Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC.

CHAPTER NINE
LURKING IN THE SHADOWS

Rumors spread quickly through Point Place High. During Jackie's morning classes, she'd learned about Maggie Nervetti's swimsuit incident, Ed Vollan's rash, and the divorce of Amy Bradford's parents. But The Dating Game debacle wasn't being whispered about. Jake Bradley and Mitch Miller had nothing to share except their own embarrassment, so they were staying quiet. They'd both been ejected from the game before its true purpose came out.

Steven wouldn't talk about it in public: her utter humiliation at his hands. She could count on his pity to keep his mouth shut, but Michael, Fez, and Eric were keeping Saturday night private, too. Each of them likely had their own reasons, and their silence gave her one less pressure to worry about.

She headed down to the cafeteria without bowing her head. Her first lunch as a junior, and her popularity remained intact. Her spot at the cheer squad's table was all but contractually guaranteed. No matter how many times she'd chosen to sit with Michael, her teammates always welcomed her back.

And with Donna at another school, she had nowhere else to sit.

The cafeteria was in the basement, but the main staircase ended on the first floor. Like everyone else, she had to cross the senior locker area to reach the basement stairs. Having lockers on the first floor was a senior-year perk. So was leaving school during lunch period.

Steven had to be outside by now. She'd gone downstairs late to avoid him, but she peeked out from the stairwell to be sure. Half the football team was cramming backpacks into lockers. Stragglers, but they weren't the only ones. Steven hadn't left yet either, and she cursed. The scruffy-haired jerk and Fez stood by what had to be Fez's locker. Fez was taping photographs to the inner part of the metal door.

"Would you hurry it up, man?" Steven said. "Wanna beat the riff-raff to The Hub."

"But we are the riff-raff," Fez said and positioned a photo next to the others.

Steven blew out a breath, and Jackie inhaled a shaky one. Michael would've abandoned Fez for The Hub. He probably had with Eric, but Steven leaned against a neighboring locker and drummed his fingers on it.

She needed to get to the cafeteria, but she didn't dare cross the locker area yet. It was too empty, despite the broad-backed football players lumbering around. She couldn't risk Steven seeing her.

Not that he'd notice how her dress matched the winter sky of his irises.

She clenched her fists, and her nails bit into her palms. He deserved none of her attention or scrutiny, but she hid herself deeper in the stairwell and spied on him with one eye. He shifted his gaze from one football player to another like a sentry. That had to be why he waited while Fez decorated his locker. He was protecting his friend, just like she'd let him protect her.

Yet he didn't pity Fez. He valued him, and a bubble of force expanded in her chest. She pressed her fist to her mouth to stop from screaming. He couldn't possibly feel more than pity for her. His Dating Game scheme had proven that.

"'Scuse me," Ron Turner said as he passed her by. He was part of the Vikings' defensive line, and his wide back cast a shadow over her. A spark broke through the darkness in her mind. He was exactly what she needed, and she used him as a shield as he went into the locker area.

He moved quickly for his size. She kept up with him until he turned sharply to the right, toward Fez's locker, and for one deadly second she became visible. She darted behind him again, but he spun on his foot and changed directions. His locker was on the opposite wall to Fez's, and his altered course had exposed her.

"Jackie?" The softness of Steven's voice tore through her. He stood up straight from the lockers, and she ordered her legs to move. But the terrazzo floor had captured her feet, trapping her with Steven and her uninvited emotions.

Fez opened his locker door wide. "You like it, Jackie? I put pictures of all of us inside."

She glanced at the photos. One was of Donna in her Catholic school uniform. Another was of Jackie in a bikini, a photo he must've stolen from Michael. But Steven drew her focus without saying a word.

Her gaze swept over his body, same as Andrew Schmidt's had done to her this morning. Steven's jeans were belted low on his hips, a rarity. Usually he wore his belt higher, but he'd lost weight over the summer. Maybe as much as fifteen pounds because he'd drunk less alcohol.

Because of her.

He'd quit sneaking beers into the basement on June 27. It was the second day of the second week she'd spent with him. She'd written the event in her diary. With Donna in California, Jackie's diary had gotten much more attention.

But after June 27, his weekend drinking continued as far as she could tell. On Mondays, he'd emerge from his room late in the morning. Usually disheveled. Sometimes reeking of alcohol—wine or schnapps or whatever else he'd gotten his hands on. Definitely a drink stronger than beer. She hadn't said anything about it, and the Formans never caught him. He'd disappear into the bathroom and reappear a half-hour later, resembling someone who'd spent the weekend at the library.

