Sean laughed.
“Nothing?” Mom yelled.
No, not nothing. The highlight of the night, at least for me, had been when Lori wrestled me down on the seat of the truck, straddled me, held my wrists above my head, and kissed my neck. She’d pretended she’d overpowered me. I could have easily pushed her off me, but I didn’t. It was very sexy. I could still feel her lips on my neck. God, that had felt good.
“Adam!”
I jumped when Mom hollered at me again. My hand was pressed to my neck where Lori’s lips had been. I put my hand down. “Maybe not nothing, but not what you smutty-minded people are thinking.”
“You just stayed out all night with the girl you’ve had a crush on since you were four,” Mom said, “and nothing happened? What do you take me for, Adam?”
I wondered how my mom knew I’d had a crush on Lori for so long. That was creepy. But what I yelled back was, “What do you take me for? What do you think I did to her? You think I’m stupid?”
“No!” Sean gasped.
Normally Mom would have rushed to my defense over that sarcasm from Sean. Of all the things Sean and Cameron picked on me about, my ADHD and my tendency to flunk school because of it was the one topic that was off-limits, at least while Mom was around.
This time she said, “I’m beginning to wonder. Lori’s father wants to ban you and Lori from seeing each other for the rest of your lives.”
I said, “He can try.”
“Adam, your father and I want to help you, but we can’t if you don’t help yourself. You’re not doing yourself any favors with that attitude.”
“What attitude? I don’t think I’m being helped right now.”
“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Mom snapped. “I was worried sick last night. Your father was worried sick.”
Dad shrugged.
“Trevor was worried sick about his only daughter staying out all night on her sixteenth birthday,” Mom shrieked, “and you don’t even take it seriously.”
“It’s hard to take seriously when I’m in trouble for something I didn’t even do,” I shouted back.
“Son,” my dad said.
“What!”
He stared at me for a few long seconds, letting me know I’d crossed the line, before he answered. “Shut up and listen to your mother.”
“Lori’s father will calm down,” Mom said. “He always does. When that happens, your father and I will talk to him about letting you see Lori again. But in the meantime, you must exercise some restraint. Stay away from her, just as he wants, or we won’t be able to put in a good word for you.”
“Okay. I’m about to work with her for eight hours at the marina, but I’ll take a blindfold.”
“You will work on opposite ends of the marina until further notice,” Mom said. “You may not go out with her. You may not date her. You may not be her boyfriend. Clear enough?”
Damn. Lori was right. Only it was worse than her being grounded from going out. I was grounded from her.
I stared at Mom, the embodiment of evil sitting across from me in a red bathrobe. Sean had told me since we were kids that I was adopted. He and I looked a lot alike, unfortunately, so I’d assumed he told me that just to be mean. Now I knew he’d told me the truth. A real mom couldn’t be that cruel.
“You can’t do that,” I breathed. “No.”
“I can,” she said, “and I am. Lori’s father informed me at about three thirty this morning that if we found the two of you alive, you would not date each other again. I have to agree with him until you show us more maturity.”
I turned to my only chance left. “Dad,” I pleaded, “this is so [cuss word you never, ever say in front of your mother] ridiculous.”
Mom gaped at me. So did Sean. The difference was that Sean was half smiling, and Mom looked like she might climb over the table in her bathrobe and stab me with the butter knife.
Even Dad shook his head and said, “Consider yourself lucky. Lori’s pop wants you to go to jail.”
“But for now,” Mom seethed, “go to your room.”
Like I was five! Punished for this made-up adult behavior like I was in kindergarten. “No,” I said. “I have to get ready for work, and I’m hungry.”
“Go to your room!” Mom and Dad yelled at the same time.
Just as well. I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach. I scraped my chair back from the table as loudly as I could, stepped over Sean’s leg, which he’d positioned to trip me, and stomped through the den to the stairs.
As I rounded the corner, I almost collided with Cameron crouching on the bottom step. His eyes widened at me. I’d caught him listening.
He recovered and said, without missing a beat, “I thought you were going to pull it off until you said [cuss word you never, ever say in front of your mother].”
