“I really wish you would’ve told me about this, or at least asked before you agreed to it,” Uncle Jamie was complaining.
“I told you earlier when I called you from school,” she reminded him. “I didn’t have a choice. I gotta go. He asked. I had to agree to it. Sorry, but that’s how combined assignments work. I can’t get out of it.” Plus, he was pushy. But she didn’t tell her uncle that part.
“Just be careful,” he said.
Wren sighed as she wiped Hope’s spaghetti sauce drenched chin. “I will. You know that. You don’t even need to say it.”
“I do. That’s my job, remember? Keep you safe?”
She smiled with appreciation and touched his forearm. “I know. Sorry. It’s just that he’s not a bad person. Just some high school kid. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.”
“I need his name, address, everything,” he said.
“Blood type, date of birth, social security number?” she joked.
“Even better,” he joked. “No, just the basics. I can do the rest.”
She rolled her eyes impatiently. “I gotta get going. Can you watch her? Lila’s going to be home by nine tonight.”
“Sure thing,” he said. “Teenage babysitter, toddler babysitter, can’t be that different, right?”
“Not different at all, actually. Of course, I don’t need help on the potty.”
“Not anymore,” he teased, to which she slapped his shoulder lightly.
“Shush. She’ll be ready for bed by seven-thirty or so,” she said. “So, all you have to do is keep her alive for about an hour.”
“Manageable,” he said with a wink. “Go on. And, Wren?”
She turned to look at him from the kitchen sink where she was placing her plate to be washed later. He always did the dishes since she did all of the cooking. They had fallen into a comfortable routine years ago.
“Yeah?”
“Got protection?”
“Ugh,” she groaned with irritation. “You know I do,” she answered and patted her hoodie. “It’s not like that. He’s a goody two-shoes popular boy.”
“Ya’ never know,” he added as she grabbed her keys and left.
Her head was getting sore from having her hair in a ponytail all day, so she pulled the hair tie and let her long locks swing free. Then Wren rubbed her scalp. She wasn’t a big fan of ball caps, but they served a purpose.
Her car was an older model with no GPS system. It had one at some point, but Jamie always made sure to remove them completely if they had one when she got a new car. It was a Honda Accord, four-door, not exactly sexy, but it gave her a set of wheels to use. Better than being stuck riding a school bus.
She followed the directions she looked up on the internet she used at school in the library and wound her way back through town to the guy’s house, which was a huge two-story mansion that resembled an English stone manor and even had a turret and a neatly manicured and maintained yard. The homes in this area were set on slightly larger lots than most in-town homes, and his even had a short cement driveway coming off the right side onto the street. It sat on a stately, gentle crest and had a black wrought-iron fence surrounding it. The home was nestled among many other grand old homes in an established neighborhood. She’d passed a few houses getting to this one that had ‘historical home’ placards on their fences and front doors. She knew this road, had been down it a few times since moving to this town as it was close to the library where she liked spending her free time. Every town they moved to in America she always first scoped out the local library. This one had a truly beautiful library, an old building that looked like an antebellum mansion of red brick and white pillars that sat on the corner of the main road through town.
She parked on the street out front like so many of the other cars in the neighborhood and got out, locking it with the remote.
Then she pushed open the gate on the fancy old fence and shut it behind her. She looked around anxiously, feeling a little trapped in. Somewhere in the neighborhood, a dog barked. Children’s laughter came from the west. They were probably playing outdoors.
Wren walked up to the door, but as she reached out to knock on the solid wood, it opened.
“Hey, Wren,” he greeted with a smile.
Damn. She couldn’t actually remember his name. A habit had formed over the years, one in which she did not bother memorizing her classmates’ names.
“Um, hey,” she offered instead of a formal or courteous greeting.
“Come in,” he said. “Have you eaten?”
“Yeah,” she answered.
“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I’m just finishing up.”
He strode down the hallway, and Wren wasn’t sure if she should remove her shoes or not. She left them on. She followed him instead. This was the first home of a classmate she’d been in. Any other time she’d had a partner to work on a project with at school, they were more than happy, relieved even, to let her take the reins and just do it for them. This guy was different. He wanted to be involved, which sucked for her.