His routine changed, however, once he learned about her homelife. Confessing her mom's alcoholism seemed to make him stop drinking altogether. She wasn't brave enough to ask why. She still wasn't, but he wouldn't admit the truth to her anyway. That required respect, a currency she was incapable of earning from him.

"I've gotta go," she said, and her throat grew thick. The basement stairs were only a few feet away, but they might as well have been miles. The floor wouldn't release her.

Steven hooked his thumbs into his belt loops. "Or we could talk about Saturday night."

"There's nothing to—" Her voice hitched. He'd inadvertently pulled his jeans lower on his hips. His John Lee Hooker T-shirt showed off the slimness of his waist, and warmth flushed into her stomach and lower. It throbbed with her heartbeat, with fantasies she rarely let herself imagine.

She shut her eyes. Her damn body had betrayed her. It was the one trapping her, not the floor. Football players and other students walked around her to the cafeteria, and the flow of air prickled her skin. Steven—she physically hurt because of how much she wanted him.

The way he was dressed. His foxy swagger. The rugged beard he'd grown. She couldn't be the only one who'd noticed. Girls were going to hurl themselves at him. And he'd probably sleep with every one, promising them nothing.

"You're a liar," she said, opening her eyes. "You don't see me, Steven. You see what you believe I am, but you don't see me. And you lie … because you think I'm fragile. But I see who you really are, and I hate it!"

Her legs finally moved but with too much force. She stumbled into his personal space, and he caught her, one hand on her elbow, the other on her waist. His touch set off tiny explosions on her skin, and she peered up at his lips. Her body was pleading for relief. For one slow, long kiss to set her blood free, but it would poison her heart.

She shoved at his chest, but his hand remained on her waist. "You don't hate me," he said quietly. "You're pissed at me."

"I didn't say I hate you. I hate that I see your..." pity. She bit the inside of her cheek. Saying that word aloud would only make him deny it. "Oh, what does it matter? I don't matter to you, not really."

She punched his forearm weakly. He released her waist, but his thumb brushed the underside of her wrist. He'd done the same thing in the Formans' basement, over the chess board. Back then, it had inspired curiosity. Now it brought agony.

"Such liar." The words sounded bitter. Her mouth tasted the same, but she trudged across the locker area, giving him time to refute her statement.

He didn't. He let her go down to the cafeteria without any hope she could be wrong.

Getting to The Hub was usually an easy walk, but Hyde winced at every breeze that shook the trees. The leaves kept whispering the same, one-word reprimand at him: "Mistrust." Jackie had once called him a broken railway light, giving her conflicting signals, but his inability to trust her had cut the wires.

"I have not seen Jackie that angry in a long time," Fez said as they turned onto Birch Street. "Not since she caught Kelso cheating on her. I thought The Dating Game would be fun, but you really screwed the poop on this one."

"It's pooch, Fez."

"I'm not hearing a difference."

Fez was still learning American idioms, but Hyde had no mind to explain this one. He needed to sort out what had happened in the locker area. Jackie's rage at him was tangible, but it also gave him a strange vibe, like he wasn't the only liar between them.

Fez kicked an empty soda can in the middle of the sidewalk. It flew out into the street, and a car ran over it with a metallic crunch. "Ooh, that went far!"

"Good job, man."

"That didn't sound sincere." Fez's voice trembled. "Are you lying to me, too?"

Hyde exhaled through his nose, and the tree leaves imitated the sound. "No."

"I believe you, but I don't think Jackie will believe anything you say ever again."

Fez was probably right, but Hyde finally homed in on the vibe she'd given off: lust. The huskiness of her voice. Her focus on his mouth. The gooseflesh on her arms. The physical signs were obvious now that he'd identified them, but that road led to a dead end. She was an expert at convincing herself of feelings that didn't actually exist.

She'd thought she wanted him a year ago, had even sold him on it, but their kiss taught them both otherwise. And it had left him disoriented, with feelings he'd tried to convince himself didn't actually exist.

"Hyde, did you hear me?" Fez said and waved toward The Hub. It was less than a block away. "Don't let me get hot dogs. They remind me of Rhonda, and my heart—and throat—still hurts from our breakup."

"No hot dogs. Got it," Hyde said, but his lips were tingling. The sensation of Jackie's warm mouth pressing on them was a memory he despised. It rose in his mind at night when he jerked off, taunted him with desires he couldn't fulfill. Reminded him of how hard he'd fallen for her.

