Sweet 16 to Life (4 page)

H
oodie Dude does board the bus instead of following me, and by the time I take a left down the next block and double back toward Aurora Avenue, I'm beginning to think maybe I was just being a little paranoid. Maybe the guy really was just asking the time. After years of riding the city bus, I know by now that's one of the oldest lines guys use to start a conversation because it's a legit question when you're waiting for a bus. Still, I don't feel that great about going home to an empty house.

I figure since I don't have anyone to tell my problems to and I cancelled my impromptu date with Reginald, I should at least do right by Marco and my GPA, and start walking south toward Lexington Avenue. It's too early for him to be home from football practice yet, and I don't want to risk knocking on his door and having his parents be home since they generally hate me. He says
I'm
the reason we aren't together, not them, since I chose pretending to be Nancy Drew over him. His parents don't want me with him because I'm allegedly
dangerous
. You solve a few small crimes and almost get killed twice and people typecast you. So I stand at the end of his block pretending to wait at the bus stop on the corner. Nearly an hour later, I have waved off three buses by the time I finally see his car turn onto his street. Not a minute too soon because it's late November in Colorado and the sun is already lost behind the mountains, which means I'm probably in danger of losing a couple of toes to frostbite if I stand on this corner much longer. Or maybe give the wrong impression to the cop who's driven by a few times now.

I walk/run down the block to Marco's house, mostly walking because I swear my feet are frozen, but I still manage to reach his house before he goes inside. He doesn't see me coming because he's leaning into his trunk gathering all his football gear. When he stands up and finds me there, he's startled.

“Jesus, Chanti, why you have to sneak up on someone like that? You know that can get you hurt around here.”

“Sorry,” I say, handing him the cleats he dropped when I surprised him.

“What are doing you here, anyway?”

“Nice to see you, too. You were right about our French project. We really should start working on it.”

“Where's that dude? I thought you were hanging out.”

Oh, that. While I was waiting for Marco to get home, I was so focused on MJ going back to her criminal ways that I'd completely forgotten about Reginald and the whole I–can–get–another–boy–if–I–want project.

“No, not hanging out. He just gave me a ride home because I lost my bus pass and he had his mom's car today.”

Marco closes his trunk and stops for a second to stare at me, a little longingly if you ask me.

“You look cold.”

“I'm freezing. I've been waiting a while.”

“Here?”

“I knew your parents wouldn't like me here and that you'd still be at practice, so I waited down on the corner until I saw your car coming.”

“They also wouldn't want you to die of hypothermia. Besides, no one's home. Come in and warm up.”

He leads me into their kitchen, which is more of the house than I saw when we were sort of together, since I never actually made it inside. It's nothing like I expected, which I now realize was a stereotype: Mexican rugs, a crucifix in every room, Kokopelli sand art, and paintings of sombrero and poncho-wearing farmers in the desert. Since I've seen all those things in every house I've been in that was designed in Southwestern décor—and you see a lot of that when you live in Colorado—I figured that's what would be in an actual Mexican home. But I was way wrong—everything is in sleek chrome, glass, and black leather. Well, pleather. And from what I can see, there's only one crucifix—a tiny one hanging in the kitchen next to the phone on the wall.

Marco gestures me toward the kitchen table, then takes down a mug from the cabinet.

“Hot cocoa okay?” he says, holding up a packet of Swiss Miss.

“Perfect,” I say, watching him mix the powder and water before he puts the mug in the microwave. He's wearing a long sleeved T-shirt with the sleeves pushed up just enough for me to see his muscular forearms. Yep, perfect.

“That'll take a couple of minutes, just enough time to make copies in my mom's office.”

“She works from home?” I ask as I take my French notebook out of my backpack.

“No, she teaches science at North Denver Heights, but teachers only do half their jobs at school. There's all the grading and stuff to do at home. I'll be back in a sec.”

That's some good information—that his mother is a science teacher. I love science. Maybe one day that'll work in my favor to win hers. With Marco gone, I'm tempted to snoop around the kitchen, but I don't. Even if his on-again girl is back in the picture and I'm mega-confused about whether I'm even ready for a boyfriend, maybe by the time I finally figure it out, Marco will have remembered why he left Angelique in the first place. I'd hate to ruin my chances all because I couldn't help my nosey self. So I check out what I can from my seat at the table.

It's amazing what you can learn from a family's refrigerator door, and what I learn in two minutes is that Marco is clearly the star of the family and he isn't even an only child. His older brother is away in the military, but still . . . Marco is in every last picture, at the center of them all. My mom has a couple of me on the fridge, but they're mixed in with my grandparents, Lana's cop friends during a girls' night, her partner Falcone holding a big fish he'd just caught, and there are one or two people I don't recognize. And my photos are recent. Marco's family has pictures of him ranging from his first birthday right up to him in his Langdon Knights football uniform. I'm the first to admit he's the cutest thing ever, but somebody went overboard. There's one photo with another boy besides Marco, who I'm guessing is his brother, though he looks too young. I'm about to go in for a closer look, but just then, Marco returns with my notebook.

“Thanks,” we say at the same time, to which I add, “Jinx!” and immediately feel like a dork. I bet Angelique acts like she's seventeen instead of seven, though in my defense, I'm not even sixteen yet. I'm relieved when the microwave pings and hopefully distracts him.

“I can't believe you stood out in the cold waiting for me,” Marco says as he hands me the mug. Our fingers touch just for a second, but it warms me more than the cocoa will. He turns a chair backward, straddles it, and leans his arms against the back. I love the way guys do that.

“I didn't want you to flunk French because of me.”

