“You ready to hit the road?” Glenn asked my mom with his—what I can only describe as—come hither voice. Yikes.
“Yes.” She clapped and smiled over at me happily. I had to smile back because she was just bursting with excitement. How could I ruin this for her when she finally found the man she’d been looking for? “Chloe, I’ll be riding with, hubby. Will you be alright?”
“Sure.” I lied, cringing at Glenn’s pet name. Then she proceeded to plant a kiss on him.
I raced for the passenger side door of the other orange monster and yanked it open, pulling myself up into the seat. I slammed the door shut and stared out the window feeling chained, a prisoner, just like the Mini Cooper.
“Your dog’s got issues.” My new stepbrother said.
He was the reason I’d been so keen on making that going away banner.
That’s right, my new stepbrother, was none other than, Zack Warren.
“Kirk has a sensitive tummy. He can’t help it.” I patted my bloodhound on the head. He could be a little gassy.
“We’re going to pass out from the fumes.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
I crossed my arms and propped my feet up on the dash, sneaking a little peak at him. “I know you hate me. Why don’t we get this fight over so we can coexist without killing each other?”
He ran a hand through his hair. Perfect blond hair, but not perfect at the same time. It was either artfully arranged to look mussed up and sexy, or he achieved the doo by rolling out of bed and winking at his reflection in the mirror.
I couldn’t imagine Zack winking at himself.
He didn’t seem that pompous.
Or maybe he was…
After all, Zack Warren made almost every hot Hollywood actor look homely.
He had the most amazing blue eyes, like the sky on a perfect summer day. He was tall, around six feet. Throwing all those baseballs made him muscular, sleek like a panther.
When Zack Warren smiled, flashed those pearly white teeth and dimples, the girls wanted to pee themselves.
I felt like puking.
He laughed. “I don’t hate you, Baker.”
“Really?” I turned to look at him.
“I hate terrorists, men who hit women, and relish on hot dogs. I just find you very annoying.”
“I think you’re annoying too.” I smiled. Being honest was refreshing. And I didn’t really hate him…much.
“Good, glad were on the same page. What do you want to hash out?”
“You stole the sparkly streamers off my bike in the fifth grade.”
It was childish to keep the grudge, I know, but it wasn’t just about streamers.
“They were stupid. You can’t put pink streamers on a BMX bike.” He started driving, handling the monstrous van with ease. I’m glad I wasn’t at the wheel. I’d have taken out every mailbox and old lady on the block.
“My father bought me the wrong one for my birthday. I wanted the pink princess bike with the basket and plastic flowers.” Vince always wanted a son, someone to take over the used car lot. After realizing he couldn’t turn me into a boy, he decided girls could sell cars too.
Oh, how loved that made me feel.
Not.
Vince finally accepted that I wanted nothing to do with selling used clunkers and stopped coming around three years ago. Unfortunately he hasn’t quit calling.
“You sound like you still want that bike.” Zack said.
I lifted a shoulder. “Well, it’s a cute bike, and I could have a more grown-up version of it. I’ll have to think about getting my own…”
He flipped on the radio. “Huh.”
“What?” most people used bikes to get around on campus. I didn’t see the big deal.
“Nothing. I did you a favor by removing them.”
“No, you didn’t. Except that’s not the point.” I cranked up the air to ward off the sizzling Florida heat, aiming every vent in my direction. Just to be nice, I left one for Zack. “The point is that we haven’t been able to go five minutes without fighting since.”
“Your fault.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Whatever. Our parent’s are happy and I would hate for them to be torn apart because of us.”
His lips pursed, eyes focusing on the road. What was he thinking about so hard? “My dad used to sing in the shower before my mom died. I heard him singing this morning. It must mean he’s really happy with Molly.”
“That’s great!”
“Not if you value your eardrums.”
“Glenn can’t be that bad.”
“He sounds like a cat going for a spin in a dryer.”
I almost laughed. We weren’t friends, and I had to remember that.
“I think they really love each other.” He added, and draped his arm across the back of the seat. I couldn’t help noticing how close his fingers were to brushing my neck. “You want us to pretend to get along in front of them.”
I nodded. “When we’re with them we are going to be the best of pals.”
“And when we’re not?” he raised an eyebrow.
“I can call you a turd.”
“I’ll say you’re bossy.”
“Your nose is too big for your face.”
“No it’s not!” he looked in the rearview mirror.
“That is your opinion.” But of course, his nose was just as cute as the rest of him.
“Operation "Best Buddies" is officially underway.”
I sank down in my seat, knowing our ruse was going to go one of two ways. We’d end up really hating each other…or actually become friends.
“What did we do to deserve this?” I asked.
