Текст книги "My Life Next Door"

Автор книги: Huntley Fitzpatrick

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Nan, piling into the Bug next to Alice, frowns at me and mouths, “What’s going on?” then mimes putting a phone to her ear. I nod, then take a long, shaky breath. I wait for Jase to ask what the hell I was thinking, going anywhere with someone in that condition, but instead he says, “You did exactly the right thing.” I scramble to be that girl Jase thinks I am. That calm unruffled girl who doesn’t let things faze her.

She’s nowhere to be found. Instead, I burst into tears, those embarrassing noisy ones where you can’t catch your breath.

Of course, he rolls with that. We stand there until I get hold of myself. Then he reaches into the pocket of his jacket and hands me a Hershey’s bar. “Good for shock, Alice tells me. She is, after all, a medical professional in training.”

“I threw the car keys in the bushes.”

“Smart move.” He heads into the thicket, ducking to sweep his hands on the ground. I follow, doing the same.

“You must have some arm,” he says finally, when we’ve searched for about ten minutes.

“Hodges Heroines softball through eighth grade,” I offer. “Now what do we do?” Instead of answering, Jase walks back to the Jetta and opens the passenger door, gesturing for me to climb in. I do, watching in fascination as he yanks off this plastic piece from the steering column, then pulls off some of the coating on two red pieces of wire and twists them together. Then he hauls out this brown wire and touches it to the red ones. Sparks fly. “You’re hot-wiring the car?” I’ve only seen that in the movies.

“Just to take it home.”

“How’d you learn this?”

Jase glances at me as the engine revs into high gear. “I love cars,” he says simply. “I’ve learned all about them.”

After we’ve driven for ten minutes in silence, Jase says musingly, “Timothy Mason. I might have known.”

“You’ve met him before?” I’m surprised. First Flip, now Tim. Somehow, because I didn’t know the Garretts, I imagined them in a world completely separate from my own.

“Cub Scouts.” Jase holds out his hand, two fingers up in the traditional salute.

I chuckle. “Boy Scout” is not exactly what comes to mind when I think of Tim.

“Even then he was a disaster waiting to happen. Or already in progress.” Jase bites his bottom lip reflectively.

“Cocaine at the campouts?” I ask.

“No, mostly just trying to start fires with magnifying glasses and stealing other people’s badges…a good enough guy, really, but it was as if he just had to get in trouble. So his sister’s your best friend?

What’s she like?”

“The opposite. Compelled to be perfect.” Thinking of Nan, I look at the clock on the dash for the first time. It’s 10:46. My rational mind—which so recently deserted me—tells me there’s no way on earth my mother can blame me for breaking curfew under these circumstances. Still, I can feel my body tense up.

Mom can find a way—I know she can—to make this all my fault. And, worse, Jase’s.

“I’m sorry I got you into this.”

“It’s nothing, Samantha. I’m glad you’re all okay. Nothing else is important.” He looks at me for a moment. “Not even curfew.” His voice is low, gentle, and I feel the tears gathering in my eyes again.

What’s wrong with me?

For the rest of the drive, Jase keeps me distracted. He gives an exhaustive and totally incomprehensible list of the things he needs to do to get the Mustang working (“So I’ve got about three hundred hp with my trick flow aluminum heads and exhaust, and the clutch is slipping at about two-sixty horsepower in third gear, and I want the center-force aftermarket unit, but that’s a big five hundred bucks, but the way the Mustang slips every time I floor it in third gear is killing me”) and looking “how it’s meant to.” Then he tells me that he was working on it earlier this evening in the driveway while Kyle Comstock and Andy sat together on the front steps.

“I was trying not to listen, or look, but oh, man, it was so painful. He kept trying to do the smooth-guy move—that knee bump maneuver or the yawn-arm-stretch deal and he’d lose his nerve at the last minute.

Or he’d reach out a hand and then pull it back. Andy licked her lips and tossed her hair until I thought her head was going to snap off. And the whole time they were having this conversation about how last year they had to dissect a fetal pig in biology lab.”

