Red Blooded (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Peyton’s favorite game was hide-and-seek.
She graduated from hiding under laundry baskets and behind doors to climbing to the top shelf of the pantry
,
or removing the soda in the fridge so she could fit in the bottom rack.

So we stopped playing hide-and-seek.

* * *

Despite me dropping perhaps the most important revelation of my life, we don’t have the luxury of lingering. Bain wants me out of the dorm before members of the media are able to get up, pull on pants, slug their coffee and gather outside, ready to fire questions at me. Footage of me leaving or entering the dorm is still footage. Saying “no comment” would be the right course, but it would make me look guilty. They don’t want me on camera at all. No footage equals no story. Or at least less of a story.

I stuff a few things in a bag and don’t even change out of my pajamas as we leave the dorm. The halls are still. Who’s awake at 5:30 a.m. in a college dorm?

We walk toward the main stairwell. My legs swipe fast against each other, ’cause we’re in a hurry, until Dylan grabs my hand and pulls me back.

“What the—”

He presses his finger to his lips. He nods to the stairwell. Sure enough, there are the echoes of footsteps clamoring up. And they’re not sleepy, walk-of-shame steps, or even drunken, it’s-still-night-to-me steps. They’re professional, tempered steps.

If my deductive reasoning on the steps wasn’t enough, a whisper rushes through the hall. “Yeah, I got in. Dorm 332. I’ll try.”

332. My room.

Dylan and I pivot and jog as silently as possible to the back stairway. But we aren’t fast enough.

“Peyton!” the reporter yells, running to catch up. “Peyton, why do you think your mom lied to you about who your dad was?”

Dylan’s hand touches my lower back, the thin fabric of my T-Shirt barely separating his fingers from me, as he pushes me along. I look back. I shouldn’t have. The reporter is ready with his camera. Snap.

Dylan takes my hand and pulls me inside the stairwell as the reporter continues to yell. We rush down the stairs.

“Faster,” he says. I take the steps two, three at a time.

We push through the door, right into two other reporters. I freeze as a jumble of questions about genes and trust and my dad and my mom swoosh by my ears. Dylan’s hand finds mine once again and he tugs me along. He stops me at a Zipcar on the side of the road.

“Get in,” he says.

“This is yours?”

“Yeah,” he says, in a curt way that indicates now isn’t really the time to chitchat about transportation methods. I get in just as the reporters are catching up with us. Dylan puts his hand on my headrest as he swerves in reverse faster than you should swerve in reverse. He straightens out—we leave the reporters in the dust. As I try to tame my breathing and his knuckles whiten around the steering wheel, he drives me off campus and past the colorful townhouses and the inklings of autumn leaves on the trees in Georgetown.

“That was bad,” I say.

His jaw pops and his knuckles grow even whiter.

“What do we do now?” I ask.

“We lay low.”

I don’t ask about the intricacies of this laying low plan, but eventually he pulls up alongside an apartment building and thrusts a ring of keys at me. “The big one gets you in the building, the small one gets you into Apartment 3B. Okay?”

“Are you co—”

“Yes, just go,” he says. I pop out quickly and as soon as the door shuts behind me, he drives away.

The front door sticks but I manage to get it the third time I bang my left shoulder into it. I walk down a narrow hallway to get to Apartment 3B. It’s a studio. A rather neat one actually, with a gray couch and black coffee table, along with polished, white kitchen counters. Nothing is on the floor, nothing is amiss. Except for the bed, which is a mess of twisty, turny sheets.

I lean against the couch and cross my arms. Shit. What are those pictures going to look like? Me, in my skimpy pajamas, running from reporters who asked me about my dad?

Dylan walks in and rubs his head as he locks the door. He whizzes to the windows, drawing all the shades. Shadows grow over both of us.

He turns to me.

“Is this your place?” I ask.

“Yeah. Well, until November.” He sits down on the couch and holds his forehead, rubbing his temples with his thumb and forefinger.

“You think they’ll find us here?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Who knows what a reporter can find out? But it’s not like I’m in the phonebook.”

I pull at my fingers until it’s too awkward to stay standing. After sitting on the other side of the couch, I put the throw pillow on my lap and twist a loose thread around my finger till my skin turns white.

“Now they have pictures of me avoiding them.”

“Yeah, they do,” Dylan says as he rubs his hands on his knees.

