Perfect Ten Read online

  Viking

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2017

  Copyright © 2017 by L. Philips

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  Ebook ISBN: 9780425288139

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Philips, L.

  Title: Perfect ten / L. Philips.

  Description: New York : Viking, published by the Penguin Group, [2017] |

  Summary: Sam Raines performs a love spell with his Wiccan best friend

  after breaking up with the only other gay guy at school and finds himself pursued by three seemingly perfect suitors.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016030972 | ISBN 9780425288115 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | Gays—Fiction. | Wiccans—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.P517 Pe 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016030972

  Book design by Nancy Brennan

  Version_1

  Brent—this book is for you.

  It’s always been for you.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Acknowledgments

  One

  “. . . and so I’m thinking maybe before the holidays, when his parents are picking up his sister from college. We’re thinking of doing it up right, you know? Hotel room, hot tub, champagne . . . I know it’s clichéd, but it’s also kind of romantic, right?”

  We’re walking home from our school, Athens High, and Meg is rambling, as Meg often does. And as I often do, I’m zoning out completely. Until she says that.

  “Wait. What?”

  She stops walking and stares at me, so I stop walking and stare back.

  “Sam, did you hear anything I said?” Her hands go on her hips like my mother when she’s frustrated with me, but with Meg, it’s nowhere near as effective. “Great Goddess. I wish you gave me half the attention you give to your imaginary friends.”

  I manage to stop myself just short of rolling my eyes. “They’re characters. Not imaginary friends, and come on, Meg. I’m sorry. What were you saying? You and Michael?”

  “Yeah. Sex. While his parents are away. Clichéd first time but hopefully with good room service. What do you think?”

  “What do I think? Oh, that is a whole can of worms, Meghan Grace.”

  “Enlighten me.” Meg fishes a pack of Marlboros out of an inside pocket of her black skull-and-crossbones hoodie, the one she never goes without. It’s got these little devil horns sewn onto the hood so that when she puts it up she looks positively demonic. Or at least she thinks she does. But her wholesome face and stick-straight strawberry-blonde hair kind of lessen the effect. She slides a single cigarette out of the pack and lights it, and I can’t help but notice that the Zippo she’s using has the Sacred Heart of Jesus on it. It looks like something an old sailor would have tattooed on his sagging bicep, and don’t even get me started on the irony of Meg using such a thing.

  “You know I’m not exactly Michael’s number one fan,” I say.

  She inhales deeply and blows the smoke in my face. “Because you won’t give him a chance.”

  “Because apparently you’re smoking for him now, for one.”

  I pluck the cigarette out of her fingers and throw it to the ground, crushing it with my Adidas. We both cough.

  “No, I’m not,” she sputters.

  I narrow my eyes at her.

  “Okay, not for him. He just looks so cool doing it sometimes. You know? Like some old-time movie star, leaning up against a wall, brooding and sophisticated . . .”

  I sigh loudly and start walking again. “Yeah, a brooding and sophisticated candidate for lung cancer. And it’s such a bad idea.”

  “Fine.” Meg takes the pack of Marlboros out again and hands them to me, as if she doesn’t trust herself to dispose of them. “I just wanted to try them once.”

  “I meant about the hotel room,” I say, and pocket the pack. I’ll ditch them in the first trash can I see.

  “Why?” Meg loops her arm through mine and guides me in the direction of Saint Catherine’s Cemetery, which is one of six in Athens that, legend has it, make a pentagram if you connect them on a map, with Saint Cat’s in the center. Meg loves that, as she loves all things spooky, and all things witchy. Our freshman year, after a particularly heinous fight in which her über-Catholic parents threatened to (a) send her to a convent, and (b) perform an exorcism, Meg ditched Catholicism for good and took up Wicca. It was kind of a genius power play on her part, because as adamant as they are that she be a virtuous Catholic, they’re even more scared that they’ll cause her to sink deeper into the dark side. She’s got them in that perfect rock–slash–hard place position where they’re too panicked to punish her much. So as long as she keeps it quiet and doesn’t break curfew, they get by with vague disapproval and guilt trips.

  Anyway, the cemetery is also the shortest way to get to our houses from school, as it’s right in the middle of our neighborhood. I don’t know why, but some construction company in the seventies thought it would be a good idea to build a subdivision around a cemetery. I bet a lot of weird stuff seemed like a good idea in the seventies, but I digress.

  “Come on, Sam,” Meg prods. “What’s so bad about Michael?”

  “You mean besides the smoking and the horrible cliché of losing your virginity in a hotel?”

  “I’ve already owned up to the cliché, Samson . . .”

  “You just caught him texting another girl a few weeks ago.”

  She pouts prettily. “He explained that. It was nothing.”

