by Amity Hope
“I think we should do the hedges.”
I hesitated. The hedges were right up against the house.
Leo dug in the backpack for another streamer.
Oh, what the heck. I grabbed one, too. If we were going to pull this prank, we might as well go all out.
He started at one end of the hedges, zigzagging the red crepe paper up and down. I followed behind in pink.
“There are two rolls left. We should—”
I cut myself off as a light inside the house flicked on. The soft glow spilled over us. A moment later, the porch light blazed brightly.
Leo and I jumped backward in unison, scrambling to blend into the shadows. My body buzzed with apprehension. My blood felt like it turned to ice as it began hastily pumping through my veins.
Without a word, he grabbed my hand and we took off running. Despite my wobbly knees, I managed to keep up just fine. We slowed enough for him to yank my backpack off the ground, then we were racing down the driveway again.
I waited for angry shouts, a shotgun blast, or headlights tearing after us.
None of that happened. Still, we didn’t slow down until we hopped into the truck.
Leo glanced over his shoulder. “No one followed us.” He seemed much calmer than I felt.
I pressed my hand against my chest, convinced I’d burned off the calories I’d eaten at dinner. Maybe the quesadilla at lunch, too.
As he backed out onto the road, I said, “I don’t think I’m cut out for playing pranks.”
He gave my shoulder a playful punch. “You did great.”
“You know, I never would’ve done that on my own,” I admitted. No way. Not a chance.
He laughed. “Yeah, I figured. How did it feel? Going out of your comfort zone like that?”
“It was so much fun.” It was even more fun because Leo and I had done it together. If not for him, my list wouldn’t be nearly as complete. Scratch that. Without him, I’d have probably stuffed it away in my drawer and forgotten about it by now. “I just hope they think the streamers are funny. I don’t want to make anyone mad. Do you think they called the cops?” I glanced out the back window, suddenly feeling anxious.
“Nah,” he said. He reached over, giving my knee a reassuring pat this time. “We’re in the clear.”
I nodded, deciding to trust him because I didn’t want to think about what would happen if he was wrong.
“It’s early,” he said as we turned onto the main road. “Do you want to go to Luke’s?”
“That sounds fun.” It seemed like a good way to distract myself from the worry of cops chasing us down, too. I sent Meg a text to let her know we were on the way. My phone chimed a second later.
I read it and told Leo, “She said we have perfect timing. They just ordered pizza.”
“Awesome,” he said. “I’m starving after all that action.”
His tone was light and made me suspicious. “You think it’s funny we almost got caught?”
“You have to admit, it made the whole night more exciting.”
“I think I can skip that kind of excitement.” I laughed nervously.
Fifteen minutes later, we pulled into Luke’s driveway.
“Looks like everyone is here,” I said. “I’m happy this worked out. We hardly ever get to do anything with Francesca and Nate.”
Meg met us at the door and ushered us in. Our friends were scattered around several pizza boxes that rested on the kitchen counter.
“We were wondering if you were ever going to get here,” Francesca said as she hurried over to us. “Where have you been?”
I looked at Leo, my mouth open, but an answer didn’t miraculously appear.
We should’ve known they’d ask. We should’ve come up with a reasonable sounding excuse.
Francesca reached up and pulled a twig out of my hair. Turning to Leo, she pulled a crispy, brown leaf out of his. She broke into a knowing smile as her gaze swung between us. “You know what, sweetie?” she said with a smug grin. “No explanation needed. I think I figured it out for myself.”
Chapter Fourteen
Leo
I eyed the prom poster across from my locker with dread. They’d appeared, as if from out of nowhere, and were now plastered all over the school. Until this morning, I hadn’t given prom any thought. Kylie hadn’t mentioned it, either. I knew these posters were going to spark her interest. There was no way she was going to want to miss this. In a matter of days, the whole school would be talking about nothing else.
Prom.
It was something custom made for her checklist.
I sighed and pulled my hand through my hair. I couldn’t think of a way around this. Prom was a big deal.
She already wanted me to meet her parents.
I knew this was going to be the catalyst to make that happen.
Maybe I’d get lucky? Maybe my last name wouldn’t come up.
Yeah. Right.
I twisted back around to dump my books inside. Seeing that poster was not the way I wanted to end my day.
“You really made a mess.”
I knew that voice. As if the posters weren’t bad enough, now I had to deal with this, too?
I pivoted again, my eyes darting around, checking for Kylie. School was out for the day. When she finished up at her locker, we always met up at mine because it was closer to the exit.
“Hey, Tyler,” I said. “Sorry about that. We got a little carried away.”
“Streamers?” His choked laugh chased away the fear that he was pissed about the other night. Still, it might not be a great idea to be seen talking to him. “I thought you asked if you could TP my place.”
“Right.” I grinned and glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “What can I say? My girl is a little more creative than I expected.”
After I gave up my spot on the team, Tyler had approached me to thank me. The kid had been so excited to be moved onto the starting lineup, he’d barely been able to contain himself. He’d asked if there was anything he could do to pay me back. At first, I’d told him no. I hadn’t expected anything from him.
