“Catch you later,” Julian said, pressing down on the dirt.
“Remember, no telling, Sasha.” David pushed dirt into the hole, relieved to see that it covered the gun completely.
Sasha didn’t reply. “Allie, you have to go fast or she’ll come back.”
“I’m going as fast as I can.”
“Fine,” Sasha said in a way that meant it wasn’t fine.
David packed down the dirt, recognizing Sasha’s tone of voice because his mother used the same one when his father worked late. He wondered when Sasha had turned into his mom, but whatever. She was Julian’s crush, not his.
Julian brushed dirt off his hands. “We need leaves for on top. It can’t look freshly buried.”
“Good idea.” David felt the tension ease in his chest. Julian was smart, even if he was a little weird. They’d been best friends since they both took tennis lessons on the courts at the development. They grew up bonding over forehands and video games like Doom and Donkey Kong and became a doubles team in middle school, winning local tournaments. David was the better player because Julian ran around his backhand. David had taught him not to. Turn your body. Get your racket back. You can do it. That was how David knew Julian didn’t have as much confidence as he acted.
“Here we go.” Julian hurried over with dried leaves and twigs, letting them fall to the ground. “What do you think?”
“Good job.” David could hear the girls arguing as they climbed the hill, then suddenly Allie yelped. He looked over to see Allie sitting on the ground, holding her ankle. Sasha was standing over her, her hands on her hips, another thing that David’s mother did.
Sasha yelled down the hill. “Julian, come here!”
“We’re coming!” Julian stood up, grabbing his backpack, with his tennis racket zippered into the top. “David, we can get the bikes later.”
“Sasha’s in a mood, isn’t she?” David rose and picked up his backpack, too.
“Allie’s such a baby.” Julian started up the hill.
“She’s hurt. She fell on her ankle.”
“It’s not like she broke it.”
“A sprain can hurt worse than a break.”
Julian snorted. “If you’re fat.”
“Shh.” David didn’t want Allie to hear, but he got the feeling that Julian didn’t care. They reached the girls, and David stepped in and took Allie by the arm. “Allie, I’ll help you. All you have to do is stand up. One, two—”
“Not too fast!” Allie said, nervous.
“I’ll go slow, don’t worry. One, two, three.” David eased Allie to a stand and looped her arm around his neck. “There you go.”
“Thanks.” Allie smiled shakily.
“We’ll go ahead.” Sasha started back up the hill, and Julian hurried to fall into step with her. They headed off, laughing and talking in low tones.
David knew they were making fun of Allie, and Allie knew it, too. He wished he could tell her not to care. They climbed the hill slowly, with Allie huffing and puffing, holding on to his neck. He didn’t have a hard time talking to girls, but he felt tongue-tied with Allie, maybe because her sister died. He didn’t know whether to bring up the sister or not, then he thought that if his brother died, he wouldn’t want to talk about it, so he didn’t say anything. Her body felt warm against his side, and their hips kept bumping together. She smelled like flowers, but not perfume. Nice, like soap.
Allie hopped along. “I’m sorry I’m so . . . heavy.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Whatever, I like heavy things.” David looked over, and Allie burst into startled laughter, so he realized that was the wrong thing to say. “No, I mean, like, my favorite book is a thousand pages. I’m not kidding. It’s heavy but it’s a great book.”
Allie nodded. “I love thick books, too. With maps in the front.”
“Really?” David liked her, or maybe he felt sorry for her, but either way it came out the same.
“What’s your favorite book?”
David told her, and then he couldn’t stop talking.
CHAPTER 5
Julian Browne
Julian stowed his bike in the garage, buzzing. He felt so good after being with Sasha. God, she was so hot. He loved to watch her talk, walk, whatever, anything she did he would watch. He saw everything about her, all the details, the way the sunshine brought out the gold in her hair, so blond it matched the sun, and her eyes were a crazy-great blue. Her fingers were long and thin, and she gestured a lot when she talked, moving them in a ripply wave like something he had seen snorkeling in the Caymans. She liked to wear rings on every finger, thin with pretty colored stones, and he knew exactly how she took them off and put them on a little glass holder in her room. He knew because he’d watched her.
