by Paula Stokes
But there is something even more beautiful sitting on the front steps. Parvati. She’s dressed in camo pants and an olive-green long-sleeved shirt. Her hair is back in a ponytail so tiny that she must have hacked off a couple more inches at some point. I don’t think she’s wearing a speck of makeup, but somehow she’s never looked more stunning.
Amanda bounces out of the car while I’m still gathering my thoughts. “Hi, Parvati,” she bubbles. “I heard you were in the hospital. Are you better now?”
“I just got out today.” Parvati pulls the collar of her shirt down slightly to expose the edge of a gauze bandage. “I’m mostly better but I’m going to have a really cool scar.”
“No way,” Amanda says. “I know this other girl with CF like me and she has a scar—”
“Let’s let Parvati and your brother talk, okay?” Darla steers Amanda into the house.
Ben disappears into the garage. I sit next to Parvati on the steps, both of us staring straight ahead, watching the bits of grass dance across the driveway.
Parvati opens her mouth to speak, but then the door squeaks and the twins’ babysitter slides out of the house. She bounds down the front steps and heads toward a car parked across the street. Parvati and I watch as she pulls away from the curb.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I say finally.
“You too.” She turns to me, her eyes lingering on my cast.
“Simple fracture,” I say. “No big deal.”
She nods. “My parents dropped the restraining order so I could come give you this.” She tosses me a rectangle of white fabric, tied closed with a plastic bow. It looks suspiciously like a piece of the sari she wore to Pres’s funeral.
I untie the ribbon and fold back the cloth. My shark’s tooth pendant spills out onto my palm. The cord is mostly burned away, but my breath catches in my throat as I finger the sharp point of the tooth. “Thank you,” I say. “But how?”
“I stole it out of the evidence locker.”
“Parvati! You’re going to—”
“I’m kidding,” she says. “My mom heard that Adam confessed to setting the fire. I knew they wouldn’t need it anymore. We went to get my dad’s gun back, and I asked her to pull some strings. I think she might have had to sign that she was part of your legal counsel to get it.” Her eyes flick up to meet mine. She tugs at the ends of her hair. “I guess I should go so you can be with your family, huh?” The muscles in her jaw strain against her skin. I can feel how scared she is as she waits for my response.
I make her wait longer than I should, but there aren’t words for everything I’m feeling. Or if there are, I don’t know them. Finally I say, “You don’t have to leave.”
Her dark eyes grow damp and she immediately turns away. She counts to five under her breath and turns back, her face a mask of composure. “Do you want me to stay? Because if not, I don’t need your pity.”
“I mean, you got yourself shot and still managed to save my ass,” I say lightly. “That’s probably worth a cupcake.”
The joke falls flat. “You don’t owe me anything.” Parvati starts to stand. “I know how bad I hurt you.”
I reach out and touch her arm. “Hey. I want you to stay.”
She exhales a single, shaky breath as she lowers herself back to the porch. “Really? It’s just, you didn’t come see me in the hospital. You didn’t even call.”
“Sorry. Once we knew you were going to be okay, Darla started bugging me to catch up on schoolwork, and then I had to deal with all this legal stuff. The awesomeness that is my lawyer helped me get my charges reduced, but what’s left still scored me a month of suspended-sentence jail time and about ten million community service hours.” I rake a hand through my hair. “I guess I wasn’t too eager to get in more trouble by violating a restraining order.”
“Oh.” Parvati’s voice is barely a whisper. “I thought maybe you didn’t even want to be my friend anymore.”
“Is that what you want?” I ask slowly. “To be friends?”
Her eyes water again, and this time she doesn’t fight it. “No, but I don’t want to lose you totally, so I can settle for that.”
I snort. “Parvati Amos? Settling? I’ll believe it when I see it.”
A smile plays at her lips. “I still want to be with you, Max. But maybe I don’t get to have everything I want. I feel like we broke up. Did we?”
“I sort of stopped thinking of you as my girlfriend when I found out you dated me as a dare.”
“I guess I can understand that.” Her lower lip trembles and a single rogue tear cuts a slick path down her cheek. “You want to hear the whole story?”
