“That sucks,” she says.
“Dad promised to take me to Europe if I finish community ser—” Shit. I stop mid-sentence but her mouth’s already hanging open.
“You’re doing community service?”
I jerk my head so my hair falls in my face. “Something like that.”
“What do you have to do?”
“You don’t want to know.” I toss my hair back over my shoulder, a hint of my domineering self resurfacing. “I’d appreciate it if you don’t tell anyone.”
She smiles, but it’s not the catty smile I taught her. It’s sweet, almost sympathetic. “Who would I tell?”
“I don’t know. Your BFF. Her boyfriend.” I hesitate to mention Mike’s boyfriend because, A) I don’t know his name, and B) I’ve never met him and it feels wrong to drag him into this conversation.
“No offense, but they don’t exactly care what’s going on with you.”
My toe catches on the smooth linoleum and I stumble. Mike grabs my arm and we stop facing each other, her hand still on my arm. Heat rushes to my cheeks.
“I don’t mean to be harsh,” she says, “but you made it pretty clear you want nothing to do with them. You can’t expect them to suddenly care just because you’ve had a change of heart.” She holds my gaze, her eyes soft. She’s not trying to be hurtful, she’s just telling the truth. “Is that what’s going on?”
I don’t know how to answer her. How do I explain that Xavier has me second-guessing everything I thought I stood for? Although of all my former friends, Mike’s the most likely to understand. “I don’t know.”
The bell rings and kids scatter to their classes. We’re still a couple classrooms away so we take off running, and for a moment we’re twelve again, late for class because we were spying on older boys. But the spell breaks when we step into Ethics and Miss Simpson gives us both a disapproving look. The word SACRIFICE is written on the whiteboard, and she doesn’t waste time launching into her lecture.
I’m still thinking about the lesson when I arrive at community service the next day. About how people have different levels of sacrifice that they consider worthwhile. Like I think I’m noble for serving meals to homeless people on Thanksgiving, but Xavier thinks nothing of sacrificing his future to protect his sister’s honor.
Yeah, he’s wormed his way so deeply into my thoughts that he’s intruding on homework. And I might be a little excited to see him. We’ve texted since snowboarding, but even his sexy Spanish comments—thank goodness for Google Translate—don’t compare to being close enough to touch him.
Drea’s smoking when I walk up to the bus. I’m surprised at how relieved I am to see her, and that she seems to be in one piece. Xavier’s reaction and story about his sister had me thinking Colton had beat her senseless. Which is silly, because she looks like she always does.
“Hey, stranger,” I say, leaning against the wall next to her. “I was beginning to think you’d bailed on us.”
She smiles around her cigarette. “You can’t keep me away from this hellhole.” Her eyes flick past my shoulder and her smile broadens. “Incoming.”
Seconds later, strong arms wrap around my waist and Xavier nuzzles his face against my neck. I slip my fingers through his and turn my face to kiss his cheek.
“Love on the Chain Gang,” Drea says. “Never ceases to amaze me.”
Xavier moves to my side, one arm holding me against him. He’s wearing a heavy barn jacket but it’s considerably thinner than his snowboarding gear and his body feels good against mine.
“I guess I don’t need to ask how snowboarding went.”
For once, no smart-ass comment flies out of my mouth. Maybe I really am turning over a new leaf.
“She’s getting good,” Xavier says.
“Good might be an exaggeration. But I’m breaking my face less and less.”
Drea’s smile falters for a heartbeat, so quickly I almost miss it.
Xavier tenses next to me. He saw it too.
I squeeze his side to let him know I noticed it, but keep my gaze on Drea. “You doing okay? We missed you.”
She takes a final drag of her cigarette before putting it out on the brick wall and tossing the butt in a nearby garbage can. “I missed you, too. Come on, the Goodship Lollipop awaits.” We follow her onto the bus. Heidi’s waiting for her in the back row and Xavier slides into my regular seat next to me.
“Something’s going on,” he whispers.
