The Pretender - Cora Brent Page 0,23
the display of sunglasses that was ransacked by the cheerleaders. “Your friends.”
“They’re not my friends. I hardly know them.”
“Right. That’s why your tongue was halfway down Bridget ’s throat.”
She won’t look at me and her tone is sharp. There’s a flush in her cheeks and her forehead is creased. A thought occurs to me and I smile.
“You’re jealous.”
She glares. “Get real.”
“Well, it sounds like you want an introduction to my tongue. That can be arranged.”
She doesn’t stomp off or toss back an insult. She scrutinizes me for a long moment and taps her finger against her lips. “I don’t understand you, Beltran.”
“I’m not trying real hard to be understood by you, Galway.”
She’s still thinking. “There’s just something off about you. I mean, you have all the obnoxious lines down and your attitude is the pits but somehow it seems like an act.”
I don’t like the comment. She’s getting too close to something real.
Camden continues her thought process aloud. “I’ve heard all the stories about you. You cultivate this image of a brainless jock yet you wouldn’t be going to Black Mountain if you didn’t have ambition. And we share enough classes for me to see that you’re smarter than you want people to think you are. You say you moved here from Chicago but Devil Valley is kind of a hole in the wall destination and you don’t seem to have any local connections. It’s just you and your mom. Who are you, Ben? What are you about?”
She’s wearing her reporter personality right now and it’s obvious she’s spent some time thinking about these questions. I have no intention of answering them so I turn the tables on her.
“Why don’t you have any friends, Camden?”
She blinks. “I have friends.”
“Are they invisible?”
The question makes her flinch. Obviously a nerve has been hit. “Trina’s my friend. Along with everyone else who works on the Bulletin.”
“But you grew up in Devil Valley. You live here. Yet you seem to have no friends within a twenty mile radius.”
“So sue me for failing to be a social butterfly. I take my schoolwork seriously. I take the school newspaper seriously. And I take care of my family. Unlike you, I don’t go out partying every weekend, getting drunk or high and then trying to remember how many people I messed around with.”
Camden ends her little speech by accidentally knocking over a display of chocolate Santas. It’s kind of a funny moment, especially when she curses and drops to the floor to start cleaning up, but I don’t laugh.
I know what she’s talking about and for the first time the wild rumors about me become a real pain in the ass.
With ease I hop over the counter and get on the floor at her side.
“I can clean it up,” she grumbles.
“I know.” I set the wire rack upright and begin carefully stacking the foil wrapped candies. “I’m helping anyway.”
A few moments of silence pass as we try to return the display of Christmas candy to its rightful glory. Then Camden sits back on her knees and sighs.
“Bridget Spinelli was my best friend when we were little. She lives two houses down from me and we’ve known each other since we were in diapers.”
“You two don’t seem all that close now.”
“An understatement. She had a fit when she found out I was going to Black Mountain. Called me a stuck up cunt and smacked me across the face in the middle of the cafeteria. I’m surprised you never heard about it. Anyway, we haven’t talked since then.”
I get to my feet. “I don’t think you’re missing much.”
She’s still on the floor and I’m about to reach out to help her up when she abruptly stands. In her left hand is a decapitated chocolate Santa. She holds it up with a grim little smile.
“Check it out. There’s been a casualty.”
There’s a smudge of dirt on her cheek and she’s never looked cuter. There are all kinds of feelings colliding in my chest right now and I wish there weren’t. I can’t tell her the whole truth. But I can tell her at least a little bit of the truth so that maybe she won’t think the worst of me. I’m about to admit that a lot of the raunchy rumors connected to my name are wildly exaggerated when she sets the headless Santa on the counter and looks me in the eye.
“Ben, I’d like to write an article about you.”
I must have heard her wrong. “What the hell are