“What tasks?” I ask. Tanner is the girl who kicked off the disastrous interaction that led to Robbie being shot. Hardly someone I want on closer acquaintance but Zach knows what I like even if he doesn’t realise how desperate I am to get my hands on more.
“Whatever you like,” he answers with his eyes narrowed, then relaxing when he sees I’m on board.
Caylon bristles beside me but all I can think about is the relief of getting a new supply. If Zach’s back in business, then a couple of new videos will set a course correct on my brain. I might finally get a good night’s sleep. I won’t need to pursue this new girl and corrupt her with my depravity.
“Nothing illegal,” he adds, severely curtailing my ambitions.
“I want videos,” I tell him, leaving the rest up to his imagination. “And I get two of those slots since you negotiated without us.”
Now Zach’s the one bristling but I ignore his annoyance as well. He’s the one in the wrong here and he knows it. Going around behind the scenes, making deals with the enemy… What the fuck is he thinking?
If I judge by the strange wistful glint in his eye, it’s possible he’s not thinking at all.
* * *
“Trent,”my father says the moment I arrive home. A bad sign. “Can you come in here a minute?”
Even worse.
I saunter into the kitchen, trying not to glower at my new stepmother, all twenty-one years of her. Anyone looking would presume she belonged with me rather than him, apart from her being so perfectly put together that I can’t stand to look directly into her face.
“We got a phone call from the school today. Your phys-ed teacher said you punched a kid midway through a game.”
I shrug, sitting on a stool and rubbing my palm on the counter. This is about the spot where Augie went to town with his date at the party. I can imagine some of the gleam came from her butt cheeks rubbing all over the marble.
“There’s no need to smile,” Sashe says in what might count for sternness over at her favourite spa. “It’s a serious matter.”
“Sure, Mum.”
“Trent!”
“It was an accident in the middle of a game. I was swinging my arm forward when he was trying to sidestep and it…” I make the gesture and noise for an explosion.
Judging from their expressions, neither of them are impressed.
“You’re off the team,” my father tells me. “You told me when you switched schools you’d keep your temper under control and now this.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t get to decide that.”
“I’m not—” He breaks off, getting his temper under control. “I’m passing on what your teacher told me.”
“He’s not a teacher.”
“That’s hardly the point!”
My combative side comes out, but I clamp down on it. In a fight with my dad, I’m never going to come out on top. “I’ll talk to him tomorrow. Once he’s had time to calm down from whatever was bugging him today, I’m sure he’ll listen to reason.”
“You punched a kid.”
My hands clench into fists and I have to force them flat against the marble. “I accidentally hit someonemyage during a high contact sport.”
But my father’s stopped listening. My new stepmother stares at my hands, then takes a few steps until she’s sheltering behind her husband. The rainbow of bruises doesn’t lend a lot of weight to my cause.
I slip upstairs to my room, closing the door and leaning back against it while my eyes scan the familiar space.
My father being antsy is nothing new. He’s like this every time he takes on a new girlfriend, a new wife. Like only constant vigilance and outward aggression will stop the world from taking her away again.
But nobody needs to wrestle his partners away. Give it six months and his behaviour will slip into its old patterns. Give it a year or two and she’ll move out all by herself. By that time, his affections will already have moved on, so he’ll be glad to see her go. To create room for the next. And the next.
