SO IT TURNS OUT that late-night flashes of brilliance often look a little less brilliant in the bright light of morning.
Ariane Tucker. I was supposed to ask Ariane Tucker to Bonfire Week today.
I squinted at the sunlight pouring into my bedroom and pulled the covers over my head.
Seriously not one of my better ideas. First, it involved Bonfire Week, which was always a pain. It was supposed to be about school spirit in general, but usually turned into a weeklong celebration of the only “worthy” sport: football. And frankly, I got enough of that crap at home. Second, Rachel no doubt had a larger game plan of humiliation in mind, even if I didn’t know what it was yet. And third, I barely knew this girl. Based on the hate-filled glares she’d sent at me yesterday during the whole Jenna debacle, I wasn’t entirely convinced of my ability to talk her into anything.
Maybe I should have just let Jonas do his best. Ariane probably wouldn’t have fallen for it anyway. And even if she had, why did it matter to me?
I had no idea. But I was stuck now.
I groaned and forced myself out of bed and into the shower, my head throbbing. It seems that drinking five beers shortly before bed also sucks first thing in the morning.
Fifteen minutes later I stumbled into our kitchen, my hair wet and my clothes sticking to my skin. I’d been doing pretty well to make it through the shower at all. The effort of drying off might have pushed me too close to the line, transforming the possibility of puking to reality.
“Late on your second day. That’s a good start,” my dad said from his position behind the island, where, coffee cup in hand, he was flipping through the newspaper. Probably looking for mentions of himself or his “team.” My dad was one of those people where nothing existed or counted as important unless someone else was talking about it.
I ignored him, making my way over to the bread box. But when I lifted up the lid, I found only the empty blueand-white plastic bag. I’d have to get to the store this week sometime.
Stomach churning, I dug to the bottom of the bag and found the dried-out heel. Gross. But I chucked it into the toaster anyway. I needed something in my gut, and after last night’s events, I was betting I wouldn’t be able to talk Trey into stopping for a greasy breakfast. In fact, I probably should have been worried about whether he’d show up to give me a ride at all, but that felt like too much work. If he didn’t show, I’d have to ask my dad for a ride, and that was not happening.
I braced my hands against the cabinet by my head and closed my eyes, resisting the urge to lay my face against the cool, smooth wood. The room spun if I moved too quickly.
My dad snorted. “If you’re going to run with the big dogs, Zane, you’ve got to be able to keep up.”
Like Quinn. He didn’t say it, but I knew that’s what he was thinking. My older brother’s high-ranking position among the Ashe High elite had been a foregone conclusion; that they’d accepted me as well (albeit with far less fanfare) had come as a genuine surprise to my dad. Consequently, he seemed to view it as a privilege that might be revoked at any time, if I proved myself less than worthy. And that would be a darker stain on the family name than if I’d never been “in” in the first place.
Quinn had never had to worry about any of this, of course. He was perfect at everything, just like my dad. He’d have partied last night, woken up for a five-mile jog at dawn, finished a report on his summer reading, and gulped down some kind of disgusting and healthy smoothie consisting of raw eggs and wheatgrass, with no ill effects. Unlike me, where the mere thought of raw anything… My stomach turned over on itself, and I shuddered, trying to think of something else.
I silently begged the toaster to hurry up so I could take my mangled breakfast to the porch and wait for Trey, who would, please God, show up. I could tell it was going to be one of those mornings with my dad, where he wouldn’t leave off.
“Did you get dressed in the dark?” he asked a second later.
See? Though, in this instance, his assumption was partially correct; I’d had my eyes half closed against the too-bright sun.
“…at the Salvation Army?”
Son of a bitch. He was in a mood this morning. I was wearing…something. I was fairly certain it even matched. I had a vague recollection of a blue T-shirt and then something with a collar—maybe one of Quinn’s stretched-out button-downs that had made its way to my drawer when it wasn’t tight enough for him anymore. I don’t know how he could stand to have something pressed against him like that, pulling at his neck. And I was pretty sure I’d grabbed my favorite jeans from the floor, the ones with the ragged hems that made my dad crazy. That would probably explain the Salvation Army comment.
