by Brooke Moss
“Yeah, but what if Posey does?” I asked, frowning at them both.
“Who cares?” Maddie walked her fingers up my chest, and around the side of my neck, landing on my earlobe. Leaning forward, she pressed her curved little body against mine. “Come on, baby, let’s go hang out for a while. I’ll get you back in time to make practice. Coach will never know you didn’t study with the freak.”
Mac released a low whistle. “Dude. If you don’t go hang out with Maddie, I will.”
“Knock it off,” Maddie said, though she smiled proudly. “What would Alexis say?”
“Um…” Mac scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t care?”
Pulling apart from me, Maddie’s hands went to her hips. “Should I tell Alexis you said that?”
“Come on, guys, take this melodrama out of the library.” I unzipped my backpack and started pulling books out. “I’ve gotta get set up before Posey gets here.”
Maddie turned her rage on me. “What is this? You actually care what that slob thinks?”
Ignoring her, I opened my Lit book to the chapter Posey and I abandoned the other day. Why didn’t they both just leave? Mac was my friend, and all, but he had no filter. And Maddie? She was like playing with a lit firecracker. No telling when she’d go off.
Maddie leaned closer. “Drew, I’m talking to you.”
“He’s not deaf.” Mac snorted. “He’s ignoring you.”
“Shut up,” Maddie hissed, before putting a hand on my bicep and squeezing it. “Seriously. You’re not going to stay, are you?”
“I have to.” I opened my notebook and fished out my pen. “I need to pass Kingston’s class to score a full scholarship. Or graduate.”
“You’re Dad’s, like, rich.” Maddie’s eyes twinkled. She loved discussing my father’s money, and no matter how many times I explained it wasn’t mine, she refused to compute the information. “What does it matter?”
Mac leaned against the table and pulled a candy bar out of his jacket pocket. “Drew’s an over-achiever. I keep telling him to knock it off, it makes me look bad.”
“You make you look bad,” Maddie snapped.
“It just matters, okay?” I took her hand off my arm. “Come on, guys. Get out of here before—”
“Before what?” Maddie harrumphed, crossing her arms across her ample bust. “Before she gets here?”
Slamming my pen down on the table, I turned in my chair. “Seriously. Get out of here.”
Mrs. T took her half glasses off and glared at us from across the room. “You know, you kids are going to have to take your soap opera outside. You’re driving me crazy.” She pointed at me. “And you, young man. Mr. Kingston spoke to me about your precarious situation. You’ve got one last shot at making this tutoring thing work. You’d better focus.”
I sat up straight in my chair, ignoring Mac’s stifled laughter. “Yes, ma’am.”
Maddie waited until Mrs. T went back to her humming, then glowered down at me. “How dare you speak to me that way, Drew.”
“You’re never gonna get back in her pants now,” Mac snickered.
“Shut up!” Maddie and I whispered in unison.
“Fine, fine.” Mac looked at his watch. “Crap. I told Alexis I’d run her home. Maddie, where is she?”
“In the gym, I think.” Maddie played with the waistband on her shirt as she gazed down at me, exposing a sliver of tanned belly. She did more time in the local tanning salon than anyone else I knew, which made her the only born and bred Washington State girl who looked like a transplant from Orlando. “So I’m going to call you later tonight, okay, Drew?”
I nodded and went back to my book. “Sure.”
“Good.” She nodded and tossed her hair again, whipping Mac across the face. “’Cause I think we need to talk.”
I rolled my eyes, annoyed. Why was Maddie pushing so hard? Usually when she broke up with a guy, she moved on to the next one within a week. It didn’t make sense why she was having a hard time accepting we’d broken up. Hell, we hadn’t even been going out for that long. And my head was never in the game as much as… well, other parts were.
“Yeah, I’m gonna call you, too, Drew.” Mac socked me in the shoulder and grinned. “Because I really think we need to talk.”
Maddie shoved him in the chest. “Has anybody ever told you that you’re a total jerk off?”
“A time or two, yeah.” Mac nodded at me. “But not nearly as much of a jerk off as Baxter here. He’s about to hang out with Posey.”