“Hell, your guess is as good as mine.”
Chapter 4
The only bright spot during this dismal drive was that Zack and I enjoyed the same music. We agreed on a rock station that played a mix of the classics and new favorites.
“How can you drive this thing?” I asked.
“It’s not that hard. My truck is pretty big.”
I knew plenty about his truck. Glenn originally bought it for himself, but then he found a sports car he liked better. Zack gladly took it off his hands. He outfitted it with an earth shaking sound system and tires that went up to my waist.
And that wasn’t all.
Supposedly, girls get into Zack’s truck in as girls, and came out as women.
Tales I’ve heard make him sound like a sex machine, a god. The Mason twins were bold enough to start a rumor that he kept an inflatable mattress hidden under the spare tire.
Of course, that could all be fabricated by the fan club.
Zack lived in the same dorm as me. It was coed. Guys on the top floor, girls on the bottom. He parked his truck right next to Lana’s little blue Nissan outside the dorm. Each time I pass it I’m tempted to take a peek to see if the mattress rumor was true. Now I was kicking myself for not satisfying my curiosity.
“Wipe that look off your face, Baker.”
I blinked. “What look?”
“I mentioned my truck and you went red.”
“I did not,” I could feel my cheeks going pinker by the second.
He changed lanes to pass a slow going sedan, and glanced at me, baby blues cold as ice. “None of it is true.”
“The Mason twins?”
“Are little liars.”
“Then why were those rumors flying around?” I couldn’t help my curiosity, even though I wasn’t a big Zack fan, having him live up to those stories would be disappointing. Especially the one about him making out with the French tutor in the custodians closet.
“One of the guys on a rival team started a rumor because I struck out their best hitter more than once. I ignore it, so should you.”
“Don’t you care about your reputation?”
“It’s not important.” He said. “There are a couple girls giggling behind my back, trying to figure out how many times I screwed in
the back of my truck. So what?”
It was more than just a couple girls, according to the gossip. “I guess there are worse reputations to have.”
“Keeps the needy chicks away.”
“But what about nice girls?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed Chloe, but I don’t have a lot of time to play footsie.”
“Footsie is for kids.”
He winked. “I’m the king of footsie, when I have time.”
I was feeling a tad warm, but it was the heat. Had to be. I hated Zack Warren. “Right, so you’re telling me that you’d just rather not date,” and have sex with any girl willing to get in his truck? I couldn’t make myself believe that, no matter how hard I tried.
“No, I’d rather not date flirty idiots. There’s a difference.”
“But you can’t do that with your reputation.” I began to argue, trying to make him see he had to fix this some how. Then I remembered I wasn’t supposed to care.
“The right people don’t pay attention to rumors. They form their own opinions.”
He was the biggest contradiction I’d ever met!
A jock with morals and respect for the opposite sex?
Did he not get the message that went out to every other guy his age? If he did, he must have ignored the part instructing him to be a horny pitcher, intent on sleeping his way through half the females in our school. Or at least striving for that like so many other guys I knew. I just wasn’t sure he could be the gentleman jock.
“I bet you already have a girl in mind.” I said.
He smiled, the dimples in his cheeks making me more aware of his appealing features than I should be. “Yep.”
“Do I know her?” probably a cheerleader, or maybe one of the blondes on the golf team.
“Yep.”
“Who is she?” and why can’t I stop asking questions? Questions that I really don’t care about his answers to?
“I think I’ll keep it a secret.” He said, the laughter in his voice all too apparent and irritating.
“You won’t tell me anything?”
“Nope.”
So he wanted to keep it a secret. No biggie. I wasn’t sure if I could believe anything he said to me. He seemed truthful, had never been the type to lie, and I never thought of him as untrustworthy in that sense. In fact, he was known for brutal honesty.
For some strange reason we never clicked.
Zack and I always seemed to run into each other at the worst times, mostly when he was pulling pranks. Like putting snakes in the teacher’s desk, or sneaking out of class. A more brilliant scheme involved switching the signs on the girls and boys bathrooms. The school was in an uproar of excitement and fascination. In eighth grade his antics escalated and he pulled the fire alarm during a thunderstorm, right in front of me, as if I’d never tell anyone.
And I didn’t.
I could have ratted him out…but no matter how much I said I hated him, I had a secret soft spot for my enemy. Then he started playing baseball and stopped breaking the rules. I figured the girls would find another boy to idolize and drool over.
They didn’t.
Apparently a baseball player is every bit as hot as a bad boy.
Keeping up my dislike of him almost seems silly now. If I allowed myself, I might find him an interesting person to be around. But I wasn’t going to send up the white flag. No way. The streamer stealer would have to call a truce.
