His eyes sparkle as he looks back at me. “Yeah, you just might.”
For a moment our gazes hold, and I don’t want to look away. I’m not sure what it is about him that pulls at me, especially considering how many things about this situation are warning me to stay far, far away. But I can’t deny that there is some kind of connection here.
I fist my hand at my side to keep from reaching up to brush his messy hair into some kind of order.
Almost against my will—and definitely against my better judgment—my gaze drifts down to his lips. Only for an instant. A quick, impulsive glance. Barely long enough to see whether he’s smiling. But still long enough to make my heart beat faster.
If he hadn’t been watching me just as closely, he wouldn’t have noticed. But when his mouth twists up into an overconfident smirk, I know he did. He noticed, and he liked it.
Warning bells are clamoring in my mind as his grin deepens and he takes a step toward me. Back away, Sloane. Back away.
I stay rooted to the spot.
“And then she told me,” Mom is saying as the back door bursts open and the three adults file into the house, breaking my Tru-induced trance, “that if I wanted delivery it would be two weeks.”
The Dorseys laugh. Mr. Dorsey holds a platter of burned meat—and, hopefully, portobello steaks because I am famished—as he pulls the door shut behind them.
“That’s terrible,” Mrs. Dorsey says sympathetically.
Oh yes, terrible. Some great tale of furniture shopping woe.
“Come on, kids.” Mr. Dorsey holds up the platter, like some kind of TV dad from the fifties, calling the family to dinner. “Let’s eat.”
The Dorseys’ dining room is so formal it’s almost uncomfortable. A pristine walnut table, polished to a high shine. Huge matching china cabinet full of enough breakables to make anyone nervous. Six stiff-back chairs, a plush rug with a ginkgo leaf pattern, and a wall of mirrors at one end.
A kid couldn’t get away with slipping treats to the dog in this household.
Not that they have a dog.
Mr. Dorsey takes the end of the table, in front of the mirrors. Mrs. Dorsey sits at the opposite end, like some kind of joke in a movie. With Mom on one side of the table and Tru on the other, I have to make a choice.
Do I sit next to the guy who has done a better job of pushing my buttons in twenty-four hours than most people can in a year?
Or next to the woman responsible for my exile and pretty much everything that is wrong with my life right now?
No brainer.
As I pull out the chair next to Tru’s, he waggles his eyebrows at me.
I elbow him in the ribs.
“How was your first day at NextGen?” Mr. Dorsey asks.
He forks a thick steak onto his plate and then passes the platter to Mom. I nearly gag at the sight of it. For the most part, I can handle people eating meat. But the sheer in-your-face carnivorism on display is almost too much to take.
“Fine,” I answer.
“You know, David organized the fund raiser for the restoration of the lawn,” Mrs. Dorsey says, taking the platter from Mom.
“The campus is beautiful,” Mom says.
Mrs. Dorsey passes the platter to me. There are two fat portobello steaks on the platter, stacked on top of each other. The bottom one is swimming in a pool of steak juice. Luckily the top one seems uncontaminated.
I plop it onto my plate and then pass the whole thing to Tru.
“Go ahead and take both,” Mr. Dorsey says. “No one else is going to eat them.”
I flick a glance at the meat-soaked mushroom. “Uh, that’s okay,” I say, trying to be polite. “I’m not that hungry.”
“It’ll go to waste,” he says, like he’s trying to make me feel bad.
I look across the table, and Mom is scowling at me. Everyone is looking at me, expecting me to what? Just grab the beef-juiced mushroom and eat it because that’s the polite thing to do?
I can’t. I just can’t.
“Actually,” I begin, trying to come up with a non-rude, non-grounded-for-life, non-deal-breaking way to explain.
“It’s soaked in meat,” Tru says, lifting it off the plate with his fork. The juices drip off like a leaky faucet. “No wonder she doesn’t want it.”
“Truman,” his dad says with a warning tone.
