Senior Year Box Set

Someone I didn’t see was Cassidy. When I asked Joey, she said Cassidy wouldn’t be in until later. She had to deal with a personal matter. Frick! Telling my mom must have escalated. I sent Brook a series of texts explaining my brilliant plan and how it might be backfiring. When I heard that Coach Hope had left as well, I knew I was a dead man walking.

◊◊◊

“Darius,” I said as I sat down next to the little shit in our calculus class.

“Fritz said I made them better.”

I raised both my eyebrows in response. Luckily for Darius, class started before I had a chance to grill him. He slid me a note that said he would show me after school.

“Dare! I didn’t just see you pass a note, did I?” Ms. Lowden asked.

“Yes, you did,” I said as I held it up for her. “I’ve told Dare he can’t do stuff like that.”

She took the note from me and read it out loud.

“I’ll show you after school. What does that mean?”

“His girlfriend gave him a hickey. Since I’ve had one or two of them in the past, he wants my advice on how to cover it up so he doesn’t get teased,” I shared.

By going from pale for fear of getting in trouble to flaming red from embarrassment, the poor dumbass looked guilty as hell.

“I promise to tell you everything in the future,” Dare whispered to me.

“What did he say?” Ms. Lowden asked.

I was sure Dare getting a hickey was big news for her, as it was for the rest of the class. They’d never thought of the little horndog in that way before.

“You can’t be serious?” I asked in mock shock and turned to Ms. Lowden. “He said she gave it to him on his …”

“I don’t want to know,” Ms. Lowden said, holding up her hand to stop me. “Just don’t be passing notes again.”

She began her lesson. Dare looked at me, confused, so I gave him a thumbs-up. He didn’t realize it, but I’d gotten him out of detention. I’d also made him a rock star in the eyes of his fellow nerds. If Dare could get a hickey … you do the math.

◊◊◊

As I was on my way to lunch, Brook called me.

“You might want to hit your panic button. Cassidy will be looking for you at lunch.”

“Is she going to USC?” I asked.

“Yes, and telling your mom was genius. I would advise you never to do that again, but good job.”

I spotted Cassidy at the end of the hall. She saw me at the same time and started walking toward me with a look that promised pain. The only mitigating factor was that Coach Hope was right behind her. I calculated how much damage she might do before her dad pulled her off me.

When she got within striking distance, “I love you” popped out of my mouth as I dropped to my knees and gave her my left hand to snap off.

“You … you … you ‘stupid boy,’” she said, twirled around, and ran to the bathroom.

“That went better than I thought it would,” Coach Hope admitted.

“I’ll go after her if she doesn’t come out in a few minutes,” I assured him.

“Do I want to know how Brook got her the scholarship?” Coach Hope asked.

“Other than Cassidy being an excellent rower? Probably not,” I admitted. “I take it you agreed with my mom that USC is her best option.”

“It didn’t take much convincing. Cassidy knew USC was the better school. She said she promised you she would go where you did to help train you. I explained to Cassidy that she still could, it just wouldn’t be in person. She quit fighting it at that point and called and accepted the scholarship,” Coach Hope said.

“I better go in,” I said.

“I’ll watch the door,” Coach Hope assured me.

Cassidy was waiting for me when I walked into the girls’ bathroom. I’d worried she would be crying or some other girlie nonsense. Her standing there with her arms crossed caught me off guard.

“You told your mom,” she repeated.

That made me flinch. I sure hoped Cassidy didn’t feel the need to get even.

“Brook made me do it,” I tried.

“You told your mother.”

“Yes, and that was sooo wrong. It will never happen again,” I assured Cassidy.

“To make up for it, you should have to give me the Demon,” she decided.

“Nice try. I promise to take you somewhere nice on Friday,” I said to remind her of my promise of our ‘not really a date’ date.

That made her stop and think.

“Okay, but you owe me something good,” she decided.

“Deal. Now can we go to lunch? I’m starving.”

She nodded and led the way.

◊◊◊

“We have to plan our Senior Skip Day,” Pam announced.

My surfer-girl had a great idea.

“What did they do last year?” Gina asked.

“Six Flags,” I said.

“That sounds lame. We should do something where we can do whatever we want, not somewhere you can get kicked out of. If we go to Six Flags, Wolf will probably get banned like he did at Walmart,” Tim added.

“What the hell? Is this ‘pick on Wolf’ day? First, it was the whole gay pretzel incident …” Wolf started.

Tim and I high-fived each other because we’d kept our promise and quit teasing him after our hour of abuse in PE. This was a self-inflicted outing.

“What’s that about?” Gina asked.

“I have video,” Dare said as he pulled out his phone.

“We haven’t even started on David. He broke up an engagement between royalty,” Wolf tried.