The house was grand, kind of dark inside with all the stained-glass transom windows and cherry paneling. It was beautiful. Uncle Jamie would’ve loved it if he could’ve seen it for himself. He enjoyed looking at historical homes.
He led her to an eat-in kitchen with an original antique black and white tile floor that looked like real marble. The cabinets were tall and narrow and reached all the way to the ten-foot ceiling. There was even a sliding ladder so the cook could reach those tall shelves. He took his seat at the small dining table that looked as ancient as the house.
“Gimme’ just a minute,” he said. “We’ll start in a sec. I had to get in an extra workout after practice.”
“Sure,” she said, irritated she would have to wait.
“Sit. Want something to drink? There’s plenty in the fridge.”
“No, thanks,” she said as she glanced over her shoulder at the massive stainless-steel refrigerator. It was obviously not original to the home. There was an exit door to what looked like the backyard. There was another at her back. That wasn’t good. Including the one she came through, that was three doors. She chose to stand at the L-shaped peninsula so she could see the white swinging door from that angle.
She watched out the back windows, which were leaded with beautiful designs, and looked for movement while the boy ate his food. Scarfed his food, more like. He ate like he hadn’t eaten for a week. He was inhaling a slab of steak and a baked potato. It looked like he’d eaten more than one steak by the size of the plate and debris on it. Good grief.
“Sorry, just give me a minute,” he commented again and drank a big gulp of some kind of orange drink.
“What’s in the cup? Tang?”
“Tang? What’s that?”
She shook her head. “Powdered drink mix.” It was popular in her former home, evidently not here in the states.
“Oh, never heard of it,” he said. “Is that some trendy drink where you came from? California, I heard?”
“Yeah, sure,” she lied.
“Cool,” he said, finished his baked potato by stuffing the skin into his mouth. His table manners were unrefined. “Where at?”
“Huh?” she asked, stunned by his disgusting behavior.
“Where at in California are you from?”
“Are you familiar with Modesto?”
He shook his head.
“Hm, well, that’s where we’re from,” she lied, having never been to that city. “Good old Modesto.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
He asked a lot of questions, and that made her nervous. “My uncle and I.”
“Cool,” he said, using that word again. As he was about to ask her another question, she cut him off.
“What are you drinking?” she repeated.
“Oh, it’s protein water. Coconut water, electrolytes, vitamins, that kind of stuff. Tastes pretty nasty, though. Don’t let the color fool you.”
“Why do you drink it if you don’t like it?” she asked, curious.
“My coach has us drink it.”
This she found really strange. “Do they have you on some type of diet? Hormones? Roids?”
He chuckled and rose, towering over her as he took his plate to the sink.
“No, none of that. Although, my brother does monitor my diet so that I’m not inhaling too many carbs,” he said, then grinned sheepishly. “I have kind of a sweet tooth addiction.”
“Oh,” she acknowledged but still wanted to know more. “What are you some sort of mega athlete or something?”
He looked down at her with surprise, which made Wren back up and glance around nervously.
“I’m the quarterback,” he answered.
“Oh,” she repeated, feeling stupid. “Football. Right.”
So, this was the boy the girls were constantly gossiping and speculating about. Who he was dating, which girl he liked, how they could get him to like them instead. He was basically the entire female conversational loop in that lame school.
“No big deal. You’re new. Doesn’t really matter anyway,” he said as if he were disappointed. “Football isn’t the only thing that defines me.”
She shot a speculative glance his way, looking from his feet to his blonde head and back down again in a mere three seconds flat. It sure as hell looked like he was defined by football. His body did, at least. His arms were huge, his biceps the size of her head, or so they seemed. The vintage concert tee he wore was snug against his chest. His thighs were thick and muscular, too. She could tell, even through his slightly baggy jeans. She’d never been into jock types. Of course, she’d never been into any type. She wasn’t allowed. Relationships were a hard no.
Wren cleared her voice, which sounded loud in the kitchen space. “Well, we’d better get to it. I have other stuff to do tonight.”
“Oh, sorry,” he apologized. “Come this way. My room’s upstairs.”
“Your room?” she asked hesitantly.
