“Hey, where are they going?” Ember shouted up to her dad, who was at the wheel, as she pointed out the window. The second RV in our tiny caravan was pulling out of the parking lot.
Ashby addressed Ember through the rearview mirror. “They’ve got to get gas. We’ll catch up with them when Willow gets here.”
Regan and I shot each other a look.
“She’s riding in here?” Ember cleared her throat, her new tactic for avoiding a nasty tone in her voice when she really wanted to deliver one.
“That’s not going to be a problem, is it, dear? We all thought you two girls could use some time together to … get over … whatever the heck is going on.” Raven didn’t look up as she paged her way through a paperback. There was nothing on the cover but abs and a guitar. I assume there was a title, but even I couldn’t see one through the expertly organized masculinity.
I held my breath. I was certain Ember wouldn’t tell her parents about Willow’s accusation that she and Ember were half sisters, but her mother’s casual attitude about their apparent rivalry was bound to make Ember’s head explode one of these days.
“It’s not a problem for me,” Ember asserted. “Does Willow know she’ll be cozy with us for the next several hours, at the very least?”
“Let’s find out, shall we?” Ashby said with a smile as he opened the RV door for Willow, who bounded up the steps with much more pep than awaited her in the cabin of the vehicle.
“Hey, guys …” Her brightness slid away with her words as she looked at Ember.
Before any of us had a chance to say anything, there was a loud pounding on the door.
Just behind Willow marched a much shorter, and much louder, Georgia. Willow turned to face her, having to look down to meet Georgia’s eyes. That didn’t seem to affect Georgia as she pointed emphatically at Willow.
“Listen here,” she spoke to Willow without so much as looking in our direction, laying on her thickest Eastern Massachusetts accent, “we both know the kind of shit you pull. We also know you won’t be pulling that with Regan, correct?”
“Excuse—” Willow started, but was cut off.
“Correct?” Georgia stepped up one more stair so she was as close as she was going to get to Willow’s eye-line.
“Whatever,” Willow mumbled as she slumped down in her seat right behind Ashby.
“Will that be all, Georgia?” Ashby arched the eyebrow he’d passed down to Ember.
She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “You betchya, Mr. Harris. Bye guys! See you in a few weeks!” She waved frantically at us for a second before bounding off the bus and back to her car.
The RV was silent with the precise tension that fills a high school classroom after a clashing of the social groups. I thought, based on Willow’s initial silence, that we’d successfully passed through level one unscathed.
I was wrong.
Ember’s shoulders rose with a huge breath as Willow stood and walked with an inappropriately seductive grin to the back of the vehicle.
“Don’t worry,” Willow said, smiling at Regan as she sat next to him across the table from Ember and me. “You’re not really my type. No offense.”
“None taken.” Regan pulled his Kindle out of his backpack and diverted his attention from the table.
“Doing anyone and everyone isn’t really a type, Willow.” Ember pulled her iPod from her bag, plugged in her earbuds, and leaned her head back as she closed her eyes.
A flash of homicidal irritation passed through Willow’s eyes before she turned her gaze to me. And grinned.
“Not everyone,” she whispered.
I held my face steady enough as she rose from the table and walked back to her seat.
I exhaled once I was sure Willow was securely fastened somewhere far from me. Regan shook his head and lifted his eyes from his reading. “Good fuckin’ luck, dude.”
“Thanks,” I murmured.
Let me be clear. There wasn’t one ounce of anything I found attractive about Willow Shaw. Sure, she was visually attractive, but the venom that appeared to course through her body erased it all, and then some. The problem, it seemed, was that she wasn’t going to give up. I hoped that stunt she pulled was more in response to feeling burned by Georgia, and not any lingering game she saw in me.
*
“Bo … Bo …” A sickeningly familiar voice called me from the pleasant nap I’d been enjoying. As consciousness overtook me, I realized the RV had stopped. Looking to my left, out the window, I saw we were at a park and some of the band members were eating at nearby picnic tables.
I didn’t want to look right. I knew who was there, and I didn’t want to acknowledge her. Sitting up, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, wondering where Ember was, and why the hell she’d leave Willow in the RV with me.
Looking up, I indeed saw Willow, who was sitting in the chair across the aisle from the table I’d been napping at. Her legs were crossed at the knee, and her foot bobbed softly as she sat with her arms crossed.
I cleared my throat while I sat up. “Where is everyone?”
She nodded her head to the windows. “Eating. Stretching.”