“I could drop it off,” I say. “One less thing for Eli to worry about. It’s on my way.” I’ve never actually been inside the sprawling old house where Nate rents a room, but it’s only a couple of streets away from mine. Maeve points it out every time we drive past.
“You sure?” Sandeep asks, and I nod. “You’re the best,” he says, cocking finger guns at me as he continues backing out the door. Then he’s gone, and I head for the conference room.
Eli’s on the phone when I enter Winterfell and he waves me into a chair. “I promise I won’t,” he says. “I’ll shut my phone off.” His tone is a lot warmer than it is when he’s talking to a client or another lawyer, so I would’ve guessed this wasn’t a business call even if he hadn’t added, “I love you more, angel. I’ll see you soon.” He puts his phone down and gives me a distracted nod. “I need to fit everything into four days next week. Come Friday, I’m off the clock.”
“Wow, yeah.” I pull a set of folders from the top of the stack. “Can’t believe you’re getting married in a week. You ready?” I don’t know why I’m asking him that, except it seems like the sort of thing guys ask each other.
Eli grins. “I’ve been ready for a year. I’m just glad she is.”
“Ashton is awesome. You lucked out,” I blurt, and then I feel like an idiot because shit, that was insulting, wasn’t it? But Eli just nods.
“Luckiest guy on the planet,” he says. He steeples his fingers under his chin and gives me a thoughtful look. “I can tell you one thing, though. High school me couldn’t have imagined that someday I’d be building a life with somebody as fantastic as Ashton. Back then, the only time girls paid attention to me was when they wanted help with their homework. I didn’t even have a date until I was nineteen.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah.” Eli shrugs. “Takes a while for some of us. Good thing life is long and high school is short, although it doesn’t feel like it at the time.” He gestures at one of the folders in my hand. “Is that Carrero? Let’s start with that.”
“Yeah,” I say, and hand it to him. That was a transparent attempt to make me feel better about the fact that I’m here every Friday night, and you know what? It kind of worked.
* * *
—
I hear Nate’s house before I see it. It’s barely nine o’clock, but the sounds of rap music and laughing voices greet me at the corner, and only get louder as I approach the run-down old Victorian. Their neighbors must love them.
I ring the bell, but it’s a lost cause. Nobody’s going to hear me, so I crack the door and step inside. The music is so loud that the scarred wooden floor is practically vibrating, and I’m immediately hit with the smell of popcorn and stale beer. I’m in a narrow hallway in front of a staircase with a curved banister, where a group of kids a little older than me are yelling at a girl perched at the top. “Do it!” they call, raising red cups in the air. The girl slides down the banister and crashes into the knot of people below, scattering them like bowling pins.
“Noooo!” moans a guy in a vintage concert T-shirt, stumbling into me as his drink sloshes onto the floor. “Party foul!” He grabs my arm to steady himself and adds, “Don’t try that at home.”
“Is Nate here?” I ask loudly. The guy cups his hand around his ear like he can’t hear, so I raise my voice even more. “IS. NATE. HERE.”
“Upstairs,” the guy yells back.
I hesitate, looking for a coatrack or someplace else where I could leave Nate’s jacket, but there’s nothing. So I head up the staircase, pressing against the wall to avoid people going up and down. I’m almost at the top when the girl who slid down the banister grabs hold of my shirt and hands me a cup full of beer. “You look like you need to catch up,” she shouts into my ear.
“Um, thanks.” She’s looking at me expectantly, so I take a sip. It’s warm and sour. The narrow hallway is crowded with people, but I don’t recognize any of them. “Do you happen to know where Nate is?”
The girl gestures to a closed door at the end of the hall. “Being antisocial, like always. Tell him to come out and play.” She reaches over to ruffle my hair. “You’re cute, Nate’s friend, except for this. Grow it out. Makes you look like you’re in high school.”
“I am in—” I start, but she’s already sliding down the banister again.