“So, maybe—”

“I have to call Lisa.” He stands up sharply. For some reason, calling Lisa requires leaving the apartment. While he’s gone, I stare at the wall, continuing to wrap the string around my finger over and over again. Have I ruined everything?

Maybe two minutes pass. Maybe twenty. I’m too lost in the nervousness in my stomach to notice the time.

Finally, he comes back. He sits down next to me, but doesn’t say anything. He rests his head in his hands and stares at the floor.

“So, what’s the plan?” I ask, my voice as shaky as my body.

He sighs and shifts his bent right leg fully onto the couch so he can face me. “Peyton, have you tried asking your mom about what she said about your dad?”

“Shouldn’t we talk about, you know, my latest fiasco and how to handle—”

“This is me handling it,” Dylan says. “Have you asked your mom about it?”

“I tried.”

“And...”

“She didn’t reveal anything. I mean, she told Bain she didn’t want to tell me.”

“So you went to this geneticist because...why?”

I curl my hair behind my ears. “I know it’s sort of silly, but I have no idea where to begin. I thought maybe if genes were like an algebra equation and 2 plus
x
equals 5, then the geneticist could solve for
x
. You know, solve for my dad. What does 3 look like? I realize now, of course, that it doesn’t quite work like that.”

He speaks slowly. “Have you done any other...research?”

I concentrate really hard on the fabric on the couch. “I talked to Tristan. Our families go way back. But, if you remember, you sort of interrupted that whole interaction.”

“So Tristan doesn’t know what your mom said?” His gaze narrows in on me.

“No.” My shoulders slump. “But even if he did, he wouldn’t say anything.”

“I know you trust him, but the less people who know, the better. You can’t look into this anymore. At least not until after—”

“The election. I know, I know.” I rub my cloth infinity symbol, which I’d fastened to my pajamas before we left, and close my eyes.

“I’m serious, Peyton. Lisa’s not going to be able to make this go away. We’re lucky it happened on a weekend, and we’ll lay low here till Monday, but nothing else about your dad can come up.”

“What? I’m staying here till Monday?”

Dylan nods. “They probably won’t look for you here. This is still going to be bad, but as long as we don’t add anything to it, maybe we can make it a blip on people’s radar and not a full blown thing.”

I swallow and nod.

“But it can’t happen again. I know this is important to you, but it’s just a few weeks till the election is over. You have to wait.”

Waiting implies that we all have oodles upon oodles of time. But my dad, the man who raised me, taught me we don’t. And now that he’s gone, every little bit of my being yearns to make any family connection I can. “Dylan, my biological dad is out there. And I know nothing about him. I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize the campaign, but I want to find out who he is.”

“Shit, Peyton. I want...I want...things that I can’t have too. But, I can’t let Ruiz down. He’s done so much for me and the least I can do is be professional and focus on my work.”

“What are you talking about? You’re uber professional.”

He stares at me and rolls his lips together. “Well, I’m trying to be. But I’m not the most patient guy.”

Could he be talking about me? My heart slams into my breastbone as I lean forward. “What is this horrific, unprofessional thing that you want so badly but can’t have?”

His eyes cast down my neck and to my chest. He swallows. “I...”

I lean toward him just a little more. His lips are so close. I want them even closer. I want every fiber of Dylan’s being to be closer.

But instead, he stands and takes two steps back, knocking a lamp over.

“Shit.” He bends down and messes with getting the lamp back on the table. Once it’s situated, he turns back to me as he wipes his face. “Look, Peyton, the election is just a few weeks away. Just wait, okay?”

“Do you want to wait?” I stand up and step toward him.

“This isn’t about what I want.” He steps backward again and splays his hands out, palms to the ground. “None of this is about me. But you have to wait to look into your dad.”

Oh, he was talking about my dad. Am I completely misreading him?

I sigh and pull my hair back as I sit back down. Great, I almost kissed a guy who doesn’t want to kiss me. Best scenario: he feels it’s his patriotic duty not to kiss me. Worst scenario: he resents me so much for setting his career back, it doesn’t matter that he probably thinks I’m at least kinda cute. Either way, we’re forced to hang out together for the next few weeks. If I made an actual attempt to kiss him and he had to actually rebuff me, that would make for a fun, not at all horrendously awkward, few weeks.

I cross my arms. “Don’t worry, Dylan. I’ll keep myself in check. Like you said, it’s just a few more weeks. Then we’ll be free of this.”

Then, you’ll be free of me.

He smiles, this nice, simple but glorious grin.

