September Lessons (A Year in Paradise Book 9) Read online

  Leigh-Ann giggled, catching Carrie’s attention.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “An outsider perspective is kinda nice, I guess.” Why was Leigh-Ann blushing? She knew she was, because she never got that hot unless the boiler was turned up in January or she wore one too many layers. She wore nothing but a T-shirt, jeans, and an old sweatshirt that day. How often do I blush around this girl, anyway? She’s gonna think I have a problem. Like rosacea. “We don’t get a lot of new people here. Most of the new folks who move to Paradise Valley or Roundabout either got no kids or really little ones. Most of our classmates have been together since at least elementary school.”

  “That so? Ain’t so different from how things are back home. The whole going to school with the same people for years, thing. I think we got more new kids than you guys do, though.” Carrie hoisted her backpack over her shoulder, a Spanish II textbook in her hand. “I gotta get going. I know for a fact you ain’t in Spanish II.”

  “Nope. Spanish III.”

  “Well, pardono me, because I’m a bit behind, huh?” Carrie said that with a bright smile that lingered when she turned around and marched down the hall. “See you at lunch?” Carrie soon called over her shoulder.

  The thirty-second warning bell rung. Leigh-Ann was right across the hall from her fourth period class, yet she was the last one to enter. She was too busy wasting those thirty precious seconds standing in the hall while Ms. Tichenor lurked behind her.

  “Well?” she teased Leigh-Ann. “You gonna have lunch with her or not? That girl needs Oregonian linguistic lessons.”

  Leigh-Ann leaped out of her sneakers and hustled to class. Not until she handed in her homework did she realize she never told Carrie she’d have lunch with her.

  Wasn’t it a given by now, anyway?

  Chapter 7

  CARRIE

  One thing was exactly the same between high school in Oregon and Alabama.

  There were parties. Duh.

  Carrie had heard whispers of a party in honor of senior year, but she didn’t expect to be invited. Sounded like the kind of thing for whoever was “cool,” and that didn’t necessarily mean someone the host liked. More like someone cool enough to not nark. Naturally, the party was held while some kid’s parents were out of town. There would be pot and alcohol, absolutely, but the kid texting invites to people made it clear he was cool with those who didn’t care to partake. “Take care of your body, man!!! Don’t pressure people, keep it COOOL ; )”

  Yeah. Sure. Whatever.

  The invite landed in Carrie’s inbox the day before the party. Specifically, it landed while she was eating her sad lunch of chef’s salad and a day-old roll with Leigh-Ann.

  “That must be about Aiden’s party.” Leigh-Ann broke off a piece of her roll and stuffed it into the pat of butter the school so graciously provided. “He throws one this time every year, because his parents go off to some conference in Vegas for the weekend. You ask me, it’s some sex thing. The conference, that is, although people totally hook up at his parties.”

  “Wouldn’t be a party otherwise, right?” Carrie turned her phone upside down on the table. “You going?”

  Leigh-Ann bit her lip before drowning her face in salad. “Nope,” she muttered.

  “The party sucks?”

  “Wasn’t invited,” Leigh-Ann muttered.

  “Oh, I assumed… well, that everyone was…”

  “I’m not invited to those anymore. Haven’t been to one since sophomore year.”

  “Really? The hell did you do? Nark?”

  “Nah. I ain’t lame like that.” Leigh-Ann finally sat up again. Did she know she had a little ranch dressing in her hair? Carrie was about to say something when Leigh-Ann continued, “I’ve got some beef with one of his friends. They don’t like it when I come to the parties. Makes them uncomfortable, I guess.”

  Carrie let out a low whistle. “You totally started a fist fight, huh?”

  “No!”

  “Threw up on his mom’s throw rug?”

  After a gasp loud enough to startle someone at the next table, Leigh-Ann lowered her voice and said, “It ain’t anything like that, okay? Don’t start rumors around here because someone overheard you.”

  “Hmm.” Carrie turned her phone over again and reread the invite. “You think I should go? Maybe you could be my plus one. Really seal my legacy at this school by bringing you with me although you weren’t invited.”

