Whistleblower, page 28
I gasped with scandalized delight. “You sneaky little bastard.”
Bodie bit back a smile. “I try.”
“Fogarty deserves it, though,” I told him.
He nodded. “I think I need some new friends.”
“Well, I can’t help you there. I’ve only got two. And they’re huge dorks.”
“Shepherd’s pretty cool.” Bodie’s smile slipped a little as he added, “He told me you got fired. I’m sorry. I can reach out to your boss at the country club and—”
“No,” I cut him off. “I don’t want to work there anymore.”
“Are you sure? Because I’ll make noise. I will.”
“Nah. Rebecca isn’t worth the trouble.”
“But you are.”
I wanted to hug him. I wanted to put my hands on either side of his face and just hold him there, for a few hours, so I could soak up the warmth of his smile. I sniffled again and rubbed my nose on my sleeve. I was sure I looked like some disgusting, puffy-eyed gremlin, but I was too relieved to sink into self-consciousness.
And Bodie was smiling at me. It was so hard to feel bad when he did that.
“I saw your interview,” I whispered.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered back.
“Why are you apologizing? You were—you were perfect.”
Bodie winced. “If I was perfect I would’ve said all that the first time they interviewed me instead of accusing you of dragging his name through the mud.”
“You didn’t know,” I murmured.
“I knew enough,” Bodie said. Then he smiled and said, “I was going to quit.”
“What?”
“I was going to quit football today. I had a whole second half of the speech planned. It was going to be this big mic-drop moment. Just. I quit. But before I went on, the team group chat started sharing your article, so we could all post it on social media at the same time, and I just . . . I realized that if I quit—if I walk away from football—then I won’t be around to make sure things actually change. Because all the harassment training and those resources the school throws at us every year won’t mean shit if guys like Vaughn and Fogarty treat it like a joke.”
I nodded. “They need you. The team needs you.”
Bodie looked at the ground between us and swallowed hard.
“What?” I pressed.
“Vaughn was such a big part of my life for the last two and a half years. I know what he’s done is awful, and I know—I know I can’t go back. But what do I do with all the good?”
“Bodie,” I croaked.
“He was there for me when I needed someone to be there for me. I was a mess freshman year. I could never have gone on ESPN like that and done a live interview. Vaughn’s the one who taught me how to be a leader. So what am I supposed to do with everything he taught me? About public speaking, the game, life? How do I pick apart the good from the bad? Because I can’t—” His voice broke. “I can’t be like him, Laurel. I can’t turn into him.”
“You won’t,” I said, the words coming easy because I meant them. “You won’t become him if you choose not to. There was a reason you told me about the foundation during our first interview, Bodie. You chose to do that. No one coached you.
No one held your hand and made you. You chose to do the right thing. Because you’re a good person.”
It happened very quickly. Bodie stepped forward, and before I had time to worry that my tearstained face and snotty nose might smear on his shirt, his arms were around me.
I hadn’t realized how much I needed a hug. His body was big and warm and solid. The comfort of it brought on a fresh round of tears that left me completely unable to breathe through my nose.
The duration of a polite embrace came and went. Shamelessly, we held on to each other.
Finally I sniffled and said, “Want a drink?”
I was used to wine that came in bottles with twist tops and tasted like someone had poured nail polish remover into some expired Welch’s grape juice. But Andre, bless his heart, had splurged on the good stuff tonight. It was corked.
“Damn it,” I exclaimed, stomping my foot in frustration.
“Why would Andre do this? He knows I’m not bougie. I don’t have a freaking corkscrew in my—”
“Here,” Bodie said, holding out a hand.
I passed him the bottle of wine and folded my arms over my chest, glancing over my shoulder just to check that there weren’t any university security guards lurking behind concrete columns to catch a pair of rowdy delinquents like us.
“And your keys.”
I turned and frowned at him. Bodie just smiled and held out an open palm. I dropped them obligingly into his waiting hand. In one easy move he wedged the key to my apartment into the cork, gave it a twist, and tugged it clear out of the bottle with a satisfying smack of suction. It was the hottest thing I’d ever seen a boy do.
“It’s all upper body strength,” Bodie said, looking far too proud of himself.
My gaze flickered to the sleeves of his suit jacket where they stretched across his biceps.
“Do you have cups?” Bodie asked.
I did not. But I did have an extensive collection of reusable grocery bags, a loose bottle of Cholula hot sauce, and a rosary my abuelita had given me to hang on my rearview mirror (the constant clattering of plastic had been too distracting, so I figured the Lord wouldn’t mind if I kept it in the glovebox with emergency tools I didn’t know how to use).
“We can waterfall it,” I said.
“Great idea. Do you want to get wine all over your shirt first, or should I?”
The smartass let me take the first swig.
I decided backwash wasn’t the worst thing in the world, considering we were already drinking poison, so I let the bottle touch my lips. Then I passed it back. Bodie took a short pull, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and shivered like a kid downing cough syrup.
“Oh, come on,” I scolded. “It’s good stuff.”
“I don’t drink much,” Bodie admitted with a grimace.