I reach the door she pointed me toward and hesitate. I don’t know if Nate’s going to hear me knock, but I can’t just go in, right? What if he’s with somebody? Maybe I should leave the jacket on the floor and get out of here.
While I’m debating, the concert T-shirt guy from downstairs suddenly appears beside me. He slams into Nate’s door, pushing it open and leaning into the room. “Come to my fucking party, Macauley!” he yells. Then he spins around and runs back toward the stairs, cackling. I’m alone in the doorway when Nate, who’s sitting at a desk in the corner of a small room, turns around.
“That wasn’t me,” I say, lifting my hand in greeting. I’m still holding the cup of beer.
Nate blinks at me like I’m a mirage. “What are you doing here?” he asks. At least, I think that’s what he says. I can’t really hear him, though, so I step into the room and close the door behind me.
“You left your jacket at Until Proven,” I say, crossing toward the desk so I can hand it to him. “I told Eli I’d drop it off. Maeve told me where you live.”
“Shit, I didn’t even notice it was gone. Thanks.” Nate takes the jacket from me and tosses it onto the foot of his unmade bed. Other than that his room is relatively neat, especially compared to the rest of the house. Japanese movie posters cover the walls, but there’s not much else here besides the desk, the bed, a low dresser, and an open terrarium containing a large, yellow-brown reptile. I jump when it scratches one claw against the glass. “That’s Stan,” Nate says. “Don’t worry about him. He barely moves.”
“What is he?” I ask. He looks like a miniature dinosaur.
“Bearded dragon.”
God damn it. Even Nate’s pet is cooler than mine.
“So you made it through the obstacle course downstairs, huh?” Nate asks.
“Is your house always like this?”
Nate shrugs. “Only on weekends. They usually clear out by ten.” He leans back in his chair. “Hey, you have any update on Maeve? She said you were going with her to the doctor today, but that’s the last I heard from her.”
“Nothing yet. She doesn’t think she’ll hear till Monday at the earliest.” I shove my free hand into my pocket with a rush of guilt. Instead of feeling jealous of Nate like usual, I should thank him for being a better friend to Maeve than I was. “I’m glad you convinced her to tell her parents. I didn’t even know. I feel like a jerk.”
“Yeah, well, don’t beat yourself up about it. Nobody knew,” Nate says, tapping the pencil he’s holding against the desktop in front of him. The desk is empty except for a battered laptop, a stack of books, and two pictures—one of a kid posing with two adults in front of what looks like a Joshua tree, and the other of Nate and Bronwyn. She’s behind him, her arms around his neck while she kisses his cheek, and he looks happier in the picture than I’ve ever seen him look in person. Nate’s eyes linger on the photo, and I start to feel like an intruder. I’m about to back away when I catch sight of his laptop screen. “Are you doing…construction homework?” I ask.
“What?” Nate looks down with a short laugh. “Oh. No. I’ve been helping your dad document cleanup work at the mall site where Brandon Weber died. We have to take pictures of everything for the investigation.” He gestures to the screen. “These are bugging me, so I keep looking at them.”
“Why?” I ask, curious. My father won’t tell me anything about the site investigation. The pictures on Nate’s computer don’t look like much. Just piles of shattered wood on a rough cement floor.
“Because of what�
��s not there, I guess. There’s not all the debris you’d expect when a well-constructed landing crashes down. Some of the beams don’t even have any joists so, like, how were they supposed to stay up in the first place?” Nate narrows his eyes at his computer. “But the beams have holes like joists used to be there, so…if you were totally paranoid, you’d almost think somebody messed with the landing.”
“Messed with it? Are you serious?” I lean forward, intrigued, and drain half my beer before remembering I have to go home after this. I set the cup down at the corner of Nate’s desk and look more closely at the photos. They still look like nothing to me.
Nate shrugs. “Your dad thinks it’s weird, too, but the company working on this was crap at their job and left shitty records. So we can’t be sure of anything.” He taps his pencil again. “Your dad really knows his stuff. Guys at work are always talking about how other companies cut corners, but he never does.”
