by Keilan Shea
Despite my frazzled nerves, I manage to shove my ID into my wallet, then my wallet and phone into my pockets. I banish my curly hair from my face with a comfy headband, and, after my plain black sneakers are on my feet, I exit my room. The echoing corridor is lively with more students than I’ve ever seen at one time walking Selenite Hall—probably because it’s Friday. Normally, I’d turn my attention straight ahead, but the heat of lingering gazes makes me sweat. I fold my arms as if to hide my “granny” clothes and consider Lucas’s reaction, or rather, his lack of reaction. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t see my entire outfit either, as I was in the process of crawling out a window. What if he changes his mind about me?
I finally have pockets and now I wish I didn’t.
The statuesque door greeter treats me as she always does when I’m through the double doors, wishing me well. Lucas waves from a few feet away and I join him as I leave the residence hall behind me. I fall into step beside Lucas, and he doesn’t comment on my clothes. His eyes don’t shift, linger, judge. He chatters about whatever catches his fancy in the moment and I listen and/or comment as we check out of the Crown and eventually reach the garage.
Since Lula didn’t enter the garage, this is my first time seeing inside of it. The stunning architecture, that signature sandstone base with gold highlights, extends inside the structure, but it’s the cars that catch the eye. They’re every shape, size, and color of glittering metallic paint.
An opaque elevator drops us down a couple of levels. When the door opens, Lucas picks up the pace and abruptly stops at a sleek electric-blue car. I don’t stop as fast and almost slam into his arm when he throws it out. “Here she is. What do you think?”
“She’s pretty,” I say. She’s also kind of small and very low to the ground. Will I fit inside?
Lucas scoffs, “Pretty? Try badass.”
“W-what is she?”
“The Ferrari 488 Spider.”
That means nothing to me. The Lopezes champion economy cars. Mama and Papa do well at this point in their lives and bought an expensive house to accommodate our large family (and because housing isn’t cheap in Santa Monica), but they’ve retained a frugal mindset from a time before I knew them or was even born. If Lula isn’t proof of that, I don’t know what is.
I work my mouth to speak, but I don’t know what Lucas wants to hear, so nothing but air leaks through my lips.
“All right,” Lucas says, “it’s obvious you aren’t impressed. No use pretending otherwise.” He produces a key fob seemingly out of thin air, unlocks the vehicle, and slinks to the passenger door, which he opens. “Get in here.”
“I do like her,” I say, placating.
“Uh-huh.” Lucas taps his foot impatiently.
I think skinny thoughts as I inch toward him. I don’t brush against him, his car, or the car behind me. I’m not morbidly obese or anything like that, but I have this mental image of myself as a bowling ball; if my flesh doesn’t hug bone, I’ll bump into something, such as a side-view mirror, and snap it off. The black seat taunts me as the question “Will I fit?” repeats in my head.
“You can sit, Melly Mel. I promise the seat won’t bite your ass.”
I bite my lip but think better of it as I plop onto the seat. It holds me snugly, and nothing breaks. The scent of new leather wafts around me. The interior is as immaculate as the exterior, as if this vehicle has never been touched by human hands. How long has Lucas had this car?
Lucas slides into the driver’s seat, revealing a bit more of the black ink on his back before adjusting his tank top.
“You have a tattoo?” I ask.
“Yep.” Lucas touches his left ear, lightly tugging on his skull-shaped conch earring.
“Your father let you?”
“I didn’t ask for his permission.”
“Oh.”
Lucas waggles his dark eyebrows and starts the engine. The car growls loudly but smoothly, almost like a race car, before it’s drowned out by pulsating techno synthesizers and a booming subwoofer that rattles my bones. Lucas presses something and the car opens its roof, two pieces of metal lifting, rotating, retracting, and transforming the vehicle once they’ve settled in place.
I strap myself in and cling to my seat as Lucas whips out of the parking garage as if racing to clear an obstacle course. He drives expertly, the even motions hardly a reason to grip my seat so tightly, but I can’t resist the grounding effect. It’s not until we’ve checked out of the Embers that I get a real taste of Lucas’s car-handling prowess, though.
