My Life Next Door (11 page)

As we clamber back over the rocks, I can’t stop wondering what just happened there. I could swear he was looking at me like he wanted to kiss me.
What’s stopping him? Maybe he isn’t attracted to me at all. Maybe he just wants to be friends?
I’m not sure I can pull off being just friends with someone whose clothes I want to rip off.

Oh God. Did I actually just think that?
I steal another look at Jase in his jeans.
Yes. Yes, I did.

We look in again at Andy and Kyle. Now she’s talking, and he’s taken one of her hands in his and is just looking at her. That seems promising.

When we get to the Garretts’ house, their van’s gone. We walk into the living room to find Alice and her Brad sprawled on the brown sectional couch, Brad rubbing Alice’s feet. George is fast asleep, naked, facedown, on the floor. Patsy is wandering around in purple terry cloth footie pajamas, plaintively saying, “Boob.”

“Alice, Patsy should be in bed.” Jase scoops her up, her little purple bottom so small in his broad hand. Alice seems surprised to find the baby still there, as though Patsy should have tucked herself in long ago. Jase goes to the kitchen to get a bottle, and Alice sits up, looking at me through narrowed eyes, as though trying to place me. Her hair is now dark red, with some sort of shiny gel making it stick up every which way.

After eyeing me for several minutes she says, “You’re Tracy Reed’s sister, aren’t you? I know Tracy.” Her tone implies that, in this particular case, to know Tracy is not to love her.

“Yup, from next door.”

“You and Jase seeing each other?”

“Friends.”

“Don’t hurt him. He’s the nicest guy on the planet.”

Jase comes back into the room in time to hear this, and rolls his eyes at me privately. Then he scoops the sleeping George easily into his arms, looking around the room.

“Where’s Happy?”

Alice, who’s settled back into Brad’s lap, shrugs.

“Alice, if George wakes up and there’s no Happy, he’s gonna totally lose it.”

“Is Happy the plastic dinosaur?” Brad asks. “’Cause that’s in the bathtub.”

“No, Happy is the stuffed beagle.” Jase rummages around under the couch for a minute, emerging with Happy, who has evidently led a long and eventful life. “I’ll just be a sec.” He walks by me, letting one palm rest for a moment in the small of my back.

“I mean it,” Alice says flatly once he’s gone. “You screw with him, you deal with me.”

She sounds fully capable of hiring a hit man if I make a wrong move.
Yikes
.

Opening the door to Alice’s car, an aged white VW Bug, Jase scoops up about fifty CDs from the passenger seat, then flips open the glove compartment to try to store them there. A lacy red bra falls out. “Jesus,” he says, shoving it hastily back in and burying it in CDs.

“Not yours, I take it,” I say.

“I really need to get my own car,” he says. “Want to go to the lake?”

Just as we start to pull out of the driveway, Mr. and Mrs. Garrett peel in and park, kissing like teenagers, her arms looped around his neck, his hands in her hair. Jase shakes his head as though a little embarrassed, but I stare at them.

“What’s it like?” I ask.

He’s backing up, his arm resting along the back of my seat.

“It?”

“Having happy parents. Together parents. Two parents.”

“You never had that?”

“Nope. I’ve never met my dad. I’m not even sure where he lives anymore.”

Jase frowns at me. “No child support?”

“Nope. My mom has a trust fund. I think he tried to get some sort of settlement, but ditching her when she was pregnant counted against him.”

“I’d hope,” Jase mutters. “I’m sorry, Samantha. Having together parents is all I know. It’s like home base. I can’t imagine not having that.”

I shrug, wondering why I do this with Jase. I’ve never had a problem keeping stuff private. Something about Jase’s quiet watchfulness just makes me talk.

It takes about fifteen minutes to get to the lake, which is on the far side of town. I haven’t been here often. I know it’s sort of a public school hangout—there’s some rite of passage where a lot of the seniors jump in fully clothed on the last day of school. I expect the lake to be crowded with parked cars with steamy windows, but no one else is in the lot when we pull in. Jase reaches into the back of the VW, pulls out a towel, then takes my hand and we walk through the trees to the shore. It’s much warmer than it was at the beach, no ocean breeze.

