“This is the best one, except Kristin’s looking away,” Dara said. “Would it be unethical to paste her head from here into this picture?”
Josh shrugged. “Dunno. It’s her head, right?”
“But editorially, it’s not her head in that moment. It’s a head of lies.”
Rubbing a hand up Dara’s back, Josh tried to coax her attention away from the screen. “Babe, I don’t know. Can we look at these later?” Maybe never, his voice said. Or maybe three thousand years from now.
With a frown, Dara flipped between them again. “I really have to get these two clubs done before I can do anything.”
Withdrawing, Josh couldn’t hide his annoyance. Digging his toe into one heel, he peeled off his shoe because it was obvious they weren’t going anywhere for a while. Letting it drop with a thump, he cut her a suffering look.
“Don’t be like that. We’re both still technically grounded, we’re lucky we’re even seeing each other today.”
“Yeah, I feel it,” Josh said. Dig, peel. His other sneaker fell heavily on the floor, and he slid to his feet. He could examine the pictures on her wall again, all three million of them. Her collages took up the space that posters should have. Instead of pop stars she had inspiration boards.
Head down, Dara swapped the two versions of Kristin again. “You’re always complaining I don’t give you time to work on your car. If waiting for me is such a big deal, why don’t you go do that?”
Josh turned furiously. “Do you hear yourself?”
“Excuse me?”
“You do remember the last time I saw you, it was because you wanted to borrow some of my clothes for another guy.”
Snapping the lid closed on her laptop, Dara sat up. “Are you jealous?”
“No,” Josh said unconvincingly. Then, more honestly, he added, “But I’m confused. It’s like you went just a little off in the woods and never came back.”
“I’m right here,” she replied.
“You’re all the way over there.” Demonstrating, Josh walked the distance between them, then back again. His motions were short, sharp. It was like something quaked in his core, and it was all he could do to contain it. “And here I am.”
Pushing the laptop aside, Dara looked up at him helplessly. “Maybe I did go a little off in the woods.”
“Look, if you want to break up—”
“I don’t!” Dara said hotly. Then she hesitated. Waving her hands beside her head, she shook with the frustration Josh felt. “I mean, you get we almost died. Right? You get that?”
“But we didn’t.”
“We could have. That’s on my mind all the time. We almost died. And you weren’t in the back of the truck. I was literally watching Cade die, like, I felt it. I felt his heart slowing down. I watched him turn grey, not pale, Josh. Waxy, it was . . .”
Josh held up a hand, talking over her. “I get it, Dare.”
“Then why don’t you get that I’m not back yet?” Slowly rising, she knotted her hands in her hair, pulling it off her face. It tightened her features, smoothing out the lines and knits and furrows. She was a mask of herself, though the shadows still showed in her eyes.
“Maybe if you let me help,” Josh said.
“It’s a terrible thing to say,” Dara replied. She closed on him, because she was going to say it anyway. He knew it would be a bomb when she flattened both her hands on his chest. Bracing him for it. “But right now, the only time I feel safe is when I’m taking care of him. It makes the rest of this, the bad dreams, and the memories, and the reporters, and all the gossip . . . it makes it go away for a while.”
She should have shot him. It would have been faster. It would have blown clean through. Instead, he had to stand there and take it. Act like she hadn’t just destroyed him. Gently, he pushed her away. Then he leaned over to collect his sneakers, surprised that gravity didn’t drag him straight through the floor.
Straightening up, he recoiled when she reached for him. Holding his shoes out at arm’s length, a talisman against her, he threw open her door. Print photos fluttered around him, the walls sighing in empathy.
He could be calm. He had to be, because suddenly all he wanted to do was punch through the wall. Instead, he struck her with words, all he had in his arsenal.
“Call me when you get back,” he said bitterly, and slammed the door.
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THIRTY
Monday after school, Dara felt like psycho Betty Crocker, turning up on Cade’s doorstep with a dozen cookies.