But what the hell, dude. My clothes were my clothes—well, except for Quinn’s hand-me-downs—and how I looked was my business.
I knew better than to engage, but my head hurt, the toaster was giving off a disgusting smell of burned crumbs and hot metal without relinquishing my toast, and my dad was pissing me off.
I turned my head carefully in his direction and cracked my eyelids open. “What about you, Dad? Is there a parade stand somewhere missing you?” He was wearing his formal dress uniform—white Oxford shirt and dark blue tie under a jacket with gold braid on the sleeves, patches on the shoulders, and all manner of shiny (oh, too shiny today) buttons, collar brass, lapel pins, and badge. His hat, with more gold braid and another shiny badge, lay on the island next to his paper.
Wait, was it a Wednesday? I had to think about it for a second. Yeah. It was. That explained both his mood and his uniform choice. On the third Wednesday of every month he had meetings over at GTX. In theory, these meetings were with the GTX Community Outreach department, giving updates on the anti-drug program GTX sponsored for the elementary school, or presenting the need for more bulletproof vests or new computers in the squad cars. But I think my dad probably saw it as a foot in the door. Except he’d been attending these meetings for a few years now, and, as far as I knew, he’d never managed to wedge additional body parts through.
My dad glared at me. “You think you’re so smart.” He set his coffee mug down with a sharp crack that reverberated through my head. “But people are judging you based on how you look, whether you like it or not. And if you want to be taken seriously, you have to dress the part.”
I rolled my eyes, though it kind of hurt. My dad was forever trying to get in good with GTX—they were the only game in town when it came to power, money, and influence—and it irritated him to no end that they had their own expensive and well-trained security force, experts who avoided interacting with him and his guys except when absolutely necessary.
It was a snub of the first order, to my dad’s way of thinking, as good as declaring to the world that GTX thought the Wingate police were local yokels, barely able to handle cow tipping, mailboxes on fire, and old Mrs. McCarty shoplifting candy bars again. But my dad was Jay Bradshaw, hometown favorite, football hero of legend, man who’d pulled himself up from a trailer park existence to be the bright shining star of this craphole town.
Wingate threw him a parade when he left for college, and then again when he came back to work for the police. Not a joke.
Everyone worshipped him, except the folks over at GTX.
I’d spent years listening to my dad bitch about their head security guy, Mark Tucker, cockblocking him. Whenever GTX had a problem, whether it was the stolen research project from ten years ago that my dad still complained about, or protestors setting up in front of the gates, Mr. Tucker always told my dad they preferred to “handle it internally.” And my dad was stuck—he couldn’t do anything unless GTX called him in or there was reasonable proof of a threat to Wingate.
Sometimes I thought his only goal in life was to beat Tucker and get in those doors on a call to serve and protect.
Huh. Tucker. My alcohol-addled brain was slow in making the connection. I wondered if Mark Tucker was any relation to Ariane. That seemed like something I should know, a fact that someone had probably mentioned at one point or another, but I couldn’t remember for sure. At least not without concentrating on it more, which wasn’t a good idea at the moment, with my dad about to vent steam from his ears.
He crumpled up the newspaper and swept it to the floor before stalking over to get into my face. “You think you can do anything you want and it doesn’t reflect on me, on this family?”
His coffee breath wafted over me, and I struggled not to wince.
“This is it, Zane. You’re a junior now. Time to stop screwing around and get serious.”
Like I hadn’t heard that a thousand times already in the last three months. But a thousand and one, that was the key, clearly. “Thanks, Dad,” I muttered.
“You’re an arrogant little shit,” he spat.
“Because of what I’m wearing?” I asked incredulously. There was only so much damage wearing faded and worn-out clothes could do to a reputation, right?
“You have a piss-poor attitude, and it’s going to catch up with you.” He jabbed a thick finger in my chest. “I swear to God, your brother was nothing like this. Why can’t you be more like him?”