As he was walking away, a crazy thought had shot into my head.
Kylie had wanted to pull a prank. And the last thing I’d wanted was for her to get in trouble.
I told Tyler what I had in mind, keeping the details to a minimum. He told me he’d let me know a night his parents would be out late.
Last Friday was that night.
Tyler started laughing. “You know what the very best part of this is?”
I eyed him with suspicion. “There’s a good part to having your trees covered in streamers?”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “My parents assumed the prank had something to do with my sister. Zoey is denying it, of course. But pink, purple, and white streamers everywhere looked like something the cheerleading squad would do. It looked like Valentine’s Day barfed all over the front yard.”
I grimaced. “I hope she’s not in too much trouble.”
“Nah. My parents know she’s not the one who made the mess. They can’t really blame her for it. She’s totally denying it, too, so there’s not a lot they can do.” He nodded to someone passing by before saying, “I’m the one who cleaned it up. It’s all good.”
Yeah. That was part of the agreement, too. I’d wanted someone in charge of clean-up duty. Tyler was that someone.
I hadn’t been completely honest with Kylie, but I’d chosen my words carefully so I hadn’t lied to her, either. I’d been very careful about that.
She’d wanted to pull a prank, but didn’t want anyone to suffer from the fallout. I’d managed to pull that off. To be honest, I was pretty proud of myself. I knew Kylie was having fun. Even more important, I was pretty sure she was never going to forget senior year.
Or me by default.
“What’s with turning the lights on?” I demanded. “You were supposed to make it look like no one was home.”
He laughed. “I thought it was a nice to
uch. Realistic, don’t you think? You can’t deny it made the night more interesting. I saw the way the two of you took off.”
I shook my head at his reasoning. That night, I hadn’t been too worried, but I hadn’t been too thrilled to make a run for it, either.
“I need to find a girlfriend who likes to have that kind of fun,” Tyler said.
“Kylie’s awesome,” I agreed. I may have had a crush on her for years, but spending time with her had brought my feelings to a whole new level. The thought of losing her sort of terrified me.
“Hey, guys.”
Kylie stopped beside us, a slightly worried smile pressed onto her face. Her eyes locked with mine. I could read her thoughts just fine. She wanted to know if Tyler had figured out what we’d done.
I gave her a reassuring smile of my own.
“Hi, Kylie,” Tyler said, his voice overly friendly. “I was asking Leo for some advice about how to deal with Colton.”
I nodded. Nice cover story.
“Ignore him,” I said automatically. “I always feel better when I don’t let him know he’s getting to me.”
When Colton had found out I quit the team, he ran up to me in the hallway, dropped to his knees, and began to shout his thanks. Hopefully he embarrassed himself more than me, but that’s doubtful, since he considers himself to be a comedian.
Idiot.
“What problem does he have with you?” Kylie asked. “From what I heard, with both you and Luke on the team, the Wildcats have an excellent shot at winning state this year.”
“He doesn’t like that I’m only a sophomore and I’m on the starting lineup,” Tyler admitted.
“What he really doesn’t like,” I corrected, “is knowing you have an outstanding batting average.”
Tyler’s batting average was twice as good as Colton’s.
And three times as good as mine.
“At least you only have to put up with him for one season,” Kylie, always the optimist, pointed out. “He’ll be graduating in a few months.”
“And hopefully none of us will ever have to see him again,” I announced.
“True,” Tyler said with a grin.
“Hey, don’t you need to get to practice?” I asked.
“Oh. Right.” Tyler started backing away. “You’re going to the game tomorrow, aren’t you? It’s the first one of the year. You shouldn’t miss it.”
“Haven’t really thought about it.” To my surprise, I realized that was true. The game had sort of crept up on me. I’d been so busy with my artwork, so caught up with Kylie’s checklist, so freaked out about her parents, that I hadn’t thought about baseball at all.
He locked eyes with Kylie. “Talk him into it. He should be there.” He pivoted, disappearing into the crowd.
I slammed my locker door shut and hoisted my backpack onto my shoulder.
“I think it sounds fun,” Kylie said as we headed to the double exit doors. “Meg asked if I would go. She wants to be there for Luke but she doesn’t want to sit alone. We should all go together.”
I hesitated, not sure how it would feel seeing the game from the stands. On the other hand, the thought of not being there to support my friends didn’t sit well with me.
“Sure, let’s do it.”
…
“How much longer do you have?” I asked Kylie as she checked the time.
“I should leave in fifteen minutes.”
She placed her phone on the table and took a sip of her skinny caramel latte while I finished off my brownie á la mode.
Common Grounds was only a few doors down from The Green Goddess. We were taking a chance being here, out in public, but we’d been doing that more and more lately. We hadn’t gone on an actual date in town, but we spent time at the park, Common Grounds, and a few times I’d met up with her at The Green Goddess while she was on break.
“Tyler seems really nice,” she said. “Do you think he suspects it was us?”
