Girl Code Read online

  Her face softened as she peered up at him through her lashes. How the hell did she do that and look so attractive doing it? I tried it once with a guy I had a crush on over the summer and I looked stupid.

  “Really?” she asked in a soft voice.

  “I can call Mr. Harris and see if he’s available instead,” Leo said with a shrug.

  She smacked his chest lightly and tried to look angry, but failed. Leo laughed again and gestured for the door. “Let’s go, Loopy Leslie.”

  She smiled at him before turning her gaze on me and wiggled her eyebrows conspiringly. I offered her a small smile. It seemed that her scheme of inviting Leo over for studying was paying off, at least for her. She seemed to be winning Leo over and she learned enough to pass her math test. I was still mathematically challenged and no closer to passing the test than I was before Leo walked into my bedroom.

  “I’ll be back,” Leo said to me.

  I stared up at him blankly. “What?”

  “I’ll be back,” he repeated and looked at me like I was daft. “You still need a lot of help, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Then I’ll be back in a little bit.”

  He tossed me his pencil. Leslie gave me a wave, and then the pair was out the door.

  I had to admit, I was rather skeptical about Leo coming back to help me. I had no idea why he was so interested in helping me when he was usually only interested in making my life hell. I was very worried that it would somehow blow up in my face later, but I was desperate for the help. There was no way I was going to turn him away if he was willing to sit and work with me. I would have to deal with the consequences later.

  Leo returned a little under twenty minutes later. I heard my mom let him in a few seconds before he reentered my room. He looked confused as he sat down across from me on the bed.

  “Your mom just let me come up here like it was no big deal,” he whispered. “I half expected her to tell me to go home, or to at least make us go in the kitchen to work or something.”

  I felt my brow crinkle, but couldn’t smooth it away. “It isn’t a big deal to her,” I said.

  The confusion on Leo’s face deepened. “What—”

  I cut him off to change the subject. “I’m still struggling with this problem, Pesciano. Please enlighten me.”

  Leo stared at me with that befuddled expression for a moment, but when it was clear I wasn’t going to talk about my mom, especially to him, he cleared his throat and stood up with his books in his hands.

  “Move over,” he commanded. “I can’t teach you upside down.”

  I moved myself and my books over and made room for Leo. He sat down close beside me. To cover for the slight discomfort I felt at his nearness as he got situated, I pretended to be engrossed in the problem at hand until I heard a distinct crunching sound coming from him. I looked over just in time to see something colorful drop away from his mouth. He attempted to give me a blank look.

  “What?” he asked innocently.

  With my eyes narrowed in suspicion and curiosity and already forgetting about his close proximity, I yanked on the collar of his shirt. My eyes widened at what I saw against his neck.

  “Seriously?” I asked, not sure if I should laugh or just ignore what I was seeing.

  “What?” He pulled on the candy necklace.

  “You know you’re not a four-year-old child, right?”

  “Listen, sometimes you need a snack,” Leo explained with an ultra-serious face. “Maybe you don’t have pockets. Maybe you don’t have a fanny pack—which, by the way, is a big no-no—or maybe you just don’t feel like carrying anything with you. Maybe you’re just chilling and doing some algebra with a pretty girl or a cute guy—I’m the cute guy, by the way—and you just want your hands free. A candy necklace is the perfect, portable snack.”

  To make a point, he took a bite of the candy jewelry. I shook my head in disbelief. I didn’t know what to say. All I could think about was how sticky his neck must be.

  “Look, I knew you would covet my necklace.” Leo sighed, reaching into his pocket. “So, I got you one, too.” He handed me the small package that obviously came out of a bubblegum machine, probably at the small corner store a few streets away.