“She’s my tutor,” I explained, scowling down at my book.
“Whatever.” He waved a hand. “I give her a week, and she’ll fall for the Drew Baxter charm. You’ll be in her pants by next Saturday.”
Maddie glared down at me. “You’d better tell him to shove it, Drew. You’d better make him stop right now.”
“Or what?” I growled, not looking up.
“Or I’ll—”
“Oh, Maddie, chill out,” Mac said. “I was just kidding. Drew’s got much higher standards than that. Clearly.”
Maddie’s fingers found the back of my head and she threaded them through my short hair. “He certainly does, doesn’t he?” She turned her focus back to me. “You’d never want to hook up with a girl that fugly, would you?”
I wriggled away from her touch. “Stop.”
“She scares me, man. I heard she’s a witch, or something like that.” Mac jingled his truck keys. “Come on, Maddie. Help me find Alexis, and I’ll drive you home, too.”
“I guess.” Maddie leaned in close, her chest precariously close to the side of my face. “See you tomorrow, Drew. Don’t screw the fugly girl while I’m gone.”
I looked up at them, my eyes going from Maddie’s face to Mac’s then back again. “Don’t you guys have anything better to do than make fun of someone you don’t even know?”
They both stopped and stared at me. After a beat, Mac laughed. “Um… okay?”
“No, it’s not.” I shook my head, anger rising in my chest. “We’re no better than she is.” I focused my stare at Maddie, and she shifted beneath it, her eyes wide. “You’re no better than Posey. You don’t even know her.”
There was a shuffling sound in the library doorway, so Maddie and Mac turned their bewildered expressions in that direction. There stood Posey, wearing an old fisherman’s sweater at least three sizes too big and grayed with age. Her jeans were torn on the knees, she was wrapped in a huge gray coat, and her black hair hung across her face, like always. She looked every bit as weird and standoffish as ever… and yet, sort of familiar at the same time.
I looked at her, and she looked at me. Then her icy blue eyes flicked to Mac and Maddie. After a freakishly awkward five seconds or so, her gaze came back to me.
“Thank you,” she said.
Chapter Eight
Her.
I would be lying if I didn’t admit I’d smiled at dinner. Once. Maybe twice. And you’d think I’d announced to Paula and John that they’d won the lottery, with all the grinning and winking going on at the table. Guess it didn’t take much to please them.
“Um, can I use the computer?” I asked once I’d finished washing the dishes. Micah and Tabitha were currently “drying” them, which meant they were chasing each other around the kitchen whipping each other with wet towels.
“Sure you can,” John said, passing through the room on the way to the bathroom with Cooper tucked under one arm. He always fought his baths, so John handled them now. Usually they both came out of the bathroom soaking afterward. It was pretty funny, even if I never told anybody so. “Honey, will you help her log in?”
Paula looked up from the pants she was patching for Lacey. “Of course.”
I followed her into the corner of the living room where they kept the computer desk, and watched as she entered her password. I’d only been on the computer a handful of times since moving to the Coulters’ and had barely touched my Facebook account since realizing all of my Seattle frie
nds practiced the out of sight, out of mind theory. But today at our tutoring session, Drew had asked if I was online, and well…
Okay. This was lame. I was scrambling to use the computer just because the popular guy told me to. But honestly, I’d been meaning to get back on my Facebook anyway.
“Okay, Posey, you’re good to go.” Paula held out the computer chair for me, and I sat down. “I’ll set the timer for you.”
“Oh, right. The timer.” I tucked my hair behind my ears and scooted closer to the desk. “Thank you.”
The Coulters were so protective of their kids, they set timers when they watched TV or played on the computer. At first it highly offended me. How dare they tell me what to do with my online time? I wasn’t doing a striptease on a webcam, for Pete’s sake. But now I was used to it. Plus, I didn’t really have any friends to chat with anyway.
Paula stood behind me, her hands hovering over my shoulders. “Well…” she hesitated and bit her lip. “I’ll be in the next room if you need me.”
