Shut Out by Kody Keplinger (the read aloud family .txt) 📕

up, and I was devastated. But on a hot night in July, Chloe decided to get me out of my funk and drag me to a party at Vikki McPhee’s house.

“Come on,” she’d said, pulling me from my bedroom that night. “You’ll never get over Randy if you don’t put yourself out there. A few meaningless hookups are exactly what you need right now.”

When we’d arrived at the party, Chloe gave me a once-over and sighed. “I still can’t believe you’re wearing that. You have some sexy clothes. Why aren’t you rocking them?”

I rolled my eyes and edged past her into the house. The place already smelled like beer and pot, and the walls were practically shuddering against the pounding bass of the stereo. I wrapped my arms around myself and moved toward the perimeter of the room, staying close to the wall. I wanted to fall through the floor. This kind of chaos wasn’t what I needed right then. Or ever.

Chloe ran up beside me. “Let’s get something to drink.”

“You know I don’t drink,” I said.

“For once in your life, can’t you just let go? Lose control a little? You might actually enjoy not agonizing over every little thing.”

I shook my head.

“Have it your way,” she said, shrugging. “But please, promise me you’ll go talk to people? Have a little bit of fun tonight, okay?”

“Fine.”

She squeezed my shoulder before hurrying off toward Vikki’s kitchen. I pressed my back against the wall and looked around. More people were arriving, and many were already dancing and shouting along with the music. In the corner, I saw a side table topple over when a boy fell backward onto it. I cringed. I had to get out of there.

Keeping my word to Chloe, I said a quick, “Hey, how are you?” to Kelsey as she passed me, wearing an expensive-looking white sundress. She gave an annoyed glance—probably deciding that she didn’t want to talk to anyone dressed as badly as I was—and moved on. Just like I’d hoped.

With my task complete, I edged around the living room and headed toward the back door. Leaving the party wasn’t an option, since Chloe was my ride—as usual—but I could at least get out of this room.

The sun had just set when I pushed open the door to the back porch. But instead of finding the backyard empty, I discovered Cash Sterling sitting on the steps.

“Oh, sorry,” I muttered, my hand still on the door. “I’ll leave.”


He was sitting on the top step of the wooden porch, one of his legs pulled up to his chest while the other stretched out toward the steps below him. His chin had been resting thoughtfully in his hand, but when he heard me, his head turned in my direction.

“Hey,” he said. And I thought I saw his eyes light up a little, though it could have just been the flickering porch light playing tricks. “No. Stay. I don’t mind.”

Even though I’d wanted to be alone, I decided that Cash would be better company than the crowd inside Vikki’s living room. I shut the door and walked over to sit beside him on the steps. The smile he gave me was so sweet, so warm, that even in my bad mood, I couldn’t help smiling back at him.

I didn’t really know Cash that well. We’d had a few classes together, and back before Ellen and I had stopped talking I would see him hanging out with Adam, her boyfriend. We’d talked maybe twice, but we’d never been alone together. Until now.

“So what are you doing out here?” I asked. “Already tired of the party?”

Cash laughed. “I guess you could say that. It’s not really my thing. A few of the guys from the soccer team asked me to play designated driver, though. So I agreed to help out. How about you?”

“My best friend made me come.”

“Why? I mean, if you don’t want to be here…”

“She thinks it’ll be good for me,” I explained. “My boyfriend and I… Well, we just split up, and she decided it would be good for me to be social.”


Cash looked away, and I watched as his sneaker scuffed against the wooden step a few feet below us. “So you and Randy aren’t together now?”

I almost asked how he knew who my boyfriend was, but I stopped myself. The answer was obvious. Randy was the quarterback, one of the most popular boys in school. Everyone knew who he was dating. Not to mention, Hamilton boasted only about a hundred students per graduating class. It was almost difficult not to be aware of who dated whom.

“Yes.”

“How long ago?”

“Three weeks.”

“I’m sorry.”

He didn’t sound sorry, though. I couldn’t read his tone—caught somewhere between indifference and smugness. I almost stood up and walked back inside then. Almost ran away from his insensitivity.

But before I could move, he turned to face me again, freezing me on the spot with his gorgeous eyes. “Have you ever played the Star Game?”

I just blinked at him.

Cash’s cheeks turned just the slightest bit red before he elaborated. “You have to be here because of your friend, and I’m driving home guys who won’t want to leave until the keg is empty. We’re going to be out here awhile, so we might as well find some way to entertain ourselves, you know? So have you ever played the Star Game?”

