My dad, reading over my shoulder, snorts. “You have no chance, son. Just give in now.”
“Eh, I don’t even know if he’s my type,” I say, lying through my teeth, irritated by the teasing. “He seems kinda sensitive.”
Trip laughs right in my face. “First of all, what’s wrong with sensitive? You cried the other day when we thought that lamb was going to die, and then you cried even harder when it made it through the night. Second, you know Tanner stood up to his dad, right?”
I ignore the comment about the lamb because thinking about itwillmake me cry again. Instead, I focus on the last part of what he said.
“What do you mean?”
“His dad caught Sheriff Patrick and Jason making out just a few days before the election.”
I shiver. I can’t imagine what the county would look like with Buchanan as the sheriff.
“Exactly. Tanner told him quote, ‘If you tell the truth about him, I’ll tell the truth about me.’”
“What? That he’s gay? Everyone knows Tanner’s not straight.”
“Not back then, they didn’t. And it wasn’t just that. His father had essentially been keeping Iliya hostage with threats of deportation, and I’m not entirely sure he kept his fists to himself, if you catch my drift. Tanner threatened to expose him.”
“That clueless, pretty goth boy stood up to his dad like that?”
“Don’t try to call him clueless when he just saved your ass with that LED discussion,” Trip says, running garlic bread through the sauce.
My dad chuckles.
“What?”
“I just think it’s funny that you’d call anyone clueless. You might have a clue now, son, but do you not remember when you flipped my van with all of my children in it?”
“Hey, I was in that van too.”
“I know. That’s why I saidallof my children. Do you know how fucking frightened I was? I told you again and again and again about that bend in the road. You always acted like I was justsostupid and you weresosmart. And you weren’t. You wereclueless. But I bet you weren’t after that though, were you?”
I shake my head. “That accident changed a lot of things for me.”
I remember thinking—as the world turned upside down—that I’d probably killed one of my siblings. All because I had to prove a point about the damn road.
When the van finally came to a rest and everyone survived, I cried like a baby. Then swore everyone to secrecy about the crying.
“I’m gonna guess that standing up to his dad like that changed him. I think you like how it’s changed him, don’t you?”
I snarl my lip but nod.
“Don’t dismiss him just because people notice you noticing him. If you like him, own it.”
Dad’s right that I need to own it, but it’s not just the noticing that has me off-balance. It’s this feeling that something’s shifted inside me. I don’t know what exactly, but something is different.
“I’m never living down the whole van thing, am I?”
Dad snort-laughs. “Hell no. I can’t wait to tell my grandchildren about it.”
We laugh and dig back into the pasta, and I think forward to Friday.
3
TANNER
God, I’m such an idiot. Junior texted me last night to meet him at Jamie’s Coffeehouse, and I’ve shown up fifteen minutes early, which is just enough time to doubt everything I’m wearing today. I’ve got on my black work boots, old jeans faded to a dark gray, and a tight-fitting red Henley from the women’s section at Goodwill. I put on the black leather braces thinking they’d pull everything together, but now I’m not so sure.
