Boy Crazy (7 page)

He clutched at his heart and staggered back a step or two. “You’re killing me,” he told her. “And you still haven’t told me your name.”

Cassie smiled at him. She stepped over and took his arm, admiring his tight, smooth skin.

“I’m Cassie,” she said, tilting her head as she looked at him. “And you look like you can take it.”

T
ell me why we’re doing this again?” Keagan asked, her forehead all scrunched up as she leaned forward from the backseat of Greta’s convertible. “Because I don’t know about you guys, but I’m, uh, not going to be applying to UCLA this fall. I’d never get in, not in a million years.”

“So not the point,” Greta singsonged from the driver’s seat, turning left off of Sunset Boulevard across from the Bel Air archway, and shooting into the UCLA campus.

“The point is boys, K,” Cassie said, turning around in her seat to face Keagan. She grinned. “College boys today, to change it up.”

“But…it’s summer,” Keagan protested. “Why
would there be any college boys around in the summer?”

“Keagan, get a grip,” Greta said, laughing. “This is UCLA, not some puny arts college nestled away in the woods somewhere. There’s always something going on here!”

“Lots of training for athletics starts in the summer,” Cassie told Keagan, with only a little less over-the-top boisterousness than Greta had just displayed. “Among other things.”

“Why do you know so much about UCLA?” Keagan asked Cassie, her eyes widening. “Are you going to apply here?
Can
you apply here without being, like, laughed out of the admissions office?”

“K, seriously—this is not the time for stressing about college applications,” Greta said as she parked the car. She swiveled around to eye Keagan. “You need to think about fun, not the future, okay?”

Cassie climbed out of the passenger seat, glad that she hadn’t had to answer Keagan’s questions about UCLA. The truth was, Cassie wasn’t entirely sure where she wanted to apply to college, but UCLA was on the list. She just wasn’t sure if she should stay in her hometown. Maybe she should head to the East Coast, to one of those famous, storied places she’d been hearing about her whole life. Sometimes she fantasized about stately brick buildings covered with ivy, or East Coast
seasons. But that was only a daydream. Cassie wasn’t sure she could handle being so far away from home. As the three girls stepped out of the dark parking garage into the bright sunlight, Cassie thrust the thoughts away. Greta was right. There would be time to worry about the future in the fall. This was summer. This was about
now.

It had been Greta’s idea to take Project Kiss out for a romp in the bright light of day. Cassie and Keagan teased her that this had more to do with her regret that Interesting Tattoo Guy at Gage Pearson’s party hadn’t been nearly as good a kisser as she’d expected than with any desire to go collegiate. Whatever the reason, Greta had decreed that everyone’s day off was a perfect time to explore the delights of college guys.

And where better to do that than UCLA, L.A.’s prettiest campus?

The soaring brick buildings, the steep steps, the green lawns, and the big Bruin statue Cassie had climbed on as a kid. As long as she could remember, she’d spent a weekend every April wandering around the
Los Angeles Times
Festival of Books that took over the campus. She loved being back on campus now. She could practically inhale the energy of the place.

She checked out her friends, who had each interpreted “college visit” in a different way. Greta had pulled out black-rimmed glasses, a beret, and a flirty little plaid
schoolgirl skirt. She was even sporting a pair of pulled-up kneesocks. The result was half anime character, half Catholic schoolgirl, and a hundred percent adorable. Keagan, meanwhile, had clearly freaked.

“Is that your ‘I’m responsible, I swear!’ outfit?” Cassie asked her, trying not to laugh, out of loyalty.

Keagan sighed, but her cheeks reddened. “I didn’t know what to wear!” she wailed.

“You look good,” Greta said soothingly. “Very pulled together.”

Keagan looked very Blair Waldorf—a preppy, fussy sort of look that was totally at odds with her laid-back surfer chick vibe. She was sporting a navy headband over a matching white shift dress with navy trim, with navy and gold flats. She looked manicured and pressed—and very unlike Keagan.

Cassie hadn’t really gone for a whole new look. They were just here to walk around campus—she didn’t have to worry about impressing anyone. So she’d stuck with jeans and a T-shirt. Granted, it was her nicest pair of jet-black J Brand jeans and a super-cute royal blue top she’d found at Zara, so she wasn’t exactly bumming. But she had maintained her own look, unlike her friends, which gave her a little confidence boost.

