At the moment we were all sitting in a merciful pocket of silence between the turd laying and the scratching.
As Mr. Ellsworth finished chewing a bite of the meatloaf, he glanced at Keagan and then at his son's plate. He swallowed and his lips twisted into a displeased curl. He opened his mouth and I knew we were in for a smelly one.
"So Keagan. Flunked any tests at the new school yet?"
Keagan flinched, the slight movement so brief I would have missed it if I hadn't been looking at him. His eyes met mine and the corner of his lip curved upward into a wry smile before he turned his head toward Mr. Ellsworth.
"No," he drawled.
"Just no? Are you disrespecting me boy?" Mr. Ellsworth picked at his teeth.
"No...sir."
"I see you've got a new tattoo there?" Mr. Ellsworth pointed his knife at his son's arm. "Did you get one of your biker friends to do it with an infected needle?"
"No."
"Maybe septicemia's already setting in. Ever think of that?"
Mrs. Ellsworth jumped up and grabbed a water pitcher from the sideboard. "It's so nice to have you here tonight, Tara." She grabbed my glass, which was three-quarters full already, and began pouring. "We haven't seen you in so long. Isn't that right? A longtime. How's your grandmother? I haven't—"
"Minnie, stop." Mr. Ellsworth picked up the saltshaker and waved it around in the air. "I'm trying to talk to my son."
"You don't need to talk to him now," Mrs. Ellsworth said with a wan smile in my direction.
"Why not? You're always talking about the family conversing at dinner."
"But we have a guest."
"Tara's hardly a guest," Mr. Ellsworth scoffed. "She's like one of us."
Mr. Ellsworth smiled in my direction and I mumbled, "thank you."
"She's aware Keagan's a delinquent screw-up."
Liam stifled a laugh, disguising his snort with a cough into his napkin as I pierced him with a glare.
I wanted to shout at Mr. Ellsworth to shut up. But he was an adult and, no matter what he said about it, I was a guest in his home. Mr. Ellsworth's verbal abuse of Keagan was bad enough but lately Liam had been getting more and more infected by the attitude.
My eyes returned to Keagan who was playing with his potatoes again. He drew two eyes with the tip of his knife at the starchy circle center before he directed his gaze back to me and drew a frowny mouth.
"Well?" Mr. Ellsworth demanded of Keagan.
The mental vibes of "I'm keeping my promise but it's damn hard" were wafting my way in waves from across the table as he answered his father.
"No, sir," Keagan finally replied.
"Been expelled yet?" At his son's shaking head, Mr. Ellsworth continued, "If you're not flunking out or getting in trouble, what are you doing?"
"I'm playing football. I'm the team's new middle linebacker."
"Linebacker? Hmmmm." Mr. Ellsworth took another bite and chewed. With his mouth still full of food he said, "You're a decent football player. I'll give you that."
Mr. Ellsworth was a fiend for football. Figured his only half decent comment to Keagan was about that sport.
"Thanks," Keagan drawled.
"'Course with Liam as running back, you don't stand a chance," Mr. Ellsworth continued.
"Yeah. The Flyers are gonna win whether you're on that pathetic team of not," Liam piped in.
"Oh really? The Hawks are a great team. We're gonna murder you."
Keagan's words took my breath and turned the food in my mouth to rock salt.
"I'm personally gonna score at least one TD by breezing right by you," Liam shouted.
"Dream on, bro," Keagan shot back. "You won't get one play past me, let alone a touchdown."
"You can't touch my speed," Liam yelled, clutching his dinner knife as if it was a stiletto he was about to stab his brother with.
"You move in slow motion. Your team sucks and so do you," Keagan said.
"Don't talk to your brother that way," Mrs. Ellsworth shot out at Keagan.
With a glare at me, Keagan threw down his napkin as he pushed the chair back.
"I'm so outta here," he said, before stomping his way to the front door.
"You come back here, young man," his dad shouted.
The words had no effect and Keagan continued out, slamming the door behind him.
