You Dropped a Blonde on Me (27 page)
Connor stopped dead in his tracks in the parking lot of his high school. He gave a sideways glance to his left and right then scanned the area.
His gait was slow as he shoved his books under one arm so he could dig out the keys to the car from his pocket. Stopping short, he faced his father in the glare of the late June sun. He held up the keys with a sullen glance down at Finley. Topping his father by two inches helped him to hold his ground—the ground Finley was about to yank out from under him. Yet his height made him feel less like he was helpless and weak.
With a shake, Connor offered the keys to him. “I guess you’re here for these?” What else could he want? He’d taken everything else. But wait, his father hadn’t taken it, he reminded himself, calling up the memory of their last phone call—Connor’d just refused to accept it.
Right.
Finley jammed his hands into the pockets of his trousers, eyeing his son with that arrogant, bossy look Connor wanted to punch off his face. He knew it was wrong. He knew his mother’d freak out if she knew he’d even thought something violent like that, but it was how he felt. He wasn’t as much of a kid as his dad would like to believe. He got what his father was doing to his mother, and he didn’t like it so much.
Finley’s perfect hair ruffled in the humid breeze. “What makes you say that, son?”
Connor’s chin lifted when he jutted it in the direction of his father’s Caddy. “Why else would you bring Joey with you if he wasn’t going to drive the car back for you?”
“Joey’s good company,” he said with his infamous “How can I put you in a new car today” smile. The tight, fake one he gave the customers he still occasionally dealt with.
When his father didn’t hold out his hand, a sign in his eyes his dad was messing with his head yet again, Connor reacted. Knowing it was disrespectful, knowing his mother would give him shit for doing it, he did it anyway, dumping the keys at Finley’s feet. Screw the power struggle. He didn’t need his father to hold crap over his head anymore. The car had been on borrowed time anyway. He knew it, and his father got off on letting him know it.
Finley looked down at his feet where the keys lay, his eyes narrowing, but it was his silence, furious and cold, standing between them, that almost made Connor cower.
Almost.
“Take it. Take the stupid car. I don’t care anymore!” he yelped, unconcerned if everyone at Crest Creek High heard him. They all already talked smack about him because his mother was broke and they lived in a retirement village. But he just didn’t care. He was sick of feeling like he owed his dad something because he’d chosen to stay with his mother.
Finley stooped to pick up the keys, pocketing them. When he rose, his hot eyes zeroed in on Connor. “Is this the kind of respect your mother’s teaching you over there, living with that witch of a mother of hers?”
Call it hormonal, call it impulsive, call it whatever you like, but the rage slipping up his spine and making the hairs at the back of his neck stand up exploded at the mention of his grandmother. “You leave Grandma alone! If it wasn’t for her, we’d have nowhere to live because you’re a cheap piece of shit!” he screamed, the words out of his mouth before he could remember his mom was going to have his balls when she found out. And she’d find out.
A sharp crack to his cheek threw Connor’s head backward and had Finley up in his bobbing face quicker than he’d have given his dad credit for. “You watch who you’re talking to, young man! I won’t tolerate disrespect like that—
ever
!” he ground out between his cosmetically enhanced white teeth.
ever
!” he ground out between his cosmetically enhanced white teeth.
Connor backed away, his ire now an ugly beast of more than eight months’ worth of pent-up frustration. “How can I respect someone who
threatens
me to love him or I’ll lose my Xbox and my stupid house,
Dad
?” he sneered, spittle falling from between his lips. “You don’t care about me, and you sure don’t care about Mom. You took everything away from us because Mom didn’t want to be married to a lying cheater, and now because I don’t want to come live with you, you’re taking the last thing I have left. Take the car—maybe you could give it to Lacey as a
graduation present
! I hate you!” he hollered as he took off running, caring little that half the track team had stopped all motion in the field facing the parking lot.
threatens
me to love him or I’ll lose my Xbox and my stupid house,
Dad
?” he sneered, spittle falling from between his lips. “You don’t care about me, and you sure don’t care about Mom. You took everything away from us because Mom didn’t want to be married to a lying cheater, and now because I don’t want to come live with you, you’re taking the last thing I have left. Take the car—maybe you could give it to Lacey as a
graduation present
! I hate you!” he hollered as he took off running, caring little that half the track team had stopped all motion in the field facing the parking lot.