“What should I do?”
“Do you two talk much outside of this?”
I shake my head. “We text a little, but nothing crazy.”
“But you like her? And you want to help?”
I nod.
“Maybe ask her to hang out. If it’s what I think it is, she’s not gonna trust you that easy.”
My head falls against his shoulder. Gaining someone’s trust is new territory for me. She doesn’t know my history, but I feel like there’s a giant FRAUD sign blinking over my head, warning people that I’m not to be trusted.
Bruno climbs onto the bus and flashes us a smile. “You kids miss me?”
“Yes!” we shout in unison.
He chuckles to himself and starts the bus. “You know the drill. Remain seated until we stop. No smoking on the bus. No funny business.”
“I didn’t realize how tolerable he makes this,” I say.
“Bruno’s good people. He’s seen some shit in his day, but he’s mostly a teddy bear now.”
“Listen up, I got an announcement,” Bruno yells into the rearview mirror. The chatter around us quiets. “Thursday’s the last two-hour shift. Next week is the final tour of the Goodship Lollipop. Gettin’ too dark to have you on the side of the highway. There’ll still be weekend slots with more hours, but you’ll have to check with the county for other options.”
Everyone starts talking at once. My stomach drops. “This is ending?” I ask. How am I supposed to finish my hours in time?
As much as I dreaded trash duty at first, it’s become the best part of my week. Which is completely pathetic and so bizarre I’m questioning my sanity, but there you have it.
I text Dad, but leave out Bruno’s news. 2 hours = 17.
Trees and buildings fly past the window as we move down the highway, and I can feel Switzerland slipping through my fingers.
“Check with the court for other options,” Xavier says. “At least it’ll be inside.”
But will it be with you?
“Hey, listen!” Bruno says. “If you can’t get enough of me, I’ll be helping at the men’s shelter in downtown Denver. But ladies, you’ll have to wait until spring to see this mug again.” He winks in the mirror, pressing pause on my anxiety, then it’s back in full force. “I’m also leading a crew at a park this weekend. Last big cleanup of the season. Three hours, meet at the same place at ten AM. Let me know today if you plan on being there.”
I pull out my phone and enter the date in my calendar. Those three hours will make up for the next week, but I’m still over thirty hours from finishing. “Can you go this weekend?”
“Probably.” He smiles. “That’ll be it for me.”
“What it?”
“My hours. I only need seven more so with this week and Saturday, I’m done.”
My heart sinks even further. “You’re done?” I force a smile. “That’s great!”
“How many more do you have?”
“Too many.” And if I can’t find a new service right away, I can kiss Switzerland goodbye.
The rest of the afternoon goes quickly, but I can’t stop thinking about Bruno’s announcement. Even kisses from Xavier next to my car don’t stop the knot of worry that’s looping through my mind. What am I going to do?
On Thursday, Xavier sits with me again but I’m already promised to Drea. “Hos before bros,” I tell him, and he kisses my cheek.
“No worries,” he says. “Sarah’s been giving me crap for abandoning her.”
Is she jealous? I figured the
y were just friends, but maybe she likes him too. I peek at her over the back of our seat, but she’s staring out the window with her headphones on.
He lifts my hand and brushes his lips over my knuckles, erasing my worries. “Plus we have tomorrow.”
I smile. “And Saturday.”
“And more boarding?” he asks, eyebrows raised. He’s still holding my hand and I relax into him, ready to promise him whatever he wants as long as he keeps looking at me like I’m the most fascinating person in the world.
“I think you’ve converted me.”
He smiles, and we stay like that until Bruno parks on the side of yet another highway, then he heads in one direction with Sarah and I lead Drea to a promising row of bushes. Promising because plastic bags and bits of paper are caught in the branches and it’ll take the full two hours to untangle it all.
“Did you know trash duty was ending?” I ask her.
“I wondered, but I figured it’d get cut short because of snow. It’s weird we’ve barely had any.”
