When the door shut behind us, all I could see was blackness and glowing paint. The boys shouted insults from the other side of the room—they sounded like they’d known each other for years.
We scattered as the buzzer sounded. I tore down a long hallway and cut underneath a bridge. Footsteps pounded in front of me, but a high wall blocked my view, and I didn’t know if it was a teammate or not. I backed up against the wall and held my breath, easing around the corner. I shot a boy I didn’t know and his vest beeped loudly.
“Gotcha!” I laughed. He raised his gun, and I tore off in the other direction.
The room filled with shouts and loud beeps. I didn’t hear Steven creep up behind me, which was a miracle considering how big he was, and he shot me in the back and took off in the other direction before I could shoot him in return.
I found a small fort with a door and a window; it was the perfect place to wait in ambush. I slipped inside and crouched down, listening to the beeps and trying to decide how many points we were behind.
I aimed my gun out the window and shot Steven as he ran by. His shocked look morphed into an arrogant grin. He aimed at me and missed before Steph shot him. He turned and ran after her just about the time Ian snuck into my hideout.
He held up his hands in surrender. “Truce?” he asked. He eased closer to me, ducking his head toward mine. “At least long enough for me to get a kiss?” he murmured.
I grinned. “Not a chance.” His vest beeped as I shot him in the chest and climbed out the window.
It was glorious sprinting through the dark. I pounded up ramps and across bridges, neon paint a blur as I whipped around corners. I earned more points for our team than I lost.
“You’re dead,” Steven said as he shot me again. Before I could raise my gun, he sped off.
I flung myself into a black corner at the back of the room, stalking him. He was quick. I heard him tear after another girl on our team, and I waited for him to come back around.
I was standing in almost total darkness. There wasn’t any paint on this part of the course, and the only light was the occasional glow from the team base when someone earned a point. When I thought I heard Steven coming, I leaned away from the wall and poked my head out to look.
Someone stepped right up behind me. Strong arms encircled my waist, and a hand clamped down over my mouth. He dragged me around the corner and turned me around, pressing my back against the wall.
He put his hands on either side of my head and leaned in. “Surrender,” Ian whispered in my ear. He brushed his lips across my neck.
“Never,” I told him. My voice was breathy and rough.
His lips were a whisper on my jaw.
“Is this your idea of coercion?” I teased.
He kissed me then, deep and real, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me into him. I put my arms around his neck, my gun clattering to the floor, and curled the fingers of my right hand around the hair at his collar. I forgot about the game.
It was Ian who pulled out of the kiss, his forehead against my forehead, nose to nose. He put his gun against my chest and pulled the trigger. My vest lit up and beeped, and the alarm went off on the boys’ side, signaling their win and casting a bluish glow over us.
“Game over,” he said. His wicked smile was just like Luke’s. Same scar. Same reflection. I wondered what else they shared. Besides me.
IAN
The restaurant was crowded and we had to wait thirty minutes for a table. Steven kept replaying our victory and Steph argued with his assessment. I held Jenna’s hand and snuck glances at her when she wasn’t looking.
The hostess finally squeezed us into a tiny table near the bathrooms, which didn’t bother me since that meant I was forced to sit close to Jenna. Her leg ran the length of mine underneath the table, and our arms kept bumping into each other. I couldn’t forget the shape of her lips in the dark. I refused to let that one disappear into the folds in my memory.
The restaurant had gotten noisy by the time the waitress brought our order, especially a group of adults at the bar who were laughing loud enough that we had to lean in to hear each other. Jenna’s hair kept brushing across my face. I wasn’t complaining.
“Jenna,” Steven said, pointing over to the group, “isn’t that your mom?”
Jenna’s face went still. There was absolutely no expression in her eyes as she stared at her mom, who had just leaned out from behind a post. Shot glasses were upside-down in front of her. When I reached under the table and squeezed her knee, Jenna turned to me and forced a smile. “She’s going through a phase,” she said. “We keep thinking she’ll grow out of it.”
But I could tell Jenna was upset. She got quieter as the group got louder.
We were waiting on the check when Vivian spotted us. She was headed to the bathroom, her heels tapping over the restaurant noise. Her eyes got big when she saw Jenna. She smiled, then stopped and leaned against the back of our booth.
“Jenna! And Ian! What are you guys doing here?”
“I could ask the same thing,” Jenna said, her teeth clenched.
Vivian dismissed Jenna’s tone with the wave of a manicured hand. “Oh, I’m just hanging out with some friends.”
Jenna eyed the table. “I don’t recognize any of them.”
Vivian ignored her. “Steph! I sure haven’t seen you around much. How’s the squad?”
“Great, thanks. We’re going to Florida for camp this year.” She looked excited about it.
“When I was captain,” Vivian sniffed, “we always went to camp at the university. It definitely wasn’t a vacation. But we were good back then. Disciplined. That was the best time of my life.” She eyed us grimly. “Enjoy it while you can.” She turned to Steven. “Now aren’t you William Nelson’s son?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Steven, is it?” When he nodded, she winked at him. “I think Jenna had a little crush on you in middle school.”
