Luke brushes a tear from my cheek with his thumb. “Wanna talk about it?”
“No. But I’ll tell you, if you promise not to ask any questions.”
“Okay.”
“I went to see my mom in the hospital, and I overheard my uncle admit to being Ryan’s father.”
Luke’s eyes widen. “Whoa. I mean . . . wow.” Then he frowns. “So—?”
“Nope.” I shake my head. “You promised.”
“This isn’t about . . . that.”
I’m skeptical, but I nod.
“So . . . ,” Luke says again, and this time he’s grinning. “Since that’s clearly going to take a while to process . . . wanna go to the arcade?”
6 DAYS, 10 HOURS EARLIER
I don’t care who sees.
GENESIS
“What the hell?” I demand in my fiercest whisper as soon as the voice in my ear says we’re off the air. I jerk my hand from Holden’s grip, and in that moment, I don’t care who sees. I can’t do this with him.
I won’t.
“Just shut up and smile,” he whispers back, as if we’re sharing an intimate moment off camera. As if the crew members are just waiting to reveal our discord to the press.
“Go to hell.” I leave him standing in front of the green screen beneath the lights, all alone.
Indiana gives me a questioning look—one eyebrow raised—as I march across the small studio toward him.
“I’m so sorry,” I say as I pull the earpiece from my ear and the microphone from my shirt. The battery pack falls from my waistband, and suddenly the production assistant is there glaring at me as she picks it up.
Indiana shrugs. “Live television.” He seems calm, but I’m sure that once we we’re alone, I’ll see the truth. He’ll look hurt. Or angry. How could he not be?
Yet when we’re outside, warm in the midmorning sunlight, he only takes my hand and threads his fingers between mine as if none of that actually happened. As if I didn’t just pretend that my ex is still my boyfriend, and that he rescued me from the jungle like some kind of prep-school Tarzan, when the truth is that he nearly starved to death because he didn’t have the sense to look up at all the fruit growing overhead.
“I’ll fix this,” I say as we head for the black car idling across two parking spots, where the driver is reading a comic book against the steering wheel. There has to be some way for me to tell the world that Holden and I truly aren’t a couple anymore without provoking him.
Indiana shrugs again as he opens the rear passenger’s side door. “Seriously, G. Don’t blame yourself for what he did.”
I slide into the backseat, and for a moment, my mind is totally blank. I can’t process what happened in there. What Holden did.
But I can’t process Indiana’s lack of a reaction either.
“Why doesn’t this bother you?” I ask as he sinks onto the bench seat next to me and closes the car door. “Holden just told the whole world that he and I are still a couple, and he did it just to be an asshole.” He’s forcing me to choose between being with Indiana and protecting my family as a twisted revenge against me for choosing Indiana’s life over his in the jungle.
“What bothers me is that he’s blackmailing you and threatening your family. But the specifics of his petty little lies don’t bother me because I don’t care what anyone else thinks, G.” Indiana leans forward and kisses me, teasing my bottom lip until a new heat rivals my anger and I want to devour him whole. “I don’t need the rest of the world to know about us or to see us together,” he whispers as he slides one hand into my hair. “In fact, if it’ll keep the press out of our business so I can have you all to myself, I say we put out a statement telling the world you’ve joined a convent.”
His warm lips close around my earlobe, the short stubble on his cheek scratching my chin, and I have to bite back a moan.
“You are the best thing I’ve ever had,” I tell him as I pull away just enough so that I can recapture his mouth with mine.
“Had? Past tense?” He gives me a mock frown. “I hope that doesn’t mean you’re done with me.”
“We’re just getting started. . . .”
“Where to, ma’am?” the driver asks, reminding us that we’re not alone in the car.
“Just drive, please.” I don’t know what else to tell him.
As the car pulls out of the studio parking lot, a familiar form catches my attention from the sidewalk across the street. I can’t see her face clearly in the shadow of the building, but her slim build and the silhouette of her hair . . .
Silvana.
No. I’m imagining things, which is no surprise, considering the stress I’m under and the fact that one day of proper rest and nutrition isn’t enough to make up for a week of physical and psychological stress and malnutrition/starvation in the jungle.
My phone buzzes with a message from my father.
HOLDEN?!?
Clearly he saw the show and wants an explanation. But he’s not getting information from me until he’s willing to reciprocate. I dismiss the text.
“Genesis?” Indiana says as our car turns and I lose sight of the figure. Before I can decide whether or not to mention my hallucination, my gaze catches on the television in the back of the car. It’s muted, but that stupid picture is on the screen again. I want to punch the TV. But mostly I want to punch Holden.
Indiana’s hand settles onto my arm. “Let’s go dancing.”
“What?” My phone buzzes again before he can answer. Penelope’s name and number are on the screen. She saw the broadcast. Holden pulled the rug out from under their relationship on national television, but I’m the one she’ll hate.
I decline the call and shove my phone between my thigh and the leather seat. I don’t know what to say to her yet. I haven’t even officially told her that I’m safe and sound in the United States again, yet I’ve accidentally stabbed her in the back.
