead, Brett started putting wet plates into it.

  “You don’t have to do that,” I said. “Please. I feel weird about it.”

  “Why? My mom would kill me if she thought I was sitting around on my butt, watching someone else work.”

  “She would?”

  “Sure. You saw her. She runs a tight ship.”

  She gave out hugs, too. “Tell her thank you again for letting all of us be quarantined at your place. It was way more fun than going to the Four Seasons.”

  He closed the dishwasher door while I finished wiping down the counters. “That’s what I thought when I asked her to lean on Curzon and invite you.”

  I draped the washcloth over the faucet. “Why did you do that? Not that I’m not happy you did. But it’s not like we were all best buds with you.”

  “Is that what you think? Even after that night?”

  I could fall into his eyes. Fall and fall and never come up again. That dark-chocolate gaze forced me to peel away all the layers of self-consciousness and mistaken impressions that I’d put up.

  “I don’t know what to think.”

  The mayor thought I had courage. But what Brett and I had done wasn’t courageous—we just did what had to be done to make sure our friend was safe. Opening my mouth and speaking now took the real thing.

  “I want to think you like me the way I like you,” I said slowly. “But I’m afraid that we’re both just reacting to all the danger. Like we shared this amazing experience, but in real life we’ll just go back to being the way we were.”

  He gazed at me and I wondered if I’d gone too far. Made too many assumptions. Put into words what didn’t exist, and now it would disappear.

  “Is that what you want?” he asked me. “To go back to the way we were?”

  “No,” I whispered. “I want us to be friends.”

  “Just friends?”

  I had nothing left to lose. He could laugh at me if he wanted, but I was going to say this even if it cost me his friendship—and more.

  “No. I want to hang out with you after school and watch Crossing Blades another six million times and take you and your noisy car over to show my Tío Miguel. I want to go out somewhere special with you, wearing the dress I’m going to make for Design Your Dreams. And I want to know what you said to People magazine about me, because it’s driving me crazy.”

  It all came out in a rush, and I didn’t know whether to look at him or not.

  And then he laughed. One of those great big laughs that makes you laugh, too. And before I could ask myself what it meant, he closed the distance between us and slid his arms around me.

  My eyes came almost level with his chin, which meant I had to tip my head back to look him in the face.

  “You really want to know?”

  “Everything. All of it,” I said softly.

  “I don’t know what they’ll print, but I told the reporter that that night was the scariest night of my life. Not because of bombs or crazy guys or houses blowing up, but because I totally lost it and kissed this girl.”

  “You told a reporter you kissed me?” Ohmigosh. People all over the country were going to read this!

  “I told her I’d never met a braver person than Carly Aragon, and I was feeling like a weenie because I hadn’t got up the guts to ask her to this big school event in June.”

  “You did? I mean, you were?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then how come when we went to that party, you danced with Mac and not me?”

  His lashes dipped, and then our gazes reconnected. “Because it was easier. I thought I could work up the nerve if I started with your friend. Except Cal and every other guy in the room got there ahead of me.”

  I lifted my chin. “Serves you right. I felt like the consolation prize when we finally got together.�
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  “I knew something was off.” His gaze turned penitent. “I was stupid and a chicken and I got what I deserved. But nobody’s getting in the way now. So. Carly. Will you let me escort you to the big DYD reception, and then go with me to the after-party?”

  My poor dress. Its beautiful Worth detailing was still in muslin, gathering dust on my abandoned dress form in San Francisco. “I don’t even have any fabric yet,” I blurted, and if I hadn’t had my arms looped around his waist, I’d have clonked myself on the forehead for being so stupid. “I mean, yes. Yes, I’d love to go with you.”

  “Fabric. Please don’t tell me you’re like my mom. She has a whole room full of fabric that she gets from her friends in Italy. If you want, I can talk to her about your using some of it.” His eyes were warm, but on my back, I felt a tremor in his hands.

  Wow. Brett Loyola was nervous. As if this was super-personal but he wanted me and his mom to connect anyway. I’d walk to San Francisco and beg his mother on my knees if it meant looking at a roomful of Italian fabrics.

