Little Miss Perfect, Chapter Three, a free prequel to Fluffy

Little Miss Perfect, Chapter Three

 

“Excuse me?” I back up, the tip of a blown-up condom scraping against my hair, the sudden chemical scent of lube reminding me of hospitals, shots, stitches.

Pain.

“You just said that applying the same, objective standards to everything is important to you.”

“Well, not – I didn’t – ”

“And I heard you rejected Harvard.”

“Heard?”

“Through the grapevine.”

“The grapevine talks about me?” The words are out before I can stop myself.

“The grapevine talks about everyone. You’re not special.”

You’re not special.

Ouch.

I close my eyes and try not to curl my abs in from the verbal KO those words just delivered. His words have the same power as Fiona’s foot to Chris Fletcher’s jaw.

As I lean against my car, I feel a strange vibration. A humming. I’m turning inside out, drawing on the deep energy of the earth, an ancient and timeless –

“Your vibrator.”

“My what?”

He points. “It’s next to your gear shaft. It’s making the whole car hum. You might want to turn it off.”

“Quit calling it my vibrator. It’s not mine! I don’t want to touch that thing!” A quick glance inside my car shows that the stick shift has been covered in some sort of giant silicone… thing… that turns the stick shift into a peach penis.

Persephone and Fiona are dead meat.

“If you don’t put it away, when finals are over, someone will see it,” he says dryly, going back to the casual, closed-off guy I’ve known for four years, as if the mask is adjusted and back in place.

“I don’t care if someone sees it, but it clearly bothers you,” I say, stung by his words earlier. “Remember? I’m not special. Why would anyone care what’s in my car?”

He frowns, then closes his eyes, taking in a long breath, letting it out while his hand rakes through his hair. “That was mean. I’m sorry.” Real Will engaged.

I’m getting dizzy watching him flip-flop.

“Yeah, it was mean. It was also true. I’ll take the truth over fakery any day.”

In the air between us, something pauses. Absorbs. Attunes.

“You want truth?” he says quietly, voice low and full of attention.

I stop myself from reaching into my car and look at him. “Always.”

“Fine. Then here’s some truth: you made a huge mistake.” The words come out of him like he’s been holding them in a pressure cooker. I swear I feel steam as they blast out across the gulf between us.

“What?”

“Rejecting Harvard. Big mistake.”

“No, it’s not!”

Fury – abject fury – takes over his face.

I step back. I step away. There’s so much emotion in Will Lotham suddenly, all of it aimed right at –

Me?

“You know how it all works,” he says, as if he’s angry with me. As if I’ve done something wrong and I don’t know what that is. “Do all the extracurriculars. Be the best jock in town. Get the highest SAT scores. Take all the AP classes. Volunteer and intern and network until you are the cream of the crop. Get into a good Ivy. Then grad school. Come out on top, always fighting, and keep rising. We’re supposed to push and push and push, right?”

It takes me a few seconds to realize I’m wrong.

He’s not angry with me.

In fact, he’s trying to get me to explain his anger. To him. Or to validate it? I don’t know. All I understand is that Will Lotham is leaning against the wet door to my 1998 Toyota Corrolla, his ass on the very same handle I touch every time I drive, and he’s talking to me like we’re friends.

Deep friends.

“Is that – is that what you want?”

“Huh?”

“Is that what you want your life to be like?” I try again.

“What does what I want have to do with any of this?” Yet again, the mask I have seen in almost every interaction with Will for the last four years snaps back on, like tiny magnets were activated to bring it back in place.

I’m not fooled, though.

Not anymore.

Some part of me decides in a split second to persist. To put myself out there. To cut through Will’s self-imposed bullshit and to be real. He can hurt me, yes. He can cut me down with a look or the wrong kind of sigh.

But I’m about to take my last final exam and move on to a whole new world in college. If I can’t take a risk now, when can I?

“What you want, Will, is the only important thing. You are the one who lives your life. Not your parents.”

“Tell them that.”

“Have you?”

“You can’t tell – I can’t tell people who control everything in my life what to do.”

“Why not?”

Tilting his head, he eyes me like it’s suddenly dawned on him that I am legitimately crazy.

“Okay, then, Mallory. What do you want to do that is different from your parents’ path for you?”

“My parents don’t have a path.”

“You got into Harvard and Brown. Your path is pretty damn fine. So are you.”

His eyes. Oh, those eyes, as he says those words. Is he flirting? Does this mean what I think it means?

“I’m,um– what was the question?”

Soft laughter cuts through me. “How did you become so successful? You said your parents don’t have a path for you.”

“They don’t.”

“You just magically excel in school?”

“No magic. Hard work.”

“We all work hard.” An edge cuts through his words, slicing straight to my heart.

“I didn’t mean to imply you don’t. I just – I don’t have the kind of pressure you’re describing. My parents want me to be happy.”