I knew she wanted to touch me but was afraid to. The first week I’d been here, she’d started playing with my hair one day, and I’d called her every name in the book. I thought for sure they would kick me out, but Paula just kept a safe distance since. Her attitude never changed, though. She was still sickeningly sweet.
“’Kay.” I watched her reflection in the monitor as she walked away. My heart squeezed. Paula deserved for me to love her back as much as she clearly loved me. Or as much as she thought she loved me. Maybe I would get there someday. The Coulters weren’t that bad, and nobody else out there loved me like my mom had. Or should have. It’d been a long time since I’d heard from her or either of my brothers.
Sometimes I wondered why. I mean, I was their sister. They would be eleven and nine now. Didn’t they wonder what had happened to me? I would try to imagine what Julian and Rory looked like these days and tried to guess what kinds of television shows and toys they would be into. But other times, I was filled with resentment. Why hadn’t Aunt Lisa kept in touch? I was as related to her as the boys were. Why wasn’t I special enough to be connected to?
I logged on and watched as dozens of little red numbers pinged at the top of the screen. “Guess I should get on here more often,” I mumbled to myself, filtering through all of my notifications.
Most of them were friend requests from people I’d never met. I couldn’t manage to make a friend in the town I lived in, but twelve men from Bombay, India wanted to get to know me. That figured.
Of course, things around Twisted Tree had gotten better over the past week. I had to admit that. My sessions with Drew were going… surprisingly okay. When I showed him all of the things I loved about Hemingway’s or Orwell’s work, he actually listened. When I quizzed him on The Tenant of Wildfeld Hall, he worked hard to remember the answers, then studied hard to figure out the ones he missed. Geez, we’d even laughed together a few times. And—in an act so shocking, I’d almost walked into someone’s open locker—he’d nodded in my direction in the hallway between classes the other day.
Though I’d never admit it to Drew, I’d decided he wasn’t that bad after all. Sure, he was cocky and thought he was God’s gift to the girls at school. But he was also a pretty smart guy. He liked math because it didn’t require any emotion. It was all black and white, and classes like Lit had too much gray for his taste. Feelings scared Drew. That much I knew.
Okay. I lied. I knew something else, too.
Drew was sort of cute. Sure, he was the complete opposite of any guy I’d ever hooked up with in the past—which mostly included juvenile delinquents and body art connoisseurs. But underneath his shortly cropped chocolate-brown hair, leaf green eyes, and swimmer’s physique—which, if I was being honest, was killer—there was a baby face that probably looked just like the one he had when he was three years old. And when he smiled, his face lit up like the candles on a birthday cake. And when he laughed hard, the sound became wheezy, like an old man, which inadvertently made him laugh even harder.
Shaking my head, I pushed thoughts about Drew to the back of my mind. This was stupid. I’d officially joined the ranks of the pathetic freshman that followed him around like zombies, wagging their tongues at the back of his head. This was lame. I was lame. And I needed to focus on getting the hell through this assignment so I could graduate.
Sighing I clicked the mouse. Decline, decline, decline.
“What the…?” I sucked in a sharp breath. One of the friend requests was from Drew. Looking over my shoulder to make sure none of the Coulter kids were watching me, I clicked accept, then scanned his profile. All of his pictures were of him celebrating his swim meet wins. Ribbons and medals hung around his neck, water droplets clung to his hair and skin, and his parents grinned on either side of him. I stared at Mayor Baxter for a long while, his crinkly-eyed smile and streaks of grey in the hair just above his ears made him look like a handsome former movie star.
But something ugly lurked underneath all of that bull. A bastard, no better than any of the losers with kids in the foster system.
Grunting, I opened a different photo album marked “mobile downloads.” That one was filled with pictures he’d taken on his phone. Shots of him, his friend, Mac, and a pizza roughly the size of a snow sled. A few pictures of Drew smiling with other scattered kids from school. And sure enough, a handful with Maddie Mulcahey, one hand on her hip and her duck lips out in full force in every picture.