I turn away.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Today I sat Peyton down.
I
told her one day she’ll meet a nice guy who smiles at her just right.
But before she gives her heart to him
,
she needs to figure out three things.

“
Okay
,”
she said
,
hugging her knees and squishing her features in an I’ll-indulge-you-because-you’re-dying face.

“
First
,”
I
explained.
“
Make sure he can cook.
”

“
Well
,
of course
,”
she said
,
making circles with her pointer finger to urge me on.

“
Second
,”
I
said.
“
He has to make you laugh.
”

She shook her head
,
her hair flipping.
“
No
,
Dad.
Isn’t it sort of sexist to say that the guy needs to make the girl laugh?
I
can be funny too
,
you know.
We have to laugh together.
”

“
Well
,”
I
said
,
resting my hand on my stomach as I tried not to laugh.
“
You have a point there.
”

“
I’ve been reading Mom’s women’s studies book
,”
she said
,
chin high.

“
Ah
,”
I
said.
“
Well
,
okay
,
second
,
you have to laugh together.
”

She nodded.

“
And third
,”
I
continued.
“
He needs to appreciate everything about you.
He doesn’t need to like everything
,
but he needs to appreciate it.
As do you with him.
”
I
clasped my hands together.
“
It’s okay
,
I’ll wait while you write all this down.
”

She smiled and pointed to my laptop.
“
Even if I didn’t know you were going to write it down for me
,
well
,
for me and the world
,
I
think I’ll remember this.
”

* * *

Media whirlwinds after I’ve had three hours of sleep make me pretty tired. After I take an un-godly long-ass nap, I wake up to clinking and clanking in the kitchen. I take in Dylan’s pre-furnished apartment, the space that will serve as a weekend retreat, and a prison, as I walk to the counter.

“Doesn’t look like you spend much time here.”

“I don’t spend much time here. I’m usually following some girl around,” he says with a wink.

Yeah, a wink. “You’re cleaner than I would have thought.”

“What about me says that I’m messy?” His fingers press against his chest, before he gets back to making the stir-fry, which has the whole apartment smelling like warm meat and sizzly tomatoes. Lunch. I prop myself up on the counter. His gaze brushes against my bare knees for a moment before he looks back at me. “I’m pretty organized, actually,” he says, concentrating awfully hard on the stove.

“Is any of this stuff yours, besides the clothes?”

He nods to the bookshelf as he takes a taste of the contents in the pan. He licks his thumb. “I have a few books I like to have around.”

I jump off the counter and head over to the bookshelf.

“Peyton,” he calls with a sharpness I’m not used to. “Um, this is almost ready.”

I turn around, confused. “No it’s not.” His eyes are wide and he’s moving his hand, coaxing me back into the kitchen.

Oh. There’s something on the bookshelf he doesn’t want me to see.

I spin back on course. Sure enough, there’s that familiar maroon spine.

“You’ve read
The Troubling Transition
?” I keep my voice as level as I can even though my skin is on fire. Sure, millions of people have read that book. But I don’t want Dylan to have been one of them. I don’t want him to know that I had a sparkly purple backpack when I was fourteen or that I had a weird phase where I liked spiders when I was eight or that I called log cabins “log cabinets” when I was five. Okay, fine, seven.

I swallow as he sprinkles some spices on the chopped tomatoes in the pan. “Yeah, when I found out your mom was the pick, I read it.”

“And now you can’t part with it?”

He turns so fast that he burns himself on the pan. “Shit.” He stares at his wound. I rush over and pull him to the sink. I thrust on the cool water and position his arm under it. My chest presses against his side as I reach across his body to hold his hand in place. I love how much of me is touching him. Which makes me hate it too.

“Thanks,” he says, except it’s more of a low grunt. Our mouths are so close. He leans forward, his chest expanding slowly against mine. He licks his lips with this intense gaze on me that has me wanting so much more than just this chest touching, although that’s pretty great too.

I slowly stand on my toes to get closer to him. His breathing is so heavy, I can feel it.

He shakes himself and turns around to get a towel.

I cross my arms. “You should keep it under the water longer.”

“I’m fine,” he says in a rough voice. He pushes the towel aside and goes back to stirring. It’s awkwardly silent, except for the sizzle and scrapes of the spoon. Finally, he says, “Why are you so upset?”

I
want to kiss you and do other naughty things to you
,
but I can’t.

“Lots of people have read that book,” he says.

