9
Landon
I would be alone when Melody came over, because Dad and Grandpa had an appointment in town to see Grandpa’s accountant, who Dad referred to as a swindler and a con man. When he wasn’t calling him something way more insulting.
‘I’ve been seein’ Bob since you were in diapers!’ Grandpa growled this morning.
‘Then he’s had several decades to skim his share of your profits,’ Dad shot back. ‘It’s time to cut him off.’
‘I’ll do no such! Maybe if you’da stuck around, you’d know that most people aren’t criminals like the type you meet in Washington.’ As far as Grandpa was concerned, Washington was a ‘teeming cesspool of shady dealins’, and the fact that his son had chosen to live and work there had tainted him. I didn’t stay to hear Dad’s answer. I was pretty sure I’d already witnessed this argument. Multiple times.
I grabbed a protein bar after slugging some OJ from the carton while they were too busy one-upping each other to notice and headed out for school. Watching for Wynn or his thug friends as I got closer, I almost slowed to a stop as I crossed in front of the elementary school. A little kid was hopping out of his mom’s pick-up, but he misjudged the kerb and tripped forward, flat on to his face. His head bounced off the pavement as his mother screamed his name. I jogged straight over and went to one knee, lifting him while he sucked in air for the coming shitfit he was about to let loose. His nose was gushing blood and the tip of it was scuffed raw, but he looked pretty intact, considering. No forehead gash. No teeth on the ground.
‘Ohmygod, Tyler, ohmygod!’ his mother said, rushing up and yanking tissues from her purse, eyes wide. She slammed a tissue against his nose, which released the delayed wail I’d been bracing for. The kid’s lungs were certainly working okay.
‘So much blood! Oh, God – I should have pulled closer!’ she said, shaking and crying, tears streaming down her face.
‘Uh, I think his nose might be broken – you might not wanna press so hard on the bridge.’
She snatched the wad of tissues away, her hands trembling. ‘B-but the blood –’
I grabbed a couple of the tissues from her and pressed them under the kid’s nose. ‘Hold that right there, dude.’ He stared at me, but obeyed, sobs subsiding slowly. ‘You’re gonna be fine. I broke my nose a few years ago, playing hockey. That rink was a bloody mess and I nearly gave my mom a heart attack, but I was fine. No big deal.’
The kid reached for his mother, who gathered him close.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Your mother should be real proud of you. Not many boys your age woulda done that.’
I nodded and stood, mumbling, ‘No problem.’
The rest of the day felt fairly uneventful, consisting of me dodging Boyce Wynn and purposefully not staring at Melody Dover in class, though she whispered that she’d walk over after school. Hesitant about the whispering and the secrecy – we were project partners, after all – I slid a glance at her boyfriend. He glared from across the room, and Wynn grinned like he knew something I didn’t. Not an expression I wanted to see on him.
Just before four o’clock, Melody knocked on my front door.
I let her in, tense from the awareness of how she must view the place her boyfriend’s dad called a shack and an eyesore and worse. Her parents probably felt the same way. And her friends.
I’d spread my project materials out over the kitchen table in hopes she wouldn’t ask about my room – but that plan bombed. ‘So where’s your room?’ she asked, right after I offered her a soda and she followed me to the kitchen to get it. F*ck, I thought, opening the pantry door and bracing myself for ridicule.
‘Whoa!’ Her eyes went wide. ‘This is so small! And … cosy …’
She hopped on to the edge of my bed, and my heart thudded. Melody Dover is sitting on my bed. Her eyes roved over my textbooks and novels, stacked on the shelves. She turned round to study the opposite wall, half covered in drawings like the ones she’d flipped through a couple of nights before – but better.
‘This is the coolest thing ever. It’s like this … artist’s cave.’ She smiled. ‘Can we work in here?’ Without waiting for my answer, she slung her laptop bag over her head and crawled towards the head of the bed.
‘Uh, sure …’
When Dad and Grandpa came home, we were sitting side by side against a mound of pillows, working on the citations page. They were arguing, as though they’d picked up right where I left them this morning, like a paused movie. My face burned when they each stopped right outside my door and peered in with mirrored expressions of shock. For what felt like eternity, neither said a word.
‘Makin’ dinner,’ Grandpa said eventually, turning away. Dad grunted and turned in the opposite direction.
Melody’s pale gaze shifted from the empty doorway to me. ‘So your mom …?’
I shook my head. ‘She … she died.’
‘Oh. That’s terrible. Was it recent? Is that why you moved here?’
I nodded, unwilling to elaborate or make eye contact or speak at all. My hands were fists in my lap. Please don’t ask.
I almost jumped out of my skin when she laid her hand on my arm, right over the wristbands I was wearing today. Her fingers grazed the top of my hand. ‘I’m sorry.’
