“I’m trying to help you, you moron,” I hissed.
He shook his head. “Don’t need help. Go. Away.”
Things got real tense while we stared each other down. I didn’t know what happened. The day before, he was terrified about something, and now, it’s no big deal? Suddenly, he let out a shout, so I ran across the room and flung myself into a chair.
“Larry? You okay?” Mr. Beckett paused in the doorway.
“Oh yeah. Fine. Saw a spider.”
“Well, come help unload the groceries.”
“Yes, sir.”
Damn it. What the hell was he up to? God, please let Reece be wrong.
Let him be wrong.
***
The next day, Larry avoided me on the bus. He spent the whole ride talking to a classmate. I cursed silently, wondering, obsessing, praying he wasn’t in this arson stuff up to his armpits.
What if?
The question kept hissing around my brain, etching its way into my gray matter like acid. If he’d set this fire, if he was the arsonist who had been terrorizing our area all year, could I do anything to help him?
I swallowed hard. The answer was obvious.
I watched him head for his locker, debated about cutting class to follow him, but chucked that idea the second it formed. Mr. Beckett would be informed before I got off the property.
I saw Max flirting with one of the cheerleaders and decided it was time to ask for help. “Hey.”
Max shot me an annoyed look and then did a double take. “Hey, Man. What’s up? You okay?”
“No, not really. I need your help.”
“Done.” He turned back to the cheerleader. I think her name was Candy—a senior. “I’ll see you later, baby.” It was a clear dismissal, and she left in a huff. “Man, seriously. You’re scaring me. What’s up?”
“Remember the other day? I told you my mom is demanding to see me?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I told you I’d go with you.”
“What about today? Right after school?” This was our last week of regular classes. Next week, we had our final exams, and then we were free for the summer. You’d think the county would know this. “I got an official county summons. The social worker is picking me up today. If your offer’s still good—”
“I’ll meet you by the bus stop when the bell rings.”
I blew out a breath. “Thanks, Max.”
“No problem.” He put a strong, solid arm around me. “Now why don’t you tell me what’s really bugging you? Is it Logan?”
I immediately shook my head. “No. Yeah. Jesus, I don’t know!”
Max’s eyebrows lowered. “Tell me what he did.”
“No, no, nothing.” I leaned against a locker and nibbled my fingernails. “Max, it’s Larry. Could you…maybe keep an eye on him?”
“Little dude? Sure, I guess. Is he hanging with the wrong crew?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to Gage and the other guys, and we’ll keep eyes on him.”
“No!” I blurted, and embarrassment burned through me. “Gage and Kevin or Ty, fine. But not Bear and not Logan.”
“Why not?”
I blew hair out of my eyes. “I…I…oh crap, Max. Larry’s the suspect on the video Bear and Reece shot at the fire scene.”
Max let out a low whistle. “And you don’t think they can stay objective. Okay. I get that. Now tell me why you didn’t ask Logan to go with you today.”
“Because I fucked up!” I hit the locker behind me with a palm. “I let him in, Max. He’s too close and I get— well, he makes me all fuzzy.”
Max’s lip curled into a smirk. “I think you do the same thing to him, Man.”
I stared at Max, jaw dangling. “Jesus, this is bad. Really, really bad.”
Max shrugged. “Doesn’t have to be. You like him, he likes you. Sounds pretty good to me.”
“He loves me, Max.” I whispered it like it was a horrible sin. “He said he loves me. If Mr. Beckett finds out, I’m gone, Max.”
His smirk changed into a full-out grin. “Aha! That’s why you asked me to come. He knows my legendary reputation as a chick magnet. Knows you’d never be seriously involved with me.”
That was true. I didn’t see any reason to emphasize it. The bell rang, and I headed for the stairs.
“Don’t worry about a thing, Man. We got your back,” Max called after me.
Yeah, they did.
But for how much longer?