Oh, he’s still talking about the book. I click my fingers against the counter. “It’s just, well, now you know all this embarrassing stuff about me.”

He does his weird side grin that makes my heart hurt. Why does he have to be so fucking adorable?

“I didn’t think there was anything that bad in it.” He’s still grinning though, like he’s remembering all the embarrassing stuff.

“Well, it wasn’t about you, was it?” I snap and point my finger at him. “And maybe you should have asked me before you read it.”

“Peyton, it’s a published book, it’s not like—”

“Fine, whatever,” I growl and cross my arms because I hate that he has a point. Anyone can read it, even him. I have no say.

He goes back to the tomatoes, but instead of turning his back to me, he stands to the side. “Come over here.”

“Why?” I ask.

“So I can talk to you while I make this.”

I come over.

“There wasn’t anything embarrassing in that book.”

“Again, that’s really easy for you to say. I don’t recall reading a part about you writing a eulogy for your cat with a purple crayon or you getting red in the face because you were angry at a boy who kept stealing your pens and telling people you put in tampons upside down.”

He laughs. “That was funny. I mean, who comes up with that?”

“Tristan,” I say laughing.

He adds some chopped onions to the pan and swishes things around with a wooden spoon as they sizzle. “It’s weird, thinking Tristan’s the same guy in
The Troubling Transition
.”

“Yeah, my dad didn’t really capture the whole story.”

Dylan’s absorbed in his cooking when he says softly, “It seems like he thought you’d end up with Tristan.”

“Well, my dad was right about the crush thing. Or, I guess, you know, the guy who told me he was my dad.” I lean against the fridge.

Dylan points the wooden spoon at me. “Peyton, he was still your dad, okay? I mean, whether you’re a product of artificial insemination or something, he’s still your dad even if he’s not biologically your dad.”

“Artificial insemination. Why would they keep that from me?”

Dylan shakes his head. “I don’t know, I’m just saying, whatever is actually going on, don’t forget what you and he had.”

“You think you know what we had.” My fists clench and the heat returns to my skin. “Everyone who read that book thinks they know. But they don’t. You don’t.” I clutch at the pin and rub it between my thumb and pointer finger.

“I don’t know, but you do.” He’s close to me, his chest rises and falls more quickly than it should. He reaches for me. He hesitates, but then his hand is on my shoulder. He squeezes and I completely forget what we were talking about. “Peyton, what happened with Tristan?” Oh, that.

“He had a little crush on me back then. He feels bad about all his stunts now. He stopped doing stuff after my dad died. And then, a few weeks later, he apologized to me.”

“Oh?”

Dylan’s waist is only about three inches from my waist.

“I told him to fuck off. I said our friendship was annihilated.” I smile. “But he kept at it. He brought me cupcakes at my swim meets, he texted me random movie quotes he knew I’d like. Eventually, I broke down. We became friends again. And then...more. But, it wasn’t right, we didn’t work well that way for a lot of reasons. So, we went back to being friends.”

Dylan steps back. “You really don’t want to be with him?”

“No.” I say it like a knee jerk. “I told you, he’s great, he’s one of my best friends, but it’s not like that. I’m old fashioned—I want to be monogamous.”

Dylan licks his lips. I stare at his lips longer than I should as he talks. “Yeah, but if he was willing to be with just you, that’s what you’d want. To be with him?” His face is as serious as stone.

“No,” I say. “It’s more than just our philosophies on sex. There are bigger issues. For example, he has no idea how to cook. That’s a deal breaker.”

Dylan doesn’t smile. He goes back to the pan and shifts the bits around. Shit. I was thinking about what my dad had said, his advice about men. I was trying to make a joke. I wasn’t thinking about the fact that Dylan’s cooking right this minute. Why did I say that? What happened to me keeping myself in check? I rub my face and mumble something about going to the bathroom.

By the time I’ve calmed myself down in the mirror, Dylan has the bowls on the table, along with a memo from Lisa about Sylvia’s funeral on Monday.

“There will be reporters there,” Dylan says.

I hide my face in my hands.

“It’ll be fine. Just smile politely at them and keep walking. You don’t want to look rude or evasive, but you don’t want to be talking to them before or after you go in. It’ll look like we’re trying to score political points.”

“Okay,” I say. “Nod, smile, move on.”

“Exactly,” he says, his side grin back.

I have to tamp down the warmth in my chest again. I have to nod, smile, and move on.