I stab a cardboard coffee cup but it gets caught on a branch. “As long as the slopes have snow, I don’t care about the rest of Boulder.” I give the cup another yank and a branch smacks me in the face.
“Consider that a sacrifice to the coffee gods,” Drea says. “So do you know what you’re going to do?”
“No idea. But Bruno mentioned the men’s shelter and that got me thinking.”
She smirks. “I don’t think women are allowed. Especially not underage.”
Grabbing the coffee cup, I roll my eyes at her. “A women’s shelter. Serving food on Thanksgiving made me realize that a lot of the people who need help are just like us. I’d love to be able to help them in some way. Plus, it’s gotta be better than this, right?” I look up at her from my crouched position and my breath catches. Her face has gone pale and the easy smile from before is a distant memory. “What?” I straighten and grab her arm, and she flinches. “Drea, what’d I say?”
She shakes me off and moves toward a fast food bag. “Nothing. It’s not you.”
I repeat my words in my head. Something triggered her. “Then what is it?”
She smiles at me but her eyes are brimming with tears. “We all have our bullshit, right? I guess mine’s just bothering me more today than usual.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask if it’s her boyfriend but I don’t know if we’re good enough friends for that. But if it is him and no one else is asking, what’s going to happen to her? “Do you want to meet for coffee sometime?” I wave the discarded cup at her and I’m rewarded with a pitiful laugh.
“Next week’s a short week, right?”
I nod.
“Sure.”
After that she shifts the conversation back to me—something I’m realizing she’s better at than I gave her credit for—and by the end of our shift she knows every detail of how Xavier kisses and what I’m expecting from our date. She gives him a knowing wink when we get back on the bus.
“What was that about?” he murmurs in my ear, sending a chill down my back.
“I’m worried about her,” I whisper back. “But we’re hanging out next week so hopefully I’ll find out what’s going on.”
“Do you think she’ll tell you?”
“I don’t know.” I rub my cheek against his. “But I have to do something.”
The majority of my wardrobe is flung across my bed, including a couple scarves that got caught in the canopy. Drea’s texted me a couple times to wish me good luck on my date, but she was no help with my outfit. For a hot second I consider texting Mike, but that will require explaining Xavier and how we met, and as much as I can’t stop thinking about him, I still haven’t figured out how he fits in my day-to-day life. This date will be the first time he’s seen the real me, at least the me I try to project: no gross trash-collecting clothes or bulky snowboarding gear.
I settle on skinny jeans, a sheer top over a cami, and heels that’ll make me tall enough to look him straight in the eye. My hair is down with just enough curl to look natural, and I went heavy on the eye makeup, leaving the rest of my face neutral. You should always pick one feature to emphasize, and my eyes are my favorite—plus there’s no sense wearing a ton of lipstick with what I have planned for him later.
The alarm on my phone dings, warning me that he’ll be here in ten minutes. When he offered to pick me up I considered telling him I’d meet him at the restaurant, but he wants the place to be a surprise and there really wasn’t a good reason to tell him no unless I dropped the truth-bomb that my mom would freak if she saw his car—let alone him—in her driveway.
I grab my purse and a distressed canvas jacket and hurry down the stairs before she sees me. When headlights appear in the driveway, I open the front door and shout up the stairs. “I’m going out. Don’t wait up!” Then I step outside and hesitate on the sidewalk.
Xavier’s standing in front of Subie, a bouquet of yellow flowers in one hand and the other hand pressed to his heart. We stare at each other like neither of us is sure what to say. My heart’s pounding so loud it practically echoes off the brick path. I walk toward him and he holds out the flowers while pulling me to his chest.
“Hi.” I lean into him, kissing the edge of his jaw and breathing in the scent of his body wash.
“Hey.” He pulls back to look at me, his dark eyes shining in the light from the porch. “You look amazing.” He’s wearing dark jeans, a navy button-down shirt, and a look that says if we don’t get in the car now, we might never make it to dinner.
