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  Grade A Stupid

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  Grade A Stupid

  Book One of

  The Darcy Walker Series

  Copyright © 2012 by A. J. LAPE

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above author of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter One – BAD BOYS

  Chapter Two – ICYDK

  Chapter Three – THRILL SEEKERS

  Chapter Four – MURPHY’S LAW

  Chapter Five – MOB TIES

  Chapter Six – DEEP SEA FISHING

  Chapter Seven – THE 11th COMMANDMENT

  Chapter Eight – A FLY IN THE OINTMENT

  Chapter Nine – WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

  Chapter Ten – HUMBLE PIE

  Chapter Eleven – PINKY SWEAR

  Chapter Twelve – BARE NECESSITIES

  Chapter Thirteen – CARPE DIEM

  Chapter Fourteen – THE NAKED TRUTH

  Chapter Fifteen – POWWOWS

  Chapter Sixteen – TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT

  Chapter Seventeen – WINNERS AND LOSERS

  Chapter Eighteen – UNEXPECTED WINDFALL

  Chapter Nineteen – DELUSION 101

  Chapter Twenty – NEWTON’S LAWS OF MOTION

  Chapter Twenty-One – SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION

  Chapter Twenty-Two – WALKIE-TALKIE

  Chapter Twenty-Three – INSURANCE POLICIES

  Chapter Twenty-Four – BADGIRL

  Chapter Twenty-Five – PLAYING WITH FIRE

  Chapter Twenty-Six – SPRING FLING

  Chapter Twenty-Seven – OF MICE & MEN

  Chapter Twenty-Eight – PAYING THE PIPER

  Chapter Twenty-Nine – GAME CHANGER

  Chapter Thirty – SORE LOSER

  Chapter Thirty-One – MANHUNT

  Epilogue

  Note from the Author

  The Ballad of Alfonso Juarez

  Darcyspeak

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to anyone that was born with one arm behind their back or who tried to stick their square-peg mind through society’s round hole. Don’t ever quit…keep your head up, and don’t let anyone ever tell you that you can’t accomplish something.

  Philippians 4:13

  1 BAD-BOYS

  THERE WAS ALWAYS a boy in your life that common sense and the prayers of parents told you to stay away from: fast talker, fast car, and fast hands. He was the boy your father kept a loaded shotgun by the door for and met on the front porch if he ever thought about venturing onto his property…let alone the threshold. He was the tall, dark, mysteriously handsome, and uncharacteristically quiet one that made you wonder what was going on in his head, and that little voice in your head said it wasn’t always so honorable. He was the boy you broke all of the rules over because bad-boys equaled excitement and the rebel in you liked the ride.

  My name’s Darcy Walker, and I had a bad-boy like that in my life that I was absolutely head-over-heels crushing on.

  I was sitting in the cafeteria watching Liam Woods, a senior—the baddest boy in school—chat up Ivy Morrison who was acting as if she’d eat him alive if cannibalism was legal. If truth be known, Liam wasn’t only a bad-boy, he’s a fastard. That’s a whole other level of bad the universe said was okay to dump on women. A fastard, in Darcyspeak, were boys that moved fast—they met you one time, told you they loved you, then set up your next date only for you to find out the fastard had a steady on the sly.

  Right now, it looked like the school’s Barbie Doll wannabe, Ivy Morrison, was dying to be added to the list of victims. They were sitting at a table directly across from me, about eight feet away; him finishing off a slice of pizza, her picking at a green salad that was probably only twenty calories.

  I bit into a mini corndog then guzzled another drink of chocolate milk as my girlfriend, Justice Becker, flipped over the pages of her People magazine. She rolled her brown eyes as she took a swig of bottled water.

  “This is stupid,” she grumbled, her curly auburn ponytail bobbing up and down in frustration. “He’s never going to go for us. First off, he’s Liam-freaking-Woods. It’s not a good sign when you have a middle name of freaking. It’s just not. Secondly, we’re both poor and dressed in sweats, and thirdly, we’re sophomores…the invisible fifteen. That’s like the first level of Hell if I remember Literature class correctly.”