“Not exactly an aphrodisiac.”

“Nope. Biology lab might have promise, but dissection and a dead pig are definitely going down the wrong road.”

“So hard to find that right road.” I shake my head. “Especially when you’re fourteen.”

“Or even seventeen.” Jase flips the signal switch to ease off the interstate.

“Or even seventeen,” I concur. Not for the first time, I wonder how much experience Jase has had.

When we pull up outside the Masons’ house, Alice and Nan have evidently just pulled in themselves.

They’re standing outside the Bug, debating. Most of the lights in the Masons’ house are dark, just a faint orange glow coming from the bowed living room windows, and two porch lights flickering.

“Can’t we please get him in without anyone seeing?” Nan’s begging, her thin fingers clutching Alice’s arm.

“The real question is whether we should get him in without anyone seeing. This is not the sort of thing your parents shouldn’t know about.” Alice’s tone is deliberately patient, as though she’s already been through this several times.

“Alice’s right,” Jase interjects. “If he doesn’t get caught, well, maybe if I hadn’t that time with Lindy, I’d have discovered a taste for shoplifting. This is more than just that…If nobody knows how bad it’s gotten, Tim could find himself in this situation again, with a different outcome. So could you. So could Samantha.”

Alice nods, looking at Nan but addressing her brother. “Remember River Fillipi, Jase? His parents let him get away with anything, turned a blind eye to everything. He ended up blindsiding three cars before he hit the median on 1-95.”

“But you don’t understand. Tim’s in so much trouble already. My parents want him to go away to some awful military camp. That’s the last thing that’s going to help. The very last thing. I know he’s an idiot and sort of a loser, but he’s my brother—” Nan cuts off abruptly. Her voice is shaking, along with the rest of her. I go over and take her hand. I think of those awkward dinners I’ve had at their house, Mr. Mason’s unseeing gaze at the table, Mrs. Mason prattling on about how she stuffs her artichokes. I feel as though I’m on a seesaw swaying back and forth between what I know is right and true, and every past moment and reason I know has led to this. Jase and Alice are right, but Tim’s such a mess, and I keep remembering him saying, so lost, I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with me.

“Can you sneak in and open the bulkhead door?” I ask Nan. “Maybe we could get Tim down to the basement and he can crash in the rec room. He’ll be in better shape to face it all in the morning anyway.” Nan takes a deep breath. “I can do that.” We look at Alice and Jase.

Alice shrugs, frowning. “If that’s what you want, but it seems all wrong to me.”

“They know the situation better than we do,” Jase points out. “Okay, Nan. Go open the cellar door.

We’ll get this guy in there.”

Naturally, as we’re carrying him in, Tim wakes up, disoriented, and throws up all over Alice. I pinch my nose. The smell’s enough to make anyone gag. Surprisingly, Alice doesn’t get angry, just rolls her eyes and, without any self-consciousness at all, whips off her ruined shirt. We sling Tim, who, despite being thin, is tall and not easily portable, onto the couch. Jase fetches a bucket from beside the washing machine and puts it next to him. Nan sets out a glass of water and some aspirin. Tim lies on his back, looking pale, pale, pale. He opens reddened eyes, focuses hazily on Alice in her black lace bra, says, “Whoa.” Then passes out again.

I got in big trouble for being ten minutes late for curfew last time. But tonight, when I actually was involved in a life-threatening incident, one in which I definitely could have used better, swifter judgment —why on earth didn’t I call 911 on my cell and report a drunk driver? —on this night when the VW pulls into our driveway, the house lights are dark. Mom isn’t even home yet.

“Dodged more than one bullet tonight, Samantha.” Jase hops out to open my door.

I go around to the driver’s side. “Thanks,” I tell Alice. “You were great to do this. Sorry about your shirt.”

Alice fixes me with a stare. “No sweat. If the only thing that idiot comes out of this with is a horrible hangover and a dry-cleaning bill, he’s way luckier than he has any right to be. Jase deserves better than trauma over some girl who made dumb choices and wound up dead.”