With Gilded Academy in the rearview mirror, Lucas steps on the gas, utilizing the stretch of palm-tree-lined private road to speed. I’ve never been in a car going this fast. My fingers hurt from gripping the seat. I tear my eyes from the road ahead to plead with Lucas. I doubt he’ll hear me over the layers of noise, but maybe he’ll notice me silently begging in his peripheral vision.
I forget my desperation when I see his hair dancing in the wind and his bronze skin shining in the sunlight. This isn’t so bad. All I have to do is ignore the speed. The ride itself is level, almost like floating, and Lucas is … beautiful.
The private road ends, distant buildings and skyscrapers now taller and more prominent. The world transforms into traffic signals, cars, and honking when Lucas turns onto the highway. He almost zips through an intersection but makes a hard stop when the light turns red. Unaffected by the jarring sensation, he fusses over his windswept hair while my seat belt bites into my skin and something taps the heel of my right sneaker. I bend forward, locate an amber pill bottle with a white cap, and wrap my fingers around the cool plastic. The ink on the warped label is smudged, rendering it illegible. I suspect water damage.
Lucas doesn’t notice. He’s leaning against his door, sticking his head out of the car as he waits for the never-ending red light to change. It does eventually, but the car in front of us doesn’t move, so Lucas honks his horn and curses. He taps his steering wheel and his left leg bounces at the same speed.
“Lucas?” My voice is quiet, so I’m surprised he hears me over the cacophony.
“What is it, lovely?” He glances at me, spying the small bottle in my hand before returning his eyes to the road. He turns down the music so that there’s one less noise to contend with. “Ah, that’s where my useless focus pills went. Nice find. You’re supposed to properly dispose of that shit if you aren’t going to use it, but lost was lost.”
It’s intrusive to ask for clarification, but I do. “Focus pills?”
“My OCD. No, wait. Maybe these were for ADHD.” He laughs. “I don’t remember. Right now I’m dealing with comorbid depression and anxiety. Fucking doctors, right? Always changing their diagnoses. They just can’t figure me out.” Lucas banishes the techno with an aggressive finger punch. “Pick something you like. The shitty world of radio awaits your command.”
I don’t move. Techno echoes in my head and there’s more than enough noise on the highway. Minutes pass like that, with neither of us saying a word. You’re never hidden inside a car, but I feel more exposed, even vulnerable, sitting in a car without a top when a man in a truck pulls up next to us at another red light and stares at me with this puzzled, slack-jawed expression.
Before long, we reach downtown El Sol. Skyscrapers tower over us, gleaming like chrome pillars in the sunlight, and eat the sky. If we continue on this way, the glamor will gradually fade into the dull, derelict streets and buildings of the slums, where Naomi and I lived with Faith Turner many years ago. Everyone will warn you about them because they’re dangerous territory. They are, but since being freed, I’ve often wondered how prosperity and poverty can exist inside the same smothering smog. People like Jeffery Earnshaw have been donating money to lessen the disparity, but nothing seems to change. If not even Gildeds can fix homelessness in their city, what does that say about anything? I try not to think about it, because I know I got lucky.
Lucas groans. “It’s so quiet.” Apparently the city noises aren’t enoug
h for him. “You must prefer some genre of music, Melly Mel. Everyone likes music.”
“Not really.”
“Then you’re a liar.”
I flinch at the accusation, because he’s right. I’ve been lying to Naomi, and by extension my entire family, since she, Mama, and Papa checked in with me on Wednesday night. I am a liar. And Lucas is agitated.
He bites his lip as he searches through several radio stations. He allows each song several bars before seeking the next, refusing to settle even as he reaches Marine Plaza’s primary parking garage and absentmindedly accepts his entry ticket from a machine. He drives upward, level after level, as he searches for a parking space and changes the radio station once more. His eyes darken, a deep scowl wrinkling his forehead, when a country song blares through the speakers long enough to make out the story of a man mourning his girlfriend who hanged herself in the barn when the “medication wasn’t enough anymore.”