“Thanks for your support,” I grumbled. “You left me there to bleed out.”
He held up his hands. “I don’t have a dog in this fight.”
I elbowed him as I passed him on the stairs. “If you were in this shit, I would have helped you.”
“How?” he called after me. “By setting the curtains on fire to create a diversion?”
At least Sean couldn’t follow me. He and Cameron shared a room when Cameron was home from college. I’d had my own room since I was five and Sean wrote on my face with permanent marker while I was asleep. I reached the top of the stairs, stalked into my room, and slammed the door hard enough to bounce every football trophy on my shelves.
I leaped across the room to catch last year’s tenth grade player-of-the-year trophy, presented to me at a ceremony that Sean had laughed all the way through. I carefully set it back on the shelf. But I was thinking that Sean and Cameron had a point. I was a loser. If Cameron had stayed out until morning with his brand-new girlfriend-who-was-like-a-daughter-to-Mom, Mom would have thought that was fine. Her firstborn could do no wrong. And if Sean had done it, he could have talked his way out of it. Whereas I’d dug my own grave. I couldn’t do anything right.
I fished my cell phone out of my pocket and pressed the button for Lori’s house. Her dad might answer, but that was okay. We couldn’t get in any worse trouble.
One ring. We should have run away after all. Two rings. I’d saved a couple thousand dollars of my money from working at the marina over the years. I had known it would come in handy someday. I’d always suspected I’d end up on the run from the law sooner or later, since I was forever getting blamed for things I didn’t do. Three rings. The money would tide us over until we both got jobs at a marina in a different town. Of course, we would need references from our previous employer. I doubted Mom would cooperate.
“Hello,” Lori answered. She was hoarse.
“Lori.”
“Adam,” she whispered. “I can’t talk long or my dad will catch me. He is insane. He thinks we spent the night in some kinky love grotto. It’s so unfair. He has no idea what dorks we are.”
“My parents are the same.” In defeat, I flopped backward onto my bed. The bed Lori should have visited sooner or later. But considering the last half hour, that would never happen. “Now you can cry.”
After a shower, I took extra time to dry my hair. Despite the fact that Adam and I had gotten each other in so much trouble—or maybe because of it—I wanted to make sure I looked as pretty for him as I had last night with my Ominously Good Hair.
Of course, this was ridiculous. All my efforts would be for naught. If Mrs. Vader stuck me in the warehouse, my blonde crowning glory would be full of boat grease and spiders by nine a.m. Also, I didn’t want to be late for work. Not this morning.
I did, however, want my dad to embark on his Sunday morning routine of going back to bed before I got downstairs. I had never seen him as angry as he was when I came home an hour ago, and I did not want a recap.
No such luck. When I popped into the kitchen, my dad and my brother leaned against the counter with their arms folded. Dad still looked red, but at leas
t he wasn’t yelling anymore. I stepped through the doorway just in time to hear him say, “You take care of your sister today.”
McGillicuddy gave my dad a two-finger salute. “Ayeaye, cap’n.”
Dad turned to me. “And you.” Every morning that I’d gone to play with the boys when we were little, or I’d gone to work at the marina this summer and last, he’d told me, Watch out around those boys next door. This time he couldn’t muster the words. Focusing on me, he opened his mouth, breathed in, breathed out.
He turned to my brother and repeated, “Take care of your sister.”
My brother and I closed the door behind us—softly, so as not to startle an already shell-shocked father—and walked through the garage to the yard, heading past the Vaders’ house to the marina. As soon as we were out of Dad’s earshot, I said, “Well! It’s a good thing you’re not serious about taking care of me. Dad can keep me from going out with Adam, but he’ll never see me on the lake. He won’t know about anything I do at the marina, because you won’t tell him. Hold up a minute.”
I’d been limping behind my brother on one bare foot and one flip-flop, scanning the yard for a flash of pink as we went. I remembered having both flip-flops on at the bridge. After that, it got fuzzy. All I knew was that I’d been wearing only one when I arrived home an hour ago. My dad had characterized this as my telltale state of undress.