  “But in the meantime,” he said, “since nothing is about to explode except maybe your dad, and we’re alone, can I ask you something?”

  I nodded, my whole being fixated on his next words.

  “Can—can I kiss you again?”

  Now that’s what I call courage.

  And in case you’re wondering, I said yes.

  about the author

  Shelley Adina wrote her first teen novel when she was thirteen. It was rejected by the literary publisher to whom she sent it, but he did say she knew how to tell a story. That was enough to keep her going through the rest of her adolescence, a career, a move to another country, a B.A. in Literature, an M.A. in Writing Popular Fiction, and countless manuscript pages.

  Shelley is a world traveler and pop culture junkie with an incurable addiction to designer handbags. She knows the value of a relationship with a gracious God and loving Christian friends and loves writing about fun and faith—with a side of glamour. Between books, Shelley loves traveling, listening to and making music, and watching all kinds of movies.

  IF YOU LIKED

  be strong & curvaceous,

  you’ll love the fourth book in the series:

  who made you a princess?

  available in May 2009!

  Turn the page for a sneak peek . . .

  And when he went out the second day, behold, two men of the Hebrews strove together: and he said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us?

  —Exodus 2:13-14 (KJV)

  Choose my instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her.

  —Proverbs 8:10-11 (NIV)

  Excerpt from Who Made You a Princess?

  Chapter 1

  NOTHING SAYS “ALONE” like a wide, sandy beach on the western edge of the continent, with the sun going down in a smear of red and orange. Girlfriends, I am the go-to girl for alone. Or at least, that’s what I used to think. Not anymore, though, because nothing says “alive” like a fire snapping and hissing at your feet, and half a dozen of your BFFs laughing and talking around you.

  Like the T-shirt says, life is good.

  My name’s Shani Amira Marjorie Hanna, and up until I started going to Spencer Academy in my freshman year, all I wanted to do was get in, scoop as many A’s as I could, and get out. College, yeah. Adulthood. Being the boss of me. Social life? Who cared? I’d treat it the way I’d done in middle school, making my own way and watching people brush by me, all disappearing into good-bye like they were flowing down a river.

  Then when I was a junior, I met the girls, and things started to change whether I wanted them to or not. Or maybe it was just me. Doing the changing, I mean.

  Now we were all seniors and I was beginning to see that all this “I am an island” stuff was just a bunch of smoke. Cuz I was not an island, like the Catalinas sitting out there on the hazy horizon. Not even a peninsula. I was so done with all that.

  Lissa Mansfield sat on the other side of the fire from me while this adorable Jared Padalecki lookalike named Kaz Griffin sat next to her trying to act like the best friend she thought he was. Lissa needs a smack upside the head, if you want my opinion. Either that or someone needs to make a serious play for him to wake her up. But it’s not going to be me. I’ve got cuter fish to fry. Heh. More about that later.

  “I can’t believe this is the last weekend of summer vacation,” Carly moaned for about the fifth time since Kaz lit the fire and we all got comfortable in the sand around it. “It’s gone so fast.”

  “That’s because you’ve only been here a week.” I handed her the bag of tortilla chips. “What about me? I’ve been here for a month and I still can’t believe we have to go up to San Francisco on Tuesday.”

  “I’m so jealous.” Carly bumped me with her shoulder and dipped a handful of chips in a big plastic container of salsa she’d made this morning with fresh tomatoes and cilantro and little bits of—get this—cantaloupe. She made one the other day with carrots in it. I don’t know how she comes up with this stuff, but it’s all good. We had a cooler full of food to munch on. No burnt weenies for this crowd. Uh-uh. What we can’t order delivered, Carly can make. “A whole month at Casa Mansfield with your own private beach and everything.”

  “And to think I could have gone back to Chicago and spent the whole summer throwing parties and trashing the McMansion.” I sighed with regret. “Instead, I had to put up with a month in the Hamptons with the Changs and then a month out here fighting Lissa for her bathroom.”

  “Hey, you could have used one of the other ones,” Lissa protested, trying to keep Kaz from snagging the rest of her turkey, avocado, and alfalfa sprouts sandwich.