“G. Let’s go dancing.” Indiana turns off the television. “Neda got a call and left in the middle of the interview, so it’s just the two of us. There are good places to dance in Miami, right?”
There are great places to dance in Miami, but it’s Sunday morning, and—
My phone buzzes again. It’s Penelope. I decline the call again.
“What were you saying?” The world feels like it’s spinning too fast. Like I can’t even trust the ground beneath me.
Indiana takes my chin and slowly tilts my face up. He looks worried, but calm. Like a doctor in possession of a cure. “The interview’s over. You’re done with Holden, at least for today. So why don’t you forget about him and show me—”
My phone buzzes again, and this time when I pick it up, I’m ready to hurl it out the window if I see Penelope’s name on the screen. Instead, I find an unfamiliar number. I answer, because my frustration has reached a boiling point, and I’m eager to unleash on whatever unsuspecting salesman was unfortunate enough to pick my new number from his database.
“Hello?” I demand into the phone.
“Genesis, what the hell?” Neda asks. “Penelope’s freaking out. Seriously. I’m going to have to medicate her, if you can’t talk her down.”
Damn it. “Neda, remember that time you took NyQuil instead of Tylenol?” Those don’t even look alike. “Do not give Penelope any medication.”
“Fine.” I can practically hear her pout over the phone. “Then you talk to her and I’ll pour her a drink.”
“No! Neda. It’s ten o’clock in the morning.”
“So it’s too early to talk to your best friend, but you’ll tell the whole world you’re back together with Holden before normal people are even awake?”
“It’s not too early to talk, it’s too early to drink. And normal people are awake.”
Indiana gives me an amused look.
“Fine. I’ll make her some chamomile tea,” Neda says. “That’s what my mom does when her sister gets hysterical.” In the background, I hear Penelope sniffling, and my hatred for Hold
en seeps even deeper into my bones. “Charlotte, make Penelope a cup of chamomile,” Neda says, without bothering to take the phone away from her mouth. “And I could totally use an espresso.”
“Yes, ma’am,” her housekeeper says, and when both the sniffling and the sound of running water fade, I realize Neda’s gone into another room.
“So, what the hell happened with Holden?” she demands a second later. “If you two were going to get back together, live on the air, you should have done it on my show!”
“We’re not back together. Holden’s telling the story he wants to see in print.”
“That sounds more like you,” Neda says, and I can’t exactly deny it. “Why did you play along?”
“Because he knows me well enough to destroy me and he never aims an unloaded gun.” I don’t know if she knows what really happened to the Splendor, but I’m not going to be the one to tell her. “I’m going to fix it. We’ll wait a week or so, then Holden and I will announce that we’ve decided to see other people. A week after that, he and Pen can be seen together. Queen of the uneven bars and the pharmaceutical prince. Everyone will love them.”
“Okay, but Luke and Maddie went on my webshow and told the world you and Holden had broken up. Which means that you two are now officially tabloid fodder,” she says as Indiana leans forward to say something to the driver. “You have to do my show this afternoon. You totally owe me the exclusive.”
I groan and roll my eyes at the interior of the car. But maybe she’s right. Maybe Neda’s show will give me a chance to tell the story I want to see in print—without Holden.
“Fine. I’ll be there.”
She’ll call the police.
MADDIE
Like most kids, Ryan and I got invited to a bunch of birthday parties at various “fun zones” when we were kids. Places with bowling lanes, laser tag, rock climbing, and about a hundred flashing, buzzing digital video games. That’s the kind of place I expect when I pull into a parking space in front of the building Luke has led me to.
But one step inside shows me how wrong I was.
“What is this?” There are no zombie shoot-outs, or motorcycle racing games, or dance move competitions with bright, shiny graphics. The machines set up around the room are hardly even recognizable as games.
“Classic arcade games.” Luke leads me to the nearest one. “This is Mario Brothers, from 1983. And there’s Pac-Man. And over there is Galaga. In the back they have a whole section just for pinball. The real machines, with the springs. Not digital.”
“So these are, like, antiques?”
“Vintage. Refurbished,” Luke says.
The pure joy on his face makes me smile. “I would have thought you’d go for the newest, highest-tech games.”
He shrugs. “In movies and video games you can’t beat a classic.”
My phone buzzes. The screen shows a text from my mother.
Maddie, the hospital is releasing me. Please meet me at home so we can talk. I love you, mija.
I shove my phone into my pocket and head for the Ms. Pac-Man game I’ve just noticed along the opposite wall.
“I’ll get us something to drink,” Luke says, walking backward toward the snack bar in one corner of the huge open space.
There are only two other people at the arcade in the middle of the day, both college-age guys who look like they just rolled out of bed. Neither of them even glances my way as I drop a quarter into the Ms. Pac-Man machine.
Nothing happens.
I squat to look closer at the instructions and discover that it actually takes a dollar to play.
“Here you go.” Luke sets an open glass bottle of soda on a nearby pub-height table, while I’m still digging in my purse for another coin.
“I thought vintage video games only cost a quarter,” I grumble.