“Um, yeah, that’s where all my work is,” he answered as he led her out of the kitchen and through the white swinging door, which led to a lovely dining room with historical burgundy wallpaper lining half the walls while the lower half was covered in cherry wainscoting that matched the rest of the house so far. She counted the steps to the next door. Sixteen. The dining room was about sixteen feet long or slightly more since her feet were small.
Then they entered a more open area where a side entryway foyer was located after the living room, which seemed like a formal one with antique Victorian furniture.
“You live here with your parents?” she asked, wanting to know how many people were in the house.
“Nah, just my brother,” he answered as he went up the winding, mahogany staircase. “He’s still at work.”
The moldings and wainscoting on the stairwell were intricate and done with superior craftsmanship. She only noticed things like that because of Jamie. Hanging out with him had rubbed off on her.
“This place is really…something,” she remarked, glad that there weren’t a bunch of other people in the house. Golden Boy she could handle. Five or six people could’ve been a potential problem.
“Thanks. It was my parents’ place.”
“Are they on vacation?”
When they reached the upstairs, it opened up into a wide hallway about eight feet across where the paneling continued and the walls were covered with family portraits. She immediately spotted his father. Golden Boy looked just like him.
“No,” he answered and opened a door to their right, the third one on the right. She memorized the layout as best as she could.
“Can I use your restroom? Is there one on this floor?”
“Sure, down on the left. Fourth door,” he said. “I’ll wait here in my room.”
“Thanks,” she answered and left him to get a better scope of the place.
She glanced over her shoulder and made sure he’d gone into his room, third door on the right. Then Wren did a room count. She located an office at the end of the hall on the right. The bathroom was across from it. Two closed doors revealed another bedroom that looked like it belonged to a younger brother. Where was he? Was Golden Boy a liar? Were his parents really not home?
She closed the bathroom door and did a fast search of the cabinets. She didn’t need to use the facilities but flushed the toilet anyway to cover for her lie in case he was listening. The toilet had a pull chain and a tank that was mounted to the wall above the toilet. It looked original to the house. The sink was a pedestal style and also seemed original or a good reproduction. The window was stained-glass, so she couldn’t see outside. There were men’s toiletries on the sink: can of shaving cream, razors, deodorant but no signs of a woman.
When Wren left the bathroom, she peeked to make sure he wasn’t there at his bedroom door looking for her. He wasn’t, so she crept forward down the hall and came to a dead-end where another brother’s bedroom was and another hallway that turned to the left after the bathroom. She went that way. There was a linen closet, a big one, a guest bedroom, presumably, a library room with more of those rolling ladders to reach books on high shelves, and what seemed like a master bedroom with a giant, four-poster bed. She crept into the room a few feet and looked around.
Pictures in frames revealed the family again, but the room seemed lived-in. Not exactly lived-in, but still inhabited because it was clean, no dust on furniture. It was impeccably clean, though. Not a single article of clothing on the floor or an item out of place, and the bed was made. The walls were covered in a mustard yellow, floral print reproduction wallpaper with matching custom drapery.
“Hey,” he said, startling her from the doorway behind her.
Wren’s hand immediately went to the spot under her left breast. “Oh, sorry. I got lost.”
“No problem,” he said without threat or menace in his voice. “Ready to study?”
“Is this your parents’ room?”
“Was,” he answered honestly.
She repeated in question form, “Was?”
“They’re…gone. Ready?”
Either he was lying and doing so very well, or the sadness in his brown eyes was the truth of the matter. Did his brother have custody of him? She nodded and allowed him to usher her out the door. Wren avoided making contact with his body and squeezed tightly against the frame to do so. He closed the door behind them and led her back to his room.
It was decorated differently. There was football paraphernalia everywhere; trophies, plaques, awards, and actual footballs, some that were signed. The room was painted in an historically accurate manner in the reverse trim way with dark gray trim around the windows and crown molding and a cream color on the walls. It was sizable, too. Her bedroom in the trailer would fit in the space he had for his desk.
“This house is huge,” she mused aloud.
“Yeah, it was my parents’ dream to renovate an historical home.”
“Did they do most of it themselves?”
He nodded. “My brothers and I helped. But, yeah, it was mostly them. My dad hired a designer to make sure it was done right, though. He was funny about stuff like that.”
“Hm,” she remarked.
“Let’s get busy,” he said. “This is gonna be a tough project, and he said it would be ten percent of our first quarter grade.”