Mr. Ellsworth turned to Liam with his fork upturned as he waved it almost like an epee. "Just make sure you play a good game, son. I hear there'll be a scout there from the University of Georgia."
"Yes, Dad."
The rock salt dropped from my mouth to the pit of my stomach. The chance of convincing Liam not to play in Friday's game had just officially gone from slim to none.
* * * * *
Sitting and holding hands with Liam on the Ellsworth's porch swing after dinner would have been a peaceful bliss, a respite after the family hostilities, if not for the fact that my mind was churning. Liam's voice blah blahing droned on about some subject...I didn't even know what. My ears were blocked by the locomotion of the freight train in my brain. Ways to try to convince Liam not to play in the football game, now less than forty-eight hours away, kept turning over and nothing seemed likely to succeed. Oh well, I had to try.
"Liam." I interrupted him mid-blah. "Don't play in the game on Friday."
"What?" His expression went from relaxed to wide-eyed shock. "Why would you say that?"
'Cause I'm a banshee and I know you're gonna die if you play in that game. Na. Saying that was my last resort. The one I'd take just before they had me drug tested. The one I'd take right before the men in white coats came to put me into the straightjacket.
"Ummm. I—" The argument I'd planned suddenly didn't seem that good an idea but I went with it. "I think you shouldn't fight with your brother. This game is escalating the war between you two."
"Who cares," he scoffed.
"I do. You have the power to convince your dad to change his mind and send Keagan back to school at the Academy. Then you wouldn't be on opposite teams."
He released my hand and it dropped in a thud on the seat of the swing as he jumped up to move to the edge of the porch. "Why are you so concerned about my brother? You into him or something?"
"Of course not."
"You are," he accused. "Just like every other girl. You think he's hot."
"Nnnnnno," I sputtered. "He gives me the creeps. I wouldn't let him touch me—" I stopped myself mid cliché. What was that quote about protesting too much? Keagan gave me the shivers but not the creeps. However, saying that wouldn't help my cause.
"I'm concerned about you, not him." I got up, crossed to Liam, and then placed a hand on his arm. "All this with your brother—It's making you into a person I don't recognize. You aren't you."
He jerked his arm out of my light grasp. "Because I won't let Keagan get away with his bull? Because I stand up to him?"
"No." I shook my head. "You don't just stand up to him, you gang up on him."
"Gang up?"
"With your parents. Yes. The three of you gang up on him."
Liam's face reflected a shocked kind of betrayal that made me cringe inside.
"Nice, Tara. Real nice," he mumbled.
"I'm sorry, but it's true," I defended. "And you can stop it right now by not playing that game on Friday."
"I've gotta play. You heard Dad. There'll be a scout there."
"Is that the most important thing in your life?" I shouted. "What if I said I'd go to the reserve with you on Friday?"
The meaning of my words dawned and a slow smile turned to a grin. "Really?"
"But only if you don't play."
"I'm not gonna be manipulated into giving up a chance for a scholarship to UGA." Shaking his head as if to clear it, Liam said, "This makes no sense. What's the real reason you don't want me to play on Friday?"
Time for the last resort, I thought.
"I had a vision that you're going to...going to get...get hurt if you play."
"Are you saying I'm lying?"
"Either that or crazy."
Now it was my turn to be hurt. "Is that what you really think?"
"No." His jaw moved with the clenching and unclenching of his teeth. "I think you enjoy teasing. I think you enjoy trying to wrap me around your little finger. And I've let you do it. But no more. I'm not gonna be whipped."
"Whipped! By me?"
"That's what the guys on the team said and they were right."
"Yeah. Billy and his band of jerkwads are real authorities on women," I said with more than a dollop of sarcasm. "If that's who you want to listen to, then I can't stop you."
"Good," Liam shouted. "I will."
"Fine," I shouted back.
With one last glare at me, Liam marched to the front door, tugged it open and stormed inside the house. The slam of the door behind his departing back caused the porch to shake under my feet.
