I swallowed and took a humongous bite of my cheese pizza, then glanced toward Terri out of the corner of my eye.
She shrugged. “I guess it was okay.”
Moira wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “Uh huh. You wanna explain the tardies the school sent to your mom’s email?”
Terri’s head shot up at the same time mine did and we froze, our glances locked to one another.
Slowly, Terri peered at Moira. “You mean Mom doesn’t know yet?”
“Not yet,” she singsonged. “But that’s only because she hasn’t checked her email. You know she’s going to lose it. How in the world could you have been late? I dropped both of you off early this morning.” Her perfect eyebrows lifted as her attention switched between both of us.
“We were waiting outside and lost track of time.” I gave her an easy grin.
“Mmhmm.” She forked some salad, examining a cherry tomato. “If you two aren’t careful, there will be consequences.” Moira lifted her assessing eyes to mine. “And they won’t be pretty. I won’t resort to lectures because you two are healthy, hormone-driven teenagers in close proximity, but you need to remember the most important thing about this situation.”
I shifted on my seat, swiping a breadstick through marinara sauce, then bit in, enjoying the garlic and butter hitting my tastebuds.
“What are you talking about?” Terri leaned back in her chair. “We haven’t done anything wrong.” Her cheeks flushed bright red.
I wonder if she’s thinking about our earlier kiss.I wasn’t sorry. If I had the chance and she wanted it, I’d kiss her again. And again. I’d made out with other girls before, but they’d never felt like Terri. They never made my heart pound and my palms sweat. They never made me feel like that empty, black hole in my heart had melted away.
“I’m just saying…” Moira glanced down at Lana, who watched us with confusion. “Be discreet.”
I could tell Moira wouldn’t fall for a lie, so I inclined my head and coughed. “Yes, ma’am.”
“What’s discreet?” Lana asked. A glob of pizza sauce dripped from her chin.
“It means to be quiet, which is something you wouldn’t know about.” Moira used the corner of her napkin and scrubbed Lana’s skin.
“I can be quiet.”
“Uh huh.”
“Really. I can.” Lana turned her focus on me. “Hey, Pax. You promised to read that book to me, remember?”
I chuckled. “Yeah, I remember.”
“Tonight?”
“Sure, Lana.”
“As long as you don’t give me any trouble tonight and take your bath on time,” Moira added, giving the little girl a stern stare.
“Yay!” Lana clapped, her dirty hands flinging strings of cheese and sauce across the entire table. “I’m gonna go take it right now.” She pushed herself from the table, the chair legs screeching across the tiled floor, and tore off through the room.
Moira rolled her eyes. “Son, if I knew that’s all it took to get that child to take a damn bath…” She stood and stacked Lana’s dirty dishes with her own. “Tell you what, if you can keep her in this routine for the next week, I’ll keep mum about the tardy slips. I need a break from that child. She wears me out.”
“I don’t care if Mom finds out about me being late.” Terri’s voice held a note of defiance, causing me to grin.
But Moira’s right. If we need to explain why we were so late, it might cause Terri’s parents to reconsider having me here as their “foster” son.And I didn’t want to go back to living hour-to-hour wondering where my next meal would come from.
“Deal.” I wiped my hands and shook from across the table.
Chapter twelve
Terri Kingston
Aftershowering,Ishimmiedinto an old, ragged pair of white shorts and a purple tank top, then stretched out on my bed.