She nodded and took out of her messenger bag a notebook. “I’ve done most of it already. It wasn’t that hard of an assignment.”
“I did a lot of work on it, too,” he said, surprising her. He must’ve read her shock because he followed that up with, “Like I said, football doesn’t define me.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything. It sure seemed to define him at school. Everyone talked about the star quarterback- what’s his name- like he was the chosen one. They worshipped him. There were even signs around town with his face on them. Well, with him in his football uniform on them.
“Let’s exchange notebooks and see what we’ve done and compare ideas,” he suggested and offered his.
Wren was slightly more hesitant. She also had other stuff in her notebook.
“Sure,” she said, flipping it open to the exact page of her notes. “Just that one and the next three pages. That’s all. No other pages in there.”
“Okay,” he said as if picking up on her unsure mood. “Here, you can sit at the desk. I’ll sit on my bed.”
His bedroom was relatively neat and organized for a guy. His bed was bigger than hers, too, not a tiny twin bed. Of course, he probably wouldn’t have fit very well on a twin with his Hulkish size.
“Mind if I listen to music while we do this? Helps me concentrate,” he asked.
She just shrugged and nodded. He turned his iPod on to a rock station that was playing mellower tunes at this hour. She recognized a band from the 80s and the song.
They worked in tandem reading the other’s notes until he perked up and said, “Okay, I got your meaning here, but on page three, I caught a mistake.”
This garnered her attention. “What mistake?”
“This equation doesn’t prove this chemical reaction. It busts the theory.”
“No, it doesn’t,” she protested and rose to walk over and see where he thought he found a mistake.
“It does. You can’t take two out of the Sulfur element to prove it. See?” he indicated in her notes as she sat next to him.
“Yes, it does. If you remove the compounded Magnesium, it would,” she argued her point.
They went around and around until Wren felt her blood pressure beginning to rise. He was starting to piss her off.
“No, you’re wrong,” he said firmly. “Sorry, but you are. You can look at me like that all you want,” he said with a half-grin. Screw him. Golden Boy wasn’t right, and he sure as hell didn’t know her well enough to state that she was giving him a ‘look’.
“Mr. Sorenson wants the theory to be backed up by the equation. This just doesn’t prove that. It would if you used Sulfide.”
“Yes, it…”
Her retort was interrupted by the radio issuing a series of beeps as if they were reporting a tornado warning or something. She’d heard that once before when they’d lived in Oklahoma for a few months. This one, however, ended up signaling the beginning of a new program, not a tornado warning. That was stupid. They shouldn’t be allowed to do that. It could panic people.
“Oh, sorry. It’s a talk radio show now. It starts at eight o’clock every night. Sometimes I listen to it.”
He walked over to turn it down a little, and Wren followed. The intro music was speed metal followed by more of the emergency alert beeps, then a host’s deep voice.
“Anyway, let me show you what I think we could do to tweak your equation to make it work,” he offered, earning a well-deserved glare from her.
She waited while he worked on the formula, bending over and writing it out in his own notebook on a new page.
“…and tonight, on the show,” the radio host was saying, “a special guest who would like to remain unnamed. He’s a scientist working on this new flu bug, though, so you might want to listen up, folks.”
They cut to a commercial. Advertising dollars were apparently more important.
On Golden Boy’s desk was a smaller framed picture of his parents. It made her wonder where they were and if something bad had happened to his family, which made her feel sorry for him if it were a worst-case scenario type situation. Then what he said next didn’t make her feel so sorry.
“See?” he said, prompting her to look at his work. “Now, it checks. You were on the right track. You were just wrong.”
She rolled her eyes. “So, you’re a smart jock. Is that it?”
He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Nah, I just like science and math. And I also can’t screw up my scholarship to OSU.”
“Ohio State?” she asked and got a nod. “Hm.”
“You do that a lot. Did you know that?”
She frowned, “Do what?”
“Answer questions with non-answers and evasive ‘hm’s’.”
This really pissed her off. Not the fact that he was right, but the fact that he’d figured something out about her. Nobody had ever done that before. She had to get him off her tail.