Now I dove into an azalea and brought out my flip-flop. I shoved my toes into it and turned around.
McGillicuddy frowned at me.
Suddenly I realized how it looked to him and to my dad. “Come on,” I pleaded. “A flip-flop in the bushes does not mean anything. If you ever see my bikini top hanging from the bird feeder, I give you permission to raise an eyebrow.”
He cleared his throat. “Dad will see you on the lake. While you were in the shower, he went out on the screened porch, dragged the lawn chair into position, and made sure he could see the lake through the trees. After work I’m supposed to get out the ladder and clip more branches out of the way.”
“Oh.”
“And if I see you with Adam, I have to tell Dad.”
“You are not serious,” I wailed.
“I promised Dad. It’s a big brother’s duty. Just because you’ve lost his trust doesn’t mean that I—”
“I didn’t do anything to lose his trust,” I interrupted. “Adam and I fell asleep. That’s the truth. You know Adam’s harmless.”
“I do not,” McGillicuddy said sternly.
“Well, not harmless, but he wouldn’t hurt me.”
“He wouldn’t mean to,” McGillicuddy acknowledged. “But Adam’s got it bad for you, Lori. And sometimes what Adam intends to do and what he actually does are two different things.”
I scowled down the hill. Early morning mist rose from the smooth lake and evaporated as it touched the sun. A little over two weeks ago, I’d skipped happily toward that mist, knowing it would burn off to reveal a whole summer day working with Sean. A week ago, I’d still thought I was after Sean, but I’d fallen for Adam, whether I knew it or not. Yesterday Adam had won me over. It had been the best birthday ever.
We’d screwed it up already. Literally. We were the only two teenagers in the world who could get in trouble for hitting a home run when we hadn’t even gotten to second base. Now the fog over the lake looked menacing. It lapped at the marina piers and curled toward the warehouse and the showroom. It threatened to grab the little love affair between Adam and me and drag it under the surface of the lake, never to be seen again.
Then McGillicuddy said, “I have to tell Dad if I see you with Adam. Just don’t let me see you.”
“Thank you,” I gushed. I would have hugged him if that wouldn’t have been weird. Instead, he turned to walk toward the marina again, and I skipped beside him.
What a relief that somebody was on our side. The situation had seemed bad this morning after Dad yelled at me. It had seemed downright hopeless after I talked to Adam on the phone and he told me he was as grounded from me as I was from him. But I figured everybody would cool down after a few days. Yesterday my dad had been happy Adam and I were a couple, and Adam’s mom had helped throw us together in the first place. It wasn’t logical for them to do a one-eighty just because Adam and I had stayed out all night.
Or maybe it was logical, but it wasn’t fair.
Now that we had my brother as an ally, I felt better. I was sure I could fix everything. As we shuffled across the mat of pine needles, I asked him, “Can you talk to Dad for me?”
My brother eyed me. I didn’t blame him. Dad had put on quite a spectacle this morning. His friendly lawyer facade had crumbled completely after a night of dead-or-missing daughter and no sleep. He yelled at me all the way through breakfast, and I had the strangest experience of being the reasonable one in the argument. Unlike him, I’d gotten plenty of rest. I’d slept through the night just dandy on Adam’s chest. I had felt awful about keeping my dad awake and worried—until he started yelling.
“Can you?” I prompted my brother.
“Dad’s pretty mad,” he said.
“Really,” I said flatly. “I did not get that at all.”
“You should ask Frances,” he said.
“I thought of that.” If anybody besides my brother would believe Adam and I didn’t deserve to be treated like sexual deviants, it was my ex-nanny, Frances, who was now my dad’s girlfriend. I’d given her the play-by-play over the past few weeks. She knew I’d gone after Sean, caught Adam instead, and decided I’d netted the right boy after all.
But something about the idea of going to her for help made me uncomfortable. All those years she was our nanny, my brother and I thought we were pulling something over on Frances. The boys next door thought the same thing. Recently, watching her with the new family she worked for across the lake, I’d realized she let us get away with things on purpose, to learn lessons. She knew me a little too well. This was disturbing on its own, but it was doubly disturbing that this person who knew me a little too well wore hemp shorts and Birkenstocks in public.
