Chapter #6Get Dana a boyfriend by: Seuzz   You have decided not to possess your old friends, so when Matt suggests changing the study spot from Dana's house to the municipal library, you're agreeable. He and Kevin aren't there when you and June and Melissa arrive. You've barely got your books out when Melissa nudges you. "Look who just came in."
It's Shawn Gregory and—this explains Melissa's interest—Adam Karter. They wander over to a nearby table, and have just got their backpacks settled when Karter looks up and sees the three of you. With a casual smile he saunters over. "You look like shipwreck survivors," he says with light insolence.
It's an ironic remark coming from a guy in pants raggedly cut off at the knees, a sleeveless T-shirt, and longish blonde hair that's been carelessly and unprofessionally chopped back. His disheveled dress, though, only augments his blue eyes, aquiline nose, and strongly cut cheekbones and chin. It's a face that cuts through a crowd, and that has been known to stare down, with amused malice, some of the toughest teachers and administrators at the school.
He glances down at your books and grins. "Oh, that explains it," he laughs. "Three more victims of Cuss-ya-out." Without waiting for an invitation he yanks overa spare chair over and sits down next to you. "I might feel sorry for you, but oh hell, I don't."
"You don't know what it's like," moans June. "So if you came over here to gloat—"
"I do know what it's like," he retorts. "I had her last year. Unlike some people, though—" He leans back and looks over at you. "Unlike some people, I learn the lessons of history, and know enough not to repeat it." He looks back at June and grins. "That's how come I'm gloating."
Shawn has come over by this point, but Adam ignores him, so the lanky ball player has to squeeze in between him and Melissa. You look from Adam to Shawn. "So what brings you here, you stud?"
"Same as you," he smiles. "Studying."
"Gregory just got through teaching me a lesson in how not to play basketball," Adam grimaces as he rubs his shoulder. "I'm repaying him with some tutoring of my own. Giving him the benefit of my vast knowledge of—" He suddenly grunts softly. "Of needlepoint," he adds lamely. You guess Shawn has quietly given him a hard kick.
"You guys played a good game on Friday," you say to Shawn while ignoring the interruption. "I don't guess you heard me cheering in the stands, but I was there."
"I thought I was getting a little special encouragement from some place," he replies. "So it was you, huh?"
You dimple. "I'd come and watch you guys at practice, but I figure you get enough encouragement from, you know ..." You're about to say "the cheerleader types," but you catch yourself before you can say something so ungracious.
If he's noticed the implication, he doesn't say anything. "I remember back in grade school you liked to watch me and Mike when we'd play," he says warmly. "It'd be kind of like old times if you did start coming."
"That's right, you and Dana knew each other back then," Melissa says. "It must be nice to have roots in a town, to know people from so far back. It's like you can really get to know each other."
"Well, we went to different middle schools," Shawn says. "Dana and I used to hang out a lot together as kids, but changing schools kind of left us drifting apart." He looks a little wistful. "And a lot of the kids we used to know wound up moving. You remember Sally Rodriguez?" he asks, turning back toward you.
"Silly Sally," you laugh. "We used to do jump-rope all the time together. She moved over to Evans Elementary in ... third grade, was it?"
"Was she was one of the kissing girls?" Adam asks. You look at him in blank surprise. "I was at Evans," he explains, "and I knew a Sally Rodriguez. She always used to chase boys and try to kiss them."
"I don't think she tried to do anything like that at our school," says Shawn.
"Maybe it was a different one," says Adam.
"Did she try to chase and kiss you?" June asks with a mischievous smile.
Adam bites his lip; light laughter ripples around the table. "Look, it wasn't nearly as much fun back then," he grins, and looks over sharply at you. "Now, of course ..." He darts in very quickly, but softly, and you've no time to react as he ducks his head and brushes the tip of his nose very lightly against the side of your neck. Then he pulls back and stares piercingly into your eyes; his lips part to reveal bared teeth, and he clicks them together meaningfully in a soft bite. Despite everything, you feel a rush of pleasure through Dana's body, even though you know it's just a typically Adam-esque flirtation—meaning that he means nothing by it except a little flattery. Even as a pleasant chill runs over your skin, he has turned his amused gaze back toward June.