And there it is. The million dollar question of genetics, environment, and disappointed parental expectations: Zane, why aren’t you Quinn, just younger? Then we could have enjoyed Quinn-ness for that much longer.
“Quinn gets it,” my dad said with great satisfaction, as if that should wound me. “He knows what it means to play ball.”
“Yeah, well, Quinn’s also kind of a douche bag,” I muttered. Which was true. He was just like my dad, king of a small hill, and determined to have everyone know about it.
I didn’t blame Quinn for basking in my dad’s approval and making the most of it; hell, I’d have done the same. The man was not easy to please. I’d spent years trying to get even the faintest bit of that light to shine in my direction. It would have been nice if Quinn had at least acknowledged, even just between the two of us, that we weren’t exactly on a level playing field; but that wasn’t him.
To be fair, though, my big brother could have used his advantage and spent his time torturing me pretty much without consequence. Instead, he’d basically ignored me, as if being inadequate might be contagious. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if that wasn’t worse.
My dad’s eyes bulged in a way that I hadn’t seen since he was my PeeWee football coach and crazed by my complete lack of talent for the game. “What did you say about Quinn?”
“Nothing.” This conversation—if you could call it that—was definitely reaching an end. I reached over and yanked up the lever on the toaster just as Trey leaned on the horn outside, loud and long. Thank God.
I snagged my half-scorched, half-stale bread from the toaster and spun away from my dad. “Gotta go,” I said as I headed for the back door. It’s been fun, I wanted to add, but I knew there was only so far I could push him before he snapped and decided to “teach” me something. My dad was of the “tough lessons need a tough teacher” school of thought. We had a few dents in the living room drywall in the shape of my head to prove it. I was taller than him now—another thing I suspected he hated—but he was broader than me and in good shape. (He’d kept up with the workout schedule he and Quinn had created together, with the weights in the garage.) Not a man to push without expecting to get pushed back. Hard.
Not a man for letting someone else have the last word, either.
As I shoved open the screen door, he fired off his final volley. I was expecting it; most of our fights ended in the same way with the same words, or similar ones. But that didn’t mean they hurt any less when they came. “You’re just like your mother,” he said, his voice thick with such barely repressed disgust I wondered why he bothered.
I was too much McDonough and not enough Bradshaw. I’d been hearing that since I was old enough to understand the words. I resembled my mom’s side of the family—the height, dark hair color, blue eyes, and the genetic lack of a stick up my ass.
According to my dad, the McDonoughs were trailer-park trash—all of them criminals or lazy, lacking in ambition and good sense. Of course, that hadn’t stopped my dad, hometown hero returned, from hooking up with my mom, even as he was “officially” dating the mayor’s daughter.
When my mom got pregnant, they had to get married. No choice in that. Not in Wingate. The town might turn a blind eye to slumming, but leaving Mom behind in a “family way”? Bad idea, particularly for someone with my dad’s reputation and ambitions.
That, at least, explained Quinn. I had to presume, then, based on the sheer level of frustration he seemed to have at my mere existence, that I had been another even less-welcome accident. That he wished I’d never been born.
I’d said as much to my mom one day when I was eleven and I’d come into the house bleeding and humiliated (and even worse, fighting off tears) after a particularly rough game of “touch” football with my dad and Quinn.
She was quiet, focused on spraying Bactine on my scraped-up elbows. “Your dad grew up in a trailer the next row over from mine. Did you know that?”
I stared at her. Grandma and Grandpa Bradshaw lived a few blocks away in a small, neat house, where the furniture was still in late-nineties mint condition beneath the plastic protective covers. At least they did now. But that explained why some of the things they did—like letting their lawn grow too long because they didn’t want to pay someone to mow it, or fishing pop cans out of the neighbors’ recycling bins to turn them in for money—drove Dad vein-popping insane.
“He’s not a bad person,” my mom said in that same calm, even voice. “He just doesn’t know how to be okay with who he is, where he’s from. And sometimes we remind him of everything he’s trying to forget.” Her mouth tightened in a hard line before her entire expression collapsed and she started to cry.
