Winger

clothes, anyway.

RYAN DEAN WEST: Oh my God. You wouldn’t.

(Wild Boy of Bainbridge Island loosens his tie and begins unbuttoning his shirt.)

“It’s really hot in here,” I said.

Megan smiled at me. She’d slipped off her shoe and was playing with my foot right under Chas’s seat, where no one could see what was going on. I felt like I was melting. I had to do something to pull myself back away from the Wild Boy urges.

I fought.

I slipped my hand into Annie’s, interlocking our fingers. I squeezed tight, our hands resting on the soft fabric of her skirt where it draped over her thigh.

God! I think I actually began hyperventilating, creating my own microclimate in the backseat, where it was as humid as a rain forest in the Amazon. Worse. It actually started raining in the goddamned backseat.

Megan saw that I was holding hands with Annie. She didn’t look happy. She pulled her foot away and slipped it back inside her shoe. She turned her face toward the window and put her hand down on the seat between us. That’s when . . . she . . . touched . . . my butt.

That gave the Wild Boy renewed strength, and good, pure, and kind Ryan Dean deflated to a wasted and wimpy 152-pound sack of crap. So in a last-ditch effort, I squeaked “I had a really great weekend” to Annie, but I sounded like a third grader on helium.

I cleared my throat. I don’t know where this new Ryan Dean West came from, but I realized that everything Joey had been cussing me out about was totally true; and, worse, that Megan Renshaw was every bit as evil as Mrs. Singer.

“And, Annie, I never told you this, well, at least not the right way, but the things you make at your house— everything: the sculptures, and how your room is, your Wonder Horse, and the sounds and smells and everything— is so beautiful. It makes me feel lucky just to know you.”

Score.

I rallied my strength and pulled my right foot over the hump, away from Megan, so both of my feet could be tangled up around Annie’s. I leaned my head back and looked at her. Megan pinched my butt really hard, but I stifled my jerk reflex, and since it hurt so bad it made tears well in my eyes, it was a potential grand slam as far as Annie was concerned.

But the play in the outfield didn’t quite unfold the way I’d imagined.

Chas said, “I just threw up in my mouth, Pussboy.”

Pussboy.

Another new one.

Nice.

Megan said, “I think Ryan Dean is one of the sweetest, hottest boys I know.”

Okay, I’ll be honest. She actually did say that. And her hand was still under my butt.

Chas gave me an over-the-shoulder, “You’re fucking dead, Pussboy” look.

And Annie gave me the it-was-vacation-craziness-we-are-not-ever-ever-going-to- kiss-again look.

Crap.

I was hosed and I knew it.

I sneezed. I suddenly felt terrible. Not terrible because of how much of a loser I was, but terrible because it dawned on me exactly why I was so sweaty and my voice wasn’t working.

“Are you okay, Ryan Dean?” Annie asked. She was leaning forward in her seat, looking square at my face, so close.

“I feel like I’m getting sick,” I said.

Then, as happens in my reality, all these things occurred at once:

1. (Fight or Flight) Chas turned around and said, “If you fucking puke in my car, Pussboy, I’ll make you lick it up.” This made me feel a little queasier.

2. (Nice) Annie gave a sympathetic “aww.” She put her hand across my forehead (Bliss) to see if I had a fever and said, “Well, you shouldn’t have been running around naked in the woods in the rain this morning.”

3. (Hot) Megan’s hand warmed up considerably, her fingers played inside my back pocket, and she said, “You were running naked in the woods? That’s so incredibly sexy.”

4. (Kind of thing the Wild Boy of Bainbridge Island lives to hear) Annie said, “You are really hot, Ryan Dean.”

Okay, I’ll be honest. I know she was talking about my having a fever. But with Megan cupping her hand under my butt cheek and cooing on one side of me, and Annie touching my face and looking so compassionately Florence-Nightingale-hot on the other, a guy can hallucinate, can’t he?

Chapter Sixty-Four

BY THE TIME WE GOT back to pine Mountain, I had been sleeping with my head on Annie’s shoulder for over an hour. I woke up when the cold air rushed in on me from the open doors.

I felt Annie let go of my hand.

“We’re back,” she said.

I felt sick.

“Make it be yesterday again.”

Annie smiled.

The others were already around back, pulling their bags out of the SUV. Chas and Megan weren’t talking to each other. Megan didn’t seem to mind. She wheeled her bag away in the direction of the girls’ dorm and said, “I hope you feel better, Ryan Dean.”

Then I knew Chas was going to do something to get even with me.

Probably something painful, but at the very least humiliating.

Annie helped me out of the car. I put my feet down in a puddle of rainwater, then realized my shoes were still sitting on the floor beneath the backseat, where I’d left them.

I am such a loser.

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry, Ryan Dean,” Annie said. But she was laughing about it too.

Of course it was funny. I just felt like crap.

I slipped my soggy socks back into my shoes and wiped the sweat from my forehead.

“You need to take a hot shower and get into bed,” Annie said.

I wasn’t so sick I couldn’t say, “I might need some help doing that, Annie.”

“You are such a pervert.” She smiled, and those eyes almost made me feel better.

Joey put my bag over his shoulder and said, “Come on, I’ll take this back for you.”

We walked through the main gates to the campus together, and just as Annie was turning off toward her dorm, I saw Seanie and JP coming up from the lake path. I turned to Annie and grabbed her hand.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”