“But you didn’t turn it down, did you? You didn’t argue. Not even a ‘Hey, thanks for having my back, Lucky. That was a swell thing you did for me.’?”
“I don’t have your phone number!”
He cranes his neck and pretends to peer over the boat in the direction of the bookshop. “Golly gee. Is it just me, or do you live awfully close to our boatyard? What is it … an entire two-minute walk away?”
“My mom won’t let me see you.”
A single brow arches, the one that’s missing the tail end, making it look like an apostrophe. “Is that so?” He sounds amused. Like I’ve told a funny joke. Or a dirty one. Something improper and salacious.
I throw up my hands. “Fine. She thinks there’s something going on between us, okay? Are you happy? And I didn’t tell her I threw the rock because … I just didn’t. I was a coward. Is that what you want to hear?”
“That’s a start,” he says, a little smug.
“Well, there you go. I’m a coward. I chickened out.”
“If you tell her you threw the rock, then you’d have to tell her about other things, right? Like that you were trying to get a magazine internship so that you could impress your fancy father.”
I stare at him, practically feeling my ribs cracking under the thundering pressure of my heartbeat. In a small voice I admit, “It’s easier not to say anything. I don’t want to tell her about the photo Adrian flashed around at the party. I don’t want to tell her everything Adrian said about our family. And I don’t want to explain why I was upset at Adrian’s father before the party even started that night.…”
“No, you can’t do that,” he says, and there’s an edge to his words. As if he’s implying that everything I want—the magazine internship, Los Angeles, apprenticing with my father … a real family—is sitting on one side of a scale being measured against his worth, and I’m selfishly choosing my own needs over his.
And, okay, I am. I know I am.Heknows I am.
And I wish I could change it.
“I’m not that person,” I argue. “I’m not just out for myself at whatever cost, damn it all.”
“Everyone is,” he says matter-of-factly. “Humans are selfish. It’s our nature.”
“It’s not mine. Look. I’ll fix this. I’ll go back to the police and tell them I did it.”
“No, you won’t.”
I nod, feeling more certain now. “I will.”
He leans forward until his face is inches from mine. I move away. He leans forward again to erase the distance again, insistent. The sweet scent of grape candy wafts in my direction. All the hairs on my arms stands up, and a cascade of warm chills races over my skin.
It feels nice. A little too nice.
“No.” One word. It falls from his lips, but I’ll be damned if I know what it means. He smells like candy, and for the first time in what seems like forever, I’m not filled with panic and dread, and he’sso very close.…
“Hmm?” I murmur.
“I said no.”
“No?”Snap out of it, Saint-Martin!“So … you’re telling me I can’t go to the police.”
“Bingo.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I didn’t put my family through all this expense and trouble for nothing. Do you know what this did to my mom? She’s stressed out. My grandparents? They’ve got to defend my honor at church this weekend when everyone will be talking shit about me again. ‘That Lucky, nothing but trouble. Just look at him. He used to be such a sweet little boy. What a shame.’?”
He’s talking about the fire—the one that gave him all the scars on the side of his face. I see the shadow of that pain lingering behind his eyes.
“I said I was sorry for what you went through,” I remind him.
“Yeah, I remember you saying you were sorry back then, too, right before you split town. While I was stuck in the hospital, about to get skin grafts so that I looked a little less like a monster.”