He'd had a chance with her this summer. Maybe dozens of them, and he'd let them all slip by. Saturday night he'd done worse. Tried to find her a good guy. But to her, he was just pawning her off like an old watch.

She had every right to think that. He kept weighing her present motives against what she'd done in the past. It was fucked up, but it was also for survival. The people he loved usually didn't love him back. They pretended to. Then they used him, beat him to hell, and left him for dead.

No one would ever do that to him again. Not Jackie. Not anyone. His brain was shooting off warning flares, and he couldn't ignore them. Even if it meant losing the girl he loved.

Jackie rushed to the cheer squad's table with her food tray. Valerie, Julie, and the rest of the cheerleaders were nearly done eating, but they never ate much anyway. They spent most of lunch period talking. Leslie Cannon was in the middle of recounting a melodramatic story about herself—something about a Trans Am, a college student, and her breasts—but Valerie silenced her with a look, the way only their cheer captain could.

"What took you so long?" Valerie said, turning her gaze onto Jackie.

Jackie gripped her tray with one hand and fluffed her hair with the other. "I've been ambushed by boys all day! It's been tough getting anywhere on time."

Valerie nodded her approval, and Julie slid closer to her, making room for Jackie to sit.

Jackie took her place next to Julie and twirled gluey Fettuccine Alfredo onto her fork. Not exactly appetizing, but her encounter with Steven had left her starving.

"Can I finish my story or what?" Leslie said. A rolled-up Tiger Beat magazine was in her hand, and she hit her opposite palm with it.

"He sucked on your nipples. You blew him, and he gave you the keys to his car," Julie said, as if she'd heard the story repeatedly. "Now, can we talk about what's been going on with the guys here?"

Leslie shrugged, but everyone else at the table murmured with enthusiasm, and Julie said a name that made Jackie cough: "Steven Hyde."

Jackie banged on her chest, and her bite of Fettuccine went into her stomach. "What about him?" she said roughly.

Julie touched Jackie's arm. "You should've been here earlier. Susan Amborn came by and dropped a juicy piece of gossip. Apparently, she saw quite a thing by the senior lockers."

"Did she?" Jackie clutched her knee below the table. She'd just won Idiot of the Year, eating like her reputation hadn't been tarnished. Susan must've been behind a row of lockers, listening for insider football info. She was the sports columnist for the Point Place High Chronicle, but instead of a Vikings scoop, she'd scored a cheer squad intrigue. One that could gain her social status and wreck Jackie's.

"Mm-hmm," Julie said. "She said Steven scared Ron Turner—the Ron Turner—with just a shake of his head. Ron was going after that weird foreign kid, Fex—"

"Fez," Jackie said.

"Yeah, him. Anyway, with one shake of his head, Steven made Turner back off. I caught a glimpse of Steven in the halls earlier, and he's barely recognizable. A few inches taller, way more muscular—those arms are deadly—and that beard!" Julie fanned herself, causing her blond hair to bounce. "I'm definitely getting in on that."

Valerie gave her an encouraging smile, and Leslie said, "What kind of car does he drive?"

"A '67 El Camino," Julie said. "I overheard him talking about it with Michael Kelso last year. They worked on the engine together. I bet he looks hot driving it, too." She fanned herself again. "Steven is so manly!"

Jackie squeezed the material of her dress. Julie wasn't supposed to say Steven's name with such familiarity or hunger. "But he's a low-class burnout," Jackie said. "I bet he has lice. Or crabs."

"Who cares? Last year, Kat Peterson let slip he gave good head." Julie groaned and slid her hands over the lunch table. "It's been so long since I've gotten good head. I bet his beard tickles—"

"Was Michael good at oral?" Valerie said but didn't wait for Jackie's answer. "He must've been. Otherwise, you wouldn't have kept dating him after all his cheating. But you broke up at the start of summer, right?"

Jackie let go of her dress before she ripped it apart. "Yes."

"That's, like, three months. A really long time." Valerie bit her bottom lip and curled a finger around a lock of her hair. "Would you mind terribly if I went out with him? We have English together, and he asked me out."

Jackie's stomach clenched, threatening to expel the little she'd eaten. Michael had claimed her as his girlfriend this morning, had professed his love and faithfulness, only to ask out Valerie a little while later? His choice of dates was suspect, but Jackie recalled the lessons Steven had taught her last year. She had to be aloof, ambiguous.

"That's cool."

