He thinks I'm Mom. He thinks I was waiting up for him. I open my mouth to correct him and he sticks his tongue in there.
“
Ummfggg,”
is all I can get out. I slap at him.
“Take it easy, Shel,” he says into my mouth.
Shel
? As in
Shelby
? I'm too stunned to take advantage of his mouth finally leaving mine to cruise down my neck. He makes sucking sounds and I realize,
Oh my God, my sister is sleeping with our stepdad while my mom is pregnant with his baby
. I slap harder.
“Get off me, you creep!” I hiss, wanting to yell but not wanting to wake anyone up. Mom doesn't need to see this. Mom definitely doesn't want to see this. “It's Abby, you numb nuts.” For emphasis, I bring up my knee and shove. I hear fabric rip. “Goddamn it, you ripped my dress!” Now I beat on him for real.
“Wha-huh?” Maybe the beer haze is wearing off, because he lets me go like I'm fire and he's made of wood. “Abby?”
“You jerk!” I sit up and punch him in the chest. “Shelby? You're sleeping with Shelby?”
“Shhh.” He covers my mouth with his hand. “I was confused. ”
I snort and bite a finger. Hard. He lets go. “I bet. How long? How long have you been cheating on Mom?”
“I don't have to answer to you.”
This time I knee him in the nuts for real. “Yes, you do. Because if I don't like what I hear, I'm telling her everything. I'll call the cops and tell them you molested me.”
“You wouldn't! It was a mistake!”
“You're the mistake. On second thought, I don't want to hear what you have to say. Get out of this house.”
“You can't tell me what to do.”
“Get out,” I grit out between clenched teeth. “If you know what's good for you, you'll leave and never come back.”
He stares at me. I stare back. Let him see how drop-dead serious I am.
“Abby?” Mom's voice breaks the silence. She stands at the opening to the hallway in her boxy pajamas, the ones with the tiny blue-flower print. “What's going on here?”
“The Guitar Player was just leaving,” I say. “Right?”
“But you just got here!” Mom flings herself at him and he catches her. Cradles her head in his hands and kisses her mouth.
Gag me. “Mom, listen to me. Heâ”
“Mona, we have to talk,” the Guitar Player says.
Good, he's going to tell her himself. I won't have to be the bad guy.
“What is it, darling?” Mom asks, stroking fingers through his lanky hair. Although she looks like she just woke up, the way she nestles her body against his is anything but sleepy.
He looks at me over her head as he speaks. “Now, don't get mad. Abby kissed me.”
“What?” Mom reels back, hand to her heart like an arrow has lodged there. “Abby, how could you?”
“Don't be angry with her. Think she had a little too much to drink tonight. She was so loaded, she couldn't even make it to her room, passed out right here on the couch.”
The lying, conniving, evil bastard. “Mom, I haven't had anything to drink! I just crashed here.
He
attacked me while I was asleep!
He
thought I was
Shelby
!”
Her look says more than words. It's like I'm not even her daughter. All she sees is another Guitar Groupie.
“You have to believe me!” I cry. “You know I can't stand him! Why would I do this?”
Mom crosses her arms across her chest. “I don't know, Abby, but I do know you've been against our marriage from the start. I never thought my own daughter would betray me like this, though.”
I'm surprised she doesn't choke on the irony. This is exactly what Shelby did to Kait and then what Mom herself turned around and did to Shelby. She's got no room to be self-righteous here.
Mom lays possessive fingers on the Guitar Player's biceps and glares at me. “Don't think you can win this one, Abby. You can't break us up. This is true love right here.”
The Guitar Player smirks at me. “That's right, baby.”
Me? After
him
? I try to remind her what this fight is really about. “He thought I was Shelby! He's sleeping with Shelby!”
Mom dismisses my words with a wave. “That's in the past. I'm all Steve needs now. Right, honey?”
He nuzzles her hair. “Love you, baby.”
Someone kill me now, before I ever act like such an idiot over a guy. Before I'm ever so blind that I sacrifice every last ounce of self-respect for a loser like him. I should thank Kait for going to the dance with Jackson. Although I'd fought it, the truth was I'd started to think Jackson wasn't so bad. That he'd changed enough over the summer to qualify as Someone New. That he really did care about me. Maybe I should even thank the Guitar Player for reminding me at this critical juncture just how slimy men can be.