“What I think,” I said lightly, choosing my words carefully, “is that you got to play your prank. You shouldn’t give it another thought.”
I didn’t want her to find out the truth. Knowing Tyler was expecting us would take all the fun out of the prank. She’d had a great time the other night. I didn’t want to ruin that.
Her face scrunched, and I knew she was definitely giving it more thought.
“You know whose house we should’ve done? Colton’s.”
I laughed. “Too bad we didn’t think of it ahead of time.”
She twirled her latte around in her hands. I could tell that now that she’d met Tyler, she felt guilty.
“You know what? Tyler mentioned the streamers.”
Her head snapped up. “He did?”
“Thought it was hilarious. He said it looked like Valentine’s Day yakked on his lawn.”
Her hand flew to her mouth, and she started to laugh. “Oh, I didn’t even think about that. I would’ve liked to have seen it in the daytime.”
“We could always do it again,” I said nonchalantly. “Hit Colton’s this time.”
Her eyes widened as she vigorously shook her head. “No way. Once was enough. My life as a vandal was very short-lived.”
“That’s what I thought.” I finished off my brownie and chased it with the last of my milk.
“My parents are going out of town Saturday,” she said, taking me by surprise. “They’ll be gone all day. Do you want to come over?”
“I thought you work on Saturday,” I said.
“I was supposed to, but when I found out they were going to be gone, I traded shifts with Emily.”
“Where are your parents going?” And how could we know for sure they wouldn’t cut their day short?
“There’s a wine tasting at one of the vineyards down by Sapphire Bay. Dad’s been working a lot—tax season—but he’s finally taking a day off. Trust me, if Mom has him all to herself Saturday, she’ll make the most of it. They plan to do some shopping and go out for a nice dinner, too.”
Call me paranoid, but I didn’t think hanging out at Kylie’s house was a good idea. What if her parents had car trouble and had to come home? What if a neighbor saw us? What if one of their friends stopped by out of the blue?
So many variables.
So many ways that plan could go sideways.
I should tell Kylie. I really should. Just get it over with, that’s what I should do. The prom poster flashed through my mind. I wanted to ask Kylie to go. I wanted to be her date, see her in a gorgeous dress. Wasn’t prom a night people remembered for the rest of their lives? I wanted to be a part of that memory.
“So there’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” I said, derailing the conversation a bit before making any agreements about the weekend. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what you told me the other day. About Maddie.”
She let out a little growl of frustration. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, either. Talking about it brought all of those awful memories to the surface.” She shook her head. “I don’t understand how someone can be so awful. How could that guy treat Maddie like that? What did she ever do to him? And his parents? Ugh. What kind of family does he come from?”
I winced, because I knew exactly what kind of family he came from.
“I’ll tell you what kind of family,” she grumbled. “A family who has no regard for anyone else. I just hope that they’ve come to understand how wrong they were, you know?”
“Would that make a difference?” I asked, knowing full well that my parents would never admit to any wrongdoing. Not where Mike was concerned.
She nodded. “Yes. If the family would take some responsibility, admit that they raised a little worm, and that they were wrong, it would make a difference. But I doubt that’s happened. It hit my parents hard, knowing how horribly my sister was treated, and knowing there were no repercussions for it. They’re pretty forgiving people, but I don’t think they’ll ever forgive that.”
“Probab
ly not,” I said quietly. “Why would they?”
She scowled. “I’m sorry. Like I said, I’ve been thinking about what happened a lot the last few days. I guess I’m feeling kind of fired up over it. If you don’t mind, I’d really rather not talk about it right now. The whole situation just makes me feel sick.”
I wasn’t feeling too great, either. How would she feel if she knew I was—in a roundabout way—tangled up in that whole “situation”? Would just the thought of me make her sick? What if it did? What if thinking of me reminded her of what my brother had done? How he’d torn up her family?
And her parents? If they still despised my parents and brother, would they distrust me by default? I hoped they were more reasonable than that, but I didn’t know them and couldn’t guess one way or another.
She pulled in a breath, blew it out, and seemed to center herself.
“Can we get back to this weekend? Allie will be with Margo,” she said, assuming her sister was the cause of my hesitation. “Margo’s birthday is coming up. Her mom bought her a spa day for her and a friend. Of course, she’s bringing Allie. I’m sure Allie will spend all day with her. She won’t even think to pester me because I left my shift penciled in on the family calendar on the fridge.”
I pushed my empty plate away, then reached across the table and took her hand. “I have another idea.”
She looked at me expectantly.
“How about we go to the coast for the day? This time, just the two of us?”
“The coast?” she echoed.
I nodded. “There’s an antique store there. The guy who owns it sets materials aside for me. He’s got a great little store. I’d really like you to see it.”
“Oh.” She scrunched her nose as if thinking it over. “That sounds like fun. We can do that. This guy saves odds and ends for your artwork?”
I nodded. “He called a few days ago to tell me he’d like me to get it soon because it’s taking up space. I’m afraid if I wait too long, he might get impatient and toss it all.”
“That would be a shame,” she said with a teasing smile.