That went well.
Long seconds later, I acknowledged to myself Liam wasn't coming back out. I trudged my way down the steps to the sidewalk before starting toward the street in the direction of my parked car. I was about halfway there when a low, teasing voice came from behind a bush.
"Whew. You sure made him mad."
Startled, I jumped and whirled to face Keagan.
"How long have you been hiding here?" I demanded, my mind furiously racing over the conversation Liam and I had.
"Long enough," Keagan said, stepping out and under the full force of the streetlamp. "Long enough to hear you making a very provocative offer."
A blush caught fire in my cheeks. Thank heavens for the cover of the dim light. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you do," Keagan drawled. "My brother is a real fool. If you offered me a night of passion at the reserve I wouldn't turn you down for football."
"I bet." Managing to make my statement a monotone and keeping all reaction from registering on my face, while my heart was doing more flips than an Olympic gymnast, was one of the harder things I'd ever done.
"Yeah. I'd have jumped at that offer in a heartbeat." Keagan's low, sensual baritone teased as if he knew exactly what I was feeling. "A chance to pop the cherry of a gorgeous and notorious virgin weighed against a mere football game? No contest."
"You're crude and disgusting." Turning on a heel, I presented a stiff back to him before walking away.
"And you love it." The low rumble of his laugh burned my ears. "You were my little champion back there. Trying to get Liam to go to bat for me with Dad."
"Like I said to Liam, that was for him and not you." My car parked at the end of the block seemed like a mile away.
Keagan grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop. Turning in reluctance, I saw his face set in a serious frown.
"Sure," he said. "I know it's Liam you love and Liam you want. But no matter who you did that for, you shoulda saved your breath."
"Why? It would solve everything if you would just come back to our school."
"Even if Dad would send me, I'm not going back to that toity Academy and its hoity students. I'm happy where I am. And it'll be my personal pleasure to make sure my brother never sees the end zone let alone a UGA scholarship. Liam's ass is grass—or in this case Astroturf— on Friday."
* * * * *
The next day— Thursday—I spent most of the morning trying to get Liam to talk to me with no luck. He remained furious. In all the years we'd known each other we'd never stayed mad for more than a few hours. I felt completely unsettled. The earth was off its axis and all I could do was list around helplessly.
I'd gone through the denial phase, then the anger phase, and then started bargaining, but nothing worked. Every time I managed to touch Liam...nothing. No vision of a new and different death. He was still on course to die at Keagan's hands during the game. With so little time left, how was I going to stop Liam from playing in that game if he wouldn't even speak to me?
In a depression, I escaped to the girls' room and locked myself in the middle stall. I sat down on the seat and put my head in my hands.
The bell for fifth period rang. The chattering of the girls who'd been washing their hands and putting on make-up trailed behind them as they left. The outer door swooshed shut and just as quickly swooshed open again.
"Are you okay, Tara?" My friend, Juliette's voice, high-pitched and dripping in placid concern, echoed against the tile walls. "You've been acting weird. I'm worried about you."
"I'm okay. Go on," I said. "You'll miss class."
"No," she replied. "I have an appointment with the guidance counselor and she said it was okay to ... anyway, I don't have to go."
As she chattered I glanced up. The graffiti carved on the inside of the door screamed out at me: Tara Sucks.
Lashonda had carved those words into the stall on the first day of the school year when I'd refused to join a group of the cheerleaders in a drinking party. She seemed certain I could pass for twenty-one and buy them a supply of beer. I refused, as did Juliette.
"You and Juliette," Lashonda had groused. "Just a couple of goody-goodies. You both suck."
But in the end it was only my name that ended up on the stall door. Juliette was too nice. Too sweet. Nobody wanted to hurt her feelings.
The words on the door, even if not true then, were certainly true now. I did suck. I sucked big time. Reaching into my purse, I got out a ballpoint and scratched in an exclamation point next to Lashonda's carving.
But defacing public property didn't make me feel any better. Had I expected it to?