Lucas kills the music and yanks us into an open parking stall he almost passed. Before shutting off the engine, he makes his car reassemble its roof.
I squeeze the pill bottle I’ve yet to let go. “Are you okay, Lucas?”
He retracts his hand from the driver-side door as another car moseys by, its grumbling engine echoing into silence. That silence engulfs us for seconds that pass like minutes before he says, “Of course. Why do you ask?”
“You seem upset.”
Lucas holds his chin. “You’re imagining things.”
But I don’t think I am.
Lucas plucks the pill bottle from my hands without touching me and sets it safely inside the organized glove compartment.
“Was … Drake Griffin your friend?”
Lucas’s spine snaps up rigidly straight and his hands wrap tighter and tighter around the steering wheel until his skin is bleached white, disturbing his collection of rainbow bracelets. His tone is flat when he says, “Didn’t you hear? I’m the reason he killed himself.”
A shiver starts in my chest and expands, lowering my body temperature to sub-zero. But then Lucas is wearing his signature grin.
“You haven’t heard that one, Melly Mel? That’s impressive. Hell, I mean, it’s a popular rumor. The asshole detective who was assigned to investigate Drake’s suicide was dead set on blaming me. He never found any proof, but people still talk because it could have been one helluva juicy crime drama. Gossip is too addicting, and like it or not, I’m an errant Gilded with celebrity status.”
Like the fires. According to the records I found online, Lucas didn’t start any of them, but people still blame him for them even though Gilded Academy ran an official background check on him and admitted him. “People talk, but they often miss the point.”
“Aw, did you just quote me?”
I turn to him, head half bowed. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Steeling myself, I meet Lucas’s emerald-green, aquamarine in the dim light, gaze. “I did it too. I considered something so awful because I let what people said about you scare me even though you’ve only been nice to me.”
“Nah, no need to apologize. I’m used to it. Besides, you don’t actually believe it or you wouldn’t be here.”
“You’re right. I don’t. So what if you ran away to Idaho with a girl to a ramshackle cabin and smoked weed in a forest when you were fifteen? No one is perfect, and you probably had a valid reason.”
If Gordon Ignacio is the type of man to give a cabana boy a concussion, he’s capable of doing the same to his son. I’m willing to bet Gordon’s record is far more malicious than Lucas’s. Not that it matters. I don’t want any more speculation or vague warnings about how Lucas might hurt me. I want Lucas’s words, thoughts, and feelings. I want to know him, not the idea of him.
Lucas releases the steering wheel, allowing his hands to rest in his lap. “Your optimism is refreshing, but I’m no saint.”
“Not even saints are perfect.”
“Those are weighty words. You aren’t as naive as you’d have everyone believe.” Lucas tilts his head. “You’ll be pleased to know you’ve fooled everyone, including me.”
I frown. “I haven’t been trying to fool anyone.”
“Then by all means, keep doing what you’re doing.” Lucas opens the driver-side door. “Shall we commence shopping?”
I nod.
“Perfect.” Lucas’s eyes harden, and the corners of his lips cut upward at harsh, jagged angles. The frightening expression is there and gone in a flash, and I blame my gullible imagination for wasting its potential power on instilled paranoia.
Lucas opens the passenger door and offers me a playful bow with a warm-but-teasing “My lady.” He doesn’t offer his hand to complete the princely gesture, but this is normal. It’s just how he is. Who he is. The first person who wanted to be my friend.
CHAPTER 18
Marine Plaza is a social hot spot that I’ve never explored. After I was adopted by the Lopezes, El Sol was a place I left behind—until Gilded Academy. I remember spying the mall from the slums, though. On clear days, I’d wonder at its extensive ocean-themed aquariums, because they’d refract light and cast rainbows on even the darkest places. It’s named one of the most impressive malls in the world for a reason.
While each shop renting space is free to do as it pleases with its interior design, the exterior must meet certain requirements, which are dependent on the floor. The reinforced glass tanks, literal walls and tunnels, range from the deep ocean to coral reefs, dark blue to every color imaginable. It’s all visible from the fifth floor, where Lucas and I stepped out of a stainless-steel elevator moments ago.
