“Cheer up, kid.” Connor flashed me a toothy grin, and just like that, his sadness disappeared from view. If Connor wasn’t a superhero, his acting skills, straight white teeth, and sharp jawline could make him a viable candidate for a movie star. “You still need to help me with my calc homework.”
Connor may have been a crime-fighting superhero, but I was the straight-A student in the family.
My dad arrived home just as Connor hopped out of the shower. The sound of their conversation drifted from the front hall to the kitchen, words like assault rifles and disaster reaching my ears. I could picture my father, all salt-and-pepper hair and glasses, running a hand over his jaw before jotting down notes from Connor’s afternoon escapade on the cell phone that never left his person. Once he even dropped it in the toilet because he refused to put it down.
“I’ll take care of it,” I heard Dad say. “We’ll wipe all the crime from this city yet, you mark my words.”
The stairs creaked as Connor disappeared upstairs to his room.
“Abby, I have something for you.” Dad kicked his shoes off on the mat by the back door and pulled a beer from the fridge. A hostage situation so similar to the one that killed his wife undeniably shook him, but he didn’t show it. Benjamin Hamilton wouldn’t be Morriston’s favorite mayor if he did.
“What is it?” I asked, a little skeptical.
My phone buzzed on the table, and Dad grinned, gesturing at the screen. “I sent you a new self-defense video. This one is about escaping choke holds.”
“Oh. That’s … great.” This was self-defense video number ten in the past three days alone, otherwise known as my dad’s attempt to teach me how to defend myself without superpowers. I’d insisted years ago that I was too athletically challenged to attend karate lessons, and so this was the agreed-upon alternative. Gouging eyes, throwing elbows, escaping zip ties—you name it, Dad found a video tutorial and sent it to me. I understood his reasoning for wanting to protect me from dangerous Morriston criminals; I probably understood better than anyone. And so I watched the videos to appease him, nothing more. Fighting crime was Connor’s hobby, not mine.
Dad took a long swig of his drink, then sat across from me. “So how was school?”
I was about to answer when Connor returned to the kitchen. He had changed out of his costume and was now wearing faded jeans and an old Morriston High PE shirt, making him look less like a supernerd and more like the average college student.
Smirking, he dropped a packet of calculus homework on the table in front of me. He’d only completed one problem, and it took me two seconds to realize the answer was wrong.
“I got an eighty-one percent on my history paper,” he announced proudly. Rolling my eyes, I fixed the math problem he’d butchered with a stroke of my pen, then threw the packet at his chest. Connor had received his 81 percent solely because of the three closing paragraphs I wrote for him after he’d lost interest in typing and decided to rush downtown to help the victims of a car accident on the Morriston Bridge instead. But I didn’t tell Dad that.
“I got a hundred on mine,” I said instead, pulling the paper on British literature out of my bag and sliding it underneath my dad’s elbow.
He glanced up, smiling. “Really?”
“Really, really. The English department is going to feature it on the school’s website and everything.”
“That’s great!” He actually put his phone down. I beamed. Winning his attention with my brother in the room was never an easy feat.
“And Principal Davis told me that—”
“Oh, Connor, before I forget, I’m thinking of setting up another press conference for you,” said Dad. He shifted forward, and my paper slipped off the table and fluttered to the floor. When I picked it up, it was covered in last night’s pizza crumbs. Awesome. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I loved him to death, but everything with Connor felt like a competition, a giant game that I never agreed to play.
I’d grown used to it. Connor was Connor, and I was just happy he hadn’t gotten hurt in his life of fighting crime. After Mom died and Connor became a hero, I worried constantly, but I’d eased up in the years since. Connor was a superhero powerhouse, and I needed to worry less about how many criminals he was punching and more about how often I was rehearsing my lines and lip trills if I wanted to be successful too.
But … I still waited up for him to come home more nights than I cared to admit.