“Race you to the float?” he says, pointing to a shape dimly visible in the gathering dark. I shake off my jacket and yank off my sundress, my bathing suit still underneath, then start to run for the water.

The lake is cool and silky, the water softer than ocean water. The eel grass beneath my feet stops me for a moment, as I try not to think of trout and snapping turtles lurking below. Jase is already swimming fast and I hurry to catch up.

He beats me anyway and is standing on the float to pull me up when I get there.

I look around at the quiet water, the distant shore, and I shiver as his hand closes on mine.

“What am I doing here with you?” I ask.

“What?”

“I hardly know you. You could be some serial killer, luring me out to a deserted lake.”

Jase laughs and lies down on the dock on his back, folding his arms behind his head. “Nah, I’m not. And you can tell.”

“How can I tell?” I smile at him, lying down beside him, our hips nearly touching. “The whole happy-family-Mr.-Nice-Guy bit could be a cover.”

“No, because of instinct. You can tell who to trust. People can, just like animals. We don’t listen as well as they do, always, but it’s still there. That prickling feeling when something’s not right. That calm feeling when it is.” His voice is low and husky in the darkness.

“Jase?”

“Mmm-hmm?” He lifts up on one elbow, his face barely visible in the twilight.

“You have to kiss me,” I find myself saying.

“Yeah.” He leans closer. “I do.”

His lips, warm and soft, touch my forehead, then slide down my cheek, moving sideways to my mouth. His hand comes up to press the nape of my neck beneath my wet hair, just as mine slips to his back. His skin’s warm beneath the cool sheen of water, his muscles tight as he lies there, still balanced on one elbow. I curl in closer.

I’m not new to kissing. Or I thought I wasn’t, but it’s never been anything like this. I can’t get close enough. When
Jase gently deepens the kiss, it feels right, no moment of startled hesitation like I’ve had before.

After a long time, we swim back to shore and stretch out for a while on our towels, kissing again. Jase’s lips smiling under mine as I kiss all over his face. My hands tightening on his shoulders as he nuzzles my neck and softly nibbles my collarbone. It is as if everything else in the world stops as we lie here in the summer night.

“We should go home,” Jase whispers, his hands stroking my waist.

“No. Not yet. Not yet,” I say back, sliding my lips along the willing curve of his.

Chapter Fourteen

Punctual to a fault, I’ve never understood the expression “I lost track of time.” I’ve never lost track of anything, not my cell phone, not my homework, not my work schedule, certainly not time. But this night, I do. When we climb into the car it’s five of eleven. I try to quell the panic in my tone as I remind Jase of my curfew. He speeds up a little, but stays within the limit, reaching out a calming hand to touch my knee.

“I’ll come in with you,” he offers as we pull into the circular drive. “Explain that it was my fault.”

“No.” The headlights of the VW illuminate a Lexus parked in our driveway. Clay? One of those donors? As I fumble with the door latch, my hand is sticky with sweat. I’m scrambling for a plan, a Mom-acceptable excuse. She was not in the best of moods this morning. Unless the donors showered her with money, and probably even if they did, I’m in big trouble. I have to just go in the front door, because chances are my mother has already checked my bed.

“Good night, Jase,” I call hurriedly, and run without looking back. I start to open the door, but then it opens swiftly from inside and I practically fall in. Mom’s standing there, her face taut with fury.

“Samantha Christina Reed!” she begins. “Do you know what time it is?”

“After curfew. I know. I—”

She shakes the wineglass in her hand at me as if it’s a wand that will render me mute. “I’m not going through this with you too—do you hear me? I’ve done all the troubled-teenager parenting I have time for with your sister. I don’t need this, do you understand?”

“Mom, I’m only ten minutes late.”

“That’s not the point.” Her voice rises. “The point is that you don’t get to do it! I expect better from you. This summer, especially. You
know
I’m under a lot of pressure. This is not the time for your adolescent drama.”