Julian walked around his mother’s car and let himself into the mudroom. He kept moving because he had to get upstairs before it was too late. The central air chilled his skin, and he dropped his backpack on the floor, called, “Hey, Mom,” and patted Peety, their ginger tabby who came running to greet him—but none of it interrupted his thoughts about Sasha. He barely broke stride when his mother called to him from the kitchen, “Hey, honey, dinner’s in an hour,” and he called back, “Great,” and he kept walking to the stairwell, not stopping when she asked, “How was your day,” and he answered, “Fine, gotta shower,” staying in his own Sasha thoughts, which were too good to leave just yet, like a dream he was having while he was still awake.
“I’m making chicken,” his mother called after him, and Julian called back, “Okay,” as he climbed the carpeted stairs two by two, thinking about the moment when Sasha had said the gun was the coolest thing ever. Julian felt a tingling because if he had the coolest thing ever, then he was the coolest thing ever.
Julian hurried up the stairs, on fire. It had been so hard to get her attention ever since he went to Lutheran. She and David were always talking about their teachers, their homework, their schedules. Julian had become the odd man out, but he was back in business with the gun. It was lucky that the girls had come by.
Julian reached the top of the stairs and rushed into his room, then closed the door and locked it behind him, quietly. He checked his watch, 4:25. Perfect timing. He hustled into his bathroom, turned on the shower, and let the water run so his mother would hear while he stripped off his shirt, shorts, and his underwear, and raced back to the window in the front of the house.
He crouched on his knees, opened the bottom drawer in his desk, and pulled out his binoculars, raising them so he could see out the window. Sasha lived across the street, not directly but catty-corner, and her room was on the right side of her house, so he had a great view through the front window and the two side windows of her bedroom. The only curtains she closed were on the side windows. His house was fifty feet from the curb, like all of them in the development, but his house was higher, so Julian could see down into her room, like Sasha was his own private TV show.
Her bathroom was at the back side of her house, and both houses were the same top-of-the-line model, the Unionville, except his bathroom was on the front side. Julian could watch her walking around when she was on the phone, doing her homework on her bed, especially at night with the lights on inside. She sat at her desk a lot, too, drawing on a big white pad, and once she’d told him she was sketching dress designs. Julian loved to watch her. It was harder to see inside during the day, but he’d gotten good at it, and in the summer, Sasha usually took a shower before dinner.
He pressed the binoculars to his eyes, aiming down into her room. He didn’t mess with the focus because it was perfect, too, and he waited for his eyes to adjust, trying to see the moving shadows in her room as she walked back and forth. He couldn’t see much because she hadn’t turned on a light, but he didn’t need to see. He’d seen her undress so many times, he knew every curve of her body. It excited him to think that she was undressing right now. He told himself that she was undressing for h
im. Only for him.
He watched her as she took off her shirt, and she was walking around as she undressed, and he realized she was talking on the phone, so he caught only fleeting glimpses of her breasts. He got stiff just thinking about it but didn’t jerk off. He was saving it for later, when she went to bed. She slept naked in summertime.
He held his breath as she turned to the side, and he caught the swell of her breasts, trying to see the nipples, which he knew stuck out like pencil erasers. It turned him on so much he almost couldn’t stand it. He was getting harder, and his right hand went automatically downward, squeezing himself. He was as hard as a rock, like it said in one of his father’s Penthouse magazines.
Sasha slipped out of sight into the bathroom, and Julian knew she was taking a shower. It thrilled him they were naked at the same time, mirror images of the same bedroom, their upgraded showers running. His bedroom was filling with steam, just like hers, and Julian heard himself breathing harder, from trying to make himself wait until bedtime. His gaze shifted to behind her house, which was in the general direction of Connemara Road and the area kept wooded because of township zoning.