“Mom, please.” Jenna didn’t sound so much embarrassed as angry.
“Oh Jenna, Ian doesn’t mind. And a little healthy competition never hurt anyone.”
Jenna tensed. “You should probably get back to your friends,” she said.
Vivian waved her hand again. “They’ll wait. Now Steph, your hair is always so beautiful. You’ll have to tell Jenna your secret. She obviously can’t do a thing with hers.”
Steph looked uncomfortable. “I don’t do much with it,” she said. “Just good genes, I guess.”
“Oh, Jenna has plenty of those.” She laughed. “Though sometimes you can’t tell.”
Jenna’s face was steel, and anyone looking at her would think she wasn’t in the least bit bothered by her inconsiderate mother. It was obvious to me the comments had more to do with Vivian’s insecurity than any of Jenna’s flaws. Vivian had spent her life being the center of attention and didn’t know what to do when she wasn’t. It had nothing to do with Jenna, so she shouldn’t have taken it personally. But her leg was trembling next to mine.
The peacemaker in me wanted to step in and smooth over the cracks. But I wasn’t sure how, and besides, Jenna didn’t give me a chance.
“I need to use the restroom,” Jenna said, standing up and brushing roughly against her mother. “Come with me.” She grabbed Vivian’s arm before she could protest.
“My dad says that family has always been a little unstable,” Steven said once Jenna was gone.
I knew what that felt like.
I glared at Steven and headed to the back of the restaurant. I didn’t want Jenna to have to deal with it alone.
JENNA
My mother had picked at me until I was frayed and thin, and I knew if I didn’t get away from that table, I’d snap. I grabbed her arm, not caring in the least if I hurt her, and dragged her to the bathroom. She was surprisingly steady on her stiletto death traps.
I pulled the door hard and peeked underneath each stall, grateful that the bathroom was empty. My mom checked her makeup in the mirro
r. I locked the door so we wouldn’t be interrupted.
Mom looked up when she heard the lock, her lips puckered as she applied more lipstick.
“How could you do that?” I asked. “How could you embarrass me like that in front of my friends?”
Mom waved her hand in my face, dismissing me as always. “Teenagers get embarrassed over everything.” She turned back to the mirror and checked her face.
“Not everything, Mom, just you.” Mom rolled her eyes at me. She wasn’t listening. She never listened.
Mom finished touching up her face and turned around to glare at me. “When I was fifteen years old, my mother showed up to cheerleading practice drunk and in her bathrobe. She dragged me out of the gym and yelled at me for five minutes for not picking up my room before practice. Now that was embarrassing.”
“It’s not always about you!” I shouted. “You always have to one-up everyone with your sob stories. You’re always dismissing what I’m going through.” Her story was always worse, her feelings more valid than mine. Just once, I wanted her to actually hear what I was saying and not try to talk over it.
“You’re being overly dramatic. All I did was stop by and say hello to you and your friends. It would have been rude if I hadn’t.” She widened her eyes. I couldn’t tell if she actually thought she was innocent or if she believed playing dumb would help the lie go over better.
“No,” I argued, “what you did was let everyone know I’m not good enough.”
Mom frowned at me as she put her lipstick back in her purse. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Someone banged on the door. “Jenna?”
“Go away, Ian.” Everything was bad enough without him being right in the middle of it.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
Nothing about this was okay. “I’m fine,” I said through the door.
Mom nudged me away from the door. “I need to get back.”
More injustice flared. “Is this what you’re doing every time you say you’re working late? Throwing a few back with your friends?” I was snarling.
“Don’t talk to me like that. You have no right to tell me what I can and can’t do. I’m the parent, not you.”
“Then act like it,” I said.
Mom ran her eyes over me, reducing me to nothing, making me conscious that there was a hole in my shorts and that the soles of my shoes were separating from the uppers. “I’ll see you at home.”
She unlocked the bathroom door and pushed past Ian. A wave of laughter and noise rolled over me, receding as the door shut. I wanted to hide inside the silence.
TWENTY
LUKE
I woke up early on Monday to a quiet house. Sunlight poured through the kitchen window, and the honey-colored cabinets helped bathe the room in a warm, golden light. I’d finished all of the boxes and most of the doors, and the kitchen was transformed. Funny how some old pieces of wood made a place home, and made me feel a part of it. The cabinets were my signature on the house. I liked being a solid part of the house where Jenna had spent so much of her time.
I headed out to the shop, the dew dampening my shoes and grass sticking to my ankles. It wasn’t even seven-thirty yet, but it was already hot. I flipped on the fan, the blades struggling to push the heavy air out of the opened doors.
I had a few pieces of wood to plane in order to finish the last of the cabinet doors. I stacked the wood next to the planer and turned it on. It rumbled in my feet. I fed the wood into the big machine, stripping away paint and time. The dark, rough wood became smooth as I ran it through, caught it, and ran it through again. I grabbed the last piece. It was damaged and took longer than the rest. Amazing how many layers of crap could develop over the years. I thought the board might have had a touch of rot inside, but it didn’t, just a fracture along the bottom. Sometimes boards got broken, but that didn’t always mean they were rotted all the way through.