Sabotaging the football stadium briefly seemed an option to saving Liam, until I acknowledged that I had no idea how to do it. Maybe calling in a bomb threat would...but no. The mania about football was so high around here that it might cause a delay while they checked for a device, but it wouldn't cause them to cancel the entire game.
"Come out and talk to me," Juliette said, knocking with a delicate rap on the metal door. "I want to help."
"Can you set fire to the Astroturf in the stadium for me?"
"What? No. Of course not," Juliette sputtered but I barely heard her.
Grabbing the phone out of my purse, I did a quick Internet search. The answer about synthetic grass being pretty much nonflammable made me toss the phone back into my bag in disgust.
"Damn Astroturf!" I shouted.
"What is this about?" Juliette asked. "Why are you so angry at the fake grass?"
"Fake grass?" I cried. "That's the least of my worries."
"Okay," she said. "But I thought you hated it."
Keagan's words came back to me: Liam's ass is grass—or in this case Astroturf— on Friday.
"Shut up about the damn Astroturf!" I cried.
"Whatever you want," she said. "Maybe I should get the guidance counselor."
Something else Keagan had said shot into my mind: I'd have jumped at that offer in a heartbeat. He was saying he'd miss the game for a chance to have sex with me.
Why hadn't I thought of it before? Keagan was the other half of the equation.
If he didn't play the game on Friday, then he couldn't be there to kill Liam. The fact that someone else could replace Keagan and make the death-dealing tackle remained a possibility. Nothing was certain. But that wasn't likely, I told myself. Only Liam's brother had the heated drive to stop his brother at all costs. The other team members were just playing a sport. Most likely if I could stop Keagan from going to the game, I could save Liam.
Suddenly, I did have a chance to change fate, but only if Keagan had meant what he said. And even if he meant it, would I be able to carry through? I was too inhibited to have sex with Liam. Could I cheat on him with his brother? Of course, Liam would never forgive me. But in the end, which was worse, betraying Liam in a way that he would never forgive or allowing him to die?
Chapter Three
Bolting out of the bathroom stall, I shot past a shocked Juliette and out into the hall.
I made it out of the school without anyone stopping me. As I strode to my Camry, it occurred to me that this was the first time in my entire school career that I'd skipped out, leaving school before my last class. I'd be missing cheerleading practice too but I didn't care if I was thrown off the squad.
"Who cares if I get in trouble," I muttered. "Where has it gotten me to be good?"
A parking ticket rested on the windshield, which I grabbed and promptly tore to pieces before throwing on the ground. After a few moments fumbling in my purse, I managed to grab the key ring and unlock the car. I jumped inside, fired the engine, and peeled out.
Keagan's school was to the south of the downtown and I shattered many a traffic law getting there. Now that I had a plan, it seemed imperative to put it into operation before I chickened out. Or before fate conspired to put some other blockade in my way.
When I turned the corner to approach his school, Keagan and two other guys were lounging next to the dumpster, smoking.
Rolling down the window of the old Camry, I shouted to him. "Hey Keagan. Can I give you a ride home?"
For a mille-second, surprise widened his eyes and slackened his jaw. He tossed the cigarette butt to the pavement and ground it under the heel of his boot. Then a casual smirk replaced surprise. He muttered something to his companions, causing them to laugh and shoot me a leer as Keagan sauntered my way.
"What are you doing here, Goody?"
"Don't call me that." The nickname set my teeth on edge. "Do you want a ride or not?" Great. What a way to start a seduction.
"Oh yeah," he said, pulling open the passenger door. "I definitely want a ride."
His statement was loud enough for his friends to hear. From their nasty chuckles I knew they were reading in a double entendre, as Keagan had no doubt meant them to do.
Once he was inside, I set off but couldn't think what to say. We drove along in silence. My hands clenched and unclenched on the steering wheel while Keagan sat in his seat, staring at me with that horrid smile. A glance at him and my stomach churned as if somebody had installed a roulette wheel inside me.
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