  I stared again with incredulity. Finally, I shook my head, tossed the candy on the bed in front of us, and dove into the math. Working one on one without the distractions of the pretty girl that was crushing on Leo, we were able to push forward, and before long, I was actually beginning to understand the numbers. The numbers didn’t look like an unsolvable puzzle to me anymore when I looked at a problem. The only distraction was when Leo touched me. He sat so close that his arm often brushed against mine, making the fine hairs on my arm stand at attention as if a ball of static had just passed over my skin. When he felt the need to point something out to me in my notebook, he leaned over me, pressing his chest against my side. When he was that close, I couldn’t help but to breathe in his scent. Whatever cologne he wore and whatever he washed his hair with must have cost a fortune, because there was no way that anything cheap could make a guy smell that good.

  I chastised myself every time my body reacted to Leo. I reminded myself that I hated him, that on a normal basis he was still a pain in my ass. It didn’t matter that he was being uncommonly kind and even a little sweet when I did a problem correctly. It was inconsequential that he was making me laugh sometimes, or that his smiles seemed genuinely benevolent and not mocking. None of that mattered. He was still the same Leo Pesciano that called me Tacky, invaded my privacy and personal space and teased me mercilessly. I played along for the time being, but I refused to be duped.

  My brother Tack poked his head in a few times to check on us. The door was open, and he was well aware of how much I disliked Leo, but having a boy in my room at night made him automatically distrustful.

  “Do you feel better about the test tomorrow?” Leo asked, yawning during the second half of his question. It was nearly eleven by the time we closed our books and tossed our pencils aside.

  “Yes, I feel much better. Thank you for your help,” I said sincerely. I looked over at him. “Really, Leo. If I don’t get this now, I’ll fail all year. I didn’t know I was stupid until Advanced Algebra.”

  He laughed softly. His head had been tilted back against my headboard and his eyes had been closed, but he opened them and looked at me.

  “You’re not stupid, Tabitha. Our brains are just wired differently. Math is my thing. English and writing are yours.”

  “I guess,” I said noncommittally.

  We were quiet for a few moments. I was thinking of a polite way to kick Leo out so I could go to bed, but he wasn’t done talking.

  “I have to tell you the truth,” he said quietly as he picked up my candy necklace. He ripped it open and instructed me to hold my hair out of the way. Absently, I did as he asked and he pulled it on over my head.

  “Now you have the perfect, portable snack, too,” he said, lightly fingering the candy on my neck. His warm fingers lightly grazed my skin and I had to swallow several times before I was able to speak again.

  “You have to tell me the truth about what?” I managed.

  He smiled and spoke in a low, tired voice. “The day I found your precious notebook, I was supposed to be outside for football practice by three, but at the end of my last class, I got nosey and opened it to the first page. I expected notes between you and Leslie or class notes and all of that flowery doodle shit you girls do. I was not expecting basically a handwritten book. I don’t really like to read, nothing ever interests me, you know? But your first few words caught me right away, and I sat there long after class ended and the room cleared out, reading. Eventually, I had to close it and get to practice. I know I told you that I was going to return it to you when I saw you again, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon. I wanted more time to read it, and I was thinking about how I couldn’t wait to get home after practice so I could keep reading, but then you ran into me,
and then you got your book back.”

  I stared at him, floored, completely astounded. I knew he had read it, but I didn’t know he had read it read it, like got into it and didn’t want to give it back.

  “But…” I opened my mouth and nothing came out for a few seconds. “But you could have walked away with it and I would have never known,” I said. “I didn’t know you had it until you opened your big mouth.”

  Leo smiled sleepily, lazily, and it was the kind of smile that could knock a girl over, if I were any other girl.

  “I like getting a rise out of you. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to see your head explode.”

  “You are such a dickhead,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “It’s not funny, you know. You make me hate you.”

  “You still hate me?” he asked incredulously. “Even after tonight?”

  “I hate you even more for being better at something than me!”

  Leo laughed. I tried to scowl, but I couldn’t hold that face for long before I grudgingly smiled.

  “Leslie likes me,” Leo said after he had stopped laughing. It was such a sudden subject change that it took me a moment to catch up.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Yeah, she does, but a lot of girls like you.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”

  Why did my heart skip a beat? Why did my eyes flicker to his mouth?

