by C. L. Stone
“Could I…could I leave if I didn’t like it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Although I wouldn’t invite you in if I didn’t think you’d like it. You’ll have to trust me, though. It’s not just something you understand overnight. It’s a learning experience.”
Tell me about it. I’d been trying to weasel my way in, asking so many questions, and even though I got what he was saying about it, I was still completely lost. I sighed heavily and nodded. “Maybe after we find Sara and everything.”
“We don’t have to wait even that long to get started,” he said. He shifted, nudging me to move. He pulled back the blanket and readjusted the pillows. “Let’s lay down. I’ll tell you what I can. We’ll sleep a bit, because we don’t know when we’ll get another chance. We’ll need to be ready if Axel calls and we have to go.”
I adjusted myself under the sheets. He got up, put the pizza in the fridge and turned off the lights. In the dark, he slipped off his shoes, socks and jeans and then crawled into bed beside me.
I settled in, stretched. Corey talking to me, his honesty about it, his happy nature, made it too easy to try to trust.
Slowly, he moved forward, until he could hook an arm under my neck, and tug me closer facing him. I welcomed it. Knowing he was gay made it easier to snuggle with him without questions, without worrying about what Brandon or Marc or anyone else would think, because it didn’t mean anything but a friendly cuddle.
“What do you want to know?” he asked.
Now that I knew I could probably ask him anything I wanted about it, and that I just needed time for him to explain, I was trying to figure out where to start. “Just tell me about these rules you have to follow.”
“The first rule is trust your family,” he said.
I snorted. “Okay, that doesn’t work.”
He laughed. “It’s not what you’re thinking.” He squeezed me a little. “The second rule is family is a choice.”
I thought about that. “You can’t choose your family. It’s all blood relations.”
“No,” he said. “That’s the trick. Maybe we’re twisting the term a little, but father describes the relationship to your birth parent. If your dad was an ax murderer, we wouldn’t ask you to consider him family and to love and trust him. Family consists of people you care about, who care about you, who try to make an effort. People consider friends and pets part of the family all the time.”
“And that’s a rule?”
“They’re the most important rules,” he said. “Everything else is based on it. You have to team up with a family you trust, and it will always be your choice.”
“So, if I go to the Academy and tell them I trust you guys and want to join your team, I could? I thought Brandon…Brandon said once a girl couldn’t join a guy team.”
I felt him shrug. “It’s a suggestion, not a rule. There’s a reason, of course. They tend to like girls having their own team. A girl on a guy team can cause a few problems. Like with Kevin.”
“Huh?”
“I mean, Kevin’s got a girlfriend, right? What would she think if he’s gone off to Florida with some girl for a couple of nights?”
“She doesn’t trust him? I mean I can keep my hands off of Kevin.”
“Maybe she should trust him,” he said. He shifted a little, moving closer. He yawned. “Maybe, but… it’s one of those situational things. Kevin wants to keep Mindy in the dark about the Academy. He doesn’t want her to worry about him. It’s a risk, because now he has to explain why he may be on an assignment, with say, you. But if he’s only hanging out with guys, see, at least the majority of the time, it might make it a little easier. He’s still taking a risk, though. He may be gone at odd hours of the night or for days on end, which makes anyone suspicious and jealous. The Academy simply wants us to consider the consequences when we bring in anyone to the team, especially if it can cause a disruption with other members’ relationships.”
“I get it,” I said. “But I could still…well, then no. I can’t join you guys. Because Kevin… and I mean if the other guys get girlfriends, then that wouldn’t work.”
“It’s not impossible,” Corey said. “I mean, I haven’t worked out the details. I think I’ve heard of a team that did it successfully. But if you really, really wanted to stay with our team, we could figure it out. And even if it doesn’t work out and you worked with a girl team…”
“Ick,” I said. “I don’t want a girl team.”
He laughed. “Okay, well, who knows? You may like some of them. You could still hang out with us if you join them.”