Unable to focus on anything else, the people and shops alike, I drift to the pearly railing. I maintain a safe distance from it as I’m reluctant to trust it with my weight and don’t want to trigger my slight acrophobia, but then I find myself leaning over it. The courtyard below is the ocean floor and humming with people. An aquarium vortex encompasses all of us and winds to the very top floor, claiming us among the sea life. The architecture is astounding.
I stop underneath one of the many aquarium tunnels, observing the flashy fish as they swim overhead and intermittently block the diffused beams of underwater spotlights.
“So fascinating,” Lucas comments. “You’ve never been here before, have you?”
I shake my head. “It’s beautiful.”
“It is charming.” He points at a small, friendly-looking shark marked with prominent rosettes. “These leopard sharks are my favorite. I swear it’s not because leopard is in their name, though that doesn’t hurt their case.”
A well-dressed couple squeezes by us then. I notice them because they hug the reinforced glass as if there isn’t plenty of space for them to navigate around us like everyone else. Their scathing looks make me wish I were a hermit crab. I shrink, shoulders hunched, but I can’t retreat safely into a shell.
Lucas coughs out what sounds like “Assholes,” and the couple picks up their brisk pace, merging with the group ahead. I pinch the hem of my oversized T-shirt. Lucas draws eyes too, probably because he doesn’t match the refined styles of those surrounding us either, but I’m sure his clothes are name brands at least.
“Any shops catch your fancy?” Lucas asks.
“I-I haven’t looked.”
“Let’s get moving. Even if you don’t find a shop you like, I promise there are more aquariums to ogle. And, like it or not, I am getting you a purse, so think about that.”
I stop at every aquarium. Lucas doesn’t rush me along, but I catch his anxious vibrations in my peripheral vision. Tapping his foot. Folding and unfolding his arms. Touching his left ear. He’s definitely agitated. It’s not his movements that clinch it, it’s the distinct lack of chatter.
“I want to stop in here.” Lucas gestures to a gaudy souvenir shop highlighting all of El Sol’s best qualities. One look inside, at the glittering trinkets and sunny gold everything, and you’d never guess El Sol is battling so much poverty.
Isolate Marine Plaza, Gilded, or just eject the slums, and El Sol would be the quintessential swanky hub of California, the country, and maybe the world.
Lucas flips through postcards and plucks one with the words The Sunniest Place on Earth. The elegant gold-foil border is tacky when paired with the grinning, googly-eyed face of a great white shark. Those eyes are almost lifelike and much too human. It gives me the creeps. When I close my eyes, its image remains. I’m going to have nightmares tonight.
“Appropriately ironic.” Lucas nods. “I approve of this shop.”
“That’s one of my favorites,” the shopkeeper, a portly man wearing a potent musky cologne, informs before turning his attention to another customer. “Let me know if you need anything.”
A closer inspection of the glittering trinkets reveals a running gag. This shop’s gimmick is to pair the ritzy with the silly. I find the dissonance jarring, but Lucas’s amusement begs me to find the humor in it too.
“Which one will you get?” I ask when Lucas is comparing two postcards: the great white shark and a curvy palm tree wearing a bikini.
“This palm tree isn’t my type and the Carcharodon carcharias calls my name,” Lucas says, “so Gleeful Gus it is. Dad will love him.”
When the shopkeeper is checking us out, Lucas asks, “What shop would you recommend for handbags?”
“There’s a Nordstrom straight down if you take a left out of the shop.”
“That’ll work. Thanks, man.”
The shopkeeper squints at Lucas’s credit card. “Lucas Ignacio.”
“That’s me.”
The shopkeeper’s hand twitches as he holds out the small paper bag to Lucas. “Here you are. Thanks for coming in.”
No matter where Lucas goes, he’s treated with either reluctant politeness or outright hostility, but he doesn’t let it bother him. He waltzes out of the store with the paper bag pressed so lightly between his fingers that there’s no chance of creasing it beyond the single fold sealing the opening. But a tremor running down Lucas’s hand causes the bag to shiver.
“Stop right there, you two.”