She stopped herself quickly, wiping her eyes and returning to bandaging my wounds like nothing had happened. “But we’ve got each other. So we’re okay, right?” she’d asked me in a determinedly cheerful voice.
I’d nodded quickly and repeatedly, catching a glimpse of my scared face in the bathroom mirror. There’s nothing worse than seeing your mom fall apart. Particularly someone like my mom, who had always seemed impervious to everything my dad threw in her direction.
Seemed being the key word there, as appearances apparently turned out to have no bearing on reality.
You’re just like your mother. Standing there in the back door, just a foot away from escape, I pictured my dad’s words as arrows, striking a target on my back. Bull’s-eye, every one of them. I shrugged involuntarily against the imagined sensation of them lodging right below my shoulder blades. “Not enough like her,” I mumbled. Because, after all, I was still here.
I let the door slam shut after me.
Trey lifted his head up from the steering wheel and squinted at me when I got in on the passenger side. “Dude, you look like hammered shit.”
Juggling my so-called toast, I chucked my backpack into the backseat and pulled my seat belt on. “I always forget—is hammered shit better or worse than non-hammered shit?”
“Funny,” he said through a yawn.
“And you’re one to talk.” I frowned. Trey looked bleary-eyed and half awake, and he hadn’t even been drinking last night.
His jaw dropped in another bone-cracking yawn. “Didn’t get much sleep.”
I wondered if that was my fault. But he’d come to pick me up anyway, which I appreciated, especially after the scene with my dad. Nothing like being able to storm out and go somewhere instead of having to crawl back inside in humiliation.
Trey straightened up and shook his head rapidly, as though the vigorous motion would help him wake up. “Your dad giving you a hard time again?” He nodded toward my house, and I looked up in time to see my dad glaring at me from the doorway before he slammed the door with such force it rattled the car windows.
That was one of the benefits of having the same friends for eleven years. They knew all your crap and you didn’t have to explain it.
“Yeah.” I took a tentative bite of the toast. It was gross, stale-on-the-verge-of-moldy, and charred. But better than nothing.
“Sucks.” Trey put the car in reverse and looked over his shoulder to back out of the driveway. “Dude needs to get over it.”
“Yeah. Right.” Not in my lifetime.
I waited until Trey reached the street to speak again. We didn’t usually talk much in the car—neither of us are morning people—but it was eating at me and I had to know.
“I wasn’t sure you’d show this morning. Thought you might still be pissed.” I’d tried to explain to him last night that the kiss hadn’t meant anything. Rachel was messing with us, her way of entertaining herself.
But he’d waved me off and remained sulking in the shallow end of the pool. I’d had to get a ride home with Cami and Cassi, which was its own form of torture. I’d never been alone with the two of them before, and though they were, theoretically, genetically identical, you’ve never seen two people argue so much. Whether this song sucks or not, if it’s too hot or cold, whose perfume smells better, pink versus red. I didn’t even understand that last one. And they wanted my opinion to settle every single debate. (For the record, I think I came down on the side of pink.) I’d always thought Rachel hung out with them because they told her what she wanted to hear. Now I wondered if they needed her—in a referee capacity—far more than she needed them.
Trey shrugged. “It’s cool.”
I looked at him, surprised and relieved. I relaxed in my seat—as best as I could with the dash digging into my knees—feeling some of the weight on my shoulders roll away. One less thing to worry about.
“Rachel explained it,” he added.
I stiffened. Yeah, I bet she did.
As if confirming my suspicion, he hesitated and then said, “She was happy to see you having fun again. But you know you don’t have anything to prove to us or anybody else.”
Damn it, Rachel. “It isn’t about that,” I said tightly. Poor Zane misses his mommy. Boo-hoo. It was about so much more than that. But people only cared about the surface.
“Whatever, man,” he said. “I just mean I’m here if you want to talk about it.”