Snorting, I closed that album. I seriously couldn’t stand that girl. I didn’t understand why she was such a hot item at TTHS. She was overly tanned and her hair had its own zip code. She walked around in miniskirts with platform heels like some sort of Vegas party girl, even though we all lived in a puny town surrounded by trees where it rained six days out of seven. What Drew—and every other guy in our school—saw in Maddie was beyond me.
Aw, hell. I knew what they saw in her. 36DD’s and a desperate need to defy her father’s Christian upbringing. Boys loved girls like that.
A soft chime interrupted my inner monologue, and I sucked in a sharp breath when I realized Drew had IM’d me. I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Jessa wasn’t anywhere nearby, because if she found out I was chatting online with him, she would probably run out to the back yard to do round-offs.
Drew: Hey. I found you.
Me: I wasn’t hiding.
Drew: LOL. Whatever.
Me: So… stalk me much?
Drew: Shut up. What are you up to?
Me: Just finished dinner. It’s chaos around here.
Drew: Weird. Freaking quiet here. I hate that.
Me: I’d give anything for some peace. Wanna trade places?
Drew: Uh… no. My parents would kill me if I hung at the Coulters’.
Me: Why?
I was surprised at the defensiveness that flared in my belly when he said that. Sure, I wasn’t a Coulter. Not officially. But they were the closest thing I’d had to a family in a long time. Possibly forever. And even though it was bound to come to an end at some point—sooner, rather than later, if I managed to pull a passing grade in Lit and get the hell out of Twisted Tree—I didn’t like the fact that the kids in the school made jokes about the Coulters. Yeah, they wore a lot of hand-me-downs, and their house was big and messy with weeds in the flower garden and a handmade chicken coop out back. But they were also the first family I’d ever met who loved all their kids unconditionally and never stopped.
Drew: Long story. I’ll tell you sometime.
Me: K.
Drew: So I have an idea.
Me: You’re going to finish reading The Tenant of Wildfeld Hall so I won’t have to rag on you tomorrow?
Drew: No.
Me: Way to go the extra mile.
Drew: LOL. Whatever.
Me: What’s your idea?
Drew: Tomorrow. Field trip. Mutiny Bay.
Me: ?
Drew: I gotta get out of that library. Mrs. T’s humming is driving me crazy.
>
Me: You sure you’re not sick of Maddie passing the library door every five minutes?
And even if he wasn’t, I sure was. I knew I was sick of it. Whenever Drew and I shared a laugh, or we looked like we were enjoying ourselves the slightest bit, Maddie would show up outside the library and clear her throat. Drew always ignored it, but I’d started noticing the signs when he was irritated. Usually he clenched his teeth, and the muscles in his jaw twitched. And when his girlfriend—though he swore she was his ex-girlfriend, not that it mattered to Maddie—bugged our tutoring sessions, his jaw went nutso.
Drew: Yeah. Annoying. Sorry about that.
Me: Not your fault.
Drew: So whatcha think? Tomorrow’s sesh at the bay?
Me: Where is Mutiny Bay?
Drew: Come on…
Me: No, really. Where is it?
Drew: There’s a path to the bay off the back parking lot of the school.
I pressed my lips together, my hands poised over the keyboard. That was the parking lot where I’d caught his dad knocking him around. I’d seen Mayor and Mrs. Baxter leaving the store the other day as I helped Paula load groceries into the back of the van, and I’d torn one of the bags from gripping it so hard. That guy really was a colossal douche bag.
Me: Oh, that? I walk there all the time.
Drew: There’s a small beach just off of the main one in the bay where I hang out sometimes.
My breath caught. Was he talking about my beach?
Me: You mean the one behind the rocks?
Drew: That’s the one.
Me: I thought that was my own personal hangout spot.
Drew: Whatever. Mine. So you wanna meet me there?
Me: Sure.
Drew: K. Cool. See you then.
Me: K. Try doing some reading tonight.
Drew: Blah. Reading’s for losers.
Me: Now I know why you needed a tutor.
Drew: You didn’t know before?
Me: ;)
He logged off and I caught myself sitting at the computer smiling. Just a week ago Drew and I hated each other. Now we liked each other. Now we actually got along. I mean, in a very platonic-tutor-student-classmate sort of way.