“He won’t go out with you,” Alyssa says. “You know his rule.”
“I’ve made grown men break the rules.” She smiles. “A teenage boy? Piece of cake.”
“What’s his rule?” I ask. “No dating during football season?”
“No dating a Twisted Pine girl,” Peyton says. “Why don’t you know this? You’re his cousin.”
“We don’t talk much. Why won’t he date a Twisted Pine girl?”
“After Andrea, he decided he wouldn’t do it anymore. He didn’t really say why. Maybe he thinks she’ll end up dead like Andrea. Like he’s cursed or something.”
“What do you think happened to her?” I ask. “To Andrea?”
“That psycho, Jackson, killed her,” Peyton says, twirling her hair around her finger.
“Jackson?” I ask, like I have no clue who she’s talking about.
“He’s this guy who used to go here,” Alyssa says. “Now he’s a psycho loner who goes to Legion and lives in a huge house all by himself. Even his parents don’t want him. They made him an adult when he was fifteen so they could get away from him.”
I tense up hearing her talk that way about Jackson. It’s not his fault his parents took off like that, and he’s not psycho just because he lives alone.
“I’m surprised you haven’t seen him,” Peyton says. “He lives in your neighborhood. He’s right down the street from you.”
“Oh, yeah. I know him. I’ve seen him out running. And one day when I was out with Braden I accidentally pulled into Jackson’s driveway and Braden went nuts.”
Peyton gasps. “You know they hate each other, right?”
“Yeah, Braden told me, but it was too late. I was in the driveway when Jackson pulled up behind us. And then Kristen showed up.”
Peyton and Alyssa look at each other, then back at me.
“She’s still seeing him?” Alyssa asks me.
“What do you mean? Are they dating?”
“They were. But I thought it was over.”
“Maybe it is, but they still hang out. I can’t believe she gets away with it. Everyone here hates Legion. Why aren’t people getting on her case about it?”
“Because of her dad,” Alyssa says. “Nobody’s going to challenge Kristen as long as her dad is the principal. And Principal Edwards doesn’t seem to have a problem with her being with a Legion guy.”
“He knows? I thought she was doing it behind his back.”
“He knows,” Alyssa says. “Some people think Kristen and her dad are working together to try to get Jackson to come back here.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if Principal Edwards pimped out his daughter to get the star football player back,” Peyton says.
I didn’t think about that, but what if that’s really what’s going on? I always suspected Kristen was using Jackson, but I didn’t know what for. Attempting to get him back here makestotal sense. But no matter what she did or said, Jackson wouldn’t come back to Twisted Pine.
“What was he like when he was here?” I ask Alyssa, who seems more than willing to offer up dirt on Jackson.
“Popular jock like Braden, but people liked him more.”
“People don’t like Braden?”
She pauses as she looks out at the field. “Sure. They like him.”
“Another touchdown,” Peyton says, lacking the enthusiasm she showed with the first one. “Three touchdowns and it’s only the first quarter. This is so boring. We should leave.”