“Probably not,” I admit. “But it’s okay if you want to tell it.”
She nods. “I was going to tell you everything after the funeral, I swear.” Her body trembles slightly. She looks down at the porch. “I met Pres, Adam, whoever, freshman year. For some reason I just . . . liked him. He was different from most of the kids at Bristol. More raw. More real.” She laughs bitterly. “Or so I thought. We got up to all kinds of trouble, and I told myself we were besties, partners in crime. In reality I was just some girl he screwed when he was bored.” Her thick eyelashes glisten with tears. “I never should have listened to him. What I did was thoughtless and cruel.” She looks up. “I was so blind. I let him use me to hurt you. I know how pathetic that is.”
Sometimes I think I’m the worst sheep of all. I remember the tiny flash of vulnerability I saw the night of “Preston’s” New Year’s Eve party. Adam played her, just like me. And I can understand what it’s like to do dumb things for something that feels like love.
She turns away from me and blots at her eyes again. “I hate being pathetic.”
I reach out and touch the back of her arm, squeezing gently. “You’re not pathetic,” I tell her. “You’re just human, that’s all.”
She shakes her head. “I know I let you down, just like I let down my parents, and everyone else.” She turns back to face me, her emotions once again under control. “I’m sorry.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in apologies.”
“I’m beginning to think I was wrong about everything.” She sighs. “I have so much to make up for. I can’t believe I have to leave in a couple of weeks.”
A fist clenches in my stomach. My feelings for Parvati are all tangled up, but I can’t imagine surviving the spring semester without her. Still, maybe her parents are right. Maybe she does need to get away for a while. “It’ll probably be good for you, you know? Help you with the coke thing.”
“I don’t have a coke thing, Max,” she huffs. “I only did it every once in a while, and I quit soon after we started dating. Unfortunately, I had a little left and my mom found it in my room.”
“You quit using because of me?”
“You made me realize I didn’t need it,” she says.
As I try to figure out what she means, she continues, “Remember our first date?”
“Yeah.” I took her to this place called Rings Rock that you can only get to at low tide. The ocean rolled in and we had our own private island for the day. We ate sandwiches and went swimming, and when we were in the water together she kissed me in a way that pretty much guaranteed I could have whatever I wanted from her. I feel kind of sick thinking about it, now that I know it was part of a dare.
“You went on and on about how pretty and cool I was, about how much you liked me.” The edges of her mouth turn upward.
“Did I? God, what a loser.”
Her smile gets bigger. “Of course I thought you were just trying to get in my pants, which was perfect since it’s what I had planned from the start. But then you rejected me.”
“I wouldn’t say I rejected you. It just didn’t feel like the right time, you know?” Mostly I was scared I’d disappoint her or get caught with my trunks down by the Jacobsen brothers.
“Yeah.” She nods. “But then I realized all that stuff you said—you really meant it. You liked plain old me. N
o coke. No craziness. You didn’t want to hear about my future plans. The person I was at Rings Rock was enough for you.”
“More than enough.”
“No one else has ever made me feel like that. Especially not Adam. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but I never let him touch me after I was with you.” She pauses. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to make things up to you. I’m already trying to think of ways I can get kicked out of Blue Pointe.”
And even though she’s never said it, I finally know for sure how she feels about me. Darla was right about what love is. And there is apparently no end to the stupid stuff Parvati will do for the people she loves.
But do I love her back?
Maybe. I hate seeing her in pain. I want her to be happy.
Is that enough?
I don’t know.
Can you ever really know? Trust doesn’t come easily to me, and if I stay together with Parvati we’ll have to rebuild it almost from scratch. I’m not going to lie, though. There are a lot of things I’d enjoy doing over with her.
I study her expression, trying to memorize what love looks like, just in case things don’t work out. Apparently, it looks vulnerable, like a dog that’s been hit by a car. Just lying there on the pavement, waiting for you to run into the street and scoop it up in your arms.
I think I would run into the street for her.
