The words echoed around me. The water propelled me forward, faster, faster, faster into my perfect day. I was sure I would win.
Dammit if Max didn’t emerge two seconds ahead of me. Dammit squared. He shot so far out he crashed into a woman wading across the pool to the lazy-river entrance. A Cannon Balls employee blew her whistle.
“Sorry, ma’am,” Max said without looking, flipping his hair back and spewing droplets everywhere. Then he whipped around to me and smirked. “Creamed you, Kingston.”
Technically, he’d creamed Sonia McCall, his mother, since she was the lady he’d mowed down into the cement bottom of the pool.
Sonia came to her full senses well before Max realized his mistake.
“Maxwell Lincoln McCall, why aren’t you in school?”
Whoa. Full name.
“Because it—uh . . . I mean,” he stuttered. “It was practically a crime to be inside, Mom,” Max said very tentatively, and glanced at me for support.
I winked at Max again behind Sonia’s back. Ballsy, McCall, I heard Winter Halson’s voice in my head.
Sonia turned, her eyes boring into mine. The cobra hood of her inner snake swelled and stood on end as she prepared to strike. “Sa-die.”
I flipped up my hand in a wave. “It really is a perfect day for Cannon Balls,” I said.
Tara Kingston would have been proud of the look Sonia shot me. I shriveled appropriately, but something in me found this downright comical. Come on, what were the odds? I got the feeling Sonia agreed with me, but on the very principles of being a parent, plus a card—carrying adult, had to pretend otherwise. After all, she and Mr. McCall had jobs. We weren’t the only ones skipping obligations.
“Where’s your brother?” she growled at Max.
Max pointed at the huge clock above the cantina. “I’m guessing in language arts. Maybe psychology.”
Admirable. Trent would have thrown him to the wolves.
That answer wouldn’t have held even if Trent and Gina hadn’t shot out of the tubes at the same time, to more whistles of annoyance from the Cannon Balls staff. Sonia wiped the chlorine from her eyes again and waded out of the pool. We followed her like little ducks, partly because we had to, and partly so the whistle-blowing employee would chill the freak out.
Mr. McCall sat up from his chair—after an apparent nap—and said, “Hey, Max,” before he registered Max was not where Max was supposed to be.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Where’s Gray?” Sonia’s head snapped back and forth. “You four, don’t even attempt to lie to me. Where one of you goes, the rest of you follow.”
Gray’s timing was impeccable. He arrived as if on cue, licking an orange Push-Up pop. He tucked it behind his back and donned his best smile. “Hey, Mrs. McCall.”
Sonia had us out of Cannon Balls and back in school within the hour. We spent a few weeks with our asses in slings—no car privileges, no dates—but no one could convince any of us it wasn’t the best morning of the year. Absolutely epic.
I mean, really, who else would that happen to?
That was the whole memory.
Which meant I was still clueless. Except for the increasing certainty that Max, Gray, or Gina must be my anonymous friend who cares. Had Max returned from the salvage yard and typed this note while I dropped a library book in the bin for Mom? He’d had time, and reason. After all, he’d read the list on the Buick, knew I was attempting to resurrect the old me. Totally possible. I examined the chronology again.
Between the arrival of the first two notes, Gray had told me he still loved me, Max had come back from El Salvador, and Gina had apologized again. Between the second two, I’d confronted Gray, melted down in the dressing room with Gina, and amped things up with Max. Of everyone, Gina was the one acting the least suspicious.
Which meant . . . absolutely nothing.