  “You should go, yeah. Why not?” Leigh-Ann shrugged. “You’ll probably have fun. Make some other friends beyond me.”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “It’s always good to have more friends, isn’t it? Especially as the new girl. Although them all being seventeen and under might make them not as cool as me…”

  Grinning, Carrie texted Aiden back and let him know that she would love to come to his party.

  ***

  Her aunt and uncle didn’t care what she did with her Friday nights as long as she wasn’t blowing off work or other commitments. Outside of the occasional Friday, however, Carrie’s soul was sold to the pizzeria on Saturdays and Sundays only. What she thought would be hell on her social life, however, soon turned into a small boon as she was able to stop by work for a few minutes and bum an unclaimed pie off Skylar, who was thinking about throwing it away.

  Yeah, waltzing into a high school party with an unclaimed pizza was definitely the way to make new friends.

  “Damn, girl!” Aiden almost knocked the box out of her hand as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and hauled her into his living room. Billie Eilish throbbed through the speakers. Red Solo cups full of Coke and beers were in everyone’s hands. The sweet scent of pot filtered through an opened window. The only thing missing from the parties Carrie was more familiar with was a couple of guys firing off…

  BOOM!

  For every person spitting out their drink in surprise, there was another hooting out the window. A guy dressed head to toe in camo rounded the corner and held up his hunting rifle. Soon, two more of Carrie’s classmates joined them, guns in their hands.

  “Pizza for the lucky shots!” Aiden screamed behind Carrie.

  Ah, yes, that was more like it. Aside from affected accents and a distinct lack of humidity, this felt like Alabama.

  Bringing pizza brought forward a slew of kids who wanted to meet Carrie for the first time since she started school. When she glibly pointed it out to Amanda that they had plenty of opportunities to talk and hang out before that evening, she was met with, “Oh, don’t be silly! School is such a different environment! You have to keep up certain appearances there. If I didn’t hang out with my friends like usual, people would talk. Now, if you and I become friends tonight, it’s totally different!”

  Maybe it was Carrie’s brain developing quicker than her seventeen-year-old peers, but that made zero sense. “Cool. Want some pizza? I think there’s one whole slice left.”

  “Oh, no thanks! I’m at my carb limit for the day. Beer?”

  Riiiiight.

  Carrie was past the age of wanting to get drunk – another sign that maybe she wasn’t cut out for college – but she didn’t mind cracking open her own beer and keeping it close to her chest until it was finished forty-five minutes later. By then, half of her classmates were blazed or blitzed, their voices growing louder as they struggled to make themselves understood over the pulsing music beats and the porn someone streamed on TV. “Told you your parents were pervs, Aiden!” One of the guys in camo yelled. “They got porn ready to stream! Bet they’re in Vegas right now swingin’ with strangers!”

  “Who cares what my parents do as long as they don’t bring me home a new baby brother or sister?” Aiden lifted his can of beer. “And let me use the house while they’re out of town!”

  That inspired cheers and applause so fervent that beer spilled on shirts and pot was blown directly into Carrie’s face. Maybe it was time for her to make her final rounds and head home. This was getting kind
a boring, anyway, since she didn’t have a dedicated person to hang out with and talk to. Not even Leigh-Ann, who was banned from these parties for some reason she didn’t feel the need to talk about.

  Strange, wasn’t it? Carrie thought about asking, but she didn’t want to make things more difficult for Leigh-Ann at school. She seemed nice and normal enough. There was a short period of time there when Carrie wondered if the “real” Leigh-Ann would burst forth and prove why she wasn’t that popular in her class. Well, she wasn’t unpopular. Nobody gave Carrie crap for eating lunch with her, but there was this unspoken rule around Clark High that nobody went out of their way to talk to her, let alone invite her to things.

  Would it be weird if Carrie threw a party and invited Leigh-Ann? Would nobody show up? Why?

  “Hey, Care.” Aiden sidled up to her. More like crashes into me… Beer was heavy on his breath, and another can sloshed in his hands. “Spot me a fave and take this to the kitchen, would ya?” The can was soon in Carrie’s hands. “There’s a giant garbage bag for the stuff. My parents won’t look the other way if I trash the place, so…”

  “Sure. As long as you’re not hitting on me.” Drunk Aiden was awfully close to going for a kiss, after all. There was a reason Carrie could smell his breath so well. “I don’t swing that way, hon.”