While he braced himself for another sip of wine, I tugged my phone out of my back pocket to text Andre. I couldn’t decide if I should thank him for helping Bodie or curse him out for not at least warning me.
“Hold on,” Bodie interrupted, his smile far too pleased when I lifted my head. “I’m sorry, what’s your lock screen?”
I fought the sudden urge to hurl my phone off the third floor of the parking garage.
“Just something from Pinterest.”
Bodie’s mouth twitched. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Curiosity won out.
“You first,” I told him.
Bodie tugged his phone out of his back pocket and held it up.
“Is that your sister’s baby?” I asked, squinting at the screen.
He nodded. “Your turn.”
I ground my teeth together. Bodie raised his eyebrows pointedly. With monumental reluctance, I handed over my phone and tipped my chin up, holding on to pride even as I melted with embarrassment.
“Is that—” He squinted. “One Direction?”
“Ah, so you’re familiar with them.”
“Why do you have a picture of One Direction from, like, 2011 as your lock screen?”
“Because they have a very compelling discography.”
He snorted. “So are you a Harry or a Niall girl?”
“I’m not answering that.”
“Don’t tell me you’re a Louis—”
“I like their music.”
“Sounds like something a Louis girl would say.”
“Honest to god, Bodie! I have one of their CDs in my car.
It goes hard as—”
He was laughing too loudly to hear my review. I folded my arms over my chest and waited, one eyebrow raised with impatience, for him to get his shit together. Bodie eventually composed himself enough to look apologetic.
“All right, all right. I’m sorry,” he said. “Here. I’ll give it a chance.”
He shuffled to the driver’s-side door of my car and jammed the key in the lock.
“You have to wait a second after—”
Too late. He’d tugged the handle. The alarm blared. Bodie stumbled backward, my keys slipping through his fingers and clattering to the ground. It was my turn to howl with laughter.
“What’d I do?” Bodie yelled over the alarm, the terror in his wide eyes sinking into embarrassment as I cackled at his expense.
“She’s sensitive,” I scolded. “You can’t just stick it in her and go.”
“That’s what she said.”
“All right, get out.”
“It’s a public parking garage, Laurel.”
I tugged open the driver’s-side door, sat back with my legs hanging out of the car, and jammed my key in the ignition.
The engine roared to life, followed by the crackle of the stereo system and the opening notes of an Ariana Grande song. I huffed and jammed the Skip button until it shuffled to the next CD: One Direction’s first studio album.
Between the fading tail end of one song and the beginning of the next—when Bodie and I had stopped jumping around and were doing nothing but laughing with our arms slung around each other—I let my lips press to his shoulder. Just once. Quickly, so if he noticed, he could think it’d been an accident.
Chapter 27
The Art House had used chain-link fences and black trash bag–like tarps to create a tunnel down the driveway to the enormous tent in the parking lot out back. Music was already blasting when the four of us arrived. The cool night air was sweet with marijuana and sharp with the chemical stench of black light paint, which was laid out on folding tables in the front yard. Pink, blue, green, orange, and yellow had been rationed into individual plastic squeeze tubes—the kind restaurants put off-brand condiments in.
Hanna grabbed a tube of blue and immediately drew a crooked phallic symbol on Andre’s shirt. Bodie plucked up a bottle of green paint and turned to me. I half expected him to squirt me in the face, like everyone else on the front yard was doing to each other, but instead, he dabbed a little on his finger.
“Hold still,” he told me, grabbing my chin between his thumb and index finger.
“You’re not gonna draw a dick on my face, are you?” I asked, doing my best not to squirm.
“Definitely not,” Bodie replied unconvincingly. I felt him press dots along my cheekbones.
“Let me see!” Hanna said, hauling me around by the shoulder. Her face sank with disappointment. “What the fuck? Where’s your creativity, St. James?”
“You realize people have been drawing dicks on shit for literal centuries,” Andre said. This earned him another dousing.
With bottles of paint in hand (and two tucked into the pockets of Andre’s athletic shorts), the four of us joined the steady stream of students heading into the tunnel. It was my favorite part every year—the first plunge into the dark, before your eyes adjusted and before you got deep enough into the tent that the glow of the black lights could touch you.
I ventured forward into the darkness. And then, suddenly, the world was blue. I glowed from my sneakers to my shirt.
I laughed and spun around. Bodie stood just behind me, his button-down shirt and teeth all electric blue under the black lights.
I lifted my bottle of pink paint. He caught on a split second too late. I had the front of his shirt covered in erratic zigzag stripes before he lifted a bottle of orange paint and did the same to me.
We disappeared into the colorful crowd in the tent.
The music was so loud it shook the asphalt under our feet.
Darkness paired with the whiskey lemonade made dancing easy as we pushed forward into the chaos.
Hanna grabbed my hand and shouted, “I think I want another drink.”
“I’ll come with you,” I shouted back. I turned to let the boys know. Andre was scanning the crowd but Bodie’s eyes were already on me. “We’re going to run to the bar,” I told him.
Bodie frowned. I realized he couldn’t hear me over the music.