  “And the time before?” She opens her mouth to protest, but I go on before she can. “I’m just saying, why would you want to with him?”

  She unlinks her arm from mine and gives me a shove that has a little more force than I expect. “I don’t know. Why did you want to with Landon?”

  At the mention of my ex-boyfriend–slash–other best friend, I feel myself tense. “I was in love with Landon.”

  “And I love Michael.”

  “But Landon and I were different.”

  She crosses her arms over her chest and kicks hard at an innocent pebble in her path. “Oh yes, and you and Landon were the exception to every rule. Michael and I couldn’t possibly be that perfect. No one can live up to the Sam and Landon standard of epic and tragic romance.”

  “That’
s not what I’m saying. And we weren’t that tragic.”

  “Darling, you two were practically Brontë characters. You broke his heart and now here you are, two years later, and you haven’t even had a crush on someone since, have you, Sam?” I don’t answer, and there’s a tense pause between us before she adds, “Exactly two years, actually.”

  “You know, I could have gone through the whole day without thinking of it, but thanks for that reminder,” I say acidly.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, and I know she means it. “He brought it up to me at lunch. He’s the one who remembered. Not me.”

  I don’t know how any of us could have forgotten it, least of all me. October tenth, two years ago, I ended my relationship with Landon. He didn’t speak to me for almost six months. Meg didn’t speak to me for three days, the longest we’d gone without talking since I accidentally decapitated one of her Barbies when we were seven. Hell, I wouldn’t have spoken to myself if I could have gotten away with it. I absolutely loathed Samson Raines for a long time afterward. But now Landon is my friend again. We worked everything out. He and I are fine. All three of us are fine.

  Fine, fine, fine.

  “I wish he didn’t remember,” I say, and Meg shifts our arms so she can squeeze my hand. I sigh. “Bygones. Anyway, we were talking about you and Michael, and not my love life, which is totally unfair to bring up by the way, because I don’t exactly have any options, do I?”

  “There’s always Archie,” she says, smirking. Archie Meyers is the only other gay boy besides Landon and me at Athens High, but he’s not even a blip on my radar. It’s not that I’m shallow, but there is absolutely nothing attractive about Archie. Between the buck teeth, the acne, and the IQ that must top out in the double digits, I would have to be drunk out of my mind to even consider it. Even then it would be a stretch.

  But then her smirk droops thoughtfully. “No. Wait. I heard the other day that Archie’s dating some guy he met at a Dungeons and Dragons meeting over the summer . . .”

  I turn my head slowly to Meg. “Seriously? Even Archie Meyers has a boyfriend?”

  Meg makes a clicking sound with her tongue. “There’s a whole big world of boys out there, Sam. Someone perfect for everyone, I think, even the D and D playing sort with buck teeth.”

  “Then I’m sure there’s someone out there for you who isn’t a total douche like Michael.”

  That sets Meg off on another tangent in defense of her boyfriend, effectively taking the attention off of me. I only half listen as I walk her to her large brick house on the corner, and nod automatically when she suggests I call after dinner to work on homework together. I pat her family’s statue of Saint Francis on his bald head as I walk away, but I don’t go home. Mom won’t expect me home for a while, and Dad is in New York, yet again. Instead, I walk past my house and back toward town, toward Landon’s.

  I was in seventh grade when my dad got published. He’d written for literary journals before, and had a few short stories in collections from small presses, but that was the year the big stuff started. Dad had always been sort of an artsy type of writer, not interested in a bestseller or in prose that didn’t border on the poetic, and Backyards of the City was no different in that regard. What was different was that it caught the attention of important people who deem certain books to be important and give those books important awards. He’s since published five books, all to the same critical acclaim, that bring in a steady enough income that he only teaches one class at the university now, and just because he wants to. We remain in the sleepy little cottage-esque house my parents moved into before I was born because, as my parents say, it has a well-used, vintage charm—a motif that runs through all of the Raines family purchases.

  Landon’s house, by contrast, is big, old, and grand. It looks like something that should be on the front of a Victorian Christmas card, replete with a horse-drawn sleigh and a man in a top hat. It’s solid brick that’s been painted white, and has six large columns in the front to hold up its massive front porch, black shutters that were meant to actually work at one point in time, and a red door for a bit of flair. Inside, valuable antiques mix well with his mother’s latest Pottery Barn finds. All of it is impeccably tasteful, impeccably tidy, and it’s always made me feel a little intimidated.

  Landon doesn’t ask questions when he opens the door, just starts up the ornate staircase to the second floor. His parents aren’t home. They never are. I know his father is a lawyer but I’ve never really figured out what his mother does, besides shop at Pottery Barn. She’s busy, that’s all I know. And whatever it is that she’s doing must be more important than spending time with her only child. Their “hands off” parenting thing seemed really cool for a while when we were dating, but now that my dad is away a lot, I know the truth of it: it really sucks.