My first instinct is to be petty and say I wouldn’t know. But there’s an almost wistful tone to Nate’s voice, like he’s imagining what it would’ve been like to grow up with a dad who runs a respected business instead of one who abandoned his kid for a whiskey bottle. And when you put it like that—yeah, my father issues pretty much pale in comparison. So I just say, “He really likes working with you. He tells me that all the time.”
Nate half smiles as the door bursts open, startling us both. Concert T-shirt Guy leans against the frame, looking flushed and sweaty as he points toward Nate. “Dude,” he slurs. “Hypothetically speaking. If a bunch of us decide to streak through the neighborhood, are you in?”
“No,” Nate says, rubbing a hand across his face as he turns to me with a weary expression. “If I were you, I’d take that as my cue to leave. Trust me.”
* * *
—
When I get home from Nate’s, my dad is alone at our kitchen table. It’s the same table we’ve had since I was a kid, a wooden monstrosity that could seat all seven of us comfortably. I used to be squished in the middle next to the wall—the worst, hardest-to-access spot for the youngest kid. I can sit anywhere I want now, since there are only three of us left in the house, but somehow I still find myself squeezing into that chair every night.
Dad is writing on a yellow legal pad, surrounded by a pile of what look like blueprints. He’s wearing a Myers Construction T-shirt that used to be black but has been washed so many times that it’s turned pale gray. “You’re home late,” he says without looking up. Fritz is snoring lightly at his feet, paws twitching like he’s dreaming about taking a walk.
I go to the refrigerator and pull out a Sprite. I need to wash the taste of sour beer out of my mouth. “My internship is really busy,” I say. “Since Eli’s getting married next week.”
“Right.” Dad scratches out a note on his pad. “Good to see you stick with something, I guess.”
I pop the top from my soda and take a gulp, watching him over the rim as something inside me deflates. Your dad really knows his stuff, Nate said tonight. It’s true, but Dad never shares any of that with me. All I get are these pointed little comments. I usually ignore them, but tonight I’m not in the mood. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask.
Dad keeps writing. “Your mother said you quit that play you’re in.”
“So?” I prod. “Why do you care? You haven’t been to one of my plays in years.”
He finally looks up, and I’m struck by how deeply etched the lines in his face are. I could swear they weren’t so prominent yesterday. “I care because when you make a commitment to something, you should stick with it.”
Yeah. You should. Unless you’re the laughingstock of the entire school and being onstage is only going to make it a hundred times worse. I would’ve ruined that play for everyone in it, even though most of them don’t see it that way. Lucy doesn’t; she’s still not talking to me.
And if I’m being totally honest, it wasn’t that hard a decision to make. I stopped caring about acting a while ago, but neither of my parents noticed. Dad acts like he wants me to change, but he doesn’t really. Any time I try something different, he dismisses it.
But I can’t tell my father that. I can’t tell him anything.
“I had too much else going on,” I say. He lets out a small, dismissive snort and goes back to his paperwork. Resentment swirls through my gut, making me bolder than usual. Or maybe it’s that half beer I had. “Did you say something?” I ask. “I couldn’t hear you.”
Dad looks up, eyebrows raised. He waits a beat, and when I don’t look away, he says, “If you think you have too much going on, with the number of video games you play and the amount of time you spend on your phone doing God knows what, then I pity your future employer when you have a real job.”
My stomach drops. Jesus. Say what you really mean, Dad. He basically just called me useless. “Until Proven is a real job. I work hard there. I work hard in general. You’d know that, if you’d ever given me a shot working with you.”
He frowns. “You’ve never had any interest in working with me.”
“You never asked!” I blurt out. “It’s a family business, supposedly, but you treat Nate Macauley like he’s more of a son than I am.” My mother must not be at home, because my voice is rising and there’s no sign of her. Usually, this is when she steps in to play peacemaker. I gesture at the blueprints, my head still full of what Nate said in his room. “You won’t even tell me what’s up with the mall site investigation, and I was there when Brandon died!”