And a fake one, too, since she’d stopped at the grocery store to buy them. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually baked cookie dough. It was made for eating with spoons in the middle of the night.
Inviting her in, Ms. Fourakis nodded down the hall. “He’s in his room. Are those chocolate chip?”
Dara opened the bag for her, paying her toll before walking down the hall to find Cade. She smiled curiously to herself, because music poured out of his room. No one answered the first time she knocked. The second time, she winced, because the door rattled in protest.
The music died. The door opened, and Cade peeked through the crack. “Dara?”
“I brought cookies,” she said. She shook the bag, trying to tempt him.
Pulling the door open, he stepped aside to invite her in. Dressed only in a pair of jeans, he looked like he’d just woken up. But on the bed, he had a tablet open, a can of shaving cream arranged beside it, set off by three plastic razors in a crisscross pattern. Like a little pyramid, or a hut.
Smiling slowly, Dara took in the scene, then turned to Cade. “Do I want to know?”
Torn, Cade looked from her, to the bed. Then sullenly, he admitted, “I can’t get the YouTubes into the box Branson gave me.”
Dara tried not to laugh. Abandoning the cookies on his dresser, she reached for the tablet. Its image swirled, righting itself as she tucked it against one arm and flicked her fingers across the screen. “What are you looking for?”
Flatly, Cade repeated Ms. Fourakis, gesturing at his whiskers. “I’m getting a little shaggy. She won’t let me use the knives in the kitchen.”
“To shave?”
Cade nodded, then pointed at her. “That’s the same face she made.”
Still swallowing laughter, Dara slipped the tablet onto the bed. Then she gathered the shaving cream and razors. Nodding toward the door, she asked, “Do you have a towel?” She waited for him to grab it, then led him to the bathroom.
To be fair, she’d never shaved a face before. But she’d tackled enough legs, armpits, and bikini areas that she felt incredibly qualified. It was the same principle, and come on. She couldn’t do worse than he would have with Ms. Fourakis’s cleaver.
“Towel over your shoulders,” Dara said. She ran warm water in the sink, then dipped her hands. She turned to wet his face. She did laugh, then. His expression was priceless—irritation verging on a real, live pout. Wetting her hands again, she swept them across his cheeks and his jaw.
“So far, this is the same,” Cade said. Then he recoiled when she pressed the button on the shaving cream can. Menthol foam swirled in her hand. Jerking his head back, his nostrils flared when she moved to put it on him. “That’s not.”
Amused, Dara waited for him to still. “Do you want me to nick you to pieces? No? Then chill.”
The cream stung a little, sharp and minty on his skin. It was true, he had mint in his shave kit at home, but not this much. It made his eyes water, but he tried not to squirm too much. He watched her in the mirror as she rinsed her hands, then took up one of the sticks. Peeling a cap off its head, she dipped it beneath the tap and turned to him.
“Hold on,” she said. She looked around, then took two thick decorator towels off the top of the medicine chest. Centering them on the floor, she stepped up and grinned. It didn
’t perfect the difference between their heights, but it was good enough. Rinsing the razor again, she put a hand up to steady his head.
“Hold still.”
They both stiffened when she pressed the blade to his face. Anxious laughter bubbled from Dara, but she was careful as she cut the first stroke from his sideburns to his jaw. The blade tugged a little, and Cade wasn’t sure she knew what she was doing when she caught her breath and held it.
But she finished the first stroke, then swept the razor under the water again. Rising once more, she held the razor away from his face before starting the next strip. “You okay?”
Cade nodded. Now that she’d shown him how all this stuff worked, he could have finished the job himself. Selfishly, he liked how close she had to stand to him. He liked her hands on his face, and the warmth of her breath on his lips.
“Good, here we go again.”
He waited until she stopped to say, “You were mad at the boy in the yard.”
Peering at him curiously, Dara dipped and rinsed again. “Yes, I was. And he’d better hope he doesn’t run into me again.”