Connor reached for my English paper and brushed away a few of the lingering crumbs. He presented it to our dad with a flourish and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
“I got you,” he whispered to me. Then he grabbed a bag of chips from the pantry and floated—yes, floated (it’s like flying but with a bit more hover)—through the air, landing in the chair next to our dad.
Connor grinned cheekily and shoved a handful of salt-and-vinegar chips past his lips.
Once a supernerd, always a supernerd.
* * *
The following week brought record amounts of rain to Morriston, slightly less crime for Connor to fight, and an abundance of nerves as I prepared to nail my musical auditions.
“Abby! Abby, Abby, Abby! Wait up!” Sarah sprinted down the hall to catch me as I entered the auditorium, bumping into anxious freshmen, the night janitor with a bucket of someone’s regurgitated lunch, and a group of stage-crew kids having a makeshift sword fight with a pile of two-by-fours.
“Where’s the fire?” I reviewed song lyrics in my head while scoping out a prime auditorium seat in the first row, which would provide the most opportunities to brownnose Mrs. Miller, our director.
Foes and rivals, knock ’em to the ground …
“There’s no fire, I just…” Sarah placed her hands on her knees and leaned against the corner of the sound booth, catching her breath.
Feast and bury, never to be found …
“I wanted to tell you that…”
When we’re through, they’re merely skin and bone …
“That I’m…”
We don’t care ’cause we’re sitting on the …
“That I’m auditioning for the musical.”
The last lyric flew out of my head faster than Red Comet high on caffeine. I didn’t think Sarah could sing. Actually, I was sure she couldn’t. She once composed a song about Red Comet and sang it to me and Connor, and we thought our ears were going to bleed. It was so horrible that Connor wanted to make it his theme song just for shits and giggles.
I looked at Sarah. Her big brown eyes lit up with excitement as she bounced on the toes of her sneakers. “You’re auditioning for the musical?”
“I’m auditioning for the musical.”
Uh-oh. “You can sing?”
“Well … no. But I really wanted to do this with you because I know all I talk about is Red Comet this and Red Comet that, and I know you don’t really like that, and so I thought we could do something that you’re interested in—Hall of Whores.”
I snickered at her mispronunciation of the show title, but felt a surge of affection for my best friend for wanting to do something with me other than talk about my brother and his bright red tights.
“It’s Hall of HORRORS, not ‘whores.’” I fought to maintain a straight face, but all I really wanted to do was smile. “Are you sure about this?”
“Absolutely. Trust me, Abby,” Sarah said. “This is going to be so … so…”
I never found out exactly what it would be because Sarah emphatically spread out her arms at the exact moment that the door to the sound booth opened behind us, punching the poor boy who emerged square in the nose, knocking him to the floor.
“Oh no!” Sarah clapped her hands over her mouth. She gave him a muffled “Sorry!” as her face blushed.
“S’okay,” he mumbled. He began gathering the stack of papers he had dropped, so meticulously that I wondered if he was only doing it to stall until he was forced to look up at us.
Sarah and I crouched beside him to he
lp. “I think your nose is bleeding,” I said, noticing a few red specks on the paper nearest him.
The boy’s shoulders slumped. “Happens to the best of us.” He rubbed his nose on his sleeve.
“Do you need a tissue? Or the nurse’s office?”
“They have really big Band-Aids in there,” Sarah chimed in. “Like almost as big as your head.”
“As appealing as that sounds, no thanks.” When we stood, the boy finally unglued his eyes from his shoes. He was a good several inches taller than me, which wasn’t exactly difficult to accomplish. Dark brown hair fell into darker brown eyes and curled around his ears, which stuck out just a tad too much. The boy rolled a chapped lower lip between his teeth while trying to clean the blood from his face.
“The Band-Aids in the nurse’s office really aren’t that big.” I laughed, trying to lighten the mood. “You have a very average-looking head, so they should fit you fine.”
The frown on his face melted into something slightly softer. “Is … that a compliment?”
