Page 480

City Center Stop and Go

Traffic and Pedestrians

Sound Ideas

I didn't know why I had forced myself to go to swim practice today, even though my arms and shoulders were still sore from yesterday's cheerleading practice, but I couldn't help smiling as I adjusted my backpack on my back with a pleasant ache, because the eye contact with the blond Copeland boy with the sky-blue eyes had been worth it.

He sat right in front of me in class and often turned around to look at me, but he had never spoken to me.

I knew it wasn't a good idea to doodle green hearts around his name in my math notebook, especially since he was the boy who often got into arguments with my best friend.

That was exactly why I had sworn to myself never to talk to him. But it was harder than I had expected to keep my distance.

And somehow, I hadn't been able to hold back and had signed up for swimming without further ado, shortly after I had overheard him talking to his friends about joining the swim team.

A honk snapped me out of my daydream. Daydreams like the ones I now had every time I walked through the downtown area on my way home from school.

I stopped on the sidewalk, stepped aside so I wouldn't get in the way of the passing Vanderwood students and pedestrians, and my eyes widened with joy when I spotted Tony's rusty black pickup truck pulled over to the side of the road.

“Hey, Mads.”

The windows were down, and I immediately caught sight of my uncle, six years older than me, wearing, as so often, black sunglasses and one of his black T-shirts, which, together with the countless black tattoos on his arms and hands and his dark brown, almost black short hair, looked damn cool.

To this day, I still wondered why none of the pretty university student girls, who swarmed Blairville, ever sat in his passenger seat.

“I'm not the relationship type,” he always said, but I was sure that the right woman could get him back on track. That he would find happiness someday.

“Tony?” I didn't even try to hide my surprise. Normally, he was down at the harbor at this time of day, in the workshop, fixing boats. “What are you doing here?”

I stepped up to the window, smiling with joy at finally seeing him again after two weeks.

He often withdrew into his own world, but we occasionally met at Lola's Diner or Misty Point, where he would tell me about all the crazy things he got up to at night with his friends downtown. Things that would normally have him behind bars, and I prayed it was just a phase.

“Your parents are out of town for the weekend, and I thought I’d pick you up so you wouldn’t have to walk.” His smile turned into a grin. “I brought beer. How about a movie marathon?”

The movie marathon wasn’t the problem. When was the last time we had watched movies together? Three years ago, before things had escalated between Ezra and Tony, and my dad had banned his only brother, who was twenty years younger than him, from the house.

I ignored the beer offer because I wouldn't drink it anyway. Vivienna was already good enough at talking me into doing illegal things, and I wasn't proud of knowing what every drink on the bar list tasted like at fifteen.

I didn't want to appear weak in front of Tony. Despite the fact that he was the adult of the two of us, I wanted to show him that he could live a less self-destructive lifestyle when spending time with people.

Tony was anything but responsible. But maybe that was normal at twenty-one. Maybe my brother was just an exception. A nerd, as Tony always put it so nicely. The exceptional talent in a family of high achievers.

For years, I tried to hide the fact that I didn't really belong, that it was much easier for me to cry than to smile, and that every year I had more difficulty keeping up in school because my mind drifted off more and more often during class.

Tony was the only one who saw how much I was struggling with school, and he joked that I could always join him at the workshop where he worked, or that I should marry a rich man and become a housewife.

Two unattractive options, because neither did I want to disappoint my parents, who still hadn't given up hope that I would eventually work in the medical field, nor did I want to become dependent on a man.

“You know Ezra can't stand you,” I sighed, frustrated that no one in my family even made an effort to understand Tony.

“Ezra will probably hang out in the library until tomorrow, wasting his time studying,” Tony snorted dryly. “What do you say?”

I hesitated, even though there was no reason to. Ezra really was a nerd, and ninety percent of the time, he stayed in the library. And Mom and Dad were at their beach house in Malibu for the next two days.

“Fine.”

Defeated, I opened the truck door, trying not to hit the fancy black Victorian metal mailbox on the side of the road.