“Yes, he does.” I look right back at her. “I know that.”

She turns to Jase. “I’ll go home now, J. You can say good night to your damsel in distress.” That one stings. Blood rushes to my face. We get to the front door and I lean back against it. “Thank you,” I repeat.

“You’d have done the same for me.” Jase puts his thumb under my chin and tips it up. “It’s nothing.”

“Well, except that I can’t drive, and you never would have gotten yourself into that situation and—”

“Shhh.” He pulls on my lower lip gently with his teeth, then fits his mouth to mine. First so careful, and then so deep and deliberate, that I can’t think of anything at all but his smooth back under my hands. My fingers travel to the springy-soft texture of his hair, and I lose myself in the movement of his lips and his tongue. I’m so glad I’m still alive to feel all those things.

Chapter Twenty-two

When I get to the B&T—an hour early—the next day, I head straight for the pool. I breathe in the chlorine scent, then focus on the steady back and forth motion of my strokes. The routine is coming back. Swim no rest, kick no rest, stroke drill, rest, breath to right, breath to left, breath every third stroke. And so is the timing. Everything else falls away. Forty-five minutes later, I shake out my hair, cupping my hands to my ears to get out the water, then head into Buys by the Bay to find Nan.

Who hasn’t answered any of my texts. I’m imagining the worst. Her parents heard us, came down, and Tim’s already en route to some hard-core camp in the Midwest where he’s going to have to chip granite and eventually get shot by an angry counselor.

But then Nan wouldn’t be calmly sorting aprons in the corner of the store, would she? Maybe she would. Like my mother, my best friend sometimes puts order over the physical world first.

“What’s up with Tim?”

Nan turns around, leans her elbows back against the counter, and looks at me. “He’s fine. Let’s talk about what really matters. Which wasn’t important enough to tell me. Why?”

“What wasn’t important…?”

Nan pales under her freckles. Angry at me? Why? And then I get it. I duck my head and feel a flush creeping up my neck.

“You didn’t think to mention that you have a boyfriend? Or that he’s, like, incredibly hot? Samantha, I’m your best friend. You know everything about me and Daniel. Everything.” My stomach twists. I haven’t said anything to Nan about Jase. Nothing. Why not? I shut my eyes and for a second feel his arms surround me. Such a good thing. Why wouldn’t I tell Nan? She scrunch-folds an apron that says Life’s a beach and then you swim and piles it carelessly on top of the others.

“You’re my best friend. You obviously didn’t meet this guy yesterday. What’s going on?”

“It hasn’t been that long. A month. Maybe even a little less.” Heat rises to my face. “I just…felt…didn’t want to…Mom’s always so down on the Garretts…I just got in the habit of keeping it a secret.”

“Your mom’s down on everyone. That never stopped you from telling me about Charley and Michael.

Why is this any different? Wait…the Garretts? You mean the they-multiply-like-rabbits family next door?” When I nod, she says, “Wow. How’d you finally meet one of them?” So I tell Nan the story. All about Jase, this summer, nearly getting grounded and him climbing up to my room. And all the stars.

“He climbs up to your window?” Nan puts her fingers over her mouth. “Your mother would have a cow over this! You do know that, don’t you? She’d have a herd of buffalo if she knew this was going on.” Now she sounds less angry, more admiring.

“She would,” I say as the bells over the door jangle, heralding the arrival of a woman in a fuchsia beach tunic with a very large straw hat and a determined expression.

“When I was here the other day,” she says in those slightly-too-loud tones some people use when speaking to salespeople, “there were some darling T-shirts. I’ve come back for them.” Nan straightens, schooling her face to blankness. “We have many lovely T-shirts.”

“These had sayings,” the woman tells her challengingly.

“We have a lot of those,” Nan rejoins, straightening her shoulders.

“Stony Bay…not just another sailing town,” the woman quotes. “But in place of the ‘not’ there was a

–”

“Drawing of a rope knot,” Nan interjects. “Those are over in the corner near the window seat.” She jerks her thumb in that direction and turns more toward me. The woman pauses, then makes her way to the stack of shirts.