He’d lied to them, even David, about how he’d found the gun. Of course he couldn’t have told the truth, which was that he had been watching Sasha in her bedroom one night and been distracted by a light behind her house. He had realized the light was a flashlight and watched its jittery dot for an hour, knowing that someone was in the woods, doing something they wanted to hide. Later Julian had tried to put it out of his mind, but he hadn’t been able to stop wondering. It showed him he wasn’t the only person in Brandywine Hunt with a secret.
Later he’d ridden his bike to the woods, searched around, and found ground that looked like it had been disturbed under the bent tree. He had started digging and discovered the buried gun in the newspaper. He had no idea who had buried it, but it was most likely somebody in the development. He’d thought about moving it, but he left it where it was, and every night when he watched Sasha undress, he checked to see if the flashlight had returned. So far it hadn’t.
He’d been showing the gun to David today when the girls caught them, and that was how Sasha knew, which brought her close to him again. He was so in love with her, he wanted her so much, nothing could ever change that, not a different school, nothing. He knew that she would want him, too, someday. And then they would go into her bedroom, lie down on the pink flowery bedspread, and her golden hair would spread out on the pillowcase with the pink edges, and he would kiss her and touch her breasts, and she would get so wet for him and then he’d be inside her, rock-hard and losing himself, deeper and deeper into her, until they became one.
Julian’s attention returned to Sasha’s room because she’d reappeared. He squeezed himself again, harder, bringing a rush of pleasure and pain and anger and love and a feeling so deep it didn’t have a name yet, but it drove him crazy, and he couldn’t stop himself or wait another minute.
There was no saying no to that feeling.
Julian stopped trying.
CHAPTER 6
Kyle Gallagher
Kyle entered their townhouse, wondering if it would ever feel like home. They had moved to Brandywine Hunt two months ago, and he could still smell the paint in the entrance hall, which was Revere Pewter, the same color as in New Albany. It was the only familiar thing in the house, which had been the sample so it came already furnished with black leather sofas and glass tables. His mother had told the realtor she preferred French country, but Kyle knew they were in no position to prefer anything. They’d had to move, and the sample was the only rental available. They didn’t have the money to buy. It had gone to the lawyers.
Kyle carried the last of the grocery bags into the kitchen, a small rectangle in the back of the house, ringed with white cabinets and a white built-in nook next to the window. His mother loved the granite countertops and Mexican tile floor, but always said she missed her island. Kyle would kid her, Mom, we are the island.
“Oh, thanks, honey,” his mother said, flashing him a smile. She was still pretty even though she was in her forties, with her brown hair in a ponytail that made her look younger. The guys on the basketball team used to call her a total MILF, but he never told her that. She had on her work clothes, a blue dress with a skinny belt, and she had found a job as a paralegal in Philly, only an hour commute. Landed on my feet! she liked to say.
Kyle set the bag down in front of the refrigerator, where his mother was unpacking the other bags. Buddy, their chubby yellow Labrador, walked from one bag to the next, sniffing the groceries, his toenails clicking on the floor and his thick tail wagging.
“Kyle, can you believe how big that store was?” His mother’s eyes shone with excitement, on a retail high after their shopping trip. She had talked about it all the way home, trying to put a happy face on everything, ever since their move.
“It was big.” Kyle petted Buddy to distract him from the grocery bags. The dog was a carb monster and always managed to find the bag with the bread.
“We’re so lucky it opened right down the street.” His mother stowed the apples in the plastic drawer, where they rolled around noisily when she pushed it closed. “I’m excited about my rewards card. What a great idea.”
“Great idea.” Kyle scratched Buddy.
“We can get our prescriptions filled there, too. No more running around like at home.”