“Girls have cooties; didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”
“You’re a girl,” he said.
I sniggered, snuggling into him. “If I wasn’t…” I trailed off then, as I was tempted to ask if I wasn’t, maybe he and I could hook up. Brandon had said he was waiting for Corey to come to him with the whole gay thing, so I wanted to respect that. “I mean, it’d be easier for us.”
“You’re fine how you are,” he said.
“Oh my god, you’re so corny.”
I got a poke in the ribs. “And you’ve got cooties.”
I settled then, feeling oddly better. Family. Is that what the adoption was for? Was it just their technical term saying they wanted me and Wil in the family?
I listened to Corey’s breathing slowing down. His body shifted as he relaxed.
And I vowed that I’d find a way, if it were possible, to keep Corey on any Academy team I joined, or I wouldn’t join at all.
TEAMWORK
A thin gray line of light falling on the carpet by the window was the only indication that night had turned to day the moment I opened my eyes. It was dim enough to make me think it was super early, so I rolled over, away from the light.
My leg knocked into Corey’s.
Corey grunted, flipped over and dropped an arm over me.
I fell asleep again like that.
Buzzing interrupted the silence maybe an hour later. Corey sat up sharply. He sucked down air through his nose, exhaled through his mouth in a shot and then looked around.
I rolled back over, ready to go back to sleep.
“Kayli,” he said, his voice croaky.
“Mergh.”
“It’s your phone.”
I stretched out a leg to kick him, barely, because it was more a sleepy, weak nudge. He was being goofy. I don’t have a phone.
After the sleep fog started to clear at the sound of another rattling vibration, I sat up as quickly as he’d done, looking around, remembering I did have one. Was it Blake? If it were the other guys, they’d call Corey.
I scrambled to get up, getting caught with the blanket twisted around my legs.
Corey got up faster and grabbed it from the table.
My heart was in a panic. I reached for it. “Here!” Would he answer? Would Blake have the sense not to respond? After all I’d done to get Corey to trust me with telling me things, I didn’t want Blake to ruin it.
Corey looked at the screen, his eyebrows shifting up and then he held it out to me.
My heart in my throat, I thought maybe the screen said Blake’s name somehow or that he recognized the number.
But when I looked at it, and the phone call went to the voicemail, I realized I didn’t even recognize the number.
Blake with another phone?
“Who is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” At least I was honest there. I hit the buttons, trying to figure out the voice mailbox, and while I waited for the message, I came up with a lie in case it was Blake. Solicitor. They hung up. Wrong number.
“Kayli-bailey,” cried the unmistakable voice of Future. “Someone’s got a shitload of hot guys she’s not sharing. And I’ve got news. Call me back, bunny.”
How…Blake. He must have gotten to her and given her the number? Or maybe Axel went to find her.
“It’s Future,” I said. I tapped at the phone to call her back.
“The cros
s-dresser guy… girl…” Corey asked, rubbing at his face and yawning.
Future picked up before I could answer him. “Hey, there,” she said. “Okay, where are you?”
“Why?”
“We found her, we found her,” she sang into the phone. “But you have to come to us because we don’t want to leave and lose her.”
“Found who?”
“Sara’s mom. Your friend and I found her.”
I brightened, put my palm over the phone to talk to Corey. “It’s Future. She found Sara’s mom.”
He beamed. “Awesome.”
“What do we do?” I asked Future. “Where is she?”
“We’re outside…where are we?” she asked someone else. A male voice spoke but I couldn’t place it. “242 Kimble. Hurry up before she leaves or something.”
“We don’t have a car.”
“Shit, what happened to your van?”
“Uh,” I looked at Corey. “We have to go to her. Future is trying to watch to make sure she doesn’t leave. How do we get there?”
Corey got his phone, and started typing. “I either call a cab and go pick up the SUV or get Axel to come back.”
I spoke to Future. “We’re working on it.”
“Make it quick. I’m going to steal your man.” She hung up.