Plus, she’d warned me a week ago that seemingly innocent Adam was trouble. And she told me that despite this, nobody would forbid me to go out with him. This was the one thing she’d been wrong about. A VERY IMPORTANT OVERSIGHT.
Plus, “Everything changed yesterday when she started dating Dad.”
My brother nodded. “It’s disconcerting.”
“Very disconcerting.” I hauled open the door to the marina office and waved him inside. “And I’m not sure she’s on my team anymore.” I stepped over the threshold after him, into enemy territory.
Crowded with my brother and me in Mrs. Vader’s tiny office were three big, bare-chested boys wearing nothing but board shorts. They smelled better than usual, since it was so early and they hadn’t spent the whole day sweating in the sun. Not that I minded their scent all that much—especially when Adam, who was standing closest to Mrs. Vader at her desk, peered at me over Sean and Cameron.
Since he’d dropped me off after our disastrous date, my mind had worked furiously to punch its way out of this box we’d built for ourselves. But now, as he looked over at me with his pale blue eyes so big and mysterious in his tanned face and his longish hair carelessly pushed back like he had no clue how hot he was—now I knew that if we didn’t find a way to convince our parents to let us be together, this was going to seem like one endless summer.
“Adam,” Mrs. Vader said. Somehow she conveyed a lot of disgust in that one name. Having raised three boys close in age, Mrs. Vader was good at this sort of thing.
“Yes, ma’am,” Adam said politely, and therefore sarcastically. If he hadn’t gotten a Talking-To an hour ago, he would have responded to her call with his full name, rank, and serial number like a prisoner of war.
I tried to catch his eye and give him a warning look. Our romance was at stake here. I didn’t think this was a good time to be sarcastic.
“You’ve got gas,” Mrs. Vader sai
d.
Cameron and Sean cracked up. Some jokes never got old, at least to teenage boys whose little brother was in trouble.
“I figured,” Adam muttered. Heading for the office door on his way down to the marina’s floating gas station, he pushed his way past Cameron and Sean. He even shoved my brother. I would have found this angry-at-the-world act kind of sexy if things hadn’t been so serious. We were in enough hot water.
He slid past me, his chest warm against my bare arm. I looked up into his eyes and watched him as he moved past me. My skin tingled wherever he touched me, like sand sparkling and swirling in the lake when the water was stirred. He filled the sunny doorway for a second. Then he was gone down the wooden stairs to the floating dock.
I turned back toward Mrs. Vader’s desk. She and the three remaining boys stared at me like they’d never seen me before. Like I was Lori McGillicuddy, Teen Geek and Fashion Disaster, transformed into an underage sex goddess. Just the effect I’d been going for two weeks ago when I was trying to hook Sean. Now that I was in trouble, not so good. To assure them I was the same old Lori, I said, “Funny. I figured you’d give me gas.”
“Ew,” Sean said. Cameron fanned the air to dispel the pretend smell, and my brother took a step away from me.
“Sean and Bill,” Mrs. Vader called, “you’re in the warehouse.”
My brother amiably headed toward the warehouse door. Sean put one hand on Mrs. Vader’s shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t need help here in the showroo—” He stopped midsentence when Mrs. Vader glared at him. “On second thought, I’ll see if McGillicuddy needs any help in the warehouse. Good suggestion.” He crossed his eyes at Cameron and me as he slipped past us out the office door.
“And you two,” Mrs. Vader said to Cameron and me. “We sold a lot of stock over the festival weekend. You’re delivering boats.”
Cameron took the stack of tickets she handed him. “Score!” he exclaimed, holding up his arms to signal a touchdown, because the boys considered this the choice job. Then he glanced at me. “No offense. I didn’t mean you.”
“Nice.” I’d been so focused on the catastrophe with Adam, I hadn’t even processed that there were a lot of sex jokes in my future, courtesy of rude boys. I approached Mrs. Vader’s desk cautiously, because she looked like she’d had Just About Enough. “I wanted to remind you that you do not allow me to deliver boats, as I have been known to crash them.”