“Still, that's pretty dedicated. I mean, it's what—fifty degrees out?”

The way he says it, I'm beginning to feel less like a considerate study partner and more like a desperate ex-girlfriend. It doesn't help that I keep staring at his shoulders and how they look a little broader than I remember. Must be all the football workouts.

“What?” he asks, smiling. Oh my God, did he notice me staring? If he did, he decides to let me off the hook. “I need to send a quick text, then we can hit the books.”

He keeps talking while he texts. I try hard not to stare at him even though he's looking down at his phone. I notice his hair is still the teeniest bit damp from his after-practice shower.

“I thought what's-his-name gave you a ride home.”

“Reginald? He did.”

“But you still have a full backpack. And you're still in your school uniform.”

Dang with all the questions. He's been hanging around me too much.

“Okay, so he didn't take me home. We went to Tastee Treets, but before we made our order, I realized you and I really needed to get started on the project. I told Reginald I'd have to take a rain check and walked straight here, full backpack, uniform and all,” I lie, hoping he didn't notice how I kept fidgeting as I told it, even though it's only partly a lie. I can sell a lie to just about anyone, even Lana half the time, but not so much with Marco. Maybe I did have ulterior motives for dropping by.

“Is anything else going on? You seem different than when I saw you a couple of hours ago. Did you and Reginald have a fight or something?”

“There is no me and Reginald,” I say a little too quickly, especially since a couple of hours ago I was trying to show him that other boys were interested. In an attempt to look less desperate, I try to change the subject. “I saw something over the weekend that really shook me up. I guess it's still on my mind.”

“What happened?”

“A friend on my street almost had her house burn down.”

“Wow, that would shake me up, too.”

“Everyone is okay and I called 911 early enough so there wasn't a lot of damage. But the fire wasn't the disturbing part. Before the fire trucks came, I saw a guy watching the fire. He was smiling, like he was watching a fireworks show.”

“That's messed up.”

“I'm saying. So I told my friend about it, and how I suspected this guy might have started it.”

Marco stiffens a little, but I read his body language wrong.

“No, that wasn't the scary part, either. It was seeing my friend today at TasteeTreets with the suspected arsonist.”

“Wait, is this about some case you're working on?” Marco asks. “Because I don't want to know.”

“You asked if something was up, and I told you.”

“Because I thought you were really upset about something, not trying to get yourself killed again.”

“I thought the only reason you didn't like me playing detective was because your parents wouldn't let us be together if I did. Now we aren't together. You're with Angelique and we're just friends.”

“And I thought you were here because you wanted to see me—to work on the project—not talk about some investigation. Why couldn't you tell Reginald about it? He's your friend.”

“Because I saw my neighbor with the guy after Reginald left Treets, and he isn't my friend. I barely know him.”

Marco goes quiet, so I ask, “Would you be . . . angry if I started hanging out with Reginald?”

“What? Hell no,” he says, jumping up from the chair. “Like you said, we're just friends and I'm with Angel. You can be friends with whoever you want.”

“That's why I thought I could bounce some ideas off of you before I confront my friend with all this.”

He sits again, but this time he turns the chair the right way, and sits the right way, crossing his arms against his chest. This time, I read the body language correctly.

“Okay, but you can't stay long,” he says.

“Will your parents be here soon?”

“No, but Angel will.”

Oh, right. Angel. But I pretend it doesn't faze me and tell him the little I know so far about MJ and my suspect, including the part about MJ's unfortunate incarceration.

“Why would your friend want to burn down her grandmother's house? Does she hate her or something?”

“That's what I don't get. She loves Big Mama. I was thinking maybe an insurance scam. It's really the only thing I can think of.”

“But her grandmother would have to be in on it. She's the one holding the insurance policy.”

“That isn't out of the question. Big Mama has a shady side, too.”

“Who are these people you hang out with? It's no wonder you're always in the middle of some trouble.”

“They're good people, mostly. And it isn't
my
trouble.”

“That's exactly the point I've been trying to make for the last three months.”

We stare at each other a second too long before I pick up the brainstorming again.

“But she was so worried about something being damaged in the basement. MJ isn't the smartest girl on the block, but if she was in on it, she'd have enough sense to move whatever she's trying to protect before the arsonist started the fire.”

“So maybe she wasn't part of it. What makes you sure this guy is an arsonist, anyway?”

“The way he was just standing there, watching the house but not helping me when he could see I was frantically trying to rescue MJ and her grandmother. The way he knew there was a fire even though you still couldn't see the smoke from the front of the house. I thought I was the first person to know there was a fire until I saw him. If he knew about it, why didn't he call it in?”

“Maybe he's just a freak who gets off on watching fires. Doesn't mean he started it.”

“That would make him even more dangerous than a garden-variety arsonist. I just wish I'd gotten a good look at his face.”

“How do you know the guy in TasteeTreets was the same guy if you didn't get a good look at him?”

“He was wearing the same hoodie.”

“Lots of guys wear hoodies, Chanti.”

“Not hoodies that reek of smoke.”

“You got close enough to sniff the dude?” Marco asks.

It makes me laugh because I get a visual of what he must be imagining—me going up to the guy and getting my basset hound on.

When I compose myself, I say, “No, I didn't have to sniff him, exactly. He sat down next to me at the bus stop, a foot away, and I could still smell the smoke on him.”

“Are you crazy, Chanti? Let's say you're not paranoid and the guy really is an arsonist. What part of stalking a firestarter do you think is a good idea?”

“I didn't stalk him. I was already at the bus stop.
He
joined me.”

“Okay, so the guy smelled like a fireplace. That and a hoodie still aren't enough to make him an arsonist.”