What was there to talk about? If my life sucked, what was the point of hashing it out with everyone, asking them to feel sorry for me? It wouldn’t change anything.
“No one knows what’s going on with you,” he added. “And you’re different since your mom—”
“Don’t.” I glared at him, and he clamped his mouth shut, which was wise. I couldn’t believe he was going there. Or rather, that Rachel had more or less pushed him to it. I could picture it, her eyes all faux-sincere, talking about poor Zane. You know, his mom abandoned him. She stuck around for Quinn, but not for him.…
Son of a bitch. I could feel the burning mix of humiliation and rage rising up inside me. People talking about me behind my back in the guise of pretending to care or wanting to help—was that ever going to go away?
“Just trying to look out for you, man,” he muttered.
Yeah, but he was one of the few. Everyone else was just in it for the entertainment value, something to add a little interest to an otherwise boring day. And I didn’t want to talk about it, even with Trey.
Rachel was waiting in the parking lot next to her car when we pulled in. She was all smiles, waving at Trey as though she hadn’t demolished him only last night. He sprang out of the car, barely taking the time to put it in park first.
“Baby,” she cooed, throwing her arms around him.
Dude. He should rip his heart out of his chest and toss it on the ground. Save her the time and effort.
I grabbed my backpack, got out, and slammed the door.
Rachel pulled away from Trey. “Zane,” she said in greeting. She patted Trey’s shoulder. “I hope Trey explained everything from last night.” She was smiling, but I could see the calculating going on beneath the surface and maybe more than a little anger. She wasn’t happy she’d had to work so hard to win Trey back to her side. Good.
I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything.
“So you’re still on board with our little plan?” she asked.
“Asking Ariane Tucker to Bonfire Week and then what? Pouring pig’s blood in her locker?” There had to be a catch here somewhere, I knew it.
Rachel gave me a disgusted look, probably at the idea that she’d repeat a trick so close to the one she’d pulled yesterday with Jenna. “No. It’s like we talked about. Take her to Bonfire Week.”
“Except for the party at your house,” I said. There was no way Ariane rated highly enough on the social scale to receive that invite.
Rachel’s eyes sparkled. “No, especially the party at my house.”
Uh-oh. “And then what?” I demanded.
She lifted her shoulders and gave me a wicked smile. “Nothing. Not our fault if she falls for your charms and you suddenly and publicly change your mind and dump her…loudly.”
I sighed. Rachel couldn’t guarantee a good party without a show, and humiliation was her specialty. I’d been into it once. Feeling better by making other people feel worse. But after living with my dad constantly on my back for the last year or so, I’d lost my taste for it.
But if I refused now, she’d probably send Jonas, who wouldn’t hesitate to follow through. And then it would become all about me, poor messed-up Zane. What happened to him after last year? He’s no fun anymore. Blah, blah, blah. All the whispers and looks of fake concern that I hated.
Saying yes, though, would mean Rachel had me under her thumb, like Trey. My dad was already attempting to run my life; I didn’t need someone else telling me what to do.
A fierce wave of white-hot fury flooded up through my chest. I was trapped. Son of a bitch. I would not be backed into this corner.
“Hello? Zane? You in there?” Rachel waved a hand in front of my face and then exchanged a faux-concerned look with Trey, playing her role to perfection.
Unless… In a quick flash, the all-too-familiar pieces of the scheme—Rachel, a plan, a victim, Ariane Tucker, humiliation—fell together in a slightly different order; one I was willing to bet Rachel had never considered.
Maybe Rachel should get a taste of her scheming world from a slightly different angle. Nothing too dramatic—I wasn’t an idiot. Just something to make her think twice. I might not be able to get my dad off my back, but Rachel was a different story.
I smiled grimly. “Sure,” I said. “I’m in.”
Trey nodded in happy approval. Rachel squealed and threw herself into Trey’s arms and then promptly winked at me—long, slow, and seductive—over his shoulder.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Yeah, fine. If Rachel wanted a game, she’d get one. All I had to do was convince Ariane Tucker to play.