Shut Out, Kody Keplinger [book recommendations for young adults txt] 📗

at Ellen’s twelfth birthday

party when things had started going wrong. Somehow, I didn’t think that would work this time.

“Hey,” someone said from across the room, “why are the boys outside?”

“What?”

Everyone scrambled across the room to look out the window, saving me the effort of finding something for us to do. I leaned against the sill, wedged between Chloe and Ellen, and looked down at Kelsey’s swimming pool, where a group of boys huddled, as if making a plan before a football play.

“What are they doing?” Kelsey asked.

No one had a chance to hypothesize before we got our answer. The huddle broke and one by one the boys approached the edge of the pool. We were only on the second floor, so I could make out the faces of the boys—especially when they started looking up at Kelsey’s window, where I was sure they could see all of us gawking down at them.

The group was a mix of football and soccer players. I could see Shane, and Susan’s boyfriend, Luther, from where I stood. A second later I identified Kelsey’s boyfriend, Terry, and then there was Adam. I counted seventeen boys total, including the boyfriends of each of the girls attending the slumber party. No Randy in sight, though.

But, in the back of the group, grinning up at me, was Cash.

“Oh, no,” I murmured.

“What the hell is going on?” Chloe asked.

I thought I knew, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how to answer.


On the ground, Cash gave a signal, and the guys all lined up by the pool. In unison, they stripped off their shirts and tossed them onto the grass. An audible sigh—like the ones you hear on a sitcom that is “filmed in front of a live studio audience”—filled the room. It was almost funny, really. Such a strong reaction to a bunch of shirtless boys.

Not that I was judging. I mean, these were some of the most athletic boys in school, which meant they had some of the best bodies. It was like a museum of muscled arms and six-pack abs on Kelsey’s lawn. And, naturally, I caught myself staring at Cash. It was the first time I’d seen him shirtless, and even from a distance—wow.

This was not going to help that whole sexual-tension issue at work.

He gave another signal and the boys slid out of their jeans. I felt myself blush and almost looked away before realizing they were all wearing swimming trunks beneath their clothes.

“Oh my God,” I heard Kelsey whisper. “We’ve got to get them out of here. If my parents see this…” But she didn’t move away from the window.

Stripped down to their trunks, the boys began jumping into Kelsey’s pool. It was nearing the end of September, but the weather was still nice enough to allow for good swimming conditions. The boys bobbed and splashed around the pool, looking up every few minutes, occasionally waving or calling out to us to come join them.

“Maybe we should—” Susan began.

“No,” I said quickly. “No, no, no. This is just their way of

messing with us. They get half-naked and wet and think that’ll be enough to make us give up the strike. Well, it won’t work.”

“You sure about that?” Chloe asked, cocking her head to the side and clearly ogling Shane, who’d just cannonballed into the pool. “You have to admit these boys are pretty fine, Lissa. This was a good move…. I think I want to go swimming.”

“Yeah,” a few other girls said. “Me, too.”

“It doesn’t mean anything has to happen.”

“We don’t have to do anything—just swim. We weren’t doing anything fun in here anyway, right?”

“No!” I cried again. Quickly, I began shoving the girls away from the window. Violent protests met my efforts, but I pushed them anyway. “We go down there, and they make another move,” I said. “This is war, and that’s a trap.” A good one, I added mentally, focusing all of my energy on not turning to look out the window again to stare at Cash.

“I know you all want to go down there,” I said. “But the rivalry isn’t over. The boys will just use this to coerce us into breaking our oath. You don’t want that, do you?”

But no one answered; they all just kept gazing outside.

Mary gave me a look and hurried to the opposite end of the window to help. For a tiny girl, she could put up a fight. Together we managed to shove all the frustrated girls back, and then Mary immediately closed the blinds.

The girls grumbled and went back to their original seats on Kelsey’s bed and floor. Outside, the sounds of the boys calling us back, imploring us to come down and join them, could still be heard.


“This is such a farce,” I muttered to Mary. I felt like I was in the middle of a scene from a teen comedy. I was half expecting an epic action montage of boys trying to get our attention, set to Blondie’s “One Way or Another,” to follow this ridiculous moment in my life.

“Hey,” Kelsey said, tapping me on the shoulder and whispering into my ear so the others didn’t hear, “I’m going downstairs to make the guys leave before my parents come home and flip their shit.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” I said quickly. “Don’t think—”

“Lissa,” she said, shaking her head. “Believe me, you don’t have to worry about me being tempted.”