  “No shit.” He said that with a snort. “Everyone knows that, Care! Whatever. Think you’ll find we’re pretty cool about that stuff. Why, our own pretty girl Christina Rath got an out and proud mom. Shoulda seen the fuss this July.”

  “Yeah. I shoulda.”

  Carrie took the half-empty cans to the kitchen, where she did indeed find a giant trash bag full of garbage. On the floor. Because that’s where such things belonged, alongside empty pizza boxes and tons of half-eaten crust. At least the abandoned pizza hadn’t gone completely to waste. Only half of it ending up in the garbage was better than all of it, right?

  “Whoops!” Someone stumbled into the kitchen as Carrie attempted to clean up some of the mess. After all, poor Aiden would lose his house party privileges if his parents came home to a dump. “I tell you, come into the kitchen to avoid the porn party in the living room, and you step all over garbage!”

  Carrie didn’t expect to see Christina in there by herself. Let alone a half-tipsy Christina who slightly reeked of pot smoke. Was she partaking, or did she simply hang out with potheads? Did Clark High have actual potheads? That was one of the few things Carrie looked forward to discovering when she moved to the PNW for one year. Potheads, lumberjacks, and Riot Grrls. Or was that more of a city thing?

  “They’re still watching porn, huh?” Carrie propped the bag of cans against a cabinet. Hopefully, it was out of the way enough that people would stop knocking it over. She wasn’t about to do anything regarding the spills on the floor, though. Hm. Maybe she would. Christina was silly enough to slip in some beer if somebody didn’t put down paper towels. “How mature.”

  Giggles announced that Christina didn’t think one way or another. She was simply there to party and have some fun. Not the brightest bulb in the box, is she? Christina was pretty and flirty, which was already kryptonite to Carrie, but she also came off as a mediocre student whose popularity was dictated by being the mayor’s daughter… oh, and being pretty. And flirty.

  Not that Carrie had a problem with any of that. It simply changed how she flirted with such girls. After all, flirting and seduction were precarious tools in the dating world. Carrie wasn’t looking for a forever lover. She was looking for someone to fool around with for at least a few months. Aiden had said that Christina was cool with the gays, since her mom was basically one. Hey, a little flirting would be okay, right?

  “It’s kinda gross, huh?” Christina sat on the edge of the breakfast table. Carrie took her time cleaning up the mess on the floor. “Such a guy thing. Boys are really into porn. I once had a boyfriend – not from around here, mind you, but from the coast – who kept asking me to do the grossest stuff. Guy was a real pervert. Got all his ideas from porn videos. Told him he better ditch them or ditch me.”

  “Let me guess… he ditched you?”

  “Embarrassing, isn’t it?”

  For him? Absolutely. Christina was the most conventionally hot girl in Clark High. Like, damn, she had abs. Which Carrie got an eyeful of since Christina wore sweatpants and a sports bra beneath her baggy jacket. That sports bra was totally padded, though. Not that Carrie would complain. She always enjoyed a good view.

  “Is this your first party around here?” Christina asked.

  Carrie glanced up from the floor. “Kinda surprised I was invited. Being new, and all.”

  “Whatever! Around here, being new means you’re the coolest person around! Until you do something uncool, I guess. But you brought pizza to your first party, so you’re cool. You work at the pizza place, right? I think I’ve seen you in there.”

  Carrie popped up, hand snatching the table as she leaned in front of Christina. “Yup. I am a pizza artist. I’m really good at kneading dough by now.” She glanced down at Christina’s meager cleavage. Freakin’ sports bras. They hide all the fun. Sometimes too many things were left up to the imagination.

  “You should teach some of the folks around here how to make a decent pizza. Take Aiden, for instance. I went to a party this summer where he tried making out with me over a pizza. Like literally over a pizza. He had set up this whole elaborate thing with pizza dough and pepperoni here in this kitchen. You know how he tried to get me to take my top off?”

  “No idea.”

