“Have you been to all these places?” I ask.
Tucker comes up behind me. “Some. The yellow tacks are where I’ve been, and the red tacks are where I want to go.”
“There’s a lot of yellow on this map,” I say.
“I guess, but a lot of it is following my dad on his work trips. Those are just two-or three-night stays where we didn’t really get to see a whole lot.”
He says this with such a sense of sadness that I can’t help snorting. Poor Tucker. Been to nine million places across the globe, and he’s bummed he didn’t get to spend more than a few days in some. I’d give an arm for two days in Paris.
“What?” he asks.
I think about telling him a few sad stories of my own. Instead I shake my head and mumble, “Nothing.”
I can smell his cologne and suddenly realize how close he’s standing. When he says, “Okay,” his breath tickles my ear and makes the little hairs on my neck stand on end. I don’t know what to do about it, so I panic, slipping away to an antique dresser with gold inlaid in its single drawer, a key turned partway in the lock. It’s the only thing in his room that remotely resembles the opulence of the rest of the house.
“What kind of fancy stuff do you keep locked in here?” I ask, trying to keep the shakiness from my voice. I fail miserably.
“Oh, you know, the usual. Gold bars, et cetera.”
So he knew why I was laughing at him earlier. Tucker St. Clair has a sense of humor.
“Are we going to work on this project, or did you just come over to snoop around my bedroom and make fun of me?” He drops onto his bed. I laugh awkwardly and look for somewhere to sit. There isn’t anyplace but the bed where Tucker sprawls. I perch on the other end of his mattress, as far away from him as possible.
This is so weird.
“Any ideas who you want to do?” I ask.
He grins, and I feel my lungs collapse.
“For the project,” I amend.
His laugh is as smooth as honey, and his dimples make his mouth even sweeter than it is. It’s not hard to see why he’s such a lady-killer at school.
“All right, very funny,” I say, even though I’m smiling now too.
“To answer your question, I do: Disney.”
“Disney?” I raise my eyebrows, but he’s clearly not joking.
“Walt Disney. I found an article in the Atlantic where they polled a bunch of historians and they all agreed he’s the twenty-sixth most influential person in American history.”
“The twenty-sixth?” I burst out with a laugh.
“Think about it—there’ll be at least two projects on each of the top ten. Ours would be different. Interesting. If you were Mr. Crawford, would you want to read twenty reports on the same guy?”
I kind of hate to admit it, but it’s a great idea. Everyone else is sure to pick Abraham Lincoln or Martin Luther King Jr. Our project would really stand out. “That’s pretty ingenious,” I say.
“You sound so surprised.”
I decide there’s no reason not to let him know exactly what I think of him. He may be a lady-killer, but I’m half-dead already. “To be honest, I kind of always assumed you bought your grades.”
His mouth drops open, and my lips curl into a smile. I feel devious and brave, and the smile he returns tells me he likes it. Is this flirting?
“You know, I don’t have it nearly as good as you think I do,” he says, though the grin never leaves his face.
“Is that right?” I realize I’m biting my lip and stop.
“I know you think I’m this entitled snob or whatever, but I have a dark past.”
I laugh at that.
“I do!”
“I’m sure. I bet you’re a straight-up thug.”
“I have a criminal record, if you must know.”
I press my lips together in a halfhearted attempt to keep from laughing again.
“It’s true!” he protests.
“Okay, for what? Failure to return a library book? Or, wait, I know—drinking underage. Or drunk and disorderly conduct. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“It’s for assault.”
“Oh.”
That was…unexpected. I don’t know what to say.
“Why are you telling me this?” I finally ask.
He studies me for a minute, as though even he doesn’t know why, then he says, “I don’t know. I guess it just seems like…you get that not everything is a game. Sometimes shit is serious.”
I nearly jump at the word game. But there’s no hint of mischief on his playboy face. “Yeah,” I say. “I get it.”
He twists his mouth, then seems to make a decision and sits up straighter. “Okay, well, at least let me explain so you don’t think I’m crazy.”
I shrug, so he continues.
“So I was at a party last summer, and me and this girl were looking for a, uh, quieter place to hang out. We went onto the roof, and I found my cousin up there with a guy on top of her. I got kind of freaked out and turned around to leave, but then I saw her squirming and saying no and I realized what was happening. I didn’t think—I just pounced on this guy and started hitting.”