  I grinned at her. Who wanted to walk down the hot sandstone patio to one of the other bathrooms when she, Carly, and I had this beautiful Spanish terrazzo-looking wing of the house to ourselves? Carly and I were in her sister’s old room, which looked out on this garden with a fountain and big ferns and grasses and flowering trees. And beyond that was the ocean. It was the kind of place you didn’t want to leave, even to go to the bathroom.

  I contrasted it with the freezing wind off Lake Michigan in the winter and the long empty hallways of the McMansion, where I always felt like a guest. You know—like you’re welcome but the hosts don’t really know what to do with you. I mean, my mom has told me point blank, with a kind of embarrassed little laugh, that she can’t imagine what happened. The Pill and her careful preventive measures couldn’t all have failed on the same night.

  Organic waste happens. Whatever.

  The point is, I arrived seventeen years ago and they had to adjust. I think they love me. My dad always reads my report cards, and he used to take me to blues clubs to listen to the musicians doing sound checks before the doors opened. That was before my mom found out. Then I had to wait until I was twelve and we went to the early shows, which were never as good as the late ones I snuck into whenever my parents went on one of their trips.

  They travel a lot. Dad owns this massive petroleum exploration company, and Mom’s been everywhere from Alaska to New Zealand. I saw a lot of great shows with whichever member of the staff I could bribe to take me and swear I was sixteen. Albert King, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Roomful of Blues—I saw them all.

  A G-minor chord rippled out over the crackle of the fire, and I smiled a slow smile. My second favorite sound in the world (right after the sound of M&Ms pouring into a dish). On my left, Danyel had pulled out his guitar and tuned it while I was lost in la-la land, listening to the waves come in.

  Lissa says there are some things you just know. And somehow, I just knew that I was going to be more to Danyel Johnstone than just a friend of his friend Kaz’s friend Lissa, if you hear what I’m saying. I was done with being alone, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t stand out from the crowd.

&
nbsp; Don’t get me wrong, I really like this crowd. Carly especially—she’s like the sister I would have designed for myself. And Lissa, too, though sometimes I wonder if she can be real. I mean, how can you be blond and tall and rich and wear clothes the way she does and still be so nice? There has to be a flaw in there somewhere, but if she’s got any, she keeps them under wraps.

  Gillian, who we’d see in a couple of days, has really grown on me. I couldn’t stand her at first—she’s one of those people you notice. I only hung around her because Carly liked her. But somewhere between her going out with this loser brain trust and then her hooking up with Jeremy Clay, who’s a friend of mine, I got to know her. And staying with her family last Christmas, which could have been massively awkward, was actually fun. The last month in the Hamptons with them was a total blast. The only good thing about leaving was knowing I was going to see the rest of the crew here in Santa Barbara.

  The one person I still wasn’t sure about was Mac, aka Lady Lindsay MacPhail, who did an exchange term at school in the spring. Getting to know her is like besieging a castle—which is totally appropriate considering she lives in one. She and Carly are tight, and we all e-mailed and IM-ed like fiends all summer, but I’m still not sure. I mean, she has a lot to deal with right now with her family and everything. And the likelihood of us seeing each other again is kind of low, so maybe I don’t have to make up my mind about her. Maybe I’ll just let her go the way I let the kids in middle school go.

  Danyel began to get serious about bending his notes instead of finger picking, and I knew he was about to sing. Oh, man, could the night get any more perfect? Even though we’d probably burn the handmade marshmallows from Williams Sonoma, tonight was still the best time I’d ever had.

  The only thing that would make it perfect would be finding some way to be alone together. I hadn’t been here more than a day when Danyel and Kaz had come loping down the beach. I’d taken one look at those eyes and those cut cheekbones and, okay, a very fine set of abs, and decided here was someone I wanted to know a whole lot better. And I did, now, after a couple of weeks. But soon we’d go off to S.F. and he and Kaz would go back to Pacific High. When we pulled out in Gabe Mansfield’s SUV, I wanted there to be something more between us than an air kiss and a handshake, you know what I mean?