She was apologizing for the fact that I lost my mother, like everyone did. I couldn’t say, It’s okay. Because it wasn’t, and it never would be.
But I couldn’t dwell on the loss of my mother with Melody’s soft hand on mine, her fingernails painted an electric, metallic blue, like a sports car. I couldn’t think of anything but where her hand rested, and its proximity to other, wide-awake parts of me. Angling her fingers, she rasped her nails along the back of my hand and inches away, my body responded, hardening fiercely. I prayed she couldn’t see. I was afraid to move.
‘She stayin’ for dinner?’ Grandpa said from the door, and we both jumped, snatching our hands apart. The laptop bounced on her lap.
‘Oh, no, thank you. I have to get home soon.’ Her face was as red as mine.
Then her boyfriend texted to ask where she was, and she lied and said she was home.
‘I’m real sorry about your mama, Landon.’ She leaned and kissed my cheek, and my whole body caught fire. It was uncomfortable and amazing, paralysing me like a poison-tipped dart and filling me with flares and embers. I couldn’t think straight. Sliding to the end of my bed, she stuck her laptop in her backpack. I followed her to the front door, silent, her kiss a brand on the side of my face.
The fight, when it came, was quick and dirty and unwitnessed by any teachers. It was raining again during lunch, and I wasn’t in the mood to get banished outside, so I had the asstastic idea to hang out in the library computer lab and check out the PowerPoint Melody had put together. Our presentation was two days away.
I rounded a corner and there he was – with a posse, one of whom was Clark Richards. Wynn’s lead moron, Rick Thompson, was acting as lookout.
‘Hey, Maxfield. Time to pay your dues,’ Wynn said, as unemotionally as if he’d just delivered a weather report. Then his fist flew at my face, almost slow motion, but so were my movements. I couldn’t reel back fast enough to avoid the blow, and he caught me square in the jaw. My teeth rattled and fireworks exploded behind my eyes.
I staggered back and he followed. ‘You sucker punched me in shop, motherf*cker. That shit was not cool. Just try to hit me, now that I’m payin’ attention.’
I got lucky and blocked the next punch, but as he threw an arm round my neck and pulled me down into a low headlock, I knew he’d make up for missing. Twisting from his grip, I turned and slammed my right fist into his chin and my left into his kidney, determined not to make that payback easy. Another wrestling move from him and I was back in deep shit. He cuffed the side of my head and then punched me in the stomach.
‘Whatsa matter, mama’s boy? Useless piece-a-shit weirdo.’ My ears rang and his taunts almost grew unintelligible, but he kept dispensing them like he was looking for a panic button. ‘Daddy never taught you to fight, huh? Is he as big of a p-ssy as you are?’ I couldn’t rotate into the right position to get a grip on him or throw a punch, and I’d lost count of how many he’d landed. ‘Maybe your mama needs a real man. Maybe I oughta pay her a little visit.’
And there it was.
With a roar, I threw both arms wide, breaking his hold, and then I hooked a foot behind his ankle and sent him sprawling to the ground. Jumping on top of him, I didn’t bother to hold him immobile before I began using both fists to hit him over and over. I couldn’t see. Sounds were muted. I could only feel the rage, and it drowned everything else. Striking his face and the side of his head repeatedly, my fists grew numb. I wanted to pound him flat, but his hard skull prevented me. I grabbed him by the hair and slammed the back of his head into the floor.
He bucked me off with a roar of his own, swinging wildly, one eye already purple and half shut. I rolled and stood, breathing heavily, but before I could launch myself at him again, Thompson hissed, ‘Teachers!’
Our altercation had gained an audience, I noted then. Fellow students surrounded us, inadvertently hiding us from view. We both stood, eyeing each other, slowly straightening, hands tense but at our sides.
‘What in tarnation is going on here?’ Mrs Powell said, pushing through. ‘Fighting is an expellable offence!’
Mr Zamora parted the spectators and came to stand behind her as Wynn, his face as battered as mine felt, deadpanned, ‘We weren’t fightin’.’
Narrowing his eyes, Zamora pointed down the hall. ‘Principal’s office. Now.’
I tried to care that I was about to be expelled but couldn’t. Truth be told, it took every shred of self-control I had to walk calmly towards the office instead of leaping on to Wynn and thrashing him into dust.
Minutes later, my entire body was beginning to ache. My face hurt. My ears were ringing. My abdomen felt like I’d done crunches for four hours straight. My hazy vision was due to blood in my eye, which began to clear as I blinked. I fought nausea as Ingram stared at us from across her huge desk, where not a single file folder or receptionist’s message dared to be out of order. On the surface, the boy next to me seemed indifferent to the threat sitting feet away from us, but his hands dug into the arms of his chair.
‘There is zero tolerance in this school for fighting.’ She paused, letting this sink in. My clammy, blood-streaked hands pressed into my thighs and gripped hard, reminding me to remain silent. ‘I assume both of you are aware of this policy?’