"You're the best, Jackie," Valerie said and patted Jackie's hand. Apparently, ambiguity was lost on her. "It's no wonder girls throw themselves at him. He's a total fox, and you shouldn't blame yourself for his cheating." She patted Jackie's hand a second time. "He's surrounded by a lot of temptation, but by dating a woman of both strength and undeniable beauty, it'll be like he has a set of blinkers on."

Jackie stabbed her fork into a fettuccine noodle. Valerie had referenced the apparatus used to narrow a horse's field of vision and keep its focus straight ahead. She'd also triple-burned Jackie, but Jackie had to swallow her anger, or else Valerie would feed on it and become even stronger.

"Michael's nothing like a horse," Jackie said and ate the noodle off her fork. "But if you think you can break him, good luck to you."

Leslie pointed at Jackie with her rolled-up Tiger Beat. "What about your love life? Any flings during those business trips across the Midwest?"

Nope. No flings. Jackie had gradually fallen in love with another boy, one whose every kindness toward her had been an act of charity. One who'd warned her about this very moment with the cheer squad. Lying came naturally to her, but she didn't want to lie about this. Or to go out with a jock like Andrew Schmidt to generate reputation-boosting rumors. But she hadn't expected Valerie and Julie to go after her boys.

"Don't you bitches judge me for this," Jackie said, "but I'm seeing someone from Ft. Anderson."

Valerie slapped the lunch table, and several food trays jumped at the impact. "A Snapping Turtle?"

"They're our mortal enemies, Jackie," Julie said. "Our enemies!"

"Go, Vikings, Go!" Valerie shouted and thrust her fist into the air.

"Go, Vikings, Go!" the whole cheer squad repeated, and the cafeteria burst into the same cheer.

Jackie cupped her forehead. She hadn't meant to start a pep rally. "He's not a jock," she said when the cheer died down. "Okay? He's a brain. He's in the chess club, for God's sake."

"The chess club?" Leslie screwed up her face. "What's he look like?"

Jackie gestured for her magazine. Leslie passed it over, and Jackie unrolled it. Leif Garrett was on the cover, with his shoulder-length hair and thick, tempting lips. She tapped his image, and everyone at the table stared at her like she was nuts.

"Nuh-uh," Leslie said.

Julie snatched the magazine. "Ft. Blanderson does not have students who look like this."

"It does," Jackie said, "and I'm dating him."

"We need proof." Valerie circled her finger around the cafeteria. "Bring him here. Have him meet you after school. Introduce us."

"I'm not gonna march him into enemy territory and have you tear him to shreds."

"Then bring us a picture of yourself with him," Valerie said. Her haughty tone suggested Jackie had no choice in the matter, and Jackie scrunched her toes in her shoes.

"Several," Julie said, "and one has to be of you two kissing. Not just a peck but full-on Frenching. I want to see tongue."

Tongue? Jackie sucked in her cheeks, and when she released them, her lips smacked apart. "Fine, if it'll shut you up."

"It will," Valerie said. "What's his name?"

"Mark Cailliet."

Leslie reached across the table and grasped Jackie's wrist. "Of Cailliet Clothiers?" Jackie nodded, and Leslie said, "Now it's starting to make sense."

"Thank God," Jackie said, and she gave thanks again when the cheer squad moved onto a new topic: the upperclassmen trip. Every October, the juniors and seniors went on a five-day team-building trip together. It was a waste of time, especially for someone like Jackie. She'd been a cheerleader since junior high. She knew all about teamwork.

"I heard it's going to be in Quartz Falls State Park," Valerie said.

Leslie leaned her head back and moaned. "Nooo! That means camping! And hiking."

"And bugs and mud," Julie said.

"And lots of make-out opportunities," Valerie said, and the other seniors in the cheer squad agreed. "Last year, I..."

Her voice faded as Jackie withdrew into her mind. Being a cheerleader wasn't just about talent and skill but popularity. Dating a boy as gorgeous as Michael had earned her a lot of cachet, despite the fact he'd cheated on her. But her prestige was dulling. She had to shine it up and fast, and that meant calling Mark.

Who'd seen her at her worst and hadn't given her his number.

But she was Jackie Burkhart. If anyone could persuade a boy to forget her outburst on Saturday, it was her. And Point Place couldn't possibly have that many Cailliets. Even if it did, her dad had enough business contacts to connect with his parents.

She dug her fork into her now-cold Fettuccine Alfredo. Honoring her true self, leaving people behind who didn't respect her—how quickly she'd abandoned those lofty goals. At the first blush of social pressure, she'd proven Steven right.