“You weren’t mad at me,” Cade said
Befuddled, Dara stopped for a moment. “Why would I be?”
“Because I hid. I watched you.”
“Oh. Ohh.” Dara slumped. Razor held loosely, she swiped the back of her hand across her brow. Steam drifted lazily from the sink, starting to haze the edges of the mirror. “I don’t . . . It’s hard to explain. I mean, if you get curious about somebody here in town, I wouldn’t start following them around. But . . . I wasn’t afraid of you. You had lots of chances to hurt us, and you didn’t.”
“I could have.”
“But you didn’t,” Dara said. “I mean, sometimes you just have to trust your instincts. My dad says people worry about being polite, so they don’t pay attention to their gut. They let people talk them into situations they don’t want to be in.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Struggling with the explanation, Dara turned in a tight circle to gather her thoughts. Then, suddenly, she captured his hands and brought them to her face.
Her skin was so soft against his rough fingers. Their worn, uneven warmth ghosted against her cheeks.
“I knew you were there. And let’s be honest. I had Josh there with me. If I’d been by myself, maybe I would have been afraid. But I wasn’t. My first instinct was curiosity, not fear. We were so far out, at least it felt like it to me. And I just . . . I was never afraid of you.”
“Then why didn’t you come see me yesterday?”
Letting go of his hands, Dara sighed. Stroking the razor under the water again, she lingered there a long time. When she came back up again, she evened out the foam on his face with a careless stroke. Putting the blade to his skin once more, she carefully edged the corner of his mouth.
“Yesterday was a mess. It had nothing to do with you.”
“Your father was on the news,” Cade said helpfully.
“Oh, you’re learning to watch TV,” Dara replied. “Awesome. Yeah, he . . . there are a lot of people who want to know who you are. And they’re exactly zero interested in taking ‘We don’t know’ for an answer.”
Trying not to move his lips, Cade tipped his head back so Dara could shave the notch beneath his mouth. The blade stung there, pulling more than cutting. When she moved away, he said, “You don’t know.”
“Right, but nobody believes that.”
“They’re very stupid people, then.”
“More skeptical,” Dara murmured. Trailing her fingers down his one smooth cheek, she studied it. For what, Cade wasn’t sure. But she seemed to find it, because she nodded to herself before starting on the other side.
Watching her, Cade asked, “So I’m the mess?”
“A little bit.” She smiled at him, as if to brush it all away. “And I am. And Josh. Plus a dash of my sister, and my parents . . .”
The word tasted bitter on his tongue. “Josh?”
“Don’t you start, too,” Dara said. A few more strokes and she’d cleared all the foam from his face. She gave him a cloth to wipe off, then reached for the can again. As she shook it, she considered him critically. “Lean against the counter. Pretend you’re a statue. Please tell me you know what a statue is.”
Curling a fist under his chin, Cade froze. He’d seen a picture of this statue in one of his father’s books. The posture made Dara laugh, which warmed Cade from the inside. Breaking the pose, he moved out of her way.
The steam swirled around him. Cooler air in the hall kept it from getting too hazy. It left the rest mobile. Almost alive. Twisting around him sinuously, the steam clung to his shoulders, his arms.
Bracing his hands against the counter, he bared his throat to her. All at once, he could feel the breath in his throat. The pulse pounding away beneath his jaw.
Her touch stung in the best way. Clutching the counter tighter, Cade resisted the urge to catch her hips. Pull her closer. Instead, he closed his eyes and focused on the details. Her chest brushed against his, careless, incidental contact.
Then she pressed a red-hot mark on his chest with her palm. She was steadying herself, her breath reedy as she put the blade down on bare, vulnerable flesh.
“Why’d you get so quiet?” she murmured.
Something in his chest wound tight. Was there a right answer? He didn’t know, so he told her the truth. “I’m listening to you breathe.”