Your eyes meet Shawn's, and he guffaws. "Do you need rescuing from this guy, Dana?" he asks. "I need help with calculus, and I bet you're better at math than anyone else at this table." He's hardly gotten the words out before he recognizes the unfortunate implication of what he's said. "I don't mean, you're good at math because you're ... you're ..." But now he's well and truly impaled on the implication that Dana's Asian ancestry fits her for math, and he blushes so deeply he almost turns purple.
"Speaking of people who never come to a practice or performance," Adam says to June before you can try to save Shawn, "how come I never see you or friends when my band and me are playing somewhere?" Adam's band isn't actually very good, though they can be fun to watch, and so the question puts June in something of a spot. She stutters and shrugs and finally says something lamely about not knowing when they're playing or where. "Fine, you can come watch us when we practice instead," he says.
"When's your next practice?"
"Oh, I don't know," he says carelessly, and looks around like he's suddenly bored. "Wednesday or something. I'll let you guys know if I remember."
Adam's interruption has—probably purposefully—gotten Shawn off the hook, and the talk continues lightly for a few more minutes before Matt and Kevin show up. There's soon a gentle hubbub of several different conversations. Adam eventually moves to the other side of the table, ostentatiously forcing Matt to move in turn, so he can talk more closely with June, and this puts you directly next to Shawn. Before the gossip breaks up for a serious study session, you are able to talk to him for quite a while.
He is one of the star basketball players; tall—Dana barely comes up to his bicep when standing next to him—but well-built, and he fills out his jeans and polo shirt nicely. He has close-cropped, reddish-gold hair and warm brown eyes over an easy smile. Like most of the athletes at school, he is popular and well-liked, and is known to be a very nice guy. Your jealousy of him notwithstanding, you recognize that he would be a good catch for your girl, and since you are your girl now, you find yourself partial toward trying to catch him. (It helps that he is currently available, as he has just broken up with his long-time girlfriend, Vicki Tannauwer.) In addition to Shawn, you could possess some of his other friends, and a few of their girlfriends, so that you would have an exploitable base inside the jock-cheerleader circle you could use to raise Dana into the A-list group at school.
But even as you talk warmly with Shawn your mind keeps flicking back over to Adam. He has more charisma than just about anybody else in school; and his popularity and confidence is such that he moves in no set social circle, but cheerfully offers his company and radiant self-assurance to anyone, from the jocks to the guys in the anime club. Before your recent accident you'd had a couple of opportunities to hang out with him alone, and if he hadn't seemed much interested in you and your anger over the bullying and jockeying and politicking that had afflicted your junior year, his serene indifference to those kinds of problems had nonetheless been somehow comforting; you'd walked away wrapped in a warm blanket of the same indifference, and holding the memory of the quick smile and wink he'd given as you'd parted. Adam had a gift for making the hardest tribulations seem trivial and therefore easy to bear. Despite the fact that think you've found a pleasant home inside Dana, you feel you could use a little more of that confidence.
In addition to that, there would be social advantages to capturing him and making him Dana's boyfriend. He is known to date a lot, and to date casually, but he is also known for not giving himself fully to any girl, or to take fully from them. This reluctance to commit is maddening—and, if truth be told, it is something that also arouses a lot of ire in some quarters of the school. It is, for starters, clearly a byproduct of his conceit—and Adam Karter is nothing if not conceited. He knows he's attractive, and knows he's more attractive for being unattainable. Instead, he dangles himself just out of reach of the girls' snapping jaws, driving them wild with the tantalizing expectation of finally catching him. Naturally, this arouses a lot of resentment, among the girls who compete viciously with each other and abase themselves in the vain hopes of winning his favor, and with the boys who find themselves ignored by all the girls who are holding themselves open for Adam. But this quality is also something that would make him a delightful catch for Dana. By possessing Adam, you would be able to secure her a prize that no one else has gotten. It would be a kind of crown.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
| Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author