“What’s the Star Game?” I asked.


“Well… technically, it’s this thing I saw Russell Crowe do in a movie once, but I just kind of turned it into a way to pass the time.” He looked up at the sky, which had now become dark enough to make out the vast number of summer stars. “Okay, pick a shape,” he said.

“A… What are we doing?”

“You’re picking a shape,” he said. “Anything. It could even be an object. Or an animal, but sometimes those are harder.”

“Cash, I don’t—”

“Just pick one.”

“Fine. A triangle.”

He sighed. “That is way too easy.” Then, without warning, he reached between us and picked up my hand. I was startled, and I almost pulled back, but then our eyes met.

“Relax,” he said.

And, for once, I did.

His fingers were warm and callused against mine. He uncoiled my hand and gently forced me to extend my index finger. He made me point to a cluster of stars over our heads, and I watched as he drew a triangle with my finger, using three stars as the points. “See? That’s the Star Game.”

“Oh,” I said. “Wow… A triangle was too easy.”

“Your turn,” he said. “I tell you a shape and you have to find it in the stars.”

I admit, the game was kind of cheesy, but I thought it was sweet of him to try to entertain me when I was so clearly having a bad night. So I played along.

“All right, what shape?”


“An elephant.”

“Are you joking?” I cried. “You said animals were the hardest. You can’t give me an elephant.”

“That’s what makes it a game,” Cash teased, grinning and looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “The first person unable to piece together the image loses. I like winning. So I give you an elephant.”

“Jerk.”

“Clock’s ticking.”

“There’s a time limit, too?” I asked, panicked.

“No,” he laughed. “Now I’m really just messing with you.”

I sighed and looked up at the stars. At least there were a lot out tonight. That made finding the shapes easier. But an elephant? There was no way I could find an elephant in the sky. Just as I was thinking this, though, the lines began to form in my brain, connecting one star to another in a somewhat animal-like shape.

I picked up Cash’s hand and he extended his index finger, willing me to draw through him. Slowly, I traced the stick-figure outline of the elephant. I started with each leg, then did the back, but when I got to the head, I halted. These stars would make a better dog or cat, because I couldn’t find the trunk. My eyes scoured the tiny lights, hoping to find some way to connect the final pieces, just as Cash began to hum the Jeopardy! theme song in my ear.

Then his wrist began to move without my guiding it, and Cash connected a few stars jutting upward, making a trunk pointing toward the air instead of at the elephant’s feet, as I’d

been imagining. He drew his finger back down, making the animal whole. Lopsided and irregularly shaped but whole.

“Nice job,” he said, as if I’d figured out how to finish the constellation myself.

“You let me win,” I said.

He shrugged and gave me a small smile. “It was your first time.”

“Well, thanks for being gentle.”

Cash cracked up, and when I realized what I’d just said, my cheeks flamed.

“I-I mean—”

“It’s no problem,” Cash choked out between laughs. “Any good guy would have made it special for you.”

I buried my face in my hands. “Oh, God.” But I was laughing, too. With anyone else, Chloe excluded, I probably would have been mortified. But in that context, it really was funny.

“All right,” he said, taking my hand again as his laughter eased. It felt so natural, so normal, that it didn’t even faze me to have him hold my hand. “So do you think you can win on your own next time?”

“Of course I can.”

He smirked and leaned against my arm just a bit, his fingers still wrapped around mine. “Prove it,” he said.

“I will,” I said defiantly. “But you have to go first. And this time, you have to make an… an octopus.”

Cash hesitated, then looked up at the sky before turning back to me. “Game on.”

* * *


Cash and I played the Star Game for hours, talking between each challenge. He explained his position in soccer to me—though the explanation really flew right over my head—and, after he caught me counting the seconds as I waited for him to complete my newest constellation assignment (Santa Claus), I’d been forced to confess my control-freak neuroses. Which, shockingly, didn’t send him running back into the party.

“So when you’re nervous, you count?”

“Not just when I’m nervous,” I said. “It’s… all the time. I count the seconds during pauses in conversations. I count the minutes when I’m waiting on something. Sometimes, when I’m kind of panicked or anxious, I count my heartbeats. Something about counting makes me feel like… like I have the power. Like knowing how much time has passed or how many steps I’ve taken from one place to another will somehow keep me in control of the situation.” My hands twisted in my lap. I couldn’t believe I was telling