Ex-mas (16 page)

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"It's been fine," Lila said. "You know. Cookies are always good." She heard Cooper giggle in the backseat, the little liar. She focused on the phone cal .

"I trust everything there is as it should be her mother said. Lila could envision her mother's arched eyebrow and crossed arms, like she was
looking
for something to be angry about. Lila was tempted to launch into some speech about how great it was to spend this time with Cooper, but sanity intervened.

Her mother would never believe her if she oversold it like that. Especial y not with the way things had been left between them.

"Everything's fine, Mom," Lila said in a slightly huffy tone, the one that she usual y used when annoyed by her parents. The tone felt oddly put-on, like it fit as poorly as the Coat That Ate Seattle.

"Yes, wel , your father and I are making much better time than
we
expected," Mrs. Beckwith continued. "We're running a couple of hours early, so we should see you soon."

"Soon?" Lila echoed, panic cramping her stomach. "Um, great!"

"Let me say a quick hel o to your brother," Lila's mom continued. Lila handed the phone to Cooper in the backseat. Immediately she slammed her foot down on the gas. She had to get home, now.

"Lila..." Beau said, final y sitting up. "You're going a little fast, don't you think?" Lila flicked her gaze over at him, then

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back at the road. This from the person who had practical y off-roaded in the Escort, requiring that whole mechanic pit stop in Big Sur.

"My parents are almost home!" she said fiercely, scowling at the road as she wove in and out of traffic. Why did people have to drive so slowly? It was
Christmas Eve.
Didn't they have places to go? "I did not go through al of this to get busted
now,
a half hour from home!"

"I get that," Beau said. "Real y, I do. But you need to slow down."

"I'l slow down when my parents walk in the door to find me and Cooper calmly relaxing, with no sign of any party or anything else Lila retorted. "Maybe even playing a friendly game of Parcheesi. With Christmas cookies on the table."

"What's Parcheesi?" Cooper asked from the backseat.

"It's a boring board game," Tyler told him.

Beau sighed. "Lila--"

Al of a sudden the blare of an alarm sounded. Lila looked in the rearview mirror and saw flashing red and blue lights.

"Oh, crap." She slammed the back of her head against the headrest and groaned. She reminded herself to breathe, and guided the car over to the shoulder of the freeway. Next to her, Beau was sitting up straight, raking his hands through his hair with a grim look around his mouth.

"I can't believe this," Lila hissed. She looked at her watch. Six

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ten. Her mother had said
soon.
How soon was
soon?
"We don't have time for this--and you know they never just give you the ticket. They always make you wait for it, too."

"I don't think a speeding ticket is real y the biggest concern here Beau said in a low, not very friendly voice.

Lila shot him a glare, wondering what his problem was, but she didn't have the chance to ask. The police officer had made it to the driver's side window and was gesturing for her to rol it down.

Lila wished that she hadn't been trapped in a stale-smel ing car with three guys for twenty hours. She wished that she had showered sometime in

recent memory. She wished that her hair was not piled on the top of her head haphazardly, and that she'd had the foresight to apply some lip gloss and mascara at the last rest stop. But none of her wishes were going to help her out, so she just smiled widely at the officer.

"License and registration, please he said, in that measured tone cops always used. Lila swal owed and rifled through her bag for her license as Beau did the same with the glove compartment, looking for Erik's registration.

Which was when the reality of the situation hit her.

Lila handed over her license and the paperwork, trying to keep herself composed until the officer walked back toward his car.

"Oh my God," she whispered, panicking but keeping her

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voice low. "Oh,
crap!"
She reached over and grabbed Beau's wrist. His skin was warm beneath her palm. "What if Erik reported his car stolen? We're going to get arrested." Her voice was more a squeak than any other sound.

"Arrested?" Tyler asked from the backseat in a hushed tone. "Cool!" Cooper whooped. "Wil we get fingerprinted?" Beau looked less enthused at the prospect.

"Considering I punched him out to get his car keys, he probably
did
report it stolen," Beau said in a tight voice. "Which is why I told you to slow down."

"Forgive me for not taking into account al the possible outcomes of your decision to jack my boyfriend's car," Lila said sarcastical y, letting her panic get the better of her. How could she have been so stupid? When she had been
this close
to making it through this weekend free and clear? "My bad."

"What's the matter with you?" he asked, frowning at Lila.

"Me?" she retorted, dropping his arm like it had burned her. "Maybe
you
shouldn't have stolen the car, or punched out my boyfriend, for that matter!"

Beau snorted. His mouth twisted, and something moved through his eyes. "Or maybe you shouldn't have had such a jerk for a
boyfriend."
His voice rested on the word for a second, a flicker passing over his eyes. Just as quickly as it came, it was gone. "What did you expect?"

And suddenly, it was like they were sucked back in time,

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across three years, back into the middle of that nasty post-breakup conversation outside the cafeteria, right after Beau had found out what Lila had

done with her weekend.
Erik Hollander?
Beau had asked her, sneering, like he was saying
Adolf Hitler.
He'd stared at her like he hated her, like the fact she'd gotten together with Erik on Saturday when she'd broken up with him on Friday made her the worst person in the world.

Except this time, Lila didn't care if she hurt Beau's feelings. This time, a part of her
wanted
to hurt him--wanted to make him feel, once and for al , how trapped she'd felt with him, how he'd abandoned her to nurse his fury and pain about his parents and she hadn't known what else to do but escape.

"And why do you think I did that?" she asked coldly. Meanly. She shifted around in her seat so she could look right at him--and get the ful view of his shaggy hair and
screw you
posture. How had she overlooked it? So what if underneath al that he was hot? He was stil Beau. He might have changed, but he was stil the same person. "Why do you think Erik was so appealing after al those years with you?"