“How big is this relationship I know nothing about, Samantha? He looks—I don’t know—older than us.

Like he knows what he’s doing. Have you and he…?”

“No! No, I would have told you that,” I say. Would I?

“Is there a discount if I buy one for each crew member on our cruiser?” calls the woman.

“No,” Nan says tersely. She leans in closer to me. “Daniel and I are talking about it. A lot lately.” I have to admit this surprises me. Daniel’s so controlled, it’s hard to remember he’s also an eighteen-year-old boy. Of course he and Nan are discussing having sex after all this time. I get a flash of Daniel in his school uniform leading the debate team at Hodges, calling out in his measured way, “Cons go first, then the pros will have an equal amount of time.”

“Tim thinks I’m an idiot.” Nan presses her index finger into the wax of a candle shaped like Stony Bay Lighthouse. “He says Daniel’s a putz and will suck in bed anyway.” Tim! “What happened with him? Did your parents catch on?”

Nan shakes her head. “No. He got lucky. Or rather, he survived to mess up another day thanks to your surprise boyfriend and his scary sister. Mommy and Daddy didn’t hear a thing. I went down to the basement before I left and dumped the bucket o’ vomit out. I just told Mommy he’d stayed up late and was tired.”

“Nans, Alice may be right about not pretending about this now. Last night was—” She nods, a quick inhale of breath, nibbling on her thumbnail. “I know. I know. A disaster. But packing him off to some boot camp? I don’t see how that’s going to help him.” The woman has come up to the register, her arms full of shirts, all pink.

Nan turns to her with a bright, professional smile. “I can ring those up for you. Would you like to put them directly on your club tab, or pay separately?”

I hover nearby until the clock tells me I’ve got to report for duty. Nan doesn’t say anything else, though, until I’m getting ready to leave, when she pauses in changing the paper for the cash register to say,

“Samantha. You have what every girl wants.”

“You have Daniel,” I say.

“Sure. But you have everything. How do you always do that?” Her voice is ever so slightly bitter. I think of the Nan who just has to do the optional extra credit work for every school project. Who has to point out to me whenever I have a minus next to my grade while she has a plus. Who has to comment that pants that fit me would be “way too big” for her. I’ve never wanted to compete with her, only be her friend, the one person she doesn’t have to best. But sometimes—like now—I wonder if, for Nan, there’s any such thing.

“I don’t do anything special, Nanny.” The bell jingles as another customer walks in.

“Maybe you don’t.” Her voice is weary. “Maybe you’re not even trying. But it all works out for you anyway, doesn’t it?” She turns away before I can offer an answer. Assuming I even had one.

Chapter Twenty-three

I pour myself a lemonade after work and am climbing out of my stupid crested bathing suit right in the kitchen when the doorbell rings. Even our doorbell chime has changed since summer began. Now we have this one that can chime the first few notes of about twenty different tunes, all the way from “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” to “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” In the last two weeks, Mom’s programmed it to chime the opening of “It’s a Grand Old Flag.” I kid you not.

I grab a tank top and shorts from the laundry room and pull them on hastily, then peer through the frosted glass. It’s Nan and Tim. Odd. Thursday and Friday are Daniel nights for Nan. And my house is not exactly Tim’s preferred hangout. It’s not even my preferred hangout.

“Are you interested in a closer relationship with the Lord?” Tim asks when I open the door. “’Cause I’ve been saved, and I want to pass on the Good News to you—for only a thousand dollars and three hours of your time. Kidding. Can we come in, Samantha?”

As soon as they get into the kitchen, Nan heads for the fridge to get some of my mother’s lemonade.

After all these years, she knows exactly where to locate the special ice cubes with mint and lemon peel.

She pours a glass for Tim and he takes it, frowning at the little ice cubes with their flecks of yellow and green frozen inside.

“Got any tequila? Just kidding, once again. Ha-ha.”

He’s uncomfortable. It’s been a long time since I’ve really seen anything from Tim but bored indifference, stoned apathy, or jacked-up contempt.