“Mom, it’s a grocery store,” Kyle said lightly. She was always talking about how awesome it was here and so much better than home. She was trying to convince him, and herself. He knew why.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, have you? I mean, that’s what took us so long. It’s practically eight o’clock. Look!” His mother gestured at the wall clock, which didn’t have any numbers but 12. That annoyed Kyle, but he kept it to himself. Actually, he kept everything to himself. He’d lost his friends, the guys on the team, and his high school. Nobody would ever speak to him again. Even if they wanted to, their parents wouldn’t let them.
“Honey, is the ice cream in one of those bags? I don’t want it to melt.”
“Yes.” Kyle plucked the tubs of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream from the bag, her favorite, Cherry Garcia, and his favorite, Chubby Hubby.
Mom, can we still get Chubby Hubby? he had joked with her in the store, the two of them standing in the frost billowing from the massive freezer.
Ha! His mother had fake-laughed, but Kyle wished she would just be real. Like, say that’s not funny, because it wasn’t. Or maybe say too soon, dude. Or maybe it would never be funny. Nothing was going to be the same, ever again, and Kyle doubted it would ever be awesome.
He opened up the freezer side of the refrigerator with a tug, since the door practically vacuum-sealed closed. It’s a Sub-Zero, his mother had said with pride, like it was an achievement, not an appliance. She loved their new townhouse, which had everything top-of-the-line, the dishwasher a Bosch and the washer-dryer a Maytag. Like, they had great appliances, so they hadn’t lost anything. Except their entire life, and his father.
“I love that the store’s only ten minutes from the house. You could ride your bike there, couldn’t you?”
“Sure.” Kyle picked up a heavy bag of canned goods, since he always put away the pantry items and she always put away the refrigerator items, one of the few things they kept the same. What had happened was one of the things they couldn’t talk about, though it was always between them. Back home, he and his mother had gone to family therapy, and the therapist called it ignoring the elephant in the room, but it didn’t feel that way to Kyle. Elephants were nice, and what he and his mother were ignoring wasn’t nice.
“Won’t that be perfect if I have to work late again? You can ride down and get dinner.” His mother put away the romaine lettuce in the drawer. “They have that prepared foods section, and the Chinese food was good, wasn’t it? I really loved my spring rolls. Not too oily. You liked yours, right?”
“Yeah.” Kyle had a
lready told her he liked his egg rolls. He brought a bag to the pantry, and Buddy wandered in after him, hoping for a treat. They kept the Milk-Bones and dog food in the pantry, too.
“It’s even a family-owned business, and isn’t it great that there are still stores like that?”
“God bless America.”
“Wise guy.” His mother forced a laugh. Her head dipped into the refrigerator, and Kyle put the cans away. The pantry was smaller than their old one, like their backyard, which sucked. It sloped down to the thick woods around the development, and his mother didn’t like it because it had big green drains, which the rental agent said were for storm-water management and runoff. Kyle didn’t like it because it didn’t have a fence, so he had to walk the dog instead of just letting him out.
Kyle finished with the cans, folded the brown bag, and put it in the cabinet with the others. His mother said they had moved here to start over and push reset, and the therapist had said, one door closes and a window opens, whatever that meant. To Kyle, they were running away, so he didn’t know why they just didn’t say so. His mother was legally changing their names to her maiden name, Gallagher, and now he was Kyle Gallagher, which he kept forgetting. His backpack had his old initials, KAH for Kyle Allen Hammond. Now his initials were KAG.
Awesome!
Kyle knew she couldn’t help it. They couldn’t stay in Ohio after what happened, but he hated his new life. He was going to be a sophomore at Bakerton High, and he dreaded the thought. He didn’t know what to do, or—really—even who he was, since he wasn’t Kyle Hammond anymore.
He’d played basketball back home, already on varsity because he was so tall, six foot five, but he doubted he’d try out for the team at Bakerton. His mother would be relieved, since she’d been worried it would bust them. He thought she was paranoid, but whatever. There were courts at Brandywine Hunt, but he never went to shoot or play pickup. He didn’t want to meet anybody or answer questions. So he wasn’t a basketball player anymore, either.
Someone Knows Page 3