Secrets and Lies

I finished my beer and skirted around the hacky-sack boys, heading for the cooler on the other side of the kitchen. I bent down and dug through the ice, looking for another can.

“Would you mind grabbing me one, too?” someone behind me asked.

“Yeah, sure. Just a second.” I found two cans of beer and straightened. “Here you go—OMG, hi.”

Toby laughed. “Hello, Casey.”

“I… wasn’t expecting to see you here,” I admitted. “You kind of surprised me.”

I hadn’t seen Toby Tucker since he gave the valedictorian speech at graduation back in May. He mostly looked the same—the same glasses, the same out-of-place-looking blazer. But he had a much better haircut now. Still, he didn’t look like the kind of guy you saw at a house party.

Toby dated B for a very short time senior year. I’d been really disappointed when they broke up, actually, because he was such a great guy. After graduation, he’d gone off to Harvard, and everyone just sort of assumed he’d be ru

“How are you?” I asked. “How’s school?”

“Pretty good,” he said. “Challenging, but that’s not a bad thing. And you?”

“It’s cool. Way cooler than high school.”

Toby nodded. Then, somewhat awkwardly, he asked, “Um… can I have my beer now?”

I looked at the can in my hand. “Oh, right. Here.” I handed it to him, shaking my head. “Toby Tucker drinks. Not go

“Only occasionally,” he said, popping the top. “And when I have a designated driver, of course.”

“Careful there. You sound a little like a PSA,” I teased. “So who’s your DD? Did you bring a girlfriend home from the Ivy League?”

“No, no. My DD is Jeanine McPhee. Her parents bought the house next to my parents’ so it’s just sort of convenient. And she never drinks at all, so it just worked out well that way.”

“Oh, Jeanine. I should probably say hi to her or something.”

“Yeah, I’m sure she’d like that. She—”

“Incoming!” one of the drunk boys yelled just as the hacky sack came flying at us out of nowhere. It smacked into Toby’s hand, spilling the contents of his can all over his too-dressy blazer.

“Oh, fuck,” I said.

“Oh, dude,” one of the boys called. “Sorry about your jacket.”

“Great,” Toby muttered. “I’m drenched.”

“Come on.” I took the empty can from his hand and tossed it in the recycling bin. “You’re going to smell like beer all night, but we can at least dry the blazer off so you’re not dripping onto the carpet. I knew the minute those dumbasses started playing in the kitchen that something bad was going to happen.”

He followed me to the bathroom. I knocked a couple of times, then reached for the knob. It wasn’t locked, but it should’ve been.

Two people were seriously going at it. The girl was sitting on the sink, her skirt hiked up to the very top of her thighs. I didn’t recognize them, so I figured they were some of Angela’s friends from OHCC.

“All right, kids. Go do the baby making somewhere else. Some people actually need the bathroom,” I said.

Reluctantly, they left the bathroom, both cursing me in voices just loud enough for me to hear over the buzz of the party. I just rolled my eyes and gestured for Toby to go inside ahead of me. Then I shut the door behind us and started riffling through the cabinet under the sink, hoping to find Angela’s hair dryer.

“You really don’t have to help me with this, Casey,” he said.

“I don’t mind. It gives me something to do. Before I ran into you, I was getting pretty bored.”

“I can’t imagine this is much more exciting.”

“Here it is!” I said, triumphantly holding the hair dryer over my head and standing up. “And are you kidding? Fixing wardrobe disasters—even a little one like this—is anything but boring for me. Now take off your blazer.”

He gri

I laughed. It was weird seeing Toby Tucker be so… relaxed? Fu

“You know it,” I teased. “Now strip.”

He took off his wet blazer and handed it to me. Underneath he was wearing a plain white dress shirt. And he looked pretty good in it. Without the blazer, I could actually see the shape of his arms, and I wondered if he’d been taking advantage of the campus gym. Honestly, I thought he should ditch the blazer altogether. It wasn’t doing him any favors. But, hey, people make weird-ass fashion choices. There was a period of time when I thought purple ski

“This isn’t, like, dry-clean only, right?” I asked, holding up the blazer.

Toby shook his head. “No. Do you really think I’d wear one of my nice blazers to a party?”

“Well, Toby, most eighteen-year-olds don’t wear blazers to a party. Period.”

“Touché.”

I plugged in the hair dryer and switched it on, pointing the stream of hot air at the blazer, which I’d stretched flat over the toilet lid. It was too loud for us to talk, so Toby just stood off to the side, leaning against the wall while I worked. A few minutes later, his blazer had gone from drenched to just a little damp. I turned off the hair dryer and put it away.

“That’s as good as it’s go

“That’s fine,” Toby said. “I can’t really keep wearing it, anyway. With how it smells. I’ll just put it in Jeanine’s car and wash it when I get home. Thanks, Casey.”

“No prob,” I said, waving my hand. I sat on the edge of the sink, facing him. “To be honest, that was more enjoyable than the rest of this party has been. I mean, it’s not that the party is, like, lame or anything, it’s just that it—”

“Feels like you’ve been here a million times?” Toby offered.

“Yeah. Exactly. Like a rerun of a TV show you’ve seen on cable over and over again. You know every story line and every quote, and even if it’s a great episode, it just isn’t exciting anymore.”

“I feel the same way,” he said. “I didn’t go to many parties in high school. Just a few. And I admit, I had fun, but they were all pretty much the same. It’s hard to believe that was just a few months ago.”

“Right?” I said. “It’s like everything is different—”

“But exactly the same.”

We looked at each other, then laughed.

“I’m glad I ran into you tonight, Toby,” I said. “I don’t know if B ever told you, but I was actually pretty pissed at her after she broke up with you.”

“Really? Why?”

I shrugged. “You just seemed liked a good guy. I had a good time tagging along with you two.”

“You mean you and Jessica enjoyed sitting in the backseat, making fun of us.”

“Exactly.” I swung my leg forward, playfully kicking at his khaki-covered legs.

OMG. Was I flirting with him?

“So I take it her new boyfriend isn’t as fun to mock?” he asked, gri

“Wesley? He’s great, but I don’t have nearly as much fun tagging along with them. I always feel like a third wheel. Even if Jess is around.”

“I know how you feel,” Toby said. “I’ve been single all semester, but my roommate got a girlfriend the first week of school. She practically lives in our dorm room, and sometimes I seriously consider sleeping at the library just so I don’t have to feel like I’m intruding on them.”

“Dude, I’ve had the same issue at school. My roommate started dating this guy from her biology class, and it’s like they’re fused together now. Like if they’re apart for more than three seconds, they might actually die. Sometimes it’s seriously like, WTF, why are you making out right in front of me? Don’t you want some, like, privacy? Luckily, Wesley and B have never been that bad, but it still sucks to feel like everyone’s just being polite and don’t really want you around.”

“I have a hard time imagining anyone not wanting you around,” he said. “But I know how you feel.”