I frowned at her, but I knew she was right. If there was anyone I could trust here, it was Kelsey. Now, that was a crazy thought, but it was true. She’d admitted to me that she didn’t really enjoy sex, so why would she be tempted to break the oath? I nodded and she edged out the door quietly while I got the others’ attention.

“Okay, all of you, listen,” I said. “The boys are getting organized now. You saw that. They’re fighting back because they want sex. The rivalry isn’t over, but they want the strike to end. Things are about to get harder for us.”

Mary giggled at me. “You sound like an army commander.”

“You should see her play hide-and-seek,” Ellen joked.

“Focus,” I snapped. God, I really did sound like I was in the military. But it was necessary now, wasn’t it? By making himself the leader of the boys’ side, Cash had pretty much turned this into a war. If the boys had tactics, we needed ways to combat them.


“So what do we do?” Ellen asked.

“We’ve got to turn the tables,” I answered. “Fight fire with fire. They want to get half-naked and seduce us? I say we do the same. Push them a little, make them want us. They’re guys. They’ll crack before we do.”

“I thought we weren’t going to be teases,” Chloe said. “That’s what you said at the first meeting.”

“That was before the boys decided to make this a fight. They gave us no choice,” I argued. “I’m not suggesting anything extreme—just wearing shirts that are a little lower-cut than normal, or showing a little leg. That’s all it will take.”

“That actually sounds kind of fun,” Ellen said, grinning. “I have a new dress I’ve been dying for an excuse to wear. Maybe my date tomorrow night is just the occasion.”

A few other girls smiled and whooped in agreement, planning out their methods of temptation.

After the chatter died down, Susan sighed and glanced at the closed blinds over the window. “I just feel so… dirty. Like, I don’t know. Right now, I feel like such a perv.”

“Me, too,” Ellen said. “God, I never thought I’d miss fooling around this much. It’s so embarrassing.”

“Why?” Chloe asked. “Because the boys got you all hot and bothered?”

Ellen shrugged, not looking at her.

Chloe sighed. “Okay, I don’t get you guys. Maybe I’m, like, a bad example of the female race or something, but what is so wrong with thinking about sex? So the fuck what? Guys do it.”


“That’s because they’re guys,” Ellen said. “It’s normal for them.”

“So if it’s okay for them, why do girls have to feel dirty when they think about it?” Chloe demanded. She looked over at me for help, but all I could do was shrug. Clearly, I was just as much in the dark as the others. Only Chloe seemed to know what she was doing here.

“Look. This is stupid,” she said. “We live in a supposedly equal society, so what’s the big deal? I’m not ashamed to think about sex. Or talk about it. Or have it.”

“Yeah, and look at the way people talk about you.” Kelsey was standing in the doorway of her bedroom, arms crossed over her chest. I hadn’t even heard her come back upstairs.

“I’m not sorry for who I am,” Chloe said flatly.

Kelsey’s arms dropped to her sides, and she stepped into the room. “Then you’re lucky, because not all of us can say that.”

We locked eyes for a second before she looked at the other girls.

“I don’t like sex,” Kelsey said, shrugging. “I used to think that made me weird. Or that if I told anyone, they’d make fun of me or call me a lesbian or something. I’m not; I just don’t enjoy it. But if we’re being all open and honest… Chloe’s comfortable with who she is, and Mary and Lissa came clean, so it’s my turn.”

Chloe stared at Kelsey in awe. I wondered if she was in shock, hearing from someone who didn’t enjoy sex. But she said, “Did you just kind of give me a compliment?”

“Don’t get used to it.”


“I refuse to go down on Luther,” Susan said. Everyone turned to look at her, but she just tossed her dark braids over one shoulder. “What? Something about it just freaks me out. There are some places mouths just aren’t meant to go, you know?”

“That’s the only thing I’ll do with my boyfriend,” someone said from the back of the room. “To me, that’s less scary than going all the way.”

I smiled to myself. Mary and I weren’t the only virgins in the room—and I hadn’t been the only one keeping my lack of experience quiet. It made me feel better, knowing I wasn’t alone, but realizing this also made me kind of sad. Why had I been afraid to admit I was a virgin? Why was anyone?

“So, like, do you hate sex with everyone, or just with Terry?” Chloe asked Kelsey.

“I don’t hate it. I just don’t really enjoy it.”

“Okay, but that didn’t answer my question. Is it bad with everyone, or just Terry?”

Kelsey shifted uneasily. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve only ever been with Terry, so…”

“So he probably just sucks in bed.”

“Chloe,” I chided. “Be nice.”

“What?” she asked. “A lot of teenage boys suck. Believe me, I know. But Kelsey