Mom fiddles with a loose thread on my sweater, reminding me that I need to ask her to sew my ripped backpack. “Well, he’s still seeing that new woman. Maybe he wants you to meet her.”
I crinkle my nose. “Which one? The assistant?” Since announcing his divorce from Shaina, he’s had a couple girlfriends, all of whom are in their twenties.
“Nope. She doesn’t work for your dad. She’s a publicist. Her name is Alexandra. I creeped her on social media and she’s totally out of his league,” Mom adds, scrolling through her phone for a photo. She turns it toward me.
Dad definitely has a type: young. Alexandra is no exception. She’s tanned, sun-kissed, and posing in a black one-piece on the balcony of what appears to be a tropical resort. Her sharp cheekbones and slender build remind me of one of those dark-haired Victoria’s Secret models.
“Good for him, I guess,” I mutter. Though I still have no interest in meeting her, regardless of how nice a person she probably is, especially if he’ll be on to someone new next month.
“You need to make more of an effort with him too, you know. Maybe go visit this summer. You could have a hot-girl summer in the city.”
I shoot her a poisonous look as I type an SOS text to Kassie about Dad and his new girlfriend. “Mom, don’t say hot-girl summer.”
“I’m just sayin’. You don’t want to end up with daddy issues like me, or Rachael.”
Too late, Mom, I think, just as a whirl of red pulls into the driveway. It’s Renner. Finally.
SEVEN
Renner’s cherry-red mom-van is infamous. It has a few different names. Sometimes it’s the Cherry Blaster, or the DILF Mobile. Really, it depends on Renner’s mood. He confidently drives it around town, chauffeuring everyone to and from parties when he’s not drinking.
The fresh-laundry scent of his air freshener hits me as I hoist myself into the passenger seat. I cringe, kicking a jock strap out of the way.
Before I can open the Maps app, he whips us out of the driveway like a Hollywood stunt driver—in the complete wrong direction. I death-grip the edge of the seat. “Do you even know where we’re going?”
He lifts one shoulder, arm draped over the wheel. Definitely not ten and two like we learned in driver’s ed. “Eh. I know the general direction.”
“You obviously don’t, because it’s that way,” I say, jerking my thumb backward.
He keeps course while Siri shouts at us to turn around. After the fourth block, he finally pulls over to do a U-turn. “You, of all people, have no right to back seat drive me.”
It brings Renner a disturbing level of joy to remind me that I failed my driver’s test—twice. The first time, I couldn’t parallel park, even after five attempts. The second time, my bumper just barely kissed the side of a very pregnant woman in the DMV parking lot. I cried about it and basically offered her my future firstborn child in apology. (She did not want my unborn baby and looked appalled by my offer.) But in my defense, she was wearing the exact same color dress as the pavement.
“Okay, no one parallel parks,” I remind him.
“Everyone parallel parks.”
“You sit on a throne of lies.” I huff, anxious to get out of the van. His mere proximity feels detrimental to my well-being. “Take a right at the light.”
“So, did you ask Clay Diaz to prom yet?” he asks, fiddling with the volume on a Kane Brown song.
The mention of Clay makes me want to punch something. “None of your business.”
“I’ll take that as a no.”
“As if I’m going to ask him after yesterday,” I snap.
Renner lifts a shoulder. “I don’t really get what the big deal is. You dropped a couple tampons in front of him. So what?”
I don’t have the patience to explain the rules of the patriarchy to him. I stiffen and avert my gaze out the passenger window. We’re ripping through downtown at least ten miles over the speed limit. “It’s not just the tampons. The whole thing threw me off. I bombed my scholarship interview.”
“And that’s my fault too, I suppose?”
“Yes. Yes, it was.”
“Relax. I’m sure it wasn’t half as bad as you think.”
“Easy for you to say. You just breeze through life willy-nilly, with no regard for other people’s time, and everyone still loves you no matter how much you mess up.”
“Look, I’m sorry,” he says so quickly I second-guess whether I’ve heard him correctly.
My body stiffens, unsure how to react. A mea culpa? From Renner? It’s a weak, slightly backhanded one, but it’s an apology nonetheless. This is new. “Is J. T. Renner actually apologizing? I must be hallucinating.”
“To be clear, I’m only apologizing for ripping your bag. Not for standing in front of my locker, where I had every right to stand.”
I remain unconvinced. “Is this some sort of trick? This just isn’t . . . a you thing to do.”
He lifts both brows. “Maybe there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
“Doubtful.”
I know Renner well. Too well, in fact. Every good leader must know their enemy. Knowledge is power. Over the past four years, I’ve collected intel via personal observation, trusted human sources, and straight-up social media stalking. If we’re being honest, I could probably write his autobiography. I know he eats the toppings and cheese first on his pizza (a serious red flag). He has a small scar on the left side of his chin from a brutal football hit in ninth grade. While generally adventurous, he has extreme phobias of heights and germs. In fact, he will never share a utensil or a drink with anyone. Admittedly, he’s also a good friend (to people he likes, at least). He goes out of his way to make sure everyone’s included in plans (well, except for me).
He bumbles on when I don’t respond. “I can . . . uh . . . buy you a new bag?”
“It’s fine. I don’t need a new one,” I assure him.
He scratches his head. “Well, I feel like I owe you.”
“You definitely do. And you can repay me by not letting prom go up in flames.”
“Yeah, ’cause that’s my master plan: organize a shit senior prom and ruin everyone’s night, just to spite you.”
I shift in my seat. “I’m not ready to count that possibility out. Spiting me is your modus operandi. And you’ve already made your first move by strong-arming me over the theme.”
“You really need to let that go. Your idea sucked. Deal with it. And everyone else loves Under the Sea,” he brags.
“Not me.”
“This sounds like a good villain origin story,” he says.
“It is pretty good,” I agree, drumming my chin, then flicking my gaze back to him. “You’ll be my first victim.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything less. Just don’t ruin my face. I’d like to have an open-casket funeral.”
“Of course you would. And a horse-drawn carriage to cart your body through town too, right?”
“A gold stagecoach could work, yes.” I bask in silence for a solid minute until he breaks it. “Still no prom date, huh?”
“None of your business.”
He grumbles something unintelligible under his breath and cranks the volume on “Every Morning” by Sugar Ray. It’s always a thrill when I can silence him.
“Every morning there’s a halo hovering around the top of my beddddd,” he belts at the top of his lungs.
“Those aren’t the lyrics,” I point out.
He shrugs. “What are you? The lyrics police? It’s the gist of the song.”
“It’s his girlfriend’s four-post bed,” I inform him, enunciating slowly.
“I won’t believe it if you don’t sing it.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Fine. Suit yourself,” he says, continuing to bellow his incorrect lyrics.
Lucky for my eardrums, we pull into the parking lot a few minutes later, thanks to my Maps app. Brenda, the owner of the party store, greets us with a harsh frown. I think she’s bothered we’re late. But after a few moments of small talk with Renner, she’s charmed. He casts dark magic, I’m sure of it.
“Your collection is fantastic, Brenda,” Renner says, taking a gander around the warehouse. “How long have you been in business?”
“It’s been in the family for ages. My grandfather opened it in the early fifties,” she responds, eyes resting on Renner.