Dad’s face gets thunderous. Uh-oh. That was the wrong card to play. I want to sink into the floor as he leans forward and points his pencil at me.
“You. Were. Trespassing,” he says, stabbing the pencil forward with every word. “And about to take an incredibly dangerous shortcut that I had specifically told you not to take. You could have been the one who died. I thank God every day that you didn’t, but I’m livid that you were in that position in the first place. You grew up around construction work, Knox, and you know better. But you have zero respect for what I say, or the work I do.”
I open my mouth, but no words come out. Shame makes my face burn. He’s right on all counts except the last one. Does he really think I don’t respect his work?
When I don’t answer, Dad waves the pencil at me again. “Don’t you have homework to do? Or television to watch?”
Dismissed, like always. But this time, I can’t blame him, and I don’t know how to apologize or explain myself. Especially since he’s turned back to his work like I’m already gone. So I head upstairs with my Sprite, even though Nate’s words keep running through my mind, burrowing into the groove of foggy half memories from the day Brandon died.
If you were totally paranoid, you’d almost think somebody messed with the landing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Maeve
Monday, March 23
Knox is already in the drama club office when Phoebe and I get there at lunch, seated on the floor with an oversized Tupperware container in front of him. Phoebe peers into it, her expression quizzical, as she settles beside him. “Are you eating empty hot dog rolls for lunch?” she asks.
“Of course not,” Knox says. “They have peanut butter inside.”
Phoebe wrinkles her nose. “That’s weird.”
“Why? It’s just different-shaped bread,” Knox mumbles around a large bite. He swallows, takes a gulp of water from the bottle in front of him, and turns to me. “Any news from your doctor?”
He must have texted me that question a dozen times since Friday. But I don’t mind; I’m just glad we’re getting back to normal. “No, but the lab is open regular hours today, so hopefully I’ll hear something soon,” I say. Phoebe rubs my arm encouragingly and pulls a bottled smoothie out of her bag, popping the top and taking a sip of the thick purple liquid inside. I didn’t bring anything, but my stomach is knotted wa
y too tightly to eat.
“So why did you want to have lunch here instead of the cafeteria?” I ask Knox.
Knox inhales the rest of his first sandwich and chases it down with another drink of water before responding. “I wanted to talk to you guys about something without people eavesdropping,” he says, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.
“And by people, you mean Lucy,” I mutter. I’m still not over her giving me a hard time when I was looking for Knox at play rehearsal.
“Or Sean,” Knox says. “Or Monica, or Jules.” Phoebe raises her eyebrows, and he adds, “Or anybody, basically. Something’s been bugging me all weekend, so I want to see if you think it’s weird or if I’m overreacting.”
“Well, now I’m intrigued,” I say, but I’m only half listening as I pluck at the beaded bracelet on my wrist. Ita gave it to me for luck the last time I went into the hospital, more than four years ago. I haven’t worn it since and it’s a little tight, but—that ended up being a good day. So maybe today will be, too. “What’s up?”
“Okay, well, here’s the thing. I saw Nate Friday night—don’t ask,” he adds, when my eyebrows shoot up. “It’s a long story, work-related, not important. Anyway. Nate was looking at all these pictures from the construction site where Brandon fell. You know how I told you my dad is helping investigate the accident?” We both nod, and Knox continues, “Well, Nate says he thinks someone could’ve messed with the landing Brandon jumped on.”
“Messed with it?” I echo. Now he has my full attention. “Like how?”
Knox shrugs, his mouth tight. “Removed some supports, I guess? I don’t really know. I wanted to ask my dad, but…he wasn’t in a great frame of mind. And Nate said the whole thing’s inconclusive, anyway. But all weekend, I kept thinking about what that could mean. Why would anybody deliberately screw with an abandoned construction site? And that’s when I started wondering…do you think there’s any possibility that somebody wanted Brandon to get hurt? Like, was actually targeting him by giving him that Dare?”
One of Us Is Next Page 20