Chapter 25
Reece
I have friends. That must shock you. The guys like me—they like that I’m smart, that I ask annoying questions. And there’s Amanda, who maybe likes me a lot.
Monday morning, I took Tucker for a walk before school. Three blocks away, he turned up the path to Alex’s front door.
“No, Tuck. Not today.” The dog whined and lowered his head. “Come on.” Tucker barked—two sharp woofs. “Quiet, Tucker.” I tugged the leash, but the dog refused to obey.
The front door opened, and Alex stood there, hair standing on end. He glared at me and crossed his arms over a Batman T-shirt. He opened his mouth. “It’s…the crack o’dawn. Why?”
I bit back a grin; Alex’s perfect enunciation and grammar took longer to wake up than the rest of him. I shrugged. “Tucker wanted to say hello.”
Alex’s eyes darted to my dog. He cursed and stepped out onto the porch, crouching low. I let go of the leash, and Tucker scrambled up to him, desperate for pats on the head and scratches behind his ears. “Why are you really here?”
“Thought you were smart.” I sighed loudly and walked closer to him. “I miss you, you dickhead.”
Alex’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, right. Let me guess; you got kicked out, so now you have time for me.”
“No,” I corrected, trying to stay patient. “In fact, I, um…well, I did it. I got my dad to say he was proud of me.” I spread my arms. “I still can’t believe it.”
Sprinklers clicked on across the street, and Tucker’s ears twitched at the sound of another dog barking off in the distance. I turned back to my best friend, and he was staring at me. Only his eyes showed something I’d never seen in them in all the years I’d known Alex Boyle.
Confusion.
“So you got what you always wanted. And now you can leave. Did you come to drop off Tucker? Say good-bye? Gloat?”
I blinked the sudden moisture from my eyes and coughed once. “Uh, none of the above. I came to say thank you.”
“Thank you,” Alex repeated, his voice flat.
This was so odd, like parallel-universe-odd. Alex Boyle, speechless and confused.
“Yes. It was your idea that I join J squad. Not sure why you wanted to kill me,” I quipped, happy to see a twitch in his lips. “But I survived. All the working out, all the studying—I don’t think I ever really appreciated how demanding firefighting is.”
“You look…broader,” he said, eyes skimming my torso.
Nodding, I flexed. “I can haul thirty pounds up a flight of steps. I can suit up in full PPE in two minutes, five seconds. And I can apologize to my best friend for hurting his feelings.”
Alex turned and watched the sprinklers shoot water in arcs over the lawn across the street, his throat working. “You didn’t…er…well, I wasn’t exactly…oh frak.”
I wouldn’t do it. No, no, no, I would not do it. But the urge was too strong, and I burst out laughing. A moment later, Alex was laughing too.
“I really am sorry, Alex.”
He waved a hand. “Forget it. I may have overreacted. The truth is I was jealous.”
“Of me?” On what planet would anybody be jealous of me?
“Ever since fourth grade, I always thought of you as something of a…well, a sidekick.”
My mouth fell open, b
ut I let him finish.
“Now, you’re the superhero and I…” He trailed off, embarrassed.
“Dude, if I’m any kind of hero at all, it’s because of you. You’re like my Q. My Nick Fury. My—”
Laughing, he cut me off. “I get it, Reece.”
“So we’re good?”
“Yeah. We’re good.”
Tucker barked and tugged on his leash. “Oh right. Probably should get him home and fed before school. I’ll see you later?”
Alex nodded. “Affirmative.”
I grinned. “Sweet.”
“Hey, Reece.” Alex called me back when I reached the street. “What about your plan?”
“I’m not leaving. Not now.”
“I don’t understand. You were going to leave after you fulfilled your promise to Matt. You promised him you wouldn’t leave until you squared things with your dad. You did that. So what changed?”
“It’s kind of a long story. Tell you at lunch!”
***
The morning went by fast.
I caught up to Amanda in the cafeteria. “Did you find anything?”