“Tim wanted to say he was sorry about last night,” Nan offers, crunching an ice cube.

“Ac-tu-ally, Nan wanted me to say I’m sorry,” Tim clarifies, but he looks directly at me. “I wanted to say I’m fucking sorry. That was wicked stupid, and I would have thought anyone else who did that with my sister—or you—was a complete and unredeemable asshole, which of course, leads to the inescapable conclusion that that is, in fact, indubitably what I am.” He shakes his head, takes a gulp of lemonade.

“Note my use of impressive SAT words, though. Too bad I got my ass booted out of boarding school, huh?”

How long has it been since I’ve heard Tim apologize for anything? He’s got his head hunched down, sandwiched between his folded arms, taking deep breaths as though he’s been running miles, or this all takes more oxygen than just breathing. Even his hair is damp, like he’s sweating. He seems so unmoored that just looking at him hurts. I glance at Nan, but she’s polishing off her lemonade, her face impassive.

“Thanks, Tim. We all survived. But you’re really scaring me. How are you?”

“Well, aside from being the same idiot I was yesterday—only not quite as trashed—I’m fine. And you?

S’up with ole Jase Garrett and you? Is he gettin’ any further than my buddy Charley did? ’Cause Charley was pretty damn frustrated. More importantly, what’s doin’ with Jase’s hot sister?”

“His hot sister has a boyfriend who’s a football player and weighs about two hundred and fifty pounds,” I answer, dodging the Jase question.

“Course she does,” Tim says with a smirk. “He probably teaches Sunday school too.”

“No. But I think he might be a Mormon.” I smile back. “Cheer up, though. They’ve been together for about a month, and from what Jase tells me, that’s pretty much Alice’s limit.”

“I’ll live in hope, then.” Tim drains his glass and plunks it down. “Do you have anything like plain carrots or celery or apples? Everything in our fridge has some kind of crap in it.”

“It’s true,” Nan says. “I bit into a perfectly ordinary-looking plum this afternoon and it had some weird blue-cheese filling. It’s that thing Mommy got from QVC.”

“The Pumper. It injects tasty filling deep into the heart of all your favorite foods,” Tim quotes in a Moviefone voice.

Just then the doorbell rings again. It’s Jase this time. He’s wearing a faded gray T-shirt and jeans—

must have come straight from work.

“Hi!” Nan says brightly. “In case you didn’t figure this out last night, I’m Nan, Samantha’s best friend.

I’d love to say I’ve heard all about you, but actually, she hasn’t said a word. My brother says he knows you, though.” She extends her hand to Jase. After a beat, he takes it, shakes it, looking over at me with a slightly nonplussed expression.

“Hullo Nan. Mason.” His voice gets an edge as he greets Tim, and I see Tim’s jaw muscles clench.

Then Jase moves to my side and slips an arm tight around my waist.

We wind up in the backyard, because everything inside my house is so hard and formal, no comfortable place to sit and lounge. Jase lies on his back in the grass on our sloping lawn, and I lie, crossways, with my head on his stomach, ignoring the occasional flick of Nan’s eyes.

We don’t talk much for a while. Jase and Tim idly discuss people they knew from soccer in middle school. I find myself studying the boys together, wondering what my mother would see. There’s Jase with his olive skin and broad shoulders, his air of being older than seventeen, nearly a man. Then there’s Tim, so pale, dark circles under his eyes, freckles standing out in strong relief, rangy skinny legs cross-legged, his face handsome but pale and angular. Jase’s jeans are stained with grease, and his T-shirt is frayed at the collar, stretched out of shape. Tim’s in crisp khakis, with a blue-striped oxford shirt rolled up at the sleeves. If Mom was asked who was “dangerous,” she would immediately point to Jase, who fixes things, and saves animals, and saves me. Not Tim, who, as I watch, is casually crushing a daddy longlegs.

Wiping his hand on the grass, Tim says, “I need to get my GED, or I’ll either be shipped to the foreign legion by my parents, or spend the rest of my life—which will then be very short—living in their basement.”