Sweat dripped down the sides of his face and gathered under his armpits, but he didn’t stop running until he hit the corner of the building and stumbled into the back parking lot for juniors and seniors. His breathing was ragged, coming in harsh puffs when he leaned forward to suck air into his lungs.
“Dude?” His one constant friend since seventh grade, Jordon Armstrong, rolled up beside him in his car. “You okay?”
Connor took an angry scuff at the cement with his toe while he paced back and forth, kicking up dirt and loose gravel. “I’m screwed, man.”
Jordon shook his head, turning off the ignition and jumping out of the car. “Shit. He took the car, didn’t he?”
“You heard?”
Jordon’s gaze was solemn but steady. “Dude,
everybody
heard.”
everybody
heard.”
Connor’s frustration resurfaced again when he spat, “You know what? I don’t care. Everybody’s talking about my father and Lacey and how poor I am anyway. I don’t care.”
“Man, your dad sucks.”
“Crap. My mother’s going to kill me. I said some shitty stuff to him.”
The nod of Jordon’s shaved blond head was in agreement. “But he’s done some pretty shitty stuff to you and your mom.”
No kidding. Looking up, he saw a bunch of the crowd he’d once hung out with in a circle, just waiting to pass the word that Connor Cambridge had a fight with his father in the Crest Creek High parking lot. Jordon slapped his back. “Ignore that jerk Nolan.” He nodded in the crowd’s direction at the biggest instigator of them all. Nolan Ford. “He’s a stupid freak with a big mouth. He was always jealous of you because Tabitha liked you first.”
Connor shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t care anymore.” And he didn’t. School only had three days left before they broke for summer. Nothing mattered. Not the friends who now made fun of him, not his lack of wheels, nothing.
His friend, loyal from day one, leaned back against his new Mustang, crossing his arms in a nonchalant manner over his chest, and smacked his lips. “If you don’t care, I don’t care,” he said on a conspiratorial grin. “So get in. I’ll give ya a ride home. Coo’?”
Connor knocked knuckles with him. “Coo’.”
When they drove past Nolan and his posse, Connor sat higher in his seat, refusing to look away, and fighting the temptation to lift both his middle fingers in honor of their shit-a-tude.
No one was ever going to make him feel like he was some loser because he no longer had what they all had.
“Hey, little mermaid,” her mother called from the living room. “How’d watercize go?”
Maxine let out a tired sigh, poking her head into the living room doorway. “I’m guessing you don’t have to ask how it went. You already heard.”
Mona’s laughter was deep from within her belly. “Whoo boy, did I ever. Maude called Mary the minute her big ole webbed feet were dry.”
She tugged at her loaner bathing suit, wanting to be rid of the damp, sagging material. “And this is funny, how?”
“He laid one on ya right there in the pool, Maxie, with his clothes on and everything—in front of everyone. How is that not funny? And romantic. Pretty darned romantic.”
Fine. It had funny attributes. And romantic ones, too, if they were to split hairs. She shook her finger at her mother in warning. “Yeah, well, he’s in for one big surprise the next time I see him. I can’t afford to have those kinds of shenanigans going on when I’m trying to teach a class. Georgia will never ask me back again.”
Her mother’s eyes twinkled with maniacal glee. “I heard you didn’t exactly say no to those shenanigans,” she taunted, slapping her thigh with the morning paper she was reading.
Who’d had the time to say no? It wasn’t like she’d been given a chance to say anything.
Like you would have anyway? Hello. Was that not, bar none, the best ever kiss of your entire life? Campbell’s lips and yours were like mac and cheese. Chocolate frosting and sprinkles, Sonny and Cher, Peaches and Herb. You know it. He knows it.
“Fine, so I didn’t say no. I wasn’t exactly given a chance to say anything,” she echoed her thoughts out loud.