With that, Dara stopped. Razor pressed against his throat, chest brushing his, she stopped. At first, her breath thinned. Then it failed completely. He couldn’t know for sure, but he thought that the winding in his chest had started in hers. Her touch trembled.
When he looked down at her, she broke away. Nervous again, she splashed water all over the counter in her rush to rinse the razor. It flicked onto the mirror, and down the front of her shirt. It beaded her skin like sweat. He wanted to wipe it away with his hands. Instead, he offered his towel.
“Okay?” he asked.
Cutting off the taps, she took the towel. Clutched it, actually. She wasn’t doing a very good job of drying herself. Too brightly, too cheerfully she said, “Just . . . totally jonesing for those cookies.”
Cold swept in, now that Dara had pulled away. Gooseflesh broke across Cade’s chest, and he wrapped one of the big towels around his shoulders again. It wasn’t warm enough, or soft enough. It didn’t cling to his skin the way Dara did. It didn’t smell as good. But he made do, and followed her to his room with another question.
“What’s jonesing?”
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
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THIRTY-ONE
Side by side in matching maroon hoodies, Cade and Dara slipped out the back door and headed for the park. It was too pretty out to stay barricaded in Ms. Fourakis’s house.
After the shaving, things felt a little too close inside walls, as well. A new hunger clawed Cade from the inside, taunting him with desires he couldn’t quite define. He suspected Dara would have no problem with naming them—she just didn’t want to say them out loud.
Yet.
The reporters had started to swarm, so their escape included cutting through several gated backyards. Halfway through one, they accidentally antagonized a chained-up Pomeranian. Cade wanted to stare it down. When Dara pointed out its tether, Cade deflated.
“Dog bully,” she teased, slipping her arm in his.
“Cade bully,” he replied.
Clayton Park looked as small as it was in the daylight. Bedraggled swings swayed in the wind. The teeter-totter thumped forlornly, driven into the ground by a kid with a stick almost twice her size. A handful of middle schoolers had claimed the metal dome as their headquarters. They cast poisonous glares at Dara and Cade as they walked by. In fact, Dara thought she heard one of them hiss.
Incredulous, Dara said, “And that’s why I qui
t babysitting.”
“They got too big to sit on?” Cade asked innocently. Then he burst out laughing when Dara started to explain the concept of child care for cash to him. When she realized he was teasing her, she veered and bumped him.
Then, tugging him by their joined elbows, she led him to the swings. Their sneakers scuffed through thinning mulch, and a cedarish scent paired with the dusty air of aging rubber. Dara dropped herself on one of the black seats. Wrapping her arms around the chains, she waited for him to sit beside her.
“So,” she said when he did. “Tell me something cool.”
As she pumped her legs, Cade simply dangled in his swing. He made no attempt to take flight. Instead, he trailed his fingers up the silver chain. His pinkie fit perfectly inside one link.
Since he didn’t know what she wanted from him, he considered his options. Then he pointed to a huddle of low, fat birds on the sidewalk.
“I could catch one of those with my bare hands.”
Throwing her head back, Dara laughed. Her hoodie slid down, and she said, “So could I, they’re pigeons.”
“No.” Cade moved, as if to prove it, but Dara hauled him back.
“You don’t want to. They’re nasty.”
“They’re tiny. I wouldn’t feel their beaks at all.”
“Nooo. They’re licey and dirty.” She smiled over at him brilliantly. “ Are you impervious to parasites?”
Cade buried a shudder. “No.”
Still smiling, she stretched a hand toward him when she swayed past. “Swing with me.”
The physical principles were the same, whether the swing was made of rubber or woody vines. It wasn’t that Cade didn’t know how. He did. But he wanted to watch her more. Her hair slipped loose of her hood. It tangled around her ear, a wonderful, perfect shell of an ear.
Taking her hand, Cade let Dara drag him up to speed. Metal creaked above. Friction drew sweat to his palms, different from regular sweat. It smelled tangy, like rusting iron.
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