“Well, it was really just an observation. Your head doesn’t look like a cantaloupe, so I thought ‘average’ might be the correct description. But if I was wrong…”
“No. Um … no. That’s … funny,” he murmured the last word. But he didn’t look like it was funny. He looked anxious and repeatedly scuffed the toe of a sneaker along the floor, his fingers twitching against his thigh.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t winning the award for World’s Most Talkative Human anytime soon—Connor was already a frequent nominee in that category—but I’d never met a guy so painfully shy. A cute guy at that. If Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome would crack a smile now and again, then he might actually appear approachable. I knew I recognized him from last year’s musical, and I had a vague memory of taking a class with him during our freshman year—or was it our sophomore?—but I couldn’t remember his name for the life of me.
“Sorry about all of … this.” I gestured to his nose, then prodded Sarah when she didn’t speak.
“Right. Yep. Sorry.” Her cheeks were still pink with blush.
The boy’s brown eyes flicked up again before returning to the floor. In that brief moment, an emotion other than anxiety washed over his face. His eyes widened and his shoulders relaxed. He looked shocked that we had bothered to apologize. “Don’t worry about it.” His voice was the equivalent of speaking near a sleeping baby—so quiet he barely said anything at all.
“I know I’m about to sound like a total jerk,” I said, “but what’s your name?”
The boy blinked at me, saying nothing.
“I mean, we’ve gone to school together for a while, but I don’t think we’ve been introduced.” I looked at Sarah. “Have we been introduced?”
“Don’t think so,” she replied.
“Right. So…” I offered him my hand. “I’m Abby. This is Sarah.”
Another blink. No words escaped his lips. My hand dangled in the air.
I cleared my throat. “And you are…?”
“Oh.” He seemed to steel himself, and then he was gripping my hand with calloused fingers and a clammy palm, squeezing perhaps a bit too tightly as he said, “I’m Rylan.”
“Ryan?” He was so quiet.
“No. Rylan. There’s an l in the middle.” He drew a large L in the air with his finger. “Rylan Sloan.”
I grinned. “Well, Rylan, it’s nice to meet you.” He finally let go of my hand. I tried really hard not to make it obvious when I wiped his sweat residue off on my shirt.
“Likewise, Abby.” I caught a hint of a smile cross his lips, but a second later it was gone.
“Oooh! Oooh, Abby, it’s starting!” Sarah pointed out two empty seats near the front of the auditorium as Mrs. Miller took the stage.
“We’re really sorry about your nose,” I called back to Rylan. He nodded, never speaking, then returned to the sound booth.
Sarah and I sat in silence while Mrs. Miller passed out sheet music to all the students. The audition song—“The Prince and I”—was one I had practiced forward and backward in hopes of getting the lead role. It was sung during the second act while the main characters, Prince Arthur Delafontaine VII and his starving servant, Angeline, professed their love for each other, and even though it was a bit beyond my vocal range, I’d rehearsed enough that I knew I could pull it off.
“Ladies and gentlemen, do we have any volunteers to sing first?” Mrs. Miller fluffed her bright red bob and tugged on her cardigan. She always wore cardigans, even if it was eighty degrees outside. Today’s was pink with too many frilly bows and a cat that looked more like a groundhog.
“I’ll go.” A guy sitting two rows in front of us raised his hand and sauntered onstage, his lean legs clad in a pair of dark jeans. When he turned around, Sarah pinched my arm so hard that she almost broke skin. Between his glittering green eyes and cheekbones that may as well have been carved from marble, this guy had the potential to put Sarah off Red Comet for life.
The only imperfection on his otherwise flawless face was a tiny bump on the bridge of his nose, like it had been broken once before. Thinking back to Rylan’s bloody nose, I wondered if someone clocked his guy by accident or on purpose.
“Hubba hubba.” Sarah sighed. “That guy definitely did not go here before.”
New Guy leaned against the microphone stand at the center of the stage. He started to speak, but the screech of feedback had him pulling away sheepishly.
“Try again,” Mrs. Miller encouraged. She was perched on the edge of her seat, eying up her prey, eerily similar to the kitten on her sweater.