I nodded. The dumbass next to me shrugged.
‘Mr Wynn? Did you just shrug your shoulders in answer to my politely stated question? Perhaps you need it stated in more … understandable terms?’
‘No, thanks.’ Oh, man. This guy was an even bigger idiot than I’d imagined.
Ingram’s eyes narrowed further – which I hadn’t thought possible. ‘Excuse me?’
‘No, ma’am,’ he mumbled.
‘No, ma’am, I didn’t just observe you shrugging your shoulders, or No, ma’am, you aren’t aware of the policy?’ she asked, knowing exactly what he’d meant, trying to get him to say or do something with expellable consequences.
‘No, ma’am, I don’t need it stated in more understandable terms. Yes, ma’am, I understand your policy. But I wasn’t fightin’.’
It took everything I had to keep my jaw from dropping. If he thought I was going to take the fall for this shit alone, he could think again. I wanted to turn that black eye into a matched set, though intuition kicked in enough to warn me that that reaction would definitely get me expelled – something this bitch had wanted all year.
Her mouth contracted into the type of pucker someone has after sucking on a lemon. ‘You weren’t … fighting.’ Her contemptuous tone carried a clear-cut warning. Somehow, I knew Wynn wasn’t going to heed it. ‘Then why all the blood and bruises?’ She leaned forward, her lips stretching into the beginnings of a gotcha grin.
‘I fell down the stairs.’
Her stare should have iced him over. ‘You live in a trailer.’
‘I didn’t say I was at home.’
Her gaze whipped to me. ‘And you?’
‘He fell down the stairs, too.’ Christ on a cracker, as Grandpa would say – Wynn was answering for both of us. I was so screwed. ‘We both did. It was epic. Pretty sure it’s on YouTube by now.’
Her eyes didn’t budge from me. ‘Mr Maxfield? Care to tell the truth?’
No matter what I thought of Wynn, Ingram was not on my side and I knew it. I took a breath. ‘I think we were pushed.’
Her eyes flared wide. ‘By whom?’
‘I don’t know. They were behind us.’
There was a long silence as she figured out that neither of us was willing to give up the other to benefit her. ‘You are both –’ she paused to harden her already-sharp jaw – ‘expected to follow my rules while you are in my house. If I find one teacher who will say they witnessed a single punch being thrown by either of you, I will toss both of your ill-bred carcasses back into the streets and on your butts without a moment of misgiving! Do. You. Feel. Me?’
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing, because one, I had no doubt she wanted nothing more than to rid herself of both of us, which was anything but funny, and two, my lip was split in two places and would hurt like a motherf*cker if I so much as smirked. But a middle-aged woman asking us Do you feel me? What the hell?
Wynn, fingering his chin, said, ‘This sounds familiar … Have you considered making a handout?’
I cough-laughed into a fist, wincing at the pain. Son of a bitch. My heart hammered as hard as it had when I’d first swung my fist at his face.
Her face mottled, and all I could think was the dragon was about to breathe fire. ‘Get out. I’m calling your parents. You are both suspended for a full week. Sit in the outer office until called. Do. Not. Talk.’
Under his breath, Wynn muttered, ‘Shit.’
Luckily, she didn’t hear him over my, ‘Yes, ma’am.’
We jumped up and exited her office, slouching into hard lobby chairs that did nothing for my sore back. I hoped Wynn was hurting even worse than I was. Facing the front counter of the main office, we left an empty chair between us.
I didn’t know what Dad would do or say. He barely spoke to me as it was.
‘Maxfield?’
Surprise, surprise, Wynn defied the do not talk command before the first minute was up. I ignored him.
‘Sorry about what I said. You know, about your mother.’ As if it needed qualifying.
Scratching at a splotch of dried blood on my jeans, I wondered if it was mine or his.
‘It was a dick thing to say.’
I looked at him, confused. ‘Yeah. It was.’
LUCAS
I almost began thinking of myself as two different people, at least where Jacqueline was concerned. I was the guy who’d been mesmerized by her for weeks and had regrettably earned her fear in saving her from an assault, and I was the guy who was the opposite of a threat – trading quips and stories through email while helping her catch up in class.
On one hand, I wanted her to know I was both the class tutor and the guy from Saturday night. Mostly, though, I wished I could be someone else altogether. Someone unrestricted by an otherwise sensible ethical line, and someone untied to possibly the worst night of her life.
Instead of entering the classroom when I arrived, I leaned on the wall across the hall and waited for her to show up. Without intending to be, I was a grudging witness to some banter between Kennedy Moore and Ivy. Leaning on the wall just outside the door, they swapped phone numbers and contact pics. She giggled the entire time. This was the sort of girl this guy thought could replace Jacqueline? There were plenty of intelligent women on this campus, including sorority girls, if that was his thing – but this girl?