“My dad did that—got a GED,” Jase offers, playing with my hair. “You could talk to him.”

“Your sister Alice didn’t do it too, by any chance?”

Jase’s lips twitch. “Nope.”

“Bummer. I also need a job so I don’t have to spend my days at home with Ma, watching her figure out new uses for the Pumper.”

“There’s an opening at Mom’s campaign,” I say. “She needs all the help she can get now that she’s totally distracted by Clay Tucker.”

“Who the hell’s Clay Tucker?”

“The…” Nan lowers her voice, even though all she says is: “…younger man Samantha’s mother’s dating.”

“Your ma’s dating?” Tim looks shocked. “I thought she pretty much confined herself to a vibrator and the shower nozzle since your dad screwed her over.”

“Timmy.” Nan turns scarlet.

“There’s always a job to do at my dad’s store.” Jase stretches and yawns, unfazed. “Restocking, placing orders. Nothing too exciting, but—”

“Right.” Tim’s eyes are cast down as he tears at a hangnail on his thumb. “I’m sure that’s just what your pop needs—a plastered dropout stock boy with a jones for illegal substances.” Jase props himself up on one elbow, looking squarely at him. “Well, provided that stock boy isn’t still drinking, et cetera, taking my girlfriend on a joyride when he’s hammered. Ever again.” His voice is flat.

He watches Tim for another moment, then lies back down.

Tim turns, if possible, slightly paler, then flushes. “Uh…Well…I…uh…” He glances at me, at Nan, then returns his attention to the hangnail. Silence.

“Well, restocking and stuff might not be thrilling, but that’s probably a good thing,” Nan says after a minute or two. “What do you think, Timmy?”

Tim’s still focusing on his thumb. Finally, he looks up. “Unless Alice does restocking too, preferably spending most of her time on a ladder in those little short-shorts, I’m thinking I’ll talk to gorgeous Grace about politics. I like politics. You get to manipulate people and lie and cheat and it’s all good.”

“From what I read, Samantha’s mom prefers to think of it as working for the common weal.” Jase stretches his arms over his head, yawning. I sit up, surprised to hear Jase recite Mom’s last campaign slogan, the one Clay Tucker mocked so mercilessly. Jase and I never mention politics. But he must have been paying attention to hers all along.

“Cool. Sign me up. I’ll be a cog in the common weal. With my track record, I’ll probably be able to screw up all three branches of government in about a week and a half,” Tim says. “Does hot Alice have any interest in politics?”

Mom gets back early, luckily after Nan and Tim have trudged home and Jase is again training. She has a meet-and-greet in East Stonehill tonight and wants me to come along. “Clay says that since I’m focusing on family, we really need to see more of mine.” I stand next to her at Moose Hall for approximately eight thousand years, repeating “Yes, I’m so proud of my mother. Please vote for her,” while she shakes hand after hand after hand.

When she first got elected, this was kind of fun and exciting. All these people I’d never met who seemed to know me, happy to meet us. Now it just seems surreal. I listen hard to Mom’s speech, trying to analyze how things have changed. She’s much more assured, with all these new hand gestures—chopping the air, arms outspread in appeal, hands crossed over her heart…but it’s more than that. Last time, it was mostly local issues Mom talked about, and mildly. But now she’s taking on federal spending and the size of government, and the unfair taxation of the wealthy, who create all the jobs…“You’re not smiling,” Clay Tucker says, bumping up next to me. “So I figured you were hungry. These hors d’oeuvres are amazing.

I’ll take over while you eat a few.” He hands me a plate of shrimp cocktail and stuffed clams.

“How much longer does this go on?” I ask, dunking a shrimp.

“Till the last handshake, whenever that is, Samantha.” He gestures at my mom with a toothpick. “Look at Grace. You’d never know she’d been doing this for two hours and her shoes probably hurt and she might need to visit the little girls’ room. She’s a pro, your mama.” Mom does indeed look fresh and calm and cool. She’s bending her head to listen to an old man as though he’s the most important thing in her world. Somehow I’ve never seen her ability to fake it as a strength but right now, I guess it is.