New Guy tapped the microphone with his index finger. “Uh. Hi. I’m Isaac. I’ve never done this before, so … yeah. Here we go.”
“Very loquacious,” I muttered.
Sarah stomped on my foot.
“Ouch.”
“Shhh!” she hissed.
Verbose Isaac was not. But holy hot sauce could he sing. He belted out the audition piece, his rich baritone voice sliding through the speakers like silk. His voice was every good and every pure thing in the universe. A shooting star. A mug of hot chocolate in front of a roaring fireplace. A deep swimming pool on a hot summer day.
And I was drowning.
“I’ll fight you for him,” I whispered to Sarah when Isaac stepped offstage to polite, somewhat nervous applause. He would be a tough one to beat.
“I feel like I’d be cheating on Red Comet.” She smirked. “But you’re on.”
“Who’s next?” Mrs. Miller asked, clapping her hands together.
Crickets. Everyone looked around the room anxiously, trying not to meet Mrs. Miller’s gaze lest she call them onstage to perform. If I didn’t do it, then no one would, and if I wanted the lead—and a chance to work alongside that voice—it would be best to start showing some initiative.
My hand shot into the air. “Mrs. Miller, I’d like to volunteer.”
* * *
The audition went better than expected. Meaning it went pretty darn awesome. I sang perfectly on pitch, Sarah sounded somewhat halfway decent, and Isaac and his voice of Orpheus offered me brief but still genuine congratulations before rushing out the door. I tried to push the thought of the impending cast list from my mind as I exited the school. There were four days before the results would be posted, but that was more than enough time for me to agonize over Mrs. Miller’s choices.
“Want to go eat?” Sarah asked. The invigorating chill of late September cut through me as we stood in the parking lot. “I think I developed acid reflux from that wing place in the mall, but we can get burgers or something.”
I hiked my backpack over my shoulder. “Actually, my dad wanted me home tonight. Rain check?”
“Sure thing.” She headed toward her tiny red car parked under a row of pine trees. More than once I wished I had one of my own, but after three failed attempts before finally passing my driver’s test, Dad didn’t exactly trust me. “Do you need a ride?”
�
�No, it’s fine. My dad’s coming. Apparently Connor is attempting to make us dinner.”
Sarah wrinkled her nose. “Good luck with that. And tell your brother to stop posting pictures of his toenail clippings on social media. I almost barfed up my breakfast today. Toodles!”
As soon as she sped out of the parking lot, nearly sideswiping another car in the process, my phone pinged with a text from my dad.
Did the auditions go well? I’m working late, so I can’t pick you up. Sorry.
Seriously? He’d told me last night he was planning on taking the afternoon off. Maybe it was stupid to admit, but I had kind of been looking forward to seeing him.
Don’t worry about it, I replied. I’ll call Connor.
He’s working. Big burglary east of Market Street. You shouldn’t bother him.
Oh. Of course. My thumbs tapped against the edge of my phone as I thought up a response, but another text came through before I had the chance.
Can Sarah drop you off?
Because he couldn’t have asked me two minutes ago when she was actually here? I thought about calling her; I doubted she would mind doubling back, but I knew she would ask questions and suddenly the absolute last thing I felt like doing was talking to someone.
Sure, I told Dad. No problem.
Dad didn’t reply with another message. Instead he sent me a link to a video demonstrating how to execute the perfect roundhouse kick.
Like that would ever happen.
Shoving my phone in my bag, I set off on foot. The buses were long gone by the time auditions finished, but I could walk. I dug my nails into the straps of my backpack as I crossed the street. I’d been waiting all day to tell Dad and Connor about the auditions, to share my excitement over the thing that made me happy—the thing that I was good at. And now … nothing. I didn’t even know if I would see them the rest of the night. This always happened. They always had another press briefing or another damsel to rescue. And I knew I shouldn’t care; I knew what they were doing was more important than a school musical.
The Supervillain and Me Page 2