  “I thought we were clear on my feelings about you,” I said, looking away from his face. “I hate you.”

  “Hate is a strong word,” he teased, bumping me lightly with his shoulder. “Come on, you don’t hate me.”

  “I strongly dislike you.”

  “How about…you don’t love me, instead?” Leo suggested.

  I looked at him like he was insane. “I definitely do not love you. Don’t make me hurl.”

  He laughed again and I rolled my eyes.

  “How do you feel about me going out with Leslie?” he asked after his laughter died down.

  “Why would I care? I dislike you, but Leslie is allowed to feel however she feels about you.”

  He was quiet for several seconds, before softly answering with a simple “yeah.”

  There was another stretch of silence, and Leo looked at me with such an intensity that I couldn’t look away if I tried. I was tied to his sea-colored eyes. He sat up straight and leaned in too close to me. Too, too close. I stopped breathing. Why did I stop breathing? I hated him!

  “You don’t really hate me, right?” he asked so, so softly.

  My head answered him without my permission. It moved slowly, back and forth, back and forth.

  A small, nervous laugh escaped Leo’s mouth. Warm, sweet air burst onto my face, but I didn’t back away. I was still glued to his eyes. I sucked in more air as Leo bent forward, hooking his finger under my necklace. He took a bite of the candy, and he was so close that his nose lightly brushed my cheek. I couldn’t exhale and I was pretty sure my heart stopped beating.

  “My heart is beating super-fast right now,” he whispered, his breath so close to my mouth.

  I was about to ask why is heart was beating so fast while mine was failing, but the sound of my brother’s bedroom door opening down the hall was like a crack of thunder right in our faces. I blinked and woke up. I jumped off of the bed faster than I have ever jumped off of the bed in my life and Leo also hastily got to his feet. When Tack came into my room, Leo and I were standing on opposite sides of the bed, packing up our math paraphernalia.

  “Pesciano, I am officially kicking you the hell out of my house now,” Tack said, yawning. “I want to go to sleep and I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave a kid with your reputation alone with my sister this late at night.”

  “He’s getting ready to go now,” I said, keeping my eyes down.

  “I’ll give you a ride,” Tack offered. I heard him clap Leo on the back. “I’ll be outside in the car. You got exactly two minutes.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  I heard Tack leave the room and jog down the stairs as I zipped up my backpack.

  “Um,” Leo mumbled, sounding very unsure of himself.

  I finally looked up and met his nervous eyes.

  “Thanks again, Leo,” I said, forcing a smile. “I think I’ll do really well tomorrow.”

  “Sure.” He shifted from foot to foot. “But I—”

  “And Leslie is a great girl,” I said hurriedly. “Technically, she’s not even allowed to have a boyfriend, but I think her parents will cave. Like I said, I don’t like you myself, but Leslie likes you a lot.”

  Leo stood up straighter. His expression had been hesitant, but it suddenly turned normal, normal for Leo. He was smirking again.

  “Thanks, Tacky,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I can’t say that I am looking forward to it,” I replied with a tight smile.

  He shrugged his shoulders, flashed me a devious grin, and walked out of my room.

  I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and closed my door.

  One week later, Leo and Leslie started officially dating. I was happy my friend got the boy she wanted. I told myself that over and over again as I felt the slightly sticky spot on my neck from the candy moistened by Leo’s lips.

  Chapter Two

  Even as a well behaved teenager that stayed out of trouble and brought home straight A’s—even in math, thanks to Leo’s help—I did not have a good relationship with my parents. I didn’t have a bad relationship with my parents, either. I just didn’t have any relationship with them. I never went without. I always had food, clothing, and a roof over my head. If I wanted money for a movie or to go roller-skating, I asked for it and I received it. We always had cable and computers, a finished basement complete with a pool table and video games. I was allowed to have friends over and I didn’t have a curfew or any rules really, but then again, I didn’t need any. I didn’t go many places or do many things. I had a lot of possessions to make the life of a teenage girl comfortable, as if possessions were all that mattered in the world.