He laughs and sets a paper cup full of coins on the table next to my drink. “Refurbishment includes an upgrade in the name of inflation. Help yourself.” He digs a few quarters from the cup and drops them into the Donkey Kong machine next to mine.
For the next hour, I ignore the occasional buzz from my phone while I try to beat Luke’s Frogger record. When I turn out to have two left thumbs, we move on to a bank of Skee-Ball machines—I beat him in three games out of five—then to air hockey, where we’re locked in a tie, smacking around the floating puck, until I finally manage to get past his maniacal defensive stance in front of the goal.
“You do know this is just a game, right?” I tease as he digs the puck from the slot beneath his goal. “You’re not actually going to be picked last for the air hockey draft if a girl scores on you.”
“Football is just a game. Chess is just a game.” Luke smiles as he sends the puck toward me, bouncing it off the left side of the table. “Air hockey is a way of life.”
I shoot the puck back at him and score again. “Maybe you should start looking into other ways of life. Something simpler. Like gluten-free baking or Tibetan throat singing.”
“Ha ha.” He bounces the puck off the right side this time, and I smack it back at him easily. “But for the record, being scored on by a girl is a dramatic improvement upon my social life from two weeks ago.”
By the time we tire of the game, we’ve each won four times and have agreed to a rematch on our next visit. I haven’t laughed so much since before my father died faked his death.
As we’re heading to the snack bar, Luke checks his phone. His face goes pale, and I glance at his screen to see that he’s missed three calls, all from his mother. There’s a text from her at the bottom of the screen, but I can’t read it.
“I might have forgotten to tell my mom I was leaving the house.” He flinches. “If I’m not home in ten minutes, she says she’ll call the police.”
“Come on. I’ll drive you.” I don’t know whether or not her threat is empty, but I can’t keep getting Luke in trouble with his parents. The genetic train wreck that is my family shouldn’t be his problem.
We toss our empty soda bottles into the recycling on the way out the door, and I take him to his house, less than a mile away. After he retrieves his bike from my trunk and heads inside, I sit in his driveway, reading through the texts from my mother. She’s begging me to come home and let her explain, and my anger grows with every text I read.
My brother was murdered and my mother tried to kill herself, and now she wants to explain?
I call Genesis, hoping to find out what she knows—if anything—before I talk to my mother. But my call goes straight to voice mail.
With a sigh, I back out of Luke’s driveway and head home.
I do this all the time.
GENESIS
“This is your favorite club?” Indiana looks more amused than truly disbelieving as he takes in the empty dance floor, scanning unoccupied tables around the perimeter.
“Okay, but it’s ten thirty in the morning. You have to picture it at night, with a few hundred people in here, and the lights flashing, and the music blasting.”
And the bar functioning . . .
“Are we going to get arrested for breaking in?” He doesn’t seem bothered by that possibility.
“No, I do this all the time. The owners are friends of Neda’s parents. They’ve been letting us sneak in since we were thirteen. That’s how I know where the key is.” Worst-case scenario, they’ll charge me the private party rate for our before-hours . . . private party. “Come on!” I pull him into the DJ booth and press buttons until things start powering up.
High-tech lights—check.
Speakers—check.
The only other thing I know how to work is the phone dock, but that’s all we really need. I plug my phone in and set my music app to random. The first song comes on, and the light show changes, synchronizing the flashes and swoops of color with the beat. Now it’s a party.
“Come on!” I pull Indiana onto the dance floor, and he looks so surprised that for a moment I wonder if this isn’t his thing. I’ve done a sexy Cuban salsa w
ith him on the beach, and I’ve heard him play acoustic guitar, but maybe he’s not a club kind of guy.
Then he starts to move, and I can only smile as I watch him. He’s seriously sexy, and suddenly I’m so glad this is a private show.
I join him, and two songs later, my heart is pumping and I’m damp with sweat. “Thirsty?” I ask as I head for the bar.
Indiana follows me. “Yes.”
I pull a twenty from my phone case and set it on the counter next to the register, then I take two bottles of my favorite microbrew from the cold case under the bar. I open both bottles and leave the caps on top of the twenty. The owners will see the security footage. They’ll know I paid for our drinks.
Not that it really matters. We’re underage and the source of my cash is the illegal drug trade. I’m avoiding one crime but diving headfirst into two others. Karmically speaking, I’m in the hole pretty deep.
Turns out I have been my entire life.
Indiana lifts one brow at me as he takes a bottle. “Didn’t you just tell Neda it’s too early to drink?”
“It’s too early for her to drink. She wasn’t kidnapped, or starved, or threatened with murder. The universe owes us a couple of cold beers.”
We take our bottles around the bar and claim two bar stools. I can’t help but smile as I watch Indiana take a sip. He notices me staring and smiles. Then he leans toward me for a beer-flavored kiss.
I push everything else away and decide to live in the moment, because that’s all I can do. Holden may have a choke hold on my public image, but he can’t touch this private moment. And for now, this is enough. Indiana, and beer, and dancing.
We finish our drinks, and I slide off my bar stool. I’m heading toward the sound booth to play something that might inspire another sexy salsa when the front door of the club opens, throwing harsh daylight all over our private party.