I cannot help but wonder if any parents ever actually schedule in
adolescent drama
on their day planners.
Looks like a slow week, Sarah. I guess I can pencil in your eating disorder.

“This isn’t drama,” I tell her, which rings so true to my ears. Mom is drama. Tim is drama. Sometimes even Nan is drama. Jase and the Garretts…they’re whatever the opposite of drama is. The tidal pool warm in the summer sun, full of exotic life, but no danger.

“Don’t contradict me, Samantha,” Mom snaps. “You’re grounded.”

“Mom!”

“What’s goin’ on, Grace?” asks a softly accented Southern voice, and Clay wanders out of the living room, sleeves rolled up, tie loose around his neck.

“I’m handling it,” Mom tells him sharply.

I half expect him to pull back as though she’s slapped him,
which I want to do when she gets that tone, but his posture relaxes even more. He leans back against the doorway, flicks something off his shoulder, and says simply, “Seems like you could use my help.”

Mom’s so tightly wound, she’s practically vibrating. She’s always been private—would never yell at Tracy and me if we were even remotely in public—then we’d just get a terse whisper—“We will discuss this
later
.” But it’s Clay, and her hand shoots up to pat her hair in that silly, coy gesture I’ve only seen her use with him.

“Samantha’s late for curfew. She has no excuse for that.”

Well, she hasn’t exactly given me a chance to offer one, but, true, I don’t know what I’d say in my own defense.

Clay looks at his Rolex. “Curfew’s when, Gracie?”

“Eleven,” Mom says, her voice smaller now.

Clay lets out a rich, low laugh. “Eleven o’clock on a summer night? And she’s seventeen? Honey, that’s when we
all
miss curfew.” He walks over, reaches to squeeze the back of her neck lightly. “I know I did. I’m sure you did.” His hand moves to her chin, edging it so she’s looking right at him. “Give a little here, sugar.”

Mom stares at his face. I’m holding my breath. I shoot a glance at my unlikely rescuer. He winks at me, giving Mom’s chin a nudge with his knuckles. In his eyes, there’s not a trace of guilt or—and I’m surprised at how relieved I feel—complicity about what he knows I saw.

“Maybe I overreacted,” she says finally, to him, not to me.

But I’m beginning to wonder the same thing. Maybe there’s an easy explanation for the brunette?

“We all do it, Gracie. Why don’t I get you some more wine?”
He scoops the glass out of her unresisting fingers and heads off to the kitchen as though it’s his own.

Mom and I both stand there.

“Your hair’s wet,” she says at last. “You’d better shower with conditioner or it’ll dry tangly.”

I nod, and turn to go up the stairs. Before I’ve gone far, I hear her behind me. But I act as though I don’t, proceeding into my room and flopping facedown on my bed, still wearing my wet bathing suit and damp sundress. The mattress dips as Mom sits down.

“Samantha…why would you provoke me like this?”

“I didn’t— It’s not about—”

She starts rubbing my back the way she did when I had nightmares when I was little. “Sweetie, you just don’t understand how hard it is to be a parent, much less a single one. I’ve been working without a map since you both were born. Never knowing if I’m making the right call. Look at Tracy and that shoplifting incident. And you and that Michael, who might have been doing drugs for all I know.”

“Mom. He didn’t do drugs. I’ve told you that before. He was just weird.”

“Be that as it may. This is the sort of thing I just can’t have going on during the campaign. I need to focus. I can’t have you distracting me with these antics.”

Antics? Like I’ve returned stark naked in the wee hours of the morning, reeking of alcohol and pot.

She strokes my back a few more minutes, then frowns. “Why
is
your hair wet?”

The lie slips out easily, though I’ve never lied to Mom before.

“I took a shower at Nan’s. We were trying on makeup and doing a conditioning treatment.”

“Ah.” Then, her voice low: “I’m keeping an eye on you, Samantha. You’ve always been my good girl. Just…act like it, okay?”

I always have. And this is where I’ve wound up. Still, I whisper, “Okay,” and lie very still beneath her fingers. Finally she stands up, says good night, and leaves.