She jerked around and shut her eyes. “Logan. Jeez, you’re like a dog with a bone.”
I angled my head. “Do you expect me to apologize for that?”
She shook her head. “No, no. You’re right. This is important. And to answer your question, I talked to Larry yesterday.” Amanda grabbed a cellophane-wrapped sandwich and put it on her tray. “Well, tried to talk to him. He’s hiding something, Reece. But I still don’t know what.”
“Amanda, we have to report it.”
“Not yet, Reece. I need more time. I have to be one hundred percent sure.”
I sighed and slid my lunch tray to the cashier. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
She put her tray down on the table the squad always shared, looked carefully around, and grabbed my arm. “I know what I’m asking you. I know what’s at risk. And that’s why I have to know.” She sat, unwrapped her sandwich, and looked up at me. “Aren’t you eating?”
“Yeah. With Alex. We have some things to talk about.”
Amanda glanced at Alex, sitting over his tablet at our usual table, and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God. You guys haven’t been hanging out since…since you started J squad.” She shut her eyes. “I am so sorry.”
“Whoa, Amanda, it’s not your fault.”
“No, Reece. He’s, like, your best friend. And I never noticed.”
I studied her carefully. She was taking this way too hard. “It was his idea. To join J squad, I mean.”
Amanda looked down at her untouched lunch. Goddamnit. I knew that look, recognized it from when she told me about her mother practically abandoning her for some asshole.
“Amanda, don’t.”
Her eyes snapped to mine, wide with surprise. “Don’t what?”
“It’s my fault. Not yours. I straightened things out this morning. We’re fine.”
She was shaking her head before I finished the thought. “I should have noticed, Reece. I mean, you—” She kept shaking her head, and I got this bad feeling deep in my gut.
“You didn’t, and that’s exactly what I wanted. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want it to get in the way of my squad work. I didn’t want you to think I was distracted or, you know…weak.”
She shoved her tray back, and the bad feeling spread to my throat.
“Mandy, please. Please don’t do this.” Because I knew what was coming.
“You should go. Alex is waiting for you.” Her voice cracked.
“Amanda. No.”
“Reece, we can’t. I can’t. Please. Just go.” Her eyes swept across the cafeteria, always looking out for Mr. Beckett.
“Hey, guys.” Ty dropped his tray beside Amanda’s, a straw clamped between his teeth. He looked cautiously from Amanda to me. “What’s up?”
Amanda only shook her head, staring at me with stormy eyes that had their own gravitational pull. I wanted to climb over the table, sweep the trays out of my way, and kiss her until she couldn’t remember her name. I loved this girl! Why didn’t she understand that? The note, the plan, the promise—I’d amended all of it for her. Didn’t she get that I’d do anything?
I gasped when the full meaning of those words hit me like a bucket of ice water. I’d do anything. And the only thing she wanted right now was for me to walk away.
I took a step away and then another, and even though every cell in my body screamed don’t move, I gave Amanda what she needed.
It was the hardest thing I’d ever done.
***
“What was that all about?” Alex asked when I finally made it to the table.
I sank into my seat and stared at my tray, numb.
“Oh.” Alex’s eyes popped. “You guys are together.”
I shot him a look and took a bite out of my sandwich, but it settled like lead shot in my gut.
“Talk.” Alex patted the table.
I sighed loudly. “You know Amanda’s a foster kid, right?”
“Yes. She lives with Mr. Beckett, the chemistry teacher.”
“There are rules. A lot of them.”
Alex nodded. “Ah. Let me guess. These rules involve dating?”
I rocked my head side to side. “Yeah, more or less.” Disgusted, I shoved my tray back. “They said no boys, so—”
“And if they didn’t have that rule, would you have a chance?”
My face burst into flame. “Um, yeah, I think so. We, um…kissed.”
Alex leaned forward. “Wow. A lot happened.”
And yet, nothing did. Or will. I folded my arms on the table and dropped my head down. “Alex, that’s not all. The other day, there was a fire. I was there.”