“What’s that smell?” Zack sniffed the air.
I heard a high-pitched whistling sound, like air escaping from a balloon.
“Flat tire?”
He shook his head. “You’d know if we got a flat, trust me.”
“Maybe it’s you.” I smiled, thinking I’d have some fun.
Except the fun didn’t last long. I gagged as the stench hit my nostrils: rotten eggs and road kill.
Normally Kirk makes a lot of strange sounds, and the smell is usually minimal.
Zack rolled down his window. “Open your widow, Baker.”
Holding my breath, eyes watering, I tried to roll it down. The window was one of those old fashioned jobbies, the kind you had to crank.
“It won’t budge.” I said, my palms slipping when I couldn’t make it move.
“Try harder.”
I gave it a kick and it popped off. “No!”
“Hang on.” Zack swerved off the road into a grassy area next the highway and threw the van into park.
I opened the door and we scrambled out of the cab.
“What,” Zack gasped, “in god’s name,” another gasp, “do you feed him?”
I shook my head, bracing my hand on my knees, inhaling fresh air, “I have no idea, ask my mom.”
“Sure, just as soon as my head stops spinning.” He too was hunched over, hands on his knees. “The government would pay big bucks to have that mutt. You could take out an army.”
I pressed my face into my shoulder to hide a smile.
The other moving van pulled up. Our parents jumped out with horrified expressions on their faces and cell phones in hand, no doubt ready to dial 911.
“We’re fine.” Zack straitened. He had one of those convincing voices, authoritative sounding. He controlled a team of testosterone-laden jocks without raising his voice in the slightest, and I guess it worked on our parents as well. They actually relaxed, just hearing those two words.
“What happened?” Glenn glanced between us. The sun reflected off his bald, shiny head.
“It was Kirk, we couldn’t breathe.” I said, wondering what magical powers Zack possessed, and if he would be kind enough to impart his knowledge.
My mom pressed her hand to her stomach. “He got into the garbage last night. I should have known.”
Glenn scratched his chin. “Kirk the dog?”
Zack chuckled. “You don’t believe us, Dad?”
“You’re saying that dog has such a bad case of gas you had to pull over?”
“My window wouldn’t open and we couldn’t stand the smell.” I explained.
“It can get pretty bad.” Mom leaned into Glenn, winding her arms around his waist. PDA alert. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other. And judging by the southward movement of Glenn’s left hand, he was wedging his fingers in mom’s back pocket.
Zack rolled his eyes, hating the display as much as me. “Are we good?”
Glenn and mom headed back for their moving van, making goo-goo eyes at each other. He added, halfheartedly, since he was busy grabbing my mom’s ass. “Sure, no more funny stuff. Let’s get to the new house in one piece.”
Chapter 5
Zack and I went back to ignoring each other once we were on the road again. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as it was earlier, which had to be a step in the right direction…or maybe I was becoming immune.
Then, not ten minutes later, Kirk started whining and pawing at the door.
“Can’t he hold it?” Zack asked.
“Uh, I’m not sure if I want to find out.”
“Fine, there’s a rest area up ahead.”
I forced Kirk to sit. He was being stubborn, and ended up sitting—not next to me like I wanted—but on me. Kirk is a big boy. Not fat, just big bones, wrinkles, and lots of muscle. He weighed one hundred and ten pounds last time I took him to the vet. So it wasn’t like I could use my superior size to move him. Not when I weighed a measly fifteen pounds more.
“Do you think we should let mom and Glenn know we’re stopping?”
He laughed. “I hate to tell you this, but we passed them.”
“What?”
“Molly and Dad are way behind us.”
“How?” I’d been playing scrabble on my phone. I never noticed.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel in time with a song on the radio. “My dad is driving in the slow lane because—and this is just my opinion—he’s occupied with something other than the GPS.”
“I thought they were supposed to be responsible adults!”
; “It’s a good thing we’re past an impressionable stage of youth.”
“We should have insisted they take a honeymoon. One night in Vegas wasn’t enough.” Zack and I told them to go away for a week. Heck, even a weekend. But Glenn and mom were so excited about the new house they didn’t want to wait.
“I tried, you know how my dad is.”
“Yeah,” I shoved my phone in my pocket. It wasn’t easy with Kirk doing his impression of a lap cat. “This must be some sort of lust stage.”
“How do you figure?”
“I’m no expert,” I leaned my head back against the seat, trying to look at Zack with an unobstructed view. “I read an article in biology and it said the first few months of a physical relationship are…intense.” I really didn’t want to go into detail. I’m sure he got the gist of it.
“Ah, hormones.”
“Yeah.”
The Unofficial Zack Warren Fan Club Page 3