I rolled my eyes and put the phone away. I took a few steps along the carpet, looking around. “Where’s my stuff?”
Corey pointed to my bag in the corner while he held the phone to his ear. “I can’t get Axel. He’s not picking up.”
“Try Raven,” I said.
Corey pulled the phone away and then started typing at it. “I sent them all a message about what we’re doing. If they call back, they can catch up but we should go. I’m calling a cab. We can go grab the SUV.”
“They’re watching it.”
“If it hasn’t been towed, we have to go get it. Henry and his team are probably at work by now, anyway.”
I got in a fast shower, got dressed, and ate a quick couple pieces of cold pizza while waiting for the cab to arrive.
I waited with Corey downstairs. He had shadows under his eyes and his hair was messed up, but he was smiling.
“How are you so happy in the morning?” I asked, smoothing out the cotton shorts and black T-shirt I’d put on. With the flip-flops and the phone tucked into my pocket, I was hunched over and basically leaning against him.
“I feel it,” he said, smiling down at me. “We’re about to solve this case. We found a missing piece.”
“We haven’t found it, yet.”
“Almost there,” he said, and then pointed to where the cab was pulling up.
Cabs were always timely.
We loaded into the back seat. Corey gave him directions so we could pick up the SUV.
When we got there, the party house was quiet. There wasn’t a car in the drive.
“See?” he said. “No one. He went to work.”
At least we had that going for us. Corey pulled out his keys and in a few minutes, we were on our way to Kimble.
We ended up at a ritzy apartment complex. There were fountains and two pools with a hot tub, manicured lawns and the buildings were all kept up.
My jaw dropped open. “I don’t like her.” I said.
“What?” Corey asked. “Who are you talking about?”
“The mom,” I said. “The dad and Sara had a little apartment. She lives here?”
Corey shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s got a boyfriend who has money.”
“Maybe.” Still didn’t like it. If Axel was right and Sara lived with her dad, even if it wasn’t officially on paper, and the mom lived in a ritzy apartment and still asked for money from Fred…what kind of mother was she?
“Outside,” Corey said. “We’re looking from the outside.”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I’ll hate her after we figure it out. I still can’t forgive her if she’s the one that caused them to run off in the first place. She started all this.”
He smiled. “I can give you that.”
We pulled into the parking lot, trying to figure out where to go. Corey parked by the front lobby. “Let’s walk it,” he said.
We hopped out, looking around.
“If someone asks,” he said, standing on the sidewalk beside me, “we’re checking it out because we’re looking for an apartment here.”
“I wouldn’t want to live here.”
“Pretend,” he said. He reached for my hand, holding it. “Come on, girlfriend Kayli,” he said with his eyes all wide and his cheeks bunched up.
I laughed. Crazy.
We took a walk through the complex. What if Future took off without us? We turned a corner, checking out the line of cars in the lot, some parked under carports.
“Kayliii!” A harsh whisper said from behind us after we turned a corner. We both turned.
Future was standing so close, she could have touched one of us. I jumped back, hand on my heart. “Jeez,” I said. “What?”
“What are you doing?” she asked. “You’re going to attract attention.”
I looked her over. Future was wearing yellow spandex shorts and a blue halter with half her boobs spilling out the top. If she had a cape, she’d be a superhero. I raised my eyebrows and blinked at her.
“Future?” Corey asked.
She squinted at Corey. “What? Brandon got out? Where’s the other one? The one with the funny eyes?”
“This isn’t Brandon,” I said. “This is Corey. His brother.”
Her mouth popped open. “Holy shit fuck. Twins.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Corey blushed. “It’s not that weird, is it?”
“No,” Future said, waving her manicured finger in the air. “No, no, no. You,” she pointed at me, “are now my new best friend. You’ve got the hot guys, the crazy intel into these cool cases, the sweet cars…”
“Like the van?” I asked.