“That would be like asking you to eat tofu.” Tru drops the meat-soaked mushroom onto his own plate. “Or to watch one of my student films.”
“Tru!” his mom gasps.
At the same time his dad snaps, “That is enough.”
“Sloane,” Mom says, like she can’t miss out on this chance to get mad at me. “Apologize right now.”
“No,” Mr. Dorsey says, “it’s fine. This isn’t Sloane’s fault.”
You would have to be deaf not to hear the subtext in that statement. It’s not my fault…it’s Tru’s.
All he did was defend me, defend my right not to eat something I am ethically opposed to eating. And for that he’s in trouble.
Looks like the Dorsey family is just as screwed up as the Whitakers.
“Let’s just eat,” Mr. Dorsey says, as if we’ve all been waiting for permission.
The rest of the meal is as awkward as my car rides with Mom today. While the adults make small talk, Tru and I eat our food in virtual silence. Every so often he whispers some obnoxious comment that no one but me can hear. Mimicking his dad’s pompous tone. Insisting that there’s meat juice in the lemonade. Daring me to jump up on the table and tap dance. It’s everything I can do not to burst out laughing.
I’ve been so locked in my bubble of bitterness since the announcement of the Austin plan that I don’t think I’ve really, truly laughed in weeks. Every comment he makes pushes me one step closer to losing it.
But I can’t. I have to keep my head down and myself out of trouble at all costs. If I’m ever going to have a chance of getting back to New York before I’m old enough to drink, I can’t push Mom’s buttons like this. Even if it isn’t my fault.
After what feels like a painfully long time, Mr. Dorsey dabs his napkin at the corners of his mouth and then places it on his plate. “That was delicious, Miko,” he says. “The mashed potatoes were inspired. Did you use cream?”
“Butter.” She smiles back at him. “And thank you.”
Someone kill me now. If I have to sit through another minute of Leave-it-to-Stepford-Wives small talk I am going to bash my chair against the wall of mirrors and use one of the shards to stab myself in the thigh.
Mrs. Dorsey pushes back from the table. “I’ll clear these dishes out of the way so we can get to Lizzie’s famous peach cobbler.”
Lizzie’s famous peach cobbler? Is she serious? I can’t quite stifle the choking laugh that bubbles up.
“Let me help,” Mom says, throwing me a brief glare.
Tru practically leaps up from the table. “I’ll do it.”
He sounds as desperate to escape as I feel.
“Me too,” I add, hurrying to grab Mrs. Dorsey’s stack of dishes and add it to mine. “I’ll help.”
“In fact,” Tru says, balancing a stack in each hand. “We’ll even do the dishes.”
I nod in agreement.
Normally chores are among my least favorite things, right after eating grilled steak and starting my senior year in Texas. But I’ll take any lifeline I can get to escape that table for any amount of time.
In the kitchen, I start rinsing off the dishes and stacking them in the sink for him to load into the dishwasher. I’m through half of them before I realize that Tru isn’t helping.
“Hey,” I say, looking over my shoulder at where he’s lounging against the counter, “this was your idea.”
He laughs. “Just wanted to see how long it would take you to notice.”
I look at the small mountain of dishes in the sink. Longer than it should have.
I stick my tongue out at him and go back to rinsing.
We quickly fall into a rhyt
hm. I rinse the dishes and hand them to Tru so he can set them in the dishwasher.
“Sorry about that,” he says quietly.
About what? I almost ask. But when I look at him, he nods his head back toward the dining room. Toward his dad.
“Not a big deal,” I say. “He’s not the first carnivore I’ve had to take on.”
“If anyone can put David Dorsey in his place, it’s you, New York.”
I can’t tell if he’s joking or not, so I ignore it.
As I set a dish in the sink and he reaches for one, the backs of our hands brush. A shiver of tingles races up my arm and down my spine at the insignificant touch.
The next time, it happens again. At first I think it’s an accident, but then it happens every time. With each new touch, a new wave of tingles washes over me, and my heartbeat speeds up. I’m sure if I could see myself in the mirror right now my cheeks would be magenta.
