But Dad extends a hand, blocking the doorway before Max can disappear into the hall. “Make no mistake,” he says, dripping venom. “You’re not welcome in my house again unless you’re accompanied by an adult, and you areneverallowed in Jillian’s room. Have I made myself clear?”
Max gives a curt nod. “Yes, sir.” And, in a move that can only be described as humiliating, he ducks under my dad’s arm and passes swiftly down the hall. I startle when the front door slams.
Dad returns his attention to me, but it seems his ire has followed Max across the street. His shoulders plummet and his face droops and I feelawful.
“Jillian,” he says. “I’m so disappointed in you.”
In seventeen years, I’ve never given him occasion to utter such a statement. Tears well in my eyes because, God, this sucks. I’d rather suffer the angry shouts he launched at Max than this quiet but deep-seated displeasure.
“I really am sorry.”
He heaves a sigh. “Max Holden? Tell me you didn’t invite him here.”
“I didn’t. He knocked on the window. He’s having a really hard time.”
Creases line my dad’s face. The Holdens and the Eldridges have been a unit since he and I moved in across the street a decade ago. Joint holiday celebrations, backyard cookouts, riverside strolls, family vacations—we used to do everything together. I recall the Super Bowl bash Marcy hosted a few years back. By halftime, Dad and Bill were several beers in, joking about how Max and I would probably end up married, which was perfect, Bill surmised, because we’d breed football prodigies with a talent for baking. Dad cracked up—he was a happy member of Team Max back then.
“Max is not your responsibility,” he says now. “That kid’s on the fast track to self-destruction. He was drunk, wasn’t he?”
My lack of answer is confirmation enough.
Dad sighs. “Scouts are supposed to be at his game Friday night. He’s going to throw away his chances at being recruited. Andthis.” He waves a hand at me, then the floor—the scene of the crime—his mouth twisted in revulsion. “I won’t stand for him taking advantage of you.”
“He wasn’t taking advantage—”
“Uh, doesn’t he have a girlfriend?” It’s a rhetorical question. Becky’s been a fixture at the Holdens’ for ages, first as Ivy’s best friend and now as Max’s turbulent love affair.Everyoneknows he has a girlfriend.
“It wasn’t like that,” I say, but maybe it was. Now that I’m picturing us tangled on the floor through my dad’s agonizingly astute filter, I can’t deny that Max’s motivations were less than romantic. He used me to cheat on his girlfriend, and I willingly participated.
“I expect better from you,” Dad says. “Max is intent on being miserable, and you’re not the kind of girl to lose sight of her goals for a screwup.”
My goals. They’ve been set in stone for as long as I can remember: graduate high school on honor roll, earn a Grand Diplôme in Professional Pastry Arts from the International Culinary Institute in New York City, and open my own pâtisserie in a charming town, where I’ll spend my days baking and serving adoring customers. Nobody’s been more supportive of my goals—mydreams—than my dad; he’s been funneling money into my culinary education fund since I was ten. I just wish he could see that one weak moment won’t derail me. I indulged in a careless kiss with my unavailable childhood playmate; I didn’t commit grand theft auto.
I’m suddenly very tired. Tired of listening to Dad bash Max. Tired of looking at his drawn expression and the way it contrasts with the inane jack-o’-lantern on his T-shirt. Tired of defending actions I’m not even proud of.
I fake a yawn. “I’ve got to be up for school in a few hours.”
He glances at the digital clock on my nightstand, then scrubs his hands over his face, as if the motion will erase the memory of Max and me horizontal on the carpet. “I thought we were beyond this, Jill, but I’m going to have to set some boundaries.”
“Seriously? I made one mistake—”
“One mistake that traces back to one very unstable person. I love Bill and Marcy, but their son’s become a terrible influence, and I won’t have him taking you down.” He pauses, making sure he has my full attention before saying, “I want you to stay away from Max Holden.”
3
DAD LEAVES THE HOUSE BEFORE DAWN, ANattempt at beating traffic on his way to a meeting in Seattle, and this morning Meredith has an appointment with her doctor—one she doesn’t mention until just before it’s time for her to drive me to school.
“Catch a ride with Max,” she says, hitching a thumb toward the window where his truck sits in full view, warming up in the driveway across the street.
Meredith is perfectly put together, sitting at the kitchen table with her feet up on the chair across from her, sipping green tea from a travel mug. Meanwhile, I bustle around, wiping down counters, collecting stray mail, dumping my dad’s breakfast dishes into the dishwasher. There’s been a complete role reversal in the six months she’s been pregnant, and I don’t love it.
“Dad said to stay away from Max.”
“Then ride the bus.”
“Never.”
“What about Ivy?”