  When we get to his room, I glance around, noting any subtle changes. There are a few new books on his shelves and his desk looks in slight disarray, like he’s actually using it for once, but for the most part his room is spotless as usual. He claims the housekeeper cleans it every day but I don’t know if I buy that because I’ve seen him straighten the books on his shelves one too many times. Regardless, his bedroom feels warm, comfortable. His bed is huge and fluffy, the sheer curtains over his windows let just enough sunlight in, and the desk, bookshelves, and overstuffed armchairs make it equal parts library and living space to me. In short, it’s heavenly, and I’m a little jealous of it.

  I take off my jacket and toss it on a chair before opening one of his windows. He digs through the bottom drawer of his dresser, finds the old pencil box where he stores his stash, and we both park ourselves on his bed while he rolls a joint. He lights it and offers me the first hit, and I take it with a smile.

  “You know, if we’re not careful, we might make this a habit,” I joke, because it already is a habit. My voice is tight with smoke.

  “We could have worse ones,” Landon says in wise response.

  I lie back, head resting on one of the ninety pillows on his bed. He joins me, and for a few minutes we pass the joint back and forth in silence, staring at the fancy swirls in his ceiling.

  Pot was something Landon discovered without me, and he introduced it to me last July. It’s not like I’m some sort of Goody Two-shoes or something, I’d just never had the opportunity to try it before. Since then it’s just sort of unspoken that we smoke together every once in a while, when we both sense that it’s needed, and it’s also unspoken that we never invite Meg. It’s not that she’d disapprove or even that she wouldn’t be fun to have along, but this is our thing, our time. Sam and Landon time.

  “So what’s up?” he asks, knowing something is.

  I groan. “Meg says she’s going to have sex with Michael.”

  “Ugh, why?” There are three things I can always count on Landon for: his support, his intuition, and his hatred of Michael Jenkins. Landon laughs, low and throaty. “Not if he were the last man on earth.”

  “Not even then,” I agree, then chuckle. “And speaking of the last man on earth, Archie has a boyfriend.”

  “Yeah, I know. Rumor has it, said boyfriend is actually attractive too.”

  And Landon would know. There’s nothing Landon doesn’t know about everyone at Athens High. Gossip is his superpower.

  “How is that possible?” I ask, and Landon shrugs.

  “Maybe Archie is like Clark Kent. When he takes off his glasses he’s suddenly way hot.”

  I shake my head. “Very doubtful. Even then . . . he’d still have to meet someone. Like, have the ability to come into contact with actual other boys who would be interested.”

  “Apparently Dungeons and Dragons is as good as Grindr. Who knew?”

  Chuckling, I take the joint from Landon’s hand. “Permission to be utterly shallow?”

  “Permission granted, soldier.”

  “I find it incredibly in
sulting that Archie Meyers has a possibly hot, steady boyfriend who shares his interests, and I, Sam Raines, who is not completely unfortunate looking—”

  “Of course not. I dated you, and I have incredibly high standards.”

  “—can’t find someone to even have a crush on, let alone an actual relationship. I mean, it’s been an embarrassingly long time since I’ve been kissed.”

  “Since me,” Landon says, and the absolute confidence in his statement makes me cringe and get a little angry too.

  “Well, yeah,” I say, and already hate how defensive I sound. “But it’s not like you’ve been making out with anybody. You’re in the same boat as me. The same small, drifting, utterly solitary boat.”

  Landon doesn’t say anything, but his skin goes so pink it’s near fuchsia. And Landon only blushes when he’s guilty about something. He doesn’t get embarrassed, or even ashamed, really. Just guilty.

  “Wait . . . you have kissed someone?” There’s a pause, then Landon sits up and looks at me, dark blond brows stitched together. He nods. Just barely. “You didn’t tell me.”

  “Should I have?” Landon asks, and I honestly don’t know how to answer. It’s not like I expected to be his only forever, and I’m not sure how I’d handle that conversation, really. But now I feel like he’s springing this on me, and knowing that he’s been with someone else makes me feel even more alone, if that’s possible. I take a deep hit to numb the feeling away.

  I shrug, and Landon continues to look at me with a scrutiny that nearly makes me angry. Then he shifts and drops his head onto my chest and wraps an arm around me, and there’s a rush of nostalgia and relief all at once.

  “Sometimes I’m not sure about our rules,” Landon mumbles against me. “We’re a bit complicated.”

  “Understatement of the decade.”

  He’s quiet. I hear him blow out smoke. I can almost hear the thoughts in his head. Then he mumbles, “I should have told you.”

  “Maybe,” I say, and because I’m being totally honest, I add, “I don’t know. But now I feel like even more of a loser for not having someone.”