When he leaned down and offered me his ear, I put my hands on his shoulders and rolled up on my toes. The déjà vu was like a flick to the forehead. This was how I’d kissed him the first time around, when he’d chosen my mouth over Fosters Freeze.
The crowd shifted around us. Somebody bumped me as they brushed past us and I had to step to the side to keep my balance. Bodie’s hand caught my hip, anchoring me to him.
I loved big parties like Pollock for the same reason that I liked sitting in the stands during football games—the crowd swallowed you whole. You were a part of something. You were one tiny, vibrating atom in a big, wonderful universe.
I liked that. But right now, I kind of wanted the world to fuck off.
“What’d you say?” he asked over the music.
I didn’t remember. Bodie drew back and looked at me again. I thought I saw stars reflected in his eyes. It took me a moment to realize they were the dots he’d painted across my cheeks.
“Bar!” I shouted. “We’re going to the bar! Hanna wants a drink!”
I found Hanna’s arm, striped with blue paint where Andre had doused her in retaliation for the dick on his shirt, and grabbed hold. Together, we pushed through the crowd.
One of the best parts of Pollock was running into everyone you’d ever had class with. I saw Ryan Lansangan in a white snapback hat and white button-up romper, his short but well-defined legs bare. I also briefly brushed arms with Mehri, who had a Four Loko in hand and lifted it in cheers as we passed each other. Hanna and I surfaced again at the bar, a rickety plywood construction that’d been relegated to the far corner of the tent opposite the DJ’s stand. Given that Hanna was small and I was not, it was my job to crane my neck and see over the people in line ahead of us. Danny—Hanna’s stoner ex–booty call—was behind the bar pouring Natty Light into red cups.
“So do you want room-temperature beer or—”
“Are you going to let St. James kiss you or not?” Hanna demanded.
“What are you talking about?”
“That boy is so soft for you. He was leaning in, Laurel. Oh my god, I need more whiskey. You need more whiskey.”
“He leaned in because we were talking.”
“Laurel.”
“Look, the last time we kissed, it blew up in my face.”
“Because he was your whistleblower,” Hanna said. “You’re not protecting him anymore. You’re allowed to kiss the boy.”
I shook my head. “Just because Bodie spoke up doesn’t mean we’re done. Vaughn’s still walking free. Josefina’s still—I don’t even know—”
“You can’t fix the world tonight, okay? You’ve done so much, Laurel. Please. For the sake of your own sanity. Have a drink, and kiss your boy.”
The trio of freshman girls ahead of us in line fluttered off with their drinks. I stepped up to the bar. Danny smiled at me, his eyes fixed on Hanna, whom I was doing my best to shield from him. Tonight could be wild, but not so wild that I let my best friend hook up with a boy who looked like he’d shunned all forms of modern plumbing.
“Two beers,” I called, holding up a pair of fingers.
Danny shuffled over to rip open another rack of Natty Light. Hanna thumped me on the arm to get my attention. It was clearly important, because I was going to have a massive bruise come morning. I turned to see what was up. Bodie was pushing toward us through the crowd. He was easy to spot since he was a head taller than almost everyone else at the party, save for a trio of basketball players who were off to the side passing a joint between themselves. It helped, of course, that Bodie had black light paint dripping off his chin. He was a beacon of neon blue above the crowd.
“What happened?” Hanna shouted over the music when he reached us.
“Andre got paint in my eye,” he said, trying and failing to open it through the thick coating of paint that clung to his lashes.
Hanna barked out a laugh. “Fuckin’ Andre.”
“Does it sting?” I asked, a bit more sympathetic than my roommate.
“Like a bitch, actually.”
Andre popped out of the crowd, looking guilty. “You sure you don’t want to use my shirt?” he offered, despite the fact that his shirt was also soaked in paint.
“I’m okay,” Bodie replied, even though he obviously was not.
“Hey,” I said, “do you want to go try to clean up?”
“That’d be great.”
I turned to Hanna and said, “I’m going to help Bodie find some water, or a towel or something, and don’t you dare smile at me like that.”
She ignored the warning and leaned past me to clap Bodie on the shoulder. “You’re in good hands.”
“Lead the way,” Bodie told me.
I grabbed his hand, weaving our fingers so we wouldn’t lose each other in the crowd, and tried to keep my fluttering heart in check. Together, we dove into the hot crush of bodies and headed back out through the tunnel. The front door of the Art House was blocked off by a few guys who were in charge of redirecting the constant stream of drunks looking for a place to pee.
“Porta Potties to your left, ladies,” one of them called to a trio of girls who had their arms linked for structural stability.
I led Bodie around to the far side of the house instead. The back door was locked, which meant nothing to me, because Mehri Rajavi had told me she and her roommate kept an emergency key (and, apparently, an emergency bong) behind one of the potted plants on the screened-in porch. One twist in the lock, and we were in.
The harsh white glare of the lighting inside was far less flattering than the gentle blue glow of the black light. Bodie and I looked a mess, our hair ruffled and clothes covered in smudged paint. Under any other circumstance, I might’ve taken a moment to be horrified by how I probably looked, but Bodie was half blind and in distress.
“C’mon,” I said, taking his hand again despite the fact that there was no longer a crowd to separate us.