“And I’m supposed to do what? Tell everyone I meet my whole entire life story in like the first five minutes after I’ve been introduced?” she asked. Then she added so that he’d never question her again, so he’d avoid her, so he’d drop the questioning. It burned in the back of her throat before she spat the words laced with pure venom, “Tell them all about me? Is that what you do, Golden Boy? Tell everyone how you’re Mr. Star Quarterback on some lame high school football team, Golden Boy? Pretend you’re really smart and not some dumb jock? Like that’s gonna get you bonus points with me? Is that what you do? Brag it up and girls jump right in the sack without a second thought? You put your smooth moves out there and score off the field, too?”
He looked away quickly and rubbed at his face as if tired while his mouth formed a sardonic smile. “Wow, you’re a total bitch, aren’t you?”
Wren’s eyes widened, and her mouth fell open. That never happened. Ever. Nobody, not even adults had ever stood up to her when she cut them low to get them off her tail and deflect their attention away. She blinked hard one time.
“No,” she ground out.
“‘No’ with your accent? Did you pick that up in California?”
Shit! Whenever she lost her temper or got super tired, her accent reared its ugly head. She tried so hard to suppress it, hide it, cover it. Bury it and everything that had to do with it under a thick layer of deceit and secrecy.
Her response was a whispered, “What?”
“The w ord ‘what’ only has one syllable. You say it and other words like ‘no’ as if they’ve got two syllables.”
“No, I don’t.”
He laughed. “Okay. Sure, you don’t. Or should I say doe-weren’t?”
Her cheeks felt like they were on fire. He had her stressed. It was making it more difficult to concentrate on her American accent.
“I don’t do that.”
“Doe-weren’t is not a word,” he imitated, using her accent to prove it to her.
“You’re an ass,” she said. “I’m not working with you anymore.”
“Good, you’ll just cause me to get a lower grade anyway. And ‘ass’ doesn’t have an ‘r’ in it.”
She glared up at him as she snatched her notebook from him and shoved it into her bag. Her chest was heaving. She’d never had this problem before. People left her alone, avoided the weird new girl who was mean and nasty and off-putting. That was the whole point of being a bitch all the time. But this boy was rude and confrontational and didn’t seem at all intimidated by her. He was physically and also now mentally intimidating. Plus, he hurt her feelings.
“Fuck you,” she seethed in his face, getting a mocking grin of superiority.
“Fuck you more, princess,” he taunted, his eyes flashing. He placed both fisted hands on his hips.
“I’m outta’ here,” she announced and sped from his room. She grumbled under her breath, “Stupid fuckstick.”
When she got to the first floor, the front door wouldn’t open. She panicked. He came up behind her and turned the heavy brass deadbolt he must’ve engaged.
“Don’t let this hit you in the arse on the way out, sweetheart,” he imitated again and swung open the door.
Once she was through, he slammed the door and locked it again.
She growled and fast walked to her car. When she was inside, she screamed her rage and pounded her palms on the steering wheel.
“Asshole!”
Wren drove around for a good twenty minutes trying to calm down. She blared the radio, swore, sang loudly, and went through a fast-food drive-thru and ordered a large Coca Cola soda. God, she missed smoking a cig when she was in a mood, but Jamie found them about a year ago and threw them out. Then she was in big trouble. After a little longer, she decided she was calm enough to manage her temper.
The whole way home, she contemplated telling Uncle Jamie about their confrontation. When she got there, he was waiting up, which made her feel bad because she knew he worked a very early shift.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said.
“You’re not that late. How’d it go?”
“Oh, um,” she stalled and looked at the bags under his eyes. He looked forty-five or even fifty tonight, even though he was only thirty-six. “Fine. It went fine. No worries.”
He almost seemed as if he weren’t going to believe her, but then he rose, double-checked the locks on the door, and said, “Okay, goodnight. Get some rest.”
“Yep,” she answered and went to bed, as well.
She couldn’t sleep, though. Her mind was on that boy, whose name she didn’t even know. What a fuckstick! He had no right to pry like he had. This could mean they’d have to move again. She wanted to stay at least until she was out of high school. That was supposed to be the arrangement this time. Changing to a new school every few months was so annoying. It wasn’t the meeting new friends and all that. It was just that she wanted to put down roots, even if it meant only for a few months to finish out school. Now Golden Boy and his damn nosy snooping could ruin everything.