“I have a surprise,” Greta announced as they climbed to the top of Janss Steps, all eighty-seven of them, panting a little bit. Cassie looked over her shoulder at the
great expanse of the steps that led down to the Fowler Museum, at the trees and the rolling green grass all the way down the hill. Students were lying in the sun, or kicking soccer balls around. A couple of guys in Bruins T-shirts were eating under the shade of one of the trees. Cassie let herself imagine that she was a part of it for a moment.

Then she focused on Keagan’s dubious expression.

“What kind of surprise?” she asked Greta.

“We aren’t just here to wander around and meet people,” Greta announced grandly. “We’re taking a prospective student tour.”

Keagan looked stricken. “Greta! I told you, I can’t take a tour here!”

“Why is a college campus any different from a guy?” Greta asked airily as she set off across Dickson Plaza. Cassie and Keagan had no choice but to follow in her wake. “You have to test them out to see if they fit,” Greta continued with a little twirl, complete with a saucy look over her shoulder.

“I already know I don’t fit,” Keagan muttered, crossing her arms over her chest and rounding her shoulders as if to make herself shrink from view. Cassie nudged her with her hip.

“Look how pretty this place is,” she said, nodding toward Royce Hall on one side and Powell Library on the other. “Just relax and enjoy.”

Cassie had to remind herself of her own advice when she and Keagan were standing at the back of the group of prospective students a little bit later, shuffling along on the campus tour. Everyone else seemed so serious. One girl was jotting down notes as the tour guide spoke. Another guy was muttering into a voice recorder. Cassie felt kind of guilty that she was taking the tour as an attempt to meet cute boys. Was that the most shallow thing ever? What did that say about her?

Greta did not seem similarly troubled. She’d left Cassie and Keagan in her dust, and was flitting from one attractive prospective student to the next, fluttering her lashes and talking in what Cassie was pretty sure was a French accent.

“I am from ze
Pear-eeee
,” Greta purred at the cutest guy in the pack—a long, lanky boy who’d announced at the start of the tour he was from Maryland. “But I like ze California.”

“Ze California,”
Cassie repeated, trying to hide her giggle behind her hand.

“She’s nuts,” Keagan muttered, still looking as if she were attending her own execution. “Why do I go along with everything she says? Like some
sheep
or something?”

“Excusez-moi!”
Greta cried then, interrupting the tour
guide and casting a significant look at her friends. “Did you say something about ze football team? Where do they practice? Exactly?”

“Bruins practice hasn’t started yet,” the tour guide said, frowning at Greta. “It’s usually the first week in August.” Cassie knew that if the unamused tour guide had said, “Oh, they’re practicing right now,” Greta would have bailed on the tour without a second thought.

“Merde,”
Greta muttered. She smiled winningly when Maryland Guy turned to look at her. She coughed.
“Merci,”
she said in a louder voice.

“You’re not a sheep,” Cassie said reassuringly to Keagan, stifling a giggle. She wasn’t sure why Keagan was freaking out, but she knew it wasn’t Greta’s fault. “And we do what she says because she’s fun. Left to our own devices, we’d be sitting in our bedrooms all summer lighting candles to the memories of our exes.”

“Gah.” Keagan made a face to go with the gagging noise. “That’s a horrible image.”

“It’s true and you know it.” Cassie nodded in Greta’s direction. Their friend was twirling that skirt of hers around, practically pirouetting in front of Maryland Guy, who looked dazed and smitten. “I mean, look at her! She makes everything more fun.”

“I know,” Keagan said with a sigh. She finally uncrossed her arms from her chest and looked at Cassie.
“Every time I think about colleges and the fact I have to choose one and then, you know,
go there—
” She stopped and waved a hand in the air. “I mean, look at everyone. They’re so much more—I don’t know—
ready
.”

Cassie frowned. “I think everyone on this tour is a junior in high school,” she said. “And I think the girls up front are in eighth grade.”

“Not just the tour.” Keagan sighed, and then her words poured out. “All the students wandering around. Everyone looks really mature. I don’t feel like that, and I don’t see how I’m going to in, like, one year. What if I’m not college material?”

“Why wouldn’t you be college material?” Cassie asked, shaking her head at her friend. “When did you become the dumb blond? Is that how you see yourself?”

“No,” Keagan said, although her tone was unsure. “I don’t know. College is a whole different thing. And I feel like I barely have high school under control, you know?”