  My God, she had a point. At least as a freshman you could be “one of the hot, new female recruits.” As a sophomore, you were just sucking up air.

  “I mean, what do we really know about him anyway?” she went on. “My guess is he’s one of those pretty boy serial killers that plays with baby dolls when he’s home.”

  Everything I knew about Liam Woods was from hearsay and observation only. We’d never even halfway spoken. Just looking at him, however, my underarms needed a reapplication of deodorant.

  Let’s be real, I wouldn’t know what to do if he noticed me anyway.

  My knowledge of the xy-chromosome was reduced to adolescent peach fuzz, pimples, and men’s deodorant. Other than a G-rated film in Health class, I possessed almost zero knowledge on how body parts worked period. Birds and the bees? Waiting on the talk. Kissed a boy? Practicing in the mirror. I practically grew up Amish without the dress and white cap.

  And like Justice said, we were in white sweats pushed to our knees that had the initials VHS block-lettered in black down the left leg. That wasn’t a fashion-must. It was an I-don’t-know-what-to-do. Liam aesthetically didn’t fit with either of us. Why? He wasn’t just bad; he was beguilingly HOT.

  A part-time model, Liam had many looks. Today, he was the preppy type, dressed in khaki shorts, a long-sleeved blue and white rugby, and Sperrys. Insanely tall at 6’4”, he came complete with abs of steel and a pair of broad shoulders born from breaststroking with the swim team. Like me, Liam had a dimpled chin; unlike me, his face was breathtaking. It was perfectly symmetrical with brown hair and eyes like rich, melted chocolate…the kind you wanted to suck through a straw.

  Justice turned the page so hard she ripped the corner. “Well then, there’s the, uh, other issue,” she snorted. “You might have a chance, but I don’t.” Justice was biracial, and I think that made her feel like she didn’t fit in anywhere...I hated that. I mean, my father was from Kentucky. There’s a good possibility, centuries back, our bloodline might’ve been a little more pure than you’d care to admit.

  “Did you hear about his ex?” she asked.

  If voices were lyrical, Justice was a bass. Sometimes it shocked me when she spoke, still I barely heard her. I couldn’t take my eyes off his knockout teeth. All 32 were blindingly straight and white. He threw his head back and roared out laughter. Ivy said something he obviously felt funny. I found that odd. Ivy had the brains of a toad.

  “Nuh-uh,” I replied.

  “Went off the deep end,” she whistled, blowing a bubble. “She couldn’t take his cheating ways.”

  Li
am definitely had the kind of charm that would drive you out of your mind. Trouble was, my mind was unstable enough all on its own.

  While Justice turned to the Style section, telling me how grossly out-of-step we were fashion wise, I eyeballed Liam eating a grapple. I choked on my chocolate milk, watching three droplets of liquid land on the front of my white, v-neck t-shirt. A grapple was an apple that had an affair with a grape (you know, a hybrid some scientist thought was a good idea). My father called grapples “sin food”—two fruits that came together immorally when God didn’t intend them to. I had a feeling he’d feel the same way about Liam.

  Even thinking of Liam was a moot point at this time in my life. I was fifteen and fated to be terminally single or destined to a life of wallflowerdom. My father’s edict, not mine. Whatever, I shrugged to myself. It wasn’t like anyone was beating a path to my door.

  I live in Cincinnati, Ohio. Cincinnati’s surrounded by suburbs that make up what is called the Greater Cincinnati area. My particular suburb is called Valley, about twenty-five minutes north of downtown. My school is predictably called Valley High. Valley High is the biggest school in the city with the biggest wallets, biggest athletes, biggest brains, and biggest traditions. Valley kids are supposed to be the example of the Ohio Valley, the standard we all shoot for. It’s safe to say I wasn't going to be the poster child for the school anytime soon. Case in point? I was a wallflower. I might as well be invisible.