He does a double take.

“I – I – I don’t mean to say your parents don’t want youto be happy!” I cry out, feeling like everything between us is wrong, upside down and inside out, like we’ve entered a strange dimension where Will Lotham is paying attention to me like I’m a live, breathing, feeling human being and when did this happen? When did I slip into a wormhole and enter the black hole of my blabbering, where every word in the universe gets sucked into my mouth then hurled out in the most embarrassing format possible?

“I didn’t think you were saying that.” He slumps against my car, batting away a purple balloon condom. This one smells like mint and petroleum. “I know my parents love me. It’s just – man. The pressure. You know that look in their eyes when you don’t win? When you’re not the top student? When you don’t get voted into office or don’t throw the game-winning pass?”

“No.” I’m about to explain that I don’t do sports, I only run for office when it’s an academic curricular and I’m friends with half the club or team, and –

He just nods. “Right. Me neither.”

I’m so confused.

“I don’t know what that actually looks like, because I’ve spent most of my life making sure it neverhappens, Mallory.”

Whoa.

Will just went deep.

“You would never know,” I whisper, a breeze taking my words and carrying them to Will, who jerks his head up and stares at me, eyes narrowing with trepidation and something else.

Something else I can’t name.

“You really wouldn’t,” I continue, boldness taking over. “You’re – well, you’re Will Lotham. The Will Lotham. You seem like you have it all together. Captain of the football team. Lacrosse captain, too. You’re an Eagle Scout and fluent in two languages and you play saxophone – ”

“Badly. I play saxophone very badly.”

“It’s your embouchure,” I assure him. I play flute. I should know. “You just need more practice.”

“I don’t give a shit about playing sax, Mallory. I only do it because Mom and Dad said I needed an instrument.”

“Oh.”

“See? How many activities do I join because my parents think it will help with some path I’m on that I never chose? You play clarinet, right?”

“Flute.”

His eyebrows knit. “Are you sure? I would swear you play clarinet.”

“Pretty sure I know exactly what my lips do when they’re held up against something long that makes a sound, Will.”

He goes still. Curling his lips in, he bites them, stifling a laugh.

What did I just say?

WHAT DID I JUST SAY?

“I’ve never known anyone quite like you,” he says as he makes little laughing noises.

“Youdon’tknow me, Will. That’s the thing.”

He stops the laughs.

I let my breath go.

“No – I meant – that crack. You’re funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be.”

“But you were. Funny and smart. And you make your own choices about college?” He shakes his head. “Brown? Really? Why would you reject Harvard for that?”

The word that feels like a steel-tipped arrow straight to the heart.

Soft buzzing from the car drives me nuts in that moment, forcing me to unlock my car and grab the stupid purple monstrosity. I’ve never touched a vibrator before. The silicon is rubbery, the veins on the penis part feeling a little too warm for comfort.

It falls between us, buzzing in a small pothole, tip down as if it’s trying to have sex with the gravel.

“There’s some symbolism going on there,” he says solemnly.

I reach for my door handle. “I’m going to run it over with my car.”

“No! Don’t.” Looking around, Will spots something in the distance. He bends down and picks the vibrator up, holding it in his hand, fingers wrapping around it like it’s pigskin.

Eww. Maybe it is.

With a perfect (of course) throw, it sails in an arc over two rows of cars and lands right in the convertible car driven by Sameer Ramini.

“Hah. That’ll get him back for the gerbil in my cup during practice last month,” Will says triumphantly.

“You nearly drank a gerbil?”

“Not that kind of cup.”

“What kind of – oh!” I look at his crotch. I can’t help myself. “You had a gerbil… there?”

“Not on purpose.”

“Ow.”

“Just a scratch or two.”

“That is disgusting.”

“I’m fine.”

“But is the animal fine? Poor thing must have been traumatized. I would be, if I found myself trapped in a small space with some guy’s penis.”

Blink.

Will just blinks at me, lips parted, the smile all over his face before his muscles know to move.

“Oh, God,” I groan. “Did I really just say that?”

He clears his throat. “You did.”

“Can we pretend I didn’t?”

“Um,youcan.”

“I meant that I’d be terrified! Of course, I’d claw my way out!”

He’s mocking me with those ever-widening eyes.

“IF I WERE A GERBIL I MEAN!”

“There you go again. Yelling. It’s cute.”

Did Will Lotham just call me cute?

Me?

Cute?

A group of students makes a ton of noise behind us, some exam letting out early. Twenty people trickle into the lot and scatter, each headed for their car, a few groups of three sprinkled in among the loners. Sameer Ramini walks parallel to us, giving me and Will a sneer as he clearly wonders what on earth his friend is doing with a loser like me.

“Shhhh,” Will says, moving behind me, his arm brushing against mine. “Watch.”