“I do know,” Cassie said reassuringly. Her efforts to bolster Keagan’s self-esteem were put on pause when two guys who had been walking ahead of them slowed down and flanked the two girls. Cassie shot Keagan a quick look and then smiled brightly at the guy nearest her.

“Hello there, how y’all doin’?” she asked in her best Southern twang. “I’m Mae Rose Sugarbaker.”

Cassie made sure not to look over at Keagan, though she could hear her friend attempting to cover a crack-up.

“I love Southern accents,” the guy said, making serious eye contact with Cassie, his brown eyes twinkling. He smiled sweetly. “I’m Ricky.”

“What are you all doin’ in
Lost Ange-leez
?” Cassie asked, drawling like she was Scarlett O’Hara.

“Zis is a very different place than ze Paris,
oui
,” she heard Greta saying in that French accent.

Cassie looked over at Keagan, who’d brightened, clearly restored by the attentions of the very good-looking auburn-haired guy who was hanging on her every word. Every one of which she was speaking in a crisp British accent.

“I do love London,” Keagan said, in full British character, “but life can’t always be scones and tea, can it?”

Cassie burst into laughter, which confused Ricky.

“Is something funny?” he asked, looking around.

“Not at all,” Cassie drawled, trying her best to seem as Southern as chicken-fried steak. “I’m just happy to be here with y’all.”

When the prospectives were let loose in the campus store at the end of the tour, Greta beckoned the other two over to huddle near a display of Bruins memora
bilia. Cassie wasn’t sure why anyone would need a dining set emblazoned with the Bruins insignia, but it was nice to know the UCLA store sold them if she ever had such a need. She sidled in between her friends and pretended to gaze at the dessert plates.

“I had no idea you could do a Southern accent, Cassie!” Greta giggled. “I’m very impressed.”

“Did I see you
nuzzling
that guy from Maryland?” Keagan demanded of Greta. “By the chemistry building?”

“It seemed appropriate,” Greta said, patting her strawberry blond curls. Cassie laughed. “I wish I’d known when football practice was starting,” Greta continued. “We’re only missing it by a week! I guess we can come back.”

“Um, no thanks,” Keagan said. “The guy I was talking to wanted to compare SAT scores with me. Seriously.”

“Tell him you got an 800 in French kissing,” Greta replied. She smiled. “I don’t think he’ll care what you got on the verbal.”

They all cracked up at that, but Cassie quickly shushed them, looking around for their tour guys—who might question why three girls from two different countries and the Deep South were whispering like the best of friends. The coast was clear.

“Where are we on Project Kiss numbers?” Greta asked. “Mr. Maryland is an excellent potential number five. Cassie?”

“I’ve kissed two so far,” she said. Trey Carter’s ridiculously sexy face appeared in her mind’s eye for a second, but she blinked it away. Why did he always pop up at the most inconvenient times? “That guy at the club and then yummy Brad at Gage Pearson’s party.”

“It’s almost August,” Keagan chided her, giggling. “You need to get moving!”

“Says the girl who can’t handle SAT Guy,” Cassie retorted. “I’m moving along just fine, thank you.”

“Just grab that guy and make it happen,” Greta advised her. “You don’t have to wait to be kissed, you know. Guys can be shy sometimes.” She frowned at Keagan. “Are we even now? Score-wise?”

“I think I’m at six,” Keagan said, trying to remember. “It could be five. I have to sit down and count everyone.” She cocked her head toward the front of the store, where SAT Guy was buying a sweatshirt. “But not now.”

Cassie and Greta watched as Keagan set off toward the cash registers, her shiny blond hair bouncing against her shoulders as she moved.

“Two?” Greta asked Cassie as Keagan moved in on her target. She turned and faced Cassie. “Only two since June? I’m ashamed for both of us.”

Cassie desperately wanted to tell Greta about Trey’s appearances on Catalina. But she knew Greta would be mad that she hadn’t mentioned them when they had happened, and she knew that Greta would
definitely
be
mad if Cassie claimed that Trey had anything to do with her low Project Kiss numbers. It sounded like Cassie was pining away for him.

And I’m not,
she told herself fiercely.

“Let’s call it three,” she said, smirking at Greta. “I feel like I can tell the future today.”

“Check you out,” Greta said approvingly. “I’m so proud.”

“You’re about to be even prouder,” Cassie boasted. She walked away from the Bruins china selection and scanned the store. She could see Ricky through the windows, standing in the sun-drenched courtyard, and quickly made her way outside.