  Lunchtime was pandemonium at its best. We had 30 minutes to file through the line, pick out your food, pay for it, find a seat then choke it down. Heartburn heaven. Justice and I weren’t at our normal table with the rest of our friends. We got bogged down at our lockers and grabbed two seats next to some folks who’d obviously just exited Gym. All I could smell was body odor and a salty sweat. It wasn’t exactly setting well with my corn dogs that were cooked about twenty minutes too long. Fishing the red worm out of my dirt pudding, I tilted my head back and licked the Oreo chunks, bit off its head, chewed twice then swallowed the body whole. As I wiped my mouth on my wrist, I took a deep breath then watched Ivy flip her hair as Liam reached out to tuck it behind her ear. I sighed...it wasn’t from jealousy. It’s because of who Ivy was.

  Ivy Morrison was preppy and blonde, weighing about 115 pounds with a tiny button nose and rose-red lips. Ivy always dressed in white. Today was white short-shorts and a short-sleeved white designer sweater that could legitimately fit my six-year-old little sister. Everything she had was a little too kitschy for my taste, but hey, Barbie liked what Barbie liked.

  For all intents and purposes she was my arch nemesis, the antagonist in my own personal novel. She gossiped about me, bullied me, stole my lunch money, and peeked under bathroom stalls while I peed. My guess was it revolved around my best friend she couldn’t have. You see, even though I had the best girlfriends in the world, my absolute best friend ever was a guy—yay, go me—and Ivy had him on her radar before any of us even hit puberty. Her frustration, with his lack of interest, bled over onto me.

  Even if she hadn’t made it her mission to make my life a living hell, we were polar opposites. She was annoyingly egotistical and an unapologetic exhibitionist; I am embarrassingly self-conscious and socially insecure. Part of the problem was that the right things never embarrassed me. If there was a dirty joke, I laughed louder than anyone. If you were supposed to cross your legs like a lady, the message never made it to my brain. Ivy, however, knew how to be demure yet available at the same time. Right now, I was watching her bat her eyelashes at Liam. If I ever attempted the feat, I’d break my eyeball.

  Corralling my thoughts, I gave the room a once-over. Lunch gossip was that “something big” was going down today. I’d had one eye on the crowd since I sat down and saw nothing but people gagging over their food.

  By the time I made the circuit back to Liam, I swear, he looked me right in the eyes and mouthed, “You’re beautiful.”

  I blinked. Then I blinked again. Then I performed a third blink just for good measure. Jeez, was that to me? I looked over both shoulders, to the tile floor; heck, I even looked at the ceiling wondering if an angel was hovering overhead. When my jaw dropped wide, and I dumbly mouthed back, “Me?” he then winked, “Yes.”

  Cue the goofy grin. No wonder his girlfriend fell off the deep end. He was flirting with Ivy and me at the same time.

  I was an okay girl, but no way in the world was I like Ivy. I had almost green eyes and weighed a buck thirty, fully clothed with heavy sneakers. No girl wanted to weigh a 130 pounds in a world of zeros, but not everyone came hardwired with Barbie in their genes. Barbies were cute, tiny, built for bikinis, and my guess were the perfect, average guy-friendly height for a female. I’m 5’9” tall with a 36-inch inseam. That didn’t spell swimsuit model. It screamed giraffe.

  On my head was a potpourri of straw that included every shade of blonde, the majority being the dishwater kind. It fell mid-back with a bad case of bangs I was growing out from a botched job of my father’s. Evidently, I had a cowlick because currently they stood at a forty-five degree angle. I had a feeling my looks were the type that were an acquired taste. My muscles were sort of defined; my hips were relatively slim with some curves in all the appropriate places. But the operative word there was “some.” Long legs, some hips, very little chest and a whole lot of hoping it came together in the end. And to every teenaged girl’s chagrin, I was still waiting to fill out my bra and for my teeth to finally make it to that porcelain Mecca. I’d had braces for three and a half years, and it still looked like a wrecking ball had gone to town in my mouth, and they were to come off Friday. My orthodontist ecstatically said, “It’s time.” Well, eight grand and two surgeries later, in my opinion, they were now only semi-smile’able.