“I thought cadets weren’t allowed on-scene?”
“We’re not. But I was driving right by it with Bear. We called it in, and the chief let us stay. I did crowd control, and Bear did traffic. We followed orders, did everything by the book. The book says to watch the crowd, look for people behaving strangely. I shot some video of a kid I suspect of setting that fire.”
Alex’s brain must have been firing at warp speed. He nodded, following my story. “And that’s what earned your dad’s pat on the back.”
“Right. Here’s the problem. The kid I suspect? He’s Amanda’s foster brother, and I am so fucked.”
“Oh frak.”
I laughed once. “My dad said I need to show the video to the fire marshal so he can get the arson investigation going. But—”
The bell rang, so Alex and I stowed our trays and headed to class. “I’ll wait for you at dismissal,” he promised. “Tell me the rest then.”
I nodded and quickly scarfed down a few bites of my lunch while Alex took off. The main corridor was almost empty by the time I made my way to my first afternoon class, AP bio lab. The science labs were all located on the first floor, east of the main corridor. I turned down the hall and saw Amanda’s foster brother disappear into a dark lab.
The chemistry lab.
He was in tenth grade. The tenth grade doesn’t take chemistry. So why was Larry Ecker sneaking into the lab? I took out the phone none of us were supposed to have at school and shot more video through the window of the closed door. Larry was at the back of the room, inside a large closet. I could see was the backpack he wore but not what he was doing. The late bell rang, but I needed to know—
“Mr. Logan, have you forgotten which room you’re supposed to be in?”
I whipped around and found Mrs. Roth, my Spanish teacher, standing at the end of the hall. I kept the phone hidden and just nodded. “Sorry. Thought I saw something.”
She took out the dreaded pink pad and clicked a pen. My heart fell. She checked off a few boxes, scrawled my name across the top
, and tore off the detention slip. “See you at dismissal, Mr. Logan.”
Chapter 26
Amanda
“So, uh, you and Reece.” Max leaned forward to wink and elbow me from the backseat of the social worker’s car.
“Shut up, Max.” I turned to look out the passenger window.
“Oh, come on, Man. I’m just messing with you.”
“Who’s Reece, Amanda?” Mrs. DeSantis asked from behind the wheel. She was a pretty lady, not that old, with long, dark hair she wore parted to the side and tucked behind her ears.
I hated her.
“Another guy in our squad.”
“Ah. So are you excited to see your mom?”
I swirled my finger in the air. “Yay.”
Max snorted out a laugh. We didn’t say much for the rest of the trip. I fell asleep when we hit traffic and didn’t wake until we turned off I-84 a couple of hours later. I jolted to full consciousness in half a second, heart pounding and stomach threatening a rebellion.
“Good morning. You were really out,” Mrs. DeSantis said, waiting for traffic to clear for a left turn.
I shrugged. No point in restating the obvious. By the time Mrs. DeSantis pulled into the Fishkill Correctional Facility gate, my heart was trying to break out of my rib cage. We got out of the car and walked to the door, with me trailing farther and farther behind.
Max grabbed my arm. “So, Man, what’s the deal? You look kind of green.”
Made sense. I was about to throw up. I also had to pee. The day was beautiful—almost summertime. And I started to shiver. Mrs. DeSantis signed us in. I hovered near the door, trying to keep it together.
Max tugged on one of his earrings. “Okay, look. You’re a firefighter, Man. One of the bravest. You can do this.”
Oh crap! I couldn’t. I really couldn’t. I was a fraud—a total lie. I wasn’t brave. I hadn’t even fought in an actual fire. I was a pretender—a pretend kid to pretend parents pretending to be a firefighter in a pretend squad. I looked back at the door and wondered how long it would take me to walk back to the Becketts’ house.
“Spill, Jamison. What’s up?”
I clutched Max’s arms. “What if it’s true? What if she tells me—”