Like you would have anyway? Hello. Was that not, bar none, the best ever kiss of your entire life? Campbell’s lips and yours were like mac and cheese. Chocolate frosting and sprinkles, Sonny and Cher, Peaches and Herb. You know it. He knows it.
“Fine, so I didn’t say no. I wasn’t exactly given a chance to say anything,” she echoed her thoughts out loud.
Her mother’s sharp-as-tacks eyes gave her a pointed look. “And you liked it. Don’t lie to me, Maxie. You can fool plenty of people, but not your own mother.”
Leaning against the doorway, she made a face of utter disgust. With herself or with Campbell, she wasn’t sure. “It was
okay
. Okay? Just okay.”
okay
. Okay? Just okay.”
“That’s not true, Max Henderson, and you know it,” Campbell called from the back portion of the house.
Maxine gave her mother a pinched frown of exasperation. Naturally, seeing as the entire force of every senior in the village was on Campbell’s side, why wouldn’t her mother be, too? “Thanks a lot for the warning,” she mouthed before turning to find herself face-to-face with the kissing bandit.
“You did so like it,” he accused glibly.
Her mother chuckled in the background, garnering a narrow-gazed warning from Maxine. She let her eyes focus in on Campbell, who hovered over her, daring her to deny their kiss had been anything less than stupendous. “Is it that you like me being the topic of discussion over warm milk and strudel at the sewing circle or that you never want me to get another job in the village again? And to think I was going to apologize for being such a crappy date. You have a lot of nerve.”
“I know. It’s a skill some don’t give nearly the credit it deserves.”
She let an exasperated sigh escape her throat. “Why are you here again?”
He thumbed a finger over his shoulder and held up a wrench. “Still having trouble with that leaky pipe,” he offered with that easygoing tone he’d perfected. As if nothing bad ever happened in the world.
The heat, her humiliation, her ire that yes, she’d enjoyed Campbell’s kiss and he knew it, made her snap. “What kind of plumber are you, anyway, that you can’t fix some leak I can’t even see?”
Always with an answer, he smiled all affable-like. “The kind who keeps coming back until he gets the job done. I’m no quitter.” He gave her a meaningful gaze, the smile never leaving his face.
Was that a covert attempt at letting her know he wasn’t giving up? That he wasn’t like Finley? Or was her imagination on the run—maybe doing some wishful thinking? Either way, it made her regret over last night sting all over again. “That was a cheap shot I took.”
He nodded gravely in response. “You’ve taken a couple of those.”
“Okay, I’m sorry, but—”
“You’re still sensitive. I remember,” he drawled with a cocked eyebrow. “I bet you’re especially sensitive after that kiss, huh? Who could blame you? I am a pretty good kisser.”
Heh. Yeah. “How about we call a truce?”
“You mean like you don’t get all excited if I say something that rubs you the wrong way because I’m an impatient knuckle dragger, but instead communicate with me all
The View
-ish style?”
The View
-ish style?”
Maxine giggled, finding herself leaning into him just so she could sniff his cologne. “So are we going to make up?”
Campbell took a step closer. “Are you conceding that you took excited to a whole new volcanic level?”
Maxine blushed. Maybe that was a little true. No, it was a lot true. She’d acted out because he made her feel things she was afraid to feel—to trust. “Now who’s exaggerating?” she joked with a deliberately flirty smile.
Campbell crossed his strong arms over his chest. “Fine. I’m blessed with the anointment of adulthood. I can go first in the game called communication. I moved in too fast. I didn’t mean to, but you have your moments of irresistibility. When you’re not crushing a man’s dreams, that is.”
A shiver of warmth began low in her belly. “That was almost nice. My turn. What happened . . . well, last night flustered me and it made me react badly, and I’m sorry I overreacted.”
“Don’t forget the reason
why
you reacted the way you did. Go on,” he prompted with a teasing grin. “Floor’s all yours.”
why
you reacted the way you did. Go on,” he prompted with a teasing grin. “Floor’s all yours.”
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