“Shit yeah, the van,” she said. She reached out, tugging the sleeve of my T-shirt. “But your clothes are ugly. That’s why you need me. For pretty clothes. We’ll work this together. We’re team F and K. We’re team F-uc-K You, We’re Awesome.”
“Fu… Wa?” Corey said slowly.
“That’s not an acronym, it’s initialism,” she said. “So you have to spell it out. F.Y.W.A. FU for short. Sounds better.”
I pushed my palm to my forehead, dying on the inside from all this insanity. “Can we just find Mrs. Gunther please?”
“She’s in her apartment,” Future said. “You and I should go.” She looked at him. “Corey, right?”
He nodded, the twisted smile on his face telling me he was highly amused.
“Can you be our lookout? Just in case things get nasty. Girl fights are the worst.”
“No girl fights,” Corey told me.
Future tugged at my elbow, drawing me toward one of the buildings. “No promises,” she said, and smiled. “We might be in a cat fight soon if she isn’t willing to share some of you hotties.”
Oh boy.
Corey, red faced and rubbing his neck double time, backtracked a bit, finding a bench nearby that was next to a water feature. He sat on it, checking his phone, trying to look casual.
“Who brought you, anyway?” I asked as we were walking away.
“The rich one,” she said. “The one with the Mercedes.”
Shit. “Oh, yeah, him. Say, if you don’t mind, Corey shouldn’t…I mean…”
“Yeah,” she said, nudging me toward some stairs. She hustled up beside me as we climbed. “Don’t worry about it. He explained about this Academy thing.”
I wanted to smack the tar out of Blake next time I saw him. “He shouldn’t have said that.”
“Don’t sweat it,” she said. “I get it. For one, he’s fucking in love with you. I think Brandon is, too, from the way he kept telling me to back off last night. And you don’t want Blake and Brandon fighting. For two, you’ve got this Academy thing. I can kee
p a secret. He’s sitting back, watching our asses in case the Academy tries to take us down.”
“They’re not that bad,” I said.
“They were trespassing last night,” she said. “And I heard about the kidnapping. The one at the school? The vice-president that got kidnapped?”
“You mean the vice-principal?”
She went to a door and pounded at it with her masculine fist, making the door shake in the frame. “Open up,” she barked in her man voice. “Official business!” I was having a heart attack and she turned back to me, in her feminine voice again and calmly said, “Is it principal? Oh yeah. Been a while. I forget these things.”
When she turned toward the door, I eased a short step back, ready to run. Future was crazy.
I liked it, but I wanted to get out of shooting range just in case.
The lock made a scraping noise. The door opened.
Out peered the brunette escort from the night before.
My mouth popped open, my head tilted. “Uh.” Okay she had to have the wrong address.
“Hey there, Luanne,” Future said. She slapped a finger toward her lips in an innocent pose. “Oops, I mean, sorry.”
“What are you doing here?” Mrs. Gunther said, hand on her hip. She was in a skimpy kimono robe, her hair pulled back tight against her head and her eyes unfocused like she’d been asleep. She frowned at Future. “I told you to call me Vienna.”
“I don’t know why. Luanne’s a pretty name.” Future beamed. “Could I bother you for a minute? Girl on girl talk?”
I stared at Luanne again. She didn’t look like the same woman. With the long hair…was that picture I had seen at up to date? I squinted at her face. Her eyebrows were sculpted, her skin was tan. Was she wearing a wig last night? Maybe it was a wig in the picture and different makeup, too. No wonder I didn’t recognize her.
“No, not even fag on girl talk,” Luanne said. She looked at me. “Who are you?”
“She’s here to talk to you,” Future said. “Look, Henry wanted me to take her on as a runner, but I was telling her she’d probably make more as an escort.” Future looked at me pointedly.
I stared back at her with my best I’m going to kill you with a death ray glare. “Uh, yeah,” I said. I threw on a cheerleader accent. “Like, you know, Henry mentioned you…knew something about it?” I twisted a strand of my hair, trying to look nervous or cute or whatever. Mostly I was trying not to barf.