“You gonna eat that?” Clay asks, spearing a scallop before I can answer.

Chapter Twenty-four

Late that night, I’m lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, fresh out of the shower, wearing a white nightgown I’ve had since I was eight. It used to be romantically long; now it clings to my thighs.

Mom’s finally admitted exhaustion and has gone to bed in her suite. For the first time I find myself wondering if Clay’s ever spent the night here. I wouldn’t even know if he had—her rooms are on the other side of the house and there are stairs from the yard. Ugh, don’t think about that.

There’s a tap at my window, and I look over to find a hand splayed on the glass. Jase. Seeing him is like that feeling you get when you’ve gotten the wind knocked out of you and then can, at last, draw a deep, full breath. I go over, put my hand against his, then push up the window.

“Hey. Can I come in?”

He does, gracefully, legs planting themselves firmly, while ducking carefully under the transom, as though he’s done this a thousand times before. Then he looks around the room and smiles at me. “It’s so tidy, Sam. I’ve gotta do this.”

He takes off one of his sneakers and tosses it toward my desk, then the other, carefully and quietly, toward the door. Then one sock, hurled to the top of my bureau, and the other, into the bookcase.

“Don’t hold back.” I catch hold of his shirt, yank it off, and throw it across the room, where it hooks onto my desk chair.

As I’m reaching for him, he puts his hand on my arm. “Sam.”

“Hmmm,” I say, distracted by the thin line of hair that circles his belly button and edges lower.

“Should I be worried?”

I look up at him, my thoughts scattered. “About what?”

“The fact that you’re apparently the one girl on the planet who doesn’t tell her best friend everything the moment it happens. I have sisters, Sam. I thought that was a rule—the best friend knows all. Yours didn’t even know I existed.”

“Nan?” I ask quickly, then realize I don’t know what else to say. “It’s kind of complicated with her.

She’s got a lot going on…I just thought I’d…” I shrug.

“You’re being considerate?” Jase asks, moving away from me and sitting down on the bed. “Not ashamed?”

I feel the breath whoosh out of my lungs and can’t seem to take the next breath. “Of you? No. No.

Never. I just…” I bite my lip.

His eyes assess my face. “I’m not trying to put you on the spot. Just figuring out what’s what. You’re…I don’t know…the ‘State Senator’s Daughter.’ I’m…well…‘one of those Garretts’—as Lindy’s dad used to say.”

He says the phrase as though it’s in quotes, and I can’t stand it. I sit down on the bed next to him, put one hand on his cheek.

“I’m just me,” I tell him. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Jase studies my face, then takes my hand, pulling me down. He carefully curls around me, so my head is resting on his arm, and his head’s resting on my shoulder. His fingers move slowly through my hair. The paradox of Jase is that at the same time I’m so conscious of the heat of his chest against my back, and the muscles under the shorts on the legs twined around mine, I feel so safe and comfortable that I fall, almost immediately, asleep.

I wake to Jase shaking my shoulder. “I should go,” he whispers. “It’s morning.”

“Can’t be.” I tug him closer. “That was too short.”

“Is.” Jase kisses my cheek. “I’ve gotta go. It’s five twenty-seven.” I grab his wrist, squinting at his digital watch. “Can’t be.”

“Honest,” Jase says. “Listen. Mourning doves.”

I tilt my head, discern a series of owl-like sounds. Sliding out of bed, Jase hauls on his shirt and socks and shoes, comes back over to me, leans forward, kisses my forehead, then moves his lips slowly to the corner of my mouth.

“Do you have to go?”

“Yeah. Samantha, I—” He stops talking. I put my arms around his neck and tug him down. He resists for a moment, then slides in next to me. He has his hands in my hair, which came out of its braid during the night, and our kisses get deeper and a little wilder. I slip one arm under him and pull, moving him on top of me, looking into those green eyes, which widen a fraction. Then he leans on his elbows and those careful, competent hands undo the front buttons of my nightgown.