“So do you.” I turn to get in the car but he catches my hand.
“Do I need to meet your mom or anything?”
The house looms behind me. The longer we stand here, the more likely Mom will look outside and see us. See him. “Nah, she’s finishing up some work. We’re good.”
He moves around me to the passenger side and tugs on the duct-taped door. “I know this isn’t as fancy as your 4Runner, but I love her and she’s never let me down.”
I smile up at him as I get in. “If you love her, then I do too.” Just keep that up and you’ll be fine, I tell myself. The interior is clean and well taken care of—nothing like I expected—and when he closes my door it’s like I’m tucked into a cocoon. Just pretend the door is fine. Besides it’s dark out so it’s barely noticeable.
Xavier gets in and when he starts the car, salsa music blares from the speakers. He quickly turns it down, and the fast-paced notes filling the air match my racing heart. Instead of backing out of the driveway, he shifts to face me. “Do you like Mexican?”
I give him a slow once over, finishing with my sauciest look of approval. “Obviously.”
He smiles, his long lashes lowering, and I swear he’s blushing. “For dinner.”
“Sure, that sounds great.” Boulder is foodie heaven and I’ve been to a couple of the Mexican restaurants downtown, but I’m hardly a connoisseur.
“Perfect. There’s a place not far from downtown that has the best enchiladas in the state. My mom says they’re just like she used to get back home.”
So not downtown, but I get a little thrill at seeing a glimpse inside his world. Old Brianna would turn up her nose at anything less than a high-end restaurant, but I’m realizing that it’s what’s beneath the surface that counts. “Where in Mexico is she from?”
“A fishing town on the Pacific called Zihuatanejo. She grew up on the ocean and has a hard time being away from the water, but aside from that she loves it here.” His whole body relaxes when he talks about her and I find myself wondering about this woman who sacrificed everything she knew for a life here.
“Have you ever been there?”
“Just once, when I was a kid. It’s gorgeous—palm trees and sandy beaches and cobblestone roads—all the stuff you see in pictures. Her family lives in the foothills of the mountains.”
“Why would she ever leave someplace like that?”
He shrugs, like I should already know the answer. “
It’s hard to get by if you’re not in the upper class. When she met my dad he already had his visa to come here, so they got married fast and she came with him. They put together a good enough life here, but I think she’d love to move back someday.”
For as much as I’ve traveled, I’ve lived in the same town—the same house—my entire life. “I can’t imagine just picking up and moving to another country. That had to be hard.”
“Dad’s got some cousins here so we’re not completely without family, but we haven’t seen them as much since he left.”
I reach for his hand in the dark. “I’m sorry.”
“It is what it is.” He squeezes my hand. “But it’s why I try so hard to keep Lily out of trouble. We’re all we’ve got.”
A pang of jealousy catches me by surprise. To have someone be that dedicated to you, to be willing to do anything for your happiness, is something I’ve never known. “She’s lucky to have you for a brother.”
He laughs, but shakes his head. “Try telling her that.”
We fall into a comfortable silence. When he pulls into a parking lot next to a two-story house, I look around, confused. “I thought we were going to a restaurant.”
He nods at the house. “This is it. They started off serving food in the front of the house like a lot of places do back in Zihua, and eventually turned the entire first floor into a restaurant.”
“I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this place.”
“It’s not online, so they aren’t on the review sites or anything like that. Javi says he does this ‘cause he loves cooking.”
Imagine doing something simply for the joy of doing it, not for money or recognition or because you want people to admire you—all the traits I’ve learned from my father.
“Wait there.” He gets out of the car and runs around to my side to open the door for me.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say, getting out and brushing another kiss on his cheek, unable to stop touching him.
He dips his head and I swear he’s blushing again. “Actually, I did. Until I fix the door, it can only be opened from the outside.” He takes my hand and leads me across the full parking lot, which looks like it used to be grass until they added gravel, up the steps to the porch.
The Edge Rules (The Rules Series Book 3) Page 15