  Even though I knew Liam was a fastard, his gaze was like an anchor drawing me under. I must’ve said something. Shoot, I might’ve moaned because Justice kicked me under the table with a chuckle. “Well, well, well,” she laughed, her eyes darting back and forth between Liam and me. “That was one heck of a shiver-inducing stare.”

  No kidding, my nerve endings were twisting. By that time, Ivy realized he wasn’t giving her his full attention. She swiveled her head around so fast it was a wonder it didn’t pop right off. When she figured out the distraction was me, she looked at me the way vultures look at rotting corpses. I gave her a smile (kinda). But that wasn’t good enough for Ivy. Next thing you knew, she blurted out, “Her? You’ve got to be kidding.” Then she added an eye roll, like the thought of me with anyone was so insanely astonishing she couldn’t contain her disbelief.

  I swallowed, temporarily mute. I had a beef to take up with the universe if and when I ever made it to the Principal’s Office in the Sky. It was my opinion people should be as revolting on the outside as they were on the inside. In simple terms, Ivy should be dog-butt ugly. I tried to imagine myself in a land far, far away, but I couldn’t escape the heat of Liam’s gaze. He honestly was taken aback by her rudeness. He slowly opened his mouth, his brown eyes soft and compassionate, but then I felt a shift in the air. All at once, Liam looked like he’d stepped on a roadside bomb, and no one had to tell me who’d buried it.

  Justice looked up, grinning. “Hey, big guy,” she practically purred. Closing her magazine, she started to fidget. Like she wished she could change out of her sweats into something more boyfriend-shopping appropriate. She gave her ponytail a quick smooth-down, kneeing me in the thigh, her brown eyes dancing.

  “Hello, Justice,” I heard. Then I got a velvety-smooth, “Hey, sweetheart.”

  Ah, I was right. It was my best friend. From as far back as I could remember, Dylan had a warm, rich baritone voice that could catch you off guard if your ears weren’t standing up straight, giving the okay signal to go. But honestly, I didn’t know if he ever entered the puberty period. Dylan Taylor never had that high-pitched, prepubescent tenor or bungling, gangly stage my middle school pictures immortalized. My body documented the evolutionary journey of
a girl into teenaged adulthood. My arms literally grazed my knees one entire year until my legs decided to catch up. Unfortunately, the legs kept growing.

  Ivy’s disdain for me magnified tenfold once Dylan showed up on the scene. Her eyes narrowed into reptile-like slits, then out of the blue, she painted on this smile like she’d just won the lottery or someone told her nudity was okay with the dress code.

  “Hi Dylan,” she blurted out, halfway out of her seat. Ivy spoke in a high-pitched, whiny squeak that was nothing less than sucking on helium.

  Dylan returned a “Hey.” Justice kneed me again. “Not turning around?” he chuckled.

  “Nope,” I practically whispered. Dylan’s eyes were amber, like rich, melted butter that had an affair with toffee. The last thing I needed was to fall into them. He placed his head between Justice and me, resting his hands on my shoulders. Whenever we’d been apart for a while, it’s like some cosmic force took over that neither of us could control...we had to touch.

  I found myself briefly squeezing his large hands.

  “Ah, sweetheart, I’m going to miss you, too.” It was Monday. Next week was Spring Break, but Dylan and his family were leaving a week early to vacation in Maui with the rest of the rich and famous. He came in for half a day to complete two tests I’m sure he just aced. Now, he was off to swim, surf, wade through black sand, and freaking whale watch. I’d love to freaking whale watch. What was I going to do for Spring Break? More of the same: dream I was somewhere else.

  After some small talk with Justice, Dylan started rubbing my back like he was trying to put out a fire. He sometimes did that when something was worrying him. Like he was trying to comfort himself from my mere presence. If truth be known, there was good reason to be nervous. Things always seemed to happen when we were apart. Bad things. And my guess was he hadn’t forgotten them any more than I had.

  As I popped some soggy Potato Starz into my mouth, right then Liam and I rubbed eyeballs again as he continued his conversation with Ivy. She was back to motor-mouthing, but Liam seemed distracted. He cocked his head to one side, sort of frowning, like he was debating the particulars of Dylan’s and my relationship.