  “He heard girls have pepperoni-sized nipples, and he wanted to know if it was true.”

  Carrie did her best to not burst out laughing, because while that was too preposterous to believe, she didn’t want to accidentally offend the girl sharing time with her.

  “Pepperoni-sized, huh?” Carrie drummed her fingers against the table. “You know, I know a thing or two about a ladies’ nipples, and I can safely say I’ve never seen any that are big enough to be pepperoni. Bet he was so hungry he hoped they’d taste like them, too.”

  “Hungry? I think you mean horny.”

  Carrie had two options. She could keep flirting and hope it worked out for her – and if it did, she better grab herself another beer, because Christina was juuuust inebriated enough that it would feel weird making out with her if Carrie wasn’t in on the drunken fun, too – or she could use this opportunity to ask a few questions about the beef between her and Leigh-Ann.

  Because Carrie was pretty smart. When she heard, “The last party I attended was in sophomore year,” she knew that coincided with when Christina and Leigh-Ann stopped being friends, let alone best friends. Something happened at that last party Leigh-Ann was invited to, and Carrie was nosy enough to ask what.

  Or she was nosy enough to ask Christina if that stuff about her nipples was true.

  “So, you’re from Alabama?” Christina asked. “I like your accent. Sounds way more interesting from how we talk.”

  I mean, you’re not wrong. Carrie still wasn’t sure what was going on with the local Oregonian accent, but whew, it was a mess. “Yeah. I’m from ‘Bama,’ as people keep putting it.”

  Christina giggled. “Don’t let them bother you. They’re dumb. They can’t find Alabama on a map.”

  “Can you?”

  “Hmm. Right there between Mississippi and Georgia, right?”

  “With a tuck of Florida’s panhandle up against ours. You should go down there sometime, down on the Gulf Coast. Ever heard of Mobile?”

  “Is that where it is? Sorry, I don’t know the actual geography of Alabama well.”

  “Why the hell would you? I knew jack about Oregon before I got here.”

  Christina batted her pretty eyelashes like she had expected such a response. “It sure is nice having you here. You’re really nice. Hopefully you’re not hiding some terrible secret you’re about to smack us all with.”

  “Now, why would I do that? I’m a pretty open book.
Girl from rural Alabama. Too gay for her own good. I hear that’s not an unusual story around here. Maybe the Alabama part. I also hear a lot of you were born and bred here.”

  “Not all of us. I’m originally from California. Although I moved here when I was a kid. Practically grew up here, I guess.”

  “Not a bad town, huh?”

  Christina blushed. “Guess not.”

  This was Carrie’s chance. She figured she had about two minutes before someone came barreling through the kitchen, either to hurl themselves out the back door to shoot more rounds or to upchuck in the sink. She didn’t hold much hope that people cared about the trash she propped up against the cabinets. Someone will probably trip over it and strew cans all over the floor. Again.

  “You seeing anyone, Christina?”

  It took the mayor’s daughter longer than it usually might for her to catch Carrie’s speed. Once she did, though, her smile fell lopsided on her face and she scoffed in mild disbelief. “I got some options, you know?” She turned her head away. “Male options.”

  Ouch. Could’ve gone worse, though. After clearing her throat and stepping away, Carrie said, “I see. I’m sorry. Can you blame a girl for trying, though?”

  “I mean, if I were into girls, you’d probably be my type.” Christina hopped off the counter. “But I’m not. I prefer boys. Sorry.”

  “Hey, as long as we’re cool.”

  “Sure. We’re cool.”

  Christina took a small stumble toward the kitchen door. “Need some help?” Carrie asked.

  “Maybe… maybe a little. Could use an escort to the couch. Keep Aiden’s paws off me, would you?”

  “No problem. I’ll make sure all paws are off you.”

  Carrie took her by the arm and led her through the cheering drunks and mellow potheads. The porn had shut off in favor of a multiplayer video game that had three boys and one girl screaming obscenities at each other while others hung out on their phones or made out in the corner. Carrie found an empty spot on the couch and helped Christina sit down. She then asked if she should go grab some water for the inebriated girl sighing into the back of the couch.