The bad thing is, I think I actually like it. It’s like a game to see how he will make contact this time, how long he will make it last. And even though I know it’s a game, even though I know he’s trying to work his charms on me, I’m not immune.
I dare a quick glance, to see if he’s having the same kind of reactions, but he is studiously focused on his work. If it’s affecting him at all, it doesn’t show.
“Hurry up,” Mr. Dorsey calls out in a teasing tone. “This cobbler won’t eat itself.”
Tru stiffens at his father’s words, and just like that our game is over.
I make a gagging gesture. I would rather wash dishes with Tru all night long than go back in there. Does that say more about what I think of the situation in the dining room…or what I think about Tru?
Correction, what I should not think about Tru. If all goes according to plan, I won’t be here for more than a few more weeks. Letting Tru Dorsey make my heart beat faster is the last thing I should be doing.
We’re just finishing, so I dry my hands and then grab the stack of dessert plates and forks Mrs. Dorsey had set out next to the cobbler. Tru carries the cobbler into the dining room, stepping back at the door to let me go through.
“The traffic is overwhelming,” Mom is saying as we enter. “I left early and was still thirty minutes late today.”
Almost an hour, but who’s counting? I hand out the dessert plates.
“I could ride the bus,” I suggest.
Even if it takes five times as long, I would love to take the bus. Not having to wait on Mom and not having to spend two hours a day in the car. Getting back a taste of my pre-Incident freedom.
“No, no,” Mr. Dorsey says. “That wouldn’t be safe.”
Not safe? I want to point out that I grew up in New York City. If I can handle the MTA in grade school, I’m more than capable of riding a bus as a teen in Austin.
Tru serves a slice of cobbler onto his mom’s plate. “I can take her.”
Everyone turns to stare at him. Even me. Especially me.
He ignores us and dumps a slice of cobbler onto Mom’s plate.
I look at her. I can tell she’s skeptical but maybe also desperate.
“I can take the bus,” I insist.
Mom’s eyes narrow just a tiny bit, and I can see the question. The chasm of my lost trust. She’s weighing the options between giving me even a taste of freedom and putting me in regular, direct contact with the serial screw-up.
“Let Truman drive her,” Mr. Dorsey says. “He needs to do something to earn his car.”
Tru makes a face that I think means he’s pretty stunned that his dad is siding with him on this. I’m pretty stunned that anyone is siding against Mom. It’s usually everyone against me.
In the end, she turns a tight smile on Tru.
“All right,” she says. “That will make things a lot easier. Thank you.”
I fork a mouthful of cobbler between my lips. I can’t even appreciate how delicious it is—okay, I’m lying, it’s amazing—because all I can think about is how my own mom doesn’t even trust me enough to take the bus to school, and it requires reinforcements from a virtual stranger to get her to let me out of her sight for the duration of a car ride.
Getting back enough trust to earn my ticket home to New York is going to be harder than I thought.
Chapter Five
Tru smiled to himself as the front door closed behind the Whitakers. He stood in the kitchen, rinsing off the dessert plates in the sink and adding them to the dishwasher, replaying the film of tonight’s dinner in his mind.
If he were making a short, he would do the whole thing in black and white, with only Sloane’s bright red lips in color.
From the moment he’d come downstairs and seen her chugging the glass of his mom’s pink lemonade, leaving a semi-circle of shiny red on the rim of the glass, he was a goner. Her lips were a perfect blood-red Cupid’s bow against her olive skin, and the contrast only made her green eyes burn brighter. That bold statement, a big screw you to her mom and his parents and anyone who tried to get close, only made him want to know her more. It was like a challenge, like waving a big red cape at the bull. His self-appointed mission to get her to crack, to break down her armored facade, was in full effect.