  My father worked hard, long hours at a plant not far from our house. He had no idea what to do with a teenage girl, what to talk about or even how to talk to me at all. So, he didn’t. He knew how to talk to my brother though. They had long conversations about football, basketball, soccer, cars, and colleges—and even sex. My mother had a vagina and breasts, so one would think that since she and I at least had that in common, we would have a foundation for a relationship. Throw in some common DNA and we should have been well on our way to a beautiful relationship. Should have…but didn’t.

  My mother doted on my brother as if he were a king and she was his lowly servant. Theodore “Tack” Tackard was a big ball of energy that my mother orbited around day and night. He was a star athlete, president of the student council, a scholar, and an all-around good guy. He even volunteered his time as a big brother and as a counselor at a junior football camp during the summers. He had sandy blond hair that swept across his forehead in a way that drove the girls crazy and his blue eyes twinkled when he flashed his deep-dimpled smile. My brother was the epitome of the All American Boy and my mom loved every bit of it.

  When Tack was just a little kid, Mom was the football mom, the soccer mom, the baseball mom, the hockey mom. She didn’t mind carpooling the other kids, she never missed a practice, nor did she ever miss a game. She saw every touchdown, every home run, every pitch, and every goal. She knew about every paper he had to write, every test he had to take, and thought he was the smartest kid in the world when he brought home a C plus.

  Our parents also took Tack at his word for everything he said, no matter what it was. He wasn’t drinking, he didn’t smoke pot, he didn’t have sex with a girl behind the football bleachers—even though the vice principal claimed to have caught them in the act.

  They especially listened to Tack where I was concerned. It didn’t happen very often, but if Tack told my parents not to allow me to do something, they listened to him without even
considering my argument. At the beginning of spring break of my freshman year of high school, Tack was threatening to tell my parents on me. I wasn’t afraid of my mom and dad, but Tack was ready to go to extremes and have them ship me off to my cousin Emmy’s for the weekend to prevent me from going to a party. My cousin was cool, but her mother drove me bananas, and even though they were a welcoming bunch, I always felt out of place there.

  Rico Havarez was having one of the biggest parties of the year, and even though dozens of people would end up crashing it anyway, he had given me a personal invite. Rico was a senior, like my brother. We had an art class together and we had shared the same table since September. Naturally, we became friendly. There were always rumors flying through the halls about Rico, but rumors were an ever-changing animal. What was rumored to be true on Monday usually warped into some other version of truth by Wednesday. I typically gave people the benefit of doubt, but I had to learn the hard way that particular weekend that I couldn’t always do that.

  Tack had forbidden me from going to the party. Usually, I obeyed my brother. I loved him, respected him, and looked up to him. As I said, I was a pretty good kid, but I really wanted to go to that party. I knew it would be a crazy time and I wanted to do something crazy. I always colored between the lines, but I was feeling a little rebellious. Leslie had branched out, made new friends and gone to a few parties throughout the year. She wouldn’t be at that particular one because she was going away for the break, but I thought it was a perfect time for me to begin to venture out on my own.

  “I’m going with Sandy and her cousin. It’s not like I’m going as Rico’s date,” I said gently to my brother. “We’re just buddies, Tack. It’s not like I’m going there so I can make out with him in some dark corner.”

  “Yeah, but I’ll bet that’s just exactly what he intends to do,” Tack said. “Look, Tabitha, I get it, okay? You’re a freshman, you’ve always been this nerdy bookworm type of girl, and a popular senior asks you to go to a party. Your girly parts are all happy and hormonal and I’m sure you and Leslie did this funky dance-giggle thing after you told her about it, but Rico is not as nice as he’s pretending to be. He is not a good guy, and I don’t want you to find out the hard way.”