I can’t help it. I lean in close to brush my lips against her jawbone. She’s so warm. She smells so good—no perfume, no cinnamon. Just softness. “Don’t get kicked out. It’s only a semester. Besides, I recently came into a little money, so if you’re nice, I might even come visit you.”
Parvati bites at her lower lip. “Really?” One word. So much hope.
“Let’s take it a day at a time and see what happens,” I say.
“Okay.” She reaches out for my hand. “Do you know why I love you, Max Cantrell?”
I let her slip her fingers between mine. “Because your dad hates me?”
“No.”
“Because I recently came into a little money?”
She laughs her tinkly little laugh. “Because you make me want to be better.” Lifting her chin, she stares at me with her dark eyes. Her breath is a whisper against my skin.
I squeeze her hand as I tilt my head low. Our lips brush, just barely, and it feels like something worth saving.
The front door slams. “Eeeew,” Amanda says. “You guys are gross.” Sighing, I turn toward my sister reluctantly. She’s holding a cupcake in each hand. “Mom says it’s time for cupcakes and to tell Parvati she’s invited.”
I arch an eyebrow. “You want to stay?”
“Sure.” Parvati lets me pull her to her feet. She keeps hold of my hand as we follow my sister inside. “Cupcake time,” she tells Amanda. “My favorite time in the whole world.”
I lean close to her. “Liar,” I whisper in her ear.
“Sometimes,” she admits. “But I’m working on it.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MUCH LOVE TO MY FAMILY and friends for being awesome and putting up with my insane schedule and volatile mood swings throughout the writing and revising of this book. I think the end result was worth it. I hope you agree.
Thanks to Jennifer Laughran, Karen Chaplin, the amazing staff at HarperTeen, the YA Valentines, my street team members, and everyone who takes the time to rate or review my books. Your feedback—the positive and the critical—is invaluable to me.
I had a lot of early readers who helped me take this book to the next level: Cathy Castelli, Marcy Beller Paul, Jessica Fonseca, Ken Howe, Antony John, Heather Anastasiu, Tara Kelly, Howard Price, Ben Oris, Stacee Evans, Sarah Reis, and Surbhi Patel. Thanks to all of you for serving as betas or experts. Other people who rock: All of Team Canada—there are too many of you to name, but you know who you are. Jessica Spotswood and Elizabeth Richards, for email therapy and believing in me. Christina Ahn and Jamie Krakover, for being my St. Louis blogger-reader-writer friends forever. Monica Lopez, for always playing WITWI and teaching Parvati and me how to search by image. And of course Nikki Wang, for ALL CAPS, endless support, and general Nikki Wangishness. None of you are ever allowed to change.
And as always, thanks to the readers. There are so many other things you could be doing, so many other books you could pick up instead. Thank you for making it possible for me to live my dreams.
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epicreads.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Tara Kelly
PAULA STOKES writes stories about flawed characters with good hearts who sometimes make bad decisions. In addition to writing, she enjoys kayaking, hiking, reading, and seeking out new adventures in faraway lands. Paula is also the author of The Art of Lainey. She loves interacting with readers. Find her online at www.authorpaulastokes.com or on Twitter @pstokesbooks.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
BOOKS BY PAULA STOKES
The Art of Lainey
Infinite Repeat
Liars, Inc.
CREDITS
Cover art © 2015 by Yunus Emre Uzun and Christine Blackburne
Cover design by Torborg Davern
COPYRIGHT
HarperTeen is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
LIARS, INC. Copyright © 2015 by Paula Stokes. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.epicreads.com
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stokes, Paula.
Liars, Inc. / Paula Stokes.
pages cm
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Max, his girlfriend Parvati, and best friend Pres form Liars, Inc., expecting that forging notes and lying for their peers will lead to easy cash, but when Pres asks Max to cover for him, it may be a fatal mistake.
ISBN 978-0-06-232328-6
EPub Edition © February 2015 ISBN 9780062238450
[1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Conduct of life—Fiction. 3. Missing persons—Fiction. 4. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 5. Adoption—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S8752Li 2015 2014022689
[Fic]—dc23 CIP
AC
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15 16 17 18 19 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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