He’d almost succeeded at the table. When he pretended to drop his napkin and used the excuse of retrieving it to whisper that his dad wanted NextGen to place a statue of his ass on the campus lawn so the entire school could kiss it, she’d really struggled to keep in the laughter. The small success filled him with a strange kind of light. An energy.
When the subject of Sloane getting to school came up, he volunteered without thinking. It would give him more time with her, more time to provoke a blush that made the freckles on her nose disappear. More time to bring out the joy he sensed was buried deep inside.
Tru had always been an expert at pushing people to lose control. It would be nice to unleash something good for once.
The sound of footsteps approaching cut off his thoughts.
Heard his mother whisper some plea for her husband to let it go.
Heard his father’s barked response. “He needs to learn.”
Tru stiffened. Oh yes, it was always a lesson. Always punishment under the guise of education. Of training.
Tonight, Tru knew, he would be trained to not embarrass David Dorsey in front of guests.
“Turn around,” his father demanded from right behind him.
Shoulders squared, ready for first contact, Tru kept rinsing the dessert dishes.
“I said turn around.” His father’s voice was low and calm. Too calm.
The calm before the storm.
Tru finished rinsing the last plate, slid it into the waiting dishwasher, and closed the door. Only then, when he had finished his task, did he turn to face his father.
If the world saw David Dorsey as his son did now, they would have a far different opinion of him. Face red, nostrils flared, veins throbbing. The very picture of a man on the verge of losing control.
Tru forced himself to maintain eye contact. The urge to look down, to see if his hands had formed into fists, was almost undeniable. But he held his gaze steady. Dared his father to look away.
His father never looked away.
“Do you think it’s funny?” his father asked. “Did you have a good laugh over making me look stupid in front of our guests? In front of our neighbors?”
Tru failed to see why neighbors would be more polite company than other guests, but clearly his father thought the distinction worth emphasizing.
“Did you?!” he roared.
Tru hesitated only a moment before saying the words that rushed to his tongue. “You don’t need my help to look stupid.”
The fist came at lightning speed.
One solid punch to the ribs, where bruises wouldn’t show. Few things could sink a rising political career faster than allegations of domestic abuse. Couldn’t have the public seeing evidence that the beloved and respected David Dorsey beat his son. David Dorsey was far too important for that.
It took every ounce of Tru’s strength not to buckle over at the blow. The pain was nothing he hadn’t felt before. Neither was the humiliation. The helplessness.
Over his father’s shoulder, he could see his mother. Standing in the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen, her face blank and unseeing.
In a lot of ways, that was worse. To have his mother stand there and do nothing, say nothing, hurt him more than any blows his father delivered.
Which gave him the strength to ask, “Is that all?”
Another blow.
Two more.
Tru kept his own arms clenched carefully at his sides. He had learned that lesson the hardest way. Once he had struck back. Once he couldn’t stop his own fist from defending himself, from getting in a blow of his own.
His father, the great and powerful district attorney, had called the police.
Oh, the irony.
It took him a moment to realize the blows had stopped. Tru dared a glance down and saw that the fists were gone. The rage had passed.
He didn’t wait to be dismissed. Just pushed past his father, letting his shoulder knock into the older man on his way by.
The taunt did its job. Tru felt hands on his shoulders, and then he was stumbling forward. Headfirst into the edge of the refrigerator.
His mother gasped.
Tru stood up, felt at the warmth spreading across his face from above his right eye. His hand came away streaked with blood.
That was his victory. He had pushed his father to the point of making a visible mark. No one might notice the cut tomorrow, and even if they did they might not question its origin, but for as long as it remained, he would know that in this fucked-up relationship, he still had some semblance of control.
If he were lucky, it would leave a scar.
Chapter Six
“Morning, New York,” Tru says as I climb into his car.
Why am I not surprised that he drives a bright yellow Mustang?
I grumble something that could be interpreted by the generous as Morning or by the realistic as Shut it.
“Not a morning person, I see.” He puts the car in gear as I buckle my seat belt. “Would coffee help?”