"Funny," Beau snapped back. "That's a question I've actual y spent some time considering, Lila. And I always come back to the same answer. Are you sure you want to hear it?"

"You obviously want me to hear it," Lila said acidly, fighting off the déjà vu. They had had this conversation, hadn't they?

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Beau turned to look at her with a gleam in his eyes that sent something cold through Lila's gut.

"You're vain and selfish," Beau said. Matter-of-factly. Like it was the simple, unvarnished truth, known to everyone in Los Angeles. "Or at least, you
choose
to be. It was probably a relief to be with someone who only required that you worship him, and never bothered you about being, I don't know, a real person. And now look at you." His eyes were hard. "You're so dedicated to being superficial that you had to be reminded how to sing--the one thing you used to real y love."

Lila's mouth actual y fel open in shock. Had he real y just said that? In that calm, nasty way--that
rehearsed
way? Like he'd been practicing saying it to her for three years? God, he'd probably even written a song about it.

"That might hurt," she threw at him, "if it came from someone a little bit less self-righteous."

"That's hilarious--," he began.

"You get off on thinking the worst about people," she snapped. "Do you real y think that every single other classmate of ours in North Val ey High is a mindless zombie, yet somehow you, Beau Hodges, have seen the light? Does believing that make you feel special? Let you think you're better than everyone else? Because guess what, Beau: You're not. You're not special. You're no one"

There was a brief, charged silence as they glared at each

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other. Lila felt her heart hammering against the wal s of her chest. Cars zoomed past them on the freeway, rocking the Maxima slightly. In the backseat, Cooper and Tyler sat stock-stil , eyes wide, drinking in this fight like it was another chocolate milk shake. If Lila hadn't been so furious, she might have been embarrassed.

"I might be
no one
Beau said snidely. "But at least I'm not
someone
who endangered my brother's life by not cal ing the police--al because I want a stupid car."

Lila opened her mouth to fight away the accusation that hung in the air between them like some kind of poison gas--but movement at her window

caught her attention.

"Here you go," the officer said gravely, handing Lila her documents. She braced herself. Would he handcuff her? What if he handcuffed Cooper?

"Thank you, officer," she murmured politely, trying to look sweet, and not like someone who would be accused of being shal ow and self-centered and life-endangering by a guy she'd been kissing some twenty hours before--not to mention once or twice while the boys were sleeping during the long drive south.

"I understand that it's Christmas Eve and those boys need to get ready for Santa," the policeman said, nodding toward the backseat, where the two little boys sat up straight. The officer looked back at Lila. "I'm going to let you go with a warning. But slow down, miss."

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"Thank you," Lila breathed.

But the jubilation that should have accompanied escaping the ticket--not to mention jail time for grand theft auto--failed to materialize.

Lila started up the car and pul ed back into traffic. They were twenty minutes from home. A quick glance at her watch told her it was 6:28 p.m. Beau

stared straight ahead, his jaw tight and his arms crossed. Lila swal owed and glared fiercely at the road. Even Cooper and Tyler were quiet.

They had beaten al the odds, a train, two devious eight-year-olds, and the California Highway Patrol. But the horrible things that she and Beau had

said to each other just hung there, ruining everything.

There was no taking them back.

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Chapter 19

***

LOS ANGELES

DECEMBER 24

6:48 PM.

***

He seemed as remote and forbidding as the Santa Monica Mountains that rose up in the distance.

Terrific,
Lila thought.
At least this day can't possibly get any worse.

She pul ed into her driveway and braked in horror as her stomach dropped. She clenched her hands on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead,

frozen into place.

Her parents' gray Prius sat in front of the garage, waiting for them. A quick glance at the house confirmed that al the lights were blazing. Mr. and Mrs.

Beckwith were definitely home.

This day had just gotten a whole lot worse.

Tears pricked the back of Lila's eyes. How could she have

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come so close to pul ing this whole thing off, only to lose it al at the last second?

"Mom and Dad are home!" Cooper cried from the backseat. "Yay!"

"Hooray," Lila said sourly.

"Do you want to stay and help us decorate our tree?" Cooper asked Tyler in that same excited voice. "We always do it on Christmas Eve."

Lila squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, then opened them again. Her parents' car was stil there, taunting her from its position directly in front of the garage. She waited for Beau to say something--to make her feel worse about it as only he could. But he just unlocked the backseat and herded the

boys out into the evening air. He took the winter coat he'd bought at the Salvation Army store in Seattle and tossed it into the backseat, as if discarding the memories of their time there without a backward glance. Swal owing, Lila did the same.

Outside, the evening air was fragrant with night-blooming jasmine, and the sound of wind chimes and far-off traffic. It was noticeably warmer than it had been in snowy Seattle. Stil , Lila shivered and crossed her arms over herself, as though they might protect her from her parents' wrath.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Tyler said, frowning up at Beau.

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"Okay," Beau said. He deigned to look at Lila then, his eyebrows high, a deep chil in his blue eyes.

"Sure," Lila said, hating that look but not knowing what to do about it. Especial y with her life about to end. "Come on in."

Maybe with Beau and Tyler there, her parents' fury would have to be put on hold for a while. She didn't even feel that bad about putting Beau in the

middle of it, after al the things he'd just said to her.

What about what you said to him?
asked a traitorous voice inside her. Lila ignored it and fol owed Cooper up to the house.

It was funny how the front hal looked exactly the same as when Lila had left it, even though Lila herself felt so different. The same dark hardwood floors, with the green and white area rug in the center. The same mirror over the same black chest against the wal . She pul ed the door closed behind their

ragged little party and told herself to breathe. There were voices coming from the family room.
They are going to kill me. I may never leave this house
again.

Cooper took off at top speed toward the family room, with Tyler close behind. Lila walked toward her own demise a little more slowly, pretending she