Sameer opens his car door and plops down. Then his head shoots up and he lets out a war cry, the whoop a combination of surprise, pain, and rage. Scrambling out of his car, he looks down, rubbing his ass.

Will folds in half in hysterics.

Sameer looks around. Will grabs my arm and pulls me down, hissing in my ear, “Stay hidden.”

His breath smells like coffee, our faces inches apart as the hot metal of my car panel meets my even hotter body. It’s not a super high temperature day.

I’m just burning from the inside out.

I start to teeter on my heels, so I reach for the car for support, grabbing Will’s thigh instead.

“WHO THE FUCK DID THIS?” Sameer thunders. Will, ignoring my hand on his thigh, moves up just enough to look.

“He’s holding the thing up in the sky, like a spear,” he whispers, snickering.

“WHO PUT THIS FAKE COCK IN MY CAR?”

“You sure your dick didn’t just fall off, Sameer?” someone across the parking lot shouts before a car door slams and tires peel out.

I look up.

The vibrator goes sailing over our heads, landing in a trash can.

“Good aim,” Will hisses, impressed.

“Why are we hiding?”

“Because he’ll kill me if he figures out I did it.”

“But it’s my friends who put the vibrator in there. Technically, this is their fault.”

“Try explaining that to a pissed off bull.”

I go quiet. His arm is around my shoulders for support.

“Fucking assholes!” Sameer shouts before peeling out, too, as if that accomplishes anything other than removing some of the tread on his expensive tires.

“Is it safe?” I hiss in Will’s ear.

But he’s not paying attention to Sameer.

He’s looking at my hand on his thigh.

“I’m not sure,” he says slowly.

Snatching my palm from its indelicate place, I pivot to stand – and fall flat on my butt.

Leaning over me, Will takes my hand, using his other to guide me up by the elbow. At one point, his hand goes to my waist. It’s a courtly gesture, deferential and respectful. My dad would do this. My grandpa. My uncle.

Having Will touch me like this makes me feel cared for.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. Just clumsy.” Water from the rain soaks part of my skirt, but it’s not too bad.

“I understand.”

“You?You understand being clumsy? Will Lotham understands clumsy? No. No, you don’t.”

“You don’t know me,” he says in mock outrage, one hand going to his neck like he’s a diva.

Oh, how wrong you are. I know everything about you.

Changing the subject seems like my best out. “Sameer seemed disproportionately angry about that.”

“If Ramini had a band, they’d name it Disproportionately Angry, Mallory.”

“That’s a terrible name for a band.”

“I never said it would be a goodband.”

Nervous laughter comes shooting out of me like someone lit a cannon, all of the pent up emotion in me finally finding an outlet. My ass has gravel and water drops all over it, and I’m pretty sure my palms are filthy, but I’m laughing in the sun with Will Lotham next to my condom decorated car after he made a successful completion pass of a vibrator someone left in my driver’s seat.

If there was ever a time to laugh, it’s now.

Once I finally wind down, I discover him watching me, a wistful look on his face. “You look really different when you laugh.”

“I do?”

“Yeah. More approachable.”

I raise my eyebrows and look at him over the top of my glasses.

He points at me. “The opposite of that.”

“Of what?”

“That. You look like a really bitchy librarian.”

“Do not!”

“Do too.”

“You’re just a one-man encyclopedia of compliments, aren’t you?”

“Telling the truth.”

“That’s your truth. Not mine.”

“Fair enough.”

I look at my phone. “Oh my GOD! We’re late!”

“Late for the exam? No way.”

“No. Late for studying!”

“You seriously care about this stupid government exam?”

“If I go to grad school, my high school grades matter. Plus, you know…”

“Valedictorian. You really want it that bad?”

“Don’t you?” Five different people in his inner circle have told me in the last week that I should just give up. That Will is smarter. That he deserves it more than me.

“Yeah.”

I shrug at him. We hold each other’s gaze. A camaraderie I didn’t expect emerges, a shared bond of achievement. I’m not working this hard to beat anyone but me. If I win, I win because I put in the effort.

If I lose, I lose because Will did more.

I would be cheating him out of his victory if I softened.

People who value what we value get it.

The rest don’t, and never will.

“Got it.” He gestures ahead of him. “Ladies first.”

I take the hint and, clutching my government textbook, start walking. We pause at his car. As he turns away from me, unlocking it, the world starts to spin.

In every good way possible.

 

Here’s the link for Chapter Four.

And if you missed Chapter One, you can go back and read it here. And then Chapter Two is here.

Meanwhile, preorder Fluffy to make sure you have it ready to read on release day. Where do Mallory and Will meet ten years later? (Hint: it’s not at the reunion)

By Julia on March 14, 2019   /   Excerpts, Upcoming releases   /   13 Comments