Defending Taylor (Hundred Oaks #7) Read Free Page A

actually go to class?” I tease. My brother would never skip. He’s dedicated to his schoolwork, just like me.
    “How’d school go yesterday?” he asks.
    “Honestly? I can’t even remember it. I went to class, but I don’t know what I heard.”
    I fill my brother in on my talk with Dad and how he won’t give me a reference for Yale. This doesn’t surprise Oliver. He doesn’t bother trying to make me feel better, saying “Dad’ll come around,” because he won’t. Once Dad makes a decision, there’s no changing it.
    “I need to beef up my résumé,” I say. My freshman through junior years are covered, but I need activities for my senior year—and fast. I have an interview with the Yale admissions office scheduled for early October. Without a reference, all I have to stand on is my résumé. Jenna told me that a world-famous youth cellist attends Yale. Another guy who was nominated for a best supporting Oscar at age twelve for his role in an artsy film about apartheid in South Africa is in Jenna’s philosophy class. I don’t feel special at all.
    “What’s happening with soccer?” Oliver asks. “Any chance you can get on the Hundred Oaks team?”
    “I’m gonna talk to the coach today. See if there’s room for me.”
    “Of course there’s room for you,” my brother says with a laugh. “Doesn’t Hundred Oaks suck?”
    “Yeah,” I say quietly. St. Andrew’s has played Hundred Oaks in the past, and we slaughtered them every time. Last year, I scored four goals against them in one game. And now I have to go see the coach and grovel to play for them.
    “Did you meet anybody nice yesterday?” Oliver asks.
    I slump in my vanity chair. “I didn’t talk to anyone.”
    “Why not? That’s not like you.”
    “I wasn’t ready. I still can’t believe this is happening.”
    “I guess you haven’t seen Ben, huh? You miss him?”
    I pull the phone away from my ear, squeezing my eyes shut. “No. I broke up with him.”
    “What?” Oliver blurts. “How come?”
    If I admit the truth about what happened, Oliver will tell Mom and Dad, and then Ben will get kicked out of St. Andrew’s. If that happens, my sacrifice will be for nothing. Even though I’m pissed at Ben for hanging me out to dry, I won’t snitch.
    “It won’t work out with him at school and me here,” I lie.
    “Yeah,” Oliver replies. “Remember when Jenna screwed things up with Jack Goodwin because she couldn’t handle the long distance?”
    “I remember.”
    Mom loves that Jenna always acts like a perfect lady. She wears snowy-white pearls without complaint, and you’d never see her out of makeup. She goes to Bible study, for crying out loud. That’s not all there is to her. Imagine the smartest, most beautiful girl in the room who is kind of like a bad-girl version of Hermione Granger. When Mom and Dad aren’t around, she’s more crass than a sailor, which I’ve always found highly entertaining. But Jenna has always been sort of…horny.
    Mom doesn’t know Jenna cheated on her ex-boyfriend Jack—son of one of the richest men in Tennessee and one of Dad’s biggest campaign supporters—by sleeping with an exchange student from France. If Mom knew that, she’d have a heart attack. I don’t condone Jenna cheating on Jack, but I don’t care that she likes fooling around with guys. Girls are in charge of their own bodies, desires, and feelings.
    “But I thought you liked Ben,” Oliver says, bringing me back to our conversation.
    I didn’t just like him. I loved him. We lost our virginity to each other. Now I don’t think I knew what love is. Obviously Ben couldn’t love me, because when it came time to stand up and tell the truth, he didn’t. I took all the blame so he wouldn’t get kicked out of school. I assumed because of who my dad is, the administration would give me community service or make me clean the bathrooms or do dishes for a month. I never imagined that they would expel me.
    When I called Dad to beg