No.
I turned my eyes away, and that’s when I noticed Jacqueline, standing in the middle of the hallway, watching them. From her stationary posture and the quiet hurt on her face, her motivations for skipping two weeks of class were all too clear. Not only had he ended their relationship without warning, he wasn’t wasting any time moving on. Only a masochist would want to watch that in action.
Some clumsy dickhead bumped into her then, and I pushed off the wall as her backpack slid down her arm and hit the floor. She righted herself, twisting down as I picked it up. Her eyes flashed up to mine and I wanted nothing more than to shield her from every injury or discomfort she might ever encounter.
So not possible – this I knew.
‘Chivalry isn’t really dead, you know,’ I said, sliding the bag back on to her shoulder.
‘Oh?’ Her cheeks were tinged pink. It was cool outside this morning, but I gathered that her flush was due to embarrassment, not the slight November chill.
‘Nah. That guy’s just an a*shole.’ Lifting my chin towards the jerk who’d run into her without even a proper apology, I couldn’t help fixing her dick of an ex in my sights, too, before returning to her. ‘You okay?’
In her eyes, I read her recognition of this recurrent question, and I hated myself for constantly reminding her of that night, even if that was the last thing I wanted to do.
Maybe she couldn’t help but be reminded, no matter what I said or did. I needed nothing to trigger my personal nightmares, after all. They came indiscriminately, regardless of what I did to avoid them.
‘Yes, fine.’ Her voice was a deflated whisper as she glanced towards the doorway. Moore and his would-be conquest had gone inside, and she moved to follow her classmates. ‘Thank you.’
Her thank you reminded me of the rainy day I’d held the door for her. The first time I’d seen her up close, looked into her eyes, and admitted to myself that I wanted her.
Damn.
She didn’t glance back or notice that I entered the classroom behind her. From the last row, I leaned back in my seat and watched her takes notes as Heller covered the whiteboard with new material, her furrowed brow and general body language screaming not getting this. I shouldn’t have wanted her to need Landon Maxfield, but I knew she’d be emailing me later, and I was already anticipating the questions I wanted to ask her.
Then, leaning down to reach into her backpack, she looked directly back at me.
So, she knew I was in the class, and where I sat. She must have noticed me on Monday before I’d seen her standing there. She must have chosen not to sit next to me. She’d preferred to take a seat that required her to climb over the outstretched legs of a guy who napped in class at least once a week.
But she knew where I was, and she was curious enough to glance back. I tried to keep my expression level, but the edge of my mouth pulled into a smile, even as I fought it. She whipped her face forward, and didn’t look back again.
When Heller wrapped up for the day, I hightailed it out the back, while Jacqueline thumbed through her spiral and turned it towards the guy next to her.
Before I could escape the building, a student stopped me. She’d been in Heller’s class last spring, but had dropped. She’d signed up to try again, but wasn’t doing any better this semester. She never came to tutoring sessions, and the only time she’d asked for individual tutoring, she’d wanted to meet off campus. I’d said no to that, as we’d been trained to do.
‘So we can’t meet at my apartment?’ she asked, as if we hadn’t had this exact conversation a few months prior.
I sighed. ‘Nope. Sorry. On-campus tutoring only – university rules.’
Catching a strand of her long hair and winding it round her finger, she pouted her lower lip out. That act must work on some guys, or her parents, but it sure as hell had the opposite effect on me. My phone buzzed in the front pocket of my jeans. Jacqueline hadn’t left the classroom yet, and I wanted to leave the building before she came out. That probably wasn’t going to happen, now.
‘So it’s a group tutoring thing? And it lasts an hour?’
That hair wound tight round her finger, the girl in front of me swayed from one foot to the other, adding to my annoyance. I wanted to grab hold of her shoulders and make her stand still for the thirty seconds more I was giving this exchange. ‘Yeah. From one to two.’
She asked what I was doing after the tutoring session. As if she knew I wouldn’t tutor her off campus … but maybe I’d be game for hooking up. Jesus. Christ.
‘Work.’
‘You’re always working, Lucas.’
I couldn’t remember ever having the actual feeling of someone watching me before, so I wasn’t sure if that’s what it was. Maybe it was merely the fact that I knew she could be there. But I’d swear my skin heated and my muscles contracted and my breath hitched. I couldn’t keep my eyes from pulling up and zeroing in on Jacqueline Wallace in the crowd of people zigzagging through the hallway, as though I knew exactly where she’d be. As though she was the only other person in that hallway.
She was close enough that I could have taken four strides to reach her. I knew she’d heard my name. Now she thought I was Lucas, while she was emailing Landon. There was no reason for her to reconcile the two. In that split second, I was utterly relieved and then disgusted with myself and then torn right down the middle. Again.
Before I could move, she turned and disappeared into the flow of people, and I swear I felt her leave.