BREE WAS ALL SMILES AS SHE SAUNTERED BACK TO THE theater. Olivia and Kitty might have been out, but at least Margot was willing to fight. It felt so much better to have a plan than to lay low and hope that their anonymous friend would stop killing people and leave them alone. Nope, Bree was taking matters into her own hands. For the first time in days, she was in control. She felt so giddy she practically skipped as she rounded the corner into the back entrance of the theater.
Where she ran smack into John.
“Hey!” she gasped, the wind momentarily knocked out of her.
“Hey.”
He was in costume, or at least Bree hoped so. He wore a black biker’s vest, completely open with nothing underneath, and low-slung black jeans barely held in place by an enormous silver belt buckle. A leather headband crowned his black hair, making him look like a cross between Tonto and Jimi Hendrix, and his wrists were bound with matching leather cufflets.
“How are you?” Bree said. She tried to keep her eyes on his face, but they kept drifting south. Despite two years of friendship, she’d never seen John with his shirt off. Though skinny, he was more muscular than Bree would have guessed based on his almost total lack of physical exertion, and there was a trail of dark brown hair below his belly button that disappeared into the hip-slung pants, igniting an absolutely inappropriate feeling deep within her.
“I’m good,” he said. “And you?”
Bree forced herself to focus. John was a suspect. She had to remember. “Good.”
John turned to leave. “Yeah, well, I’ve got to get back to the dressing room.”
“John, I think we need to talk.”
He paused, but didn’t face her. “About what?”
About what? That was such a loaded question. Bree had about a million things she wanted to talk to him about, but all she could manage was—
“Stuff.”
Stuff? Really? Bree’s face burned.
“Stuff? Really?” John asked.
Damn, was he inside her head?
Bree opened her mouth to clarify her brilliant statement, but no words came out. She was desperately trying to keep her eyes above John’s equator, failing miserably, and her brain was getting all jumbled in the process.
What is wrong with you?
“Look,” John said with a heavy sigh. “What do you want, Bree, huh? Do you want things to be like they were between us? Because that isn’t going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because things have changed. Can’t you see that?”
“What’s changed? You’re still my best friend in the whole world. Hell, you’re my only friend.” It felt so pathetic when she said it out loud like that.
“I’m not your only friend,” John said quietly. Something about the icy calmness in his voice caught her off guard.
“What do you mean?”
Instead of answering, John shook his head. “You accuse me of keeping secrets from you, Bree. But are you any better? Haven’t you been doing the exact same thing?”
Bree swallowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said automatically. She’d lied about DGM for so long it was second nature.
John turned away. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Bree clutched his hand. She felt like she was losing him forever, and the panic almost blinded her. “I’ll be a better friend, John. I promise.”
“I don’t want a better friend.”
“Huh?”
John set his jaw. “And I can’t be your consolation prize.”
What a mess. Something had changed, shifted in her brain and her heart. But how could she even explain that to John if she wasn’t sure what it was?
“I care about you,” she said.
Dear God, that sounded lame.
John looked at his hand still clasped in her own; then his eyes traveled up her arm to her face. She gazed into his eyes, framed by that ridiculous seventies headband. He wasn’t her geeky best friend anymore. He was something more. Something she’d been yearning for without even knowing it.
“You care,” John said softly. “But not enough.”
“That’s not true!” Bree blurted out. “I—”
“John!” Amber came tearing up the aisle into the lobby. Like John, she was in costume. Also a seventies monstrosity, but significantly more on the streetwalker side. She wore high-waisted short shorts with a white patent leather belt and a pink, midriff-exposing halter top that tied together between her boobs. Her sky-high crushed-velvet platform sandals made her lean legs look about ten miles long.
“John,” she repeated, grabbing him possessively by the arm without even a glance in Bree’s direction. “I’ve been looking for you.”
John didn’t shake her off. “What’s up?”
“Mr. Cunningham wants to sign off on your costume.” She leaned back and scanned him from tip to toe. “If you want my opinion,” she added, “meow.”
“Ew.” Bree couldn’t help herself. The idea of Amber looking at John with anything even resembling a sexual interest made Bree want to throw up.
Amber casually looked Bree up and down, assessing her outfit. “Wow,” she said with a laugh. “Thrift-store dress and jeans? Couldn’t make up your mind this morning?”
Bree curled her lip. “It’s so I can be stylish and comfortable when I kick your ass.”
“Stylish?” Amber said, her hand languidly stroking John’s arm. “Try again.”
Instead of coming to her defense, John turned toward the theater. “I’ll talk to you later, Bree,” he said. Then he marched back down the aisle with Amber hanging off him like tinsel on a Christmas tree.
Bree watched them go, John’s words from Sunday night ringing in her ears. After tonight, nothing will be the same.
He’d been right on more levels than perhaps he’d known at the time. She realized with a stabbing pain somewhere between her heart and her spleen that if Amber was all over the new rock-star version of John, then half the girls in school would be too. He was no longer Baggott the Faggot, but one of the cool kids. Like Shane. And it was only a matter of time before he forgot about Bree entirely.
Bree bit her bottom lip to keep it from quivering. Just when she realized that John was more than a friend, she’d lost him forever, and she’d have to stand idly by at school while he dated someone else—Cordy or God forbid Amber—and pretend like it wasn’t ripping her heart to pieces.
Worst of all, it was entirely her fault. She’d spent so much time denying that there was anything between them, ignoring the very real connection she felt with John because she’d labeled him as a friend. She’d hurt him in the process, and now he could never forgive her.
Bree swallowed and took a deep breath, forcing the self-pity back to the depths of her mind. There was one thing she could do, one way she could still protect John, even if he was lost to her forever.
Find the killer before he struck again.