I used all the clamps in the shop and set the doors to the side. I had two more to do once the clamped ones dried. I picked up the cracked board and examined it again. The grain was interesting. The cypress was a beautiful color, rich lines of gold and blond swirling around an almost white oval in the top center of the board. The bottom half of the board was useless, but it would’ve been a shame to throw the entire piece out.
My mind scrambled through possibilities for its use, something beautiful from the brokenness. When I saw the door molding I’d torn out of the kitchen, I knew exactly what I wanted to create. And who I wanted to create it for.
There was hope in the fact that even damaged boards could be salvaged.
It was well after lunch by the time I got to a stopping point. The house felt emptier than usual. Mom had agreed to work even though it was the Fourth of July, since she didn’t really have a family to celebrate with. Apparently Ian and I didn’t count. Dad was off in Massachusetts strutting around in his uniform and accepting gracious comments about his service to our country. What about his service to our family? Going AWOL wasn’t exactly honorable behavior for a distinguished veteran of the armed forces, and he’d been absent from the family for a while now. I hoped he enjoyed all the prestige that came with his title. I really hoped he was lonely as hell.
Ian didn’t seem to want to celebrate with me either, since he was holed up in his room and ignoring my attempts at conversation. I ate lunch alone at the tiny kitchen table and wondered if anyone would hear me if I screamed.
I hadn’t met a single other person in this town. That was why I cleaned up, took the truck, and headed to Jenna’s. I needed someone to verify that I still existed, and there was no place I felt more alive than with Jenna.
I didn’t call. I should have, but I didn’t want to take the time. Or risk her telling me no. She didn’t expect anything else from me anyway. I always just showed up.
It took forever to get through town. The streets were crowded with sweaty kids and red-faced parents. Red and white streamers hung still in the absence of a breeze, and several signs promised family fun at the town fireworks show.
Jenna probably wasn’t even home. Or she was having some big family barbeque or something. I knew she wasn’t just sitting around hoping I’d show up. The last time I’d seen her, I slunk out of her house before she’d woken up. I hadn’t said goodbye. I hadn’t talked to her since. I wasn’t good at feeling this way. It was completely new territory, and I was hopelessly lost.
But Jenna’s Bronco was parked in the driveway. Maybe Fate wasn’t quite the bitch I believed her to be. She’d been almost kind to me lately.
I pulled to the curb two houses down and reached for my cell before I remembered I no longer had one and I’d forgotten to take Ian’s. I was going to have to go to the door. I hoped her mother wasn’t home.
She was. I heard the staccato of her heels on the tile floor before she opened the door. It was the first time I’d seen Jenna’s mother, and there was some resemblance.
She grinned at me. “Ian! Please, come in.”
I didn’t correct her, just stepped inside the front door and stood awkwardly to the side. Thankfully, it didn’t take Jenna long to appear.
She had a scowl on her face when she walked into the room, but that changed when she saw me. I had to take a deep breath, even though I doubted she knew with any certainty which one I was. It made me ache. I didn’t want Jenna looking at Ian like that. I didn’t want her even thinking about him when she looked at me, but that was unavoidable.
Vivian clapped her hands together in delight. “This is just perfect! Now you have a date to the party!”
“What party?” I asked.
Jenna grimaced. “Some lame party with a bunch of old people I don’t really know that my mom thinks she’s dragging me to so that I won’t have to spend the Fourth by myself. But I’m not going.”
Her mom ignored her. “I told her to invite you, Ian. Susan is just dying to meet you,” she said.
“He hasn’t done anything wro
ng,” Jenna said. “He shouldn’t be punished.”
“So you’ll come?” Vivian asked me, as if she hadn’t heard a word Jenna had said.
“Well…” There was no way I was going to that party. “I kind of had a surprise planned for Jenna,” I lied.
Vivian’s eyes widened with interest. “Really? How romantic. Well, far be it from me to ruin the perfect surprise. You two have a good time, but don’t stay out late.” She turned to Jenna, whispered something in her ear, and left the room.
“My hero,” Jenna said, throwing me a smile. “I don’t know that I would’ve survived the evening.”
“Glad to be of service.”
“So where are we going?” she asked, opening the door and stepping out onto the front porch.
Was she so eager to leave with me because she thought I was Ian? I had no plans—my only thought had been to see Jenna. Now that I’d accomplished that, I was winging it. I followed her down the steps.
“Aren’t you afraid you’ll be burned by the sun?” Jenna asked.
I stopped. “You know who I am?”
“It’s pretty easy to tell you two apart now.”
“How?” I was interested in how this girl, who I’d known less than two months, had managed to figure out something that even my own parents had trouble with.
“Your expressions,” she said simply. “Ian’s eyes are a bit wider and his smile is pretty open. I never have to wonder what he’s thinking. You slouch,” she said, opening the passenger door of my truck, “and I never have any idea what you’re thinking.”
“Good,” I told her, climbing in the truck and turning the ignition. Because I was usually thinking all sorts of things I shouldn’t. I pulled away from the curb and headed into the sun.
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