“I'm going to bed,” I announce, smoothing my beautiful, torn dress.
“One second, young lady,” Mom says in her Mom voice. “I think you need to apologize.”
“I what?” No way. No how.
“Abby, you owe Steve an apology. Now.” Steel-voiced, she stares me down.
I smile, first at her, then at him. “I'm sorry you're such a scumbag,” I say. “I'm sorry my mom married you. I'm sorry for any child who has to call you âDad.'”
Neither one of them speaks. I limp down the hallway on one shoe. I don't know what happened to the other one, but I can't go back in there.
“We'll talk about this in the morning,” Mom calls just as I reach my room.
But we don't. In the morning, it's like last night never happened. I'm not the only one in my family who's good at faking amnesia.
Chapter
23
“He what?” Cody is furious for me. A good thing, since all I can muster up is a faint nausea. He's still in his pajamasâlight cotton sweatpants and nothing elseâarms crossed against his bare chest. I feel slightly guilty for waking him up when I climbed in his window, but I needed to talk. Besides, it's almost noon. How was I supposed to know he planned to snooze all of Sunday away?
Cody points a finger at me, shaking it like I'm a bad dog. “You've got to tell someone.”
Ah, now the shoe's on the other foot, and I suddenly understand why Cody never wanted anyone to know about the incidents at school. Because even though I know it's wrongâthat this is all the Guitar Player's fault, that I'm totally blamelessâ I feel guilty. Also, kind of dirty. No amount of bath scrub's washing away this slime.
“So, are you and Brian a thing now?” Shifting focus, like a scene cut in a soap opera. Very effective for getting out of uncomfortable conversations.
Cody shakes his head. “We're friends, that's all.”
“Good friends?” I waggle my eyebrows.
He laughs. “Naw, but he mentioned better sites to check out than the ones I've been surfing.”
“Hard to find worse.” Really, butt plugs? The bigger question is why supposedly straight, gay-bashing guys would know about them.
“You could try talking to your mom again, now that there's been some time for the shock to wear off.” Cody returns to my mini-drama and his bed. He slides under the comforter and fluffs a pillow behind him.
“It was all a stupid mistake,” I say, crossing the rug to sit at his desk. I spin the chair to face Cody. “He thought I was Shelby.”
“He stuck his tongue in your mouth.”
“Shelby wouldn't have minded.” What was with my family and the Guitar Player? Was I the only one immune to his scruffy charms?
I should just charge back over to the house and tell Shelby exactly what I think of all this . . . this hanky-panky. But part of me is afraid she'll think the same thing as Mom, and the other part is scared that it'll turn into another Savage-family smackdown. Only this time, it'll be me standing in the driveway putting on a show for the neighbors. Sign me up now, Mr. Springer. No thank you.
“Still . . . ” He gives me the look, the one I used to give him about telling on those guys at school.
“Mom knows already. Shouldn't that be enough?” I fiddle with my earring, earlobe, a lock of hair. I can't seem to sit still, so I stand up but then don't know where to go.
“Honey, come here.” He holds out his arms and, relieved, I collapse next to him on the bed. He strokes my back and suddenly I'm crying. I turn my head into his neck, stifling my sobs against his smooth skin. I love the way Cody smells. Clean, safe.
“Better?” he asks as I calm down.
I hiccup.
“Because it seems like maybe there's more going on than just what happened with the Guitar Player.”
Although Cody was there when Kait showed up, he didn't catch my fight with Jackson in the parking lot. But Cody's watched as much SoapTV as I have, so he plunges right in.
“Is this about Kait and Jackson?” he guesses. “Because there are a million reasonable explanations. He's crazy about
you
, not her.”
I'm beginning to really hate the word
reasonable
. I wipe my dribbling nose on Cody's pillow. “No, he's not. Not after last night.” I tell Cody that I think Stephanie is really Jackson's and about our argument after the dance.
He doesn't get mad that I didn't tell him about Stephanie sooner, just wraps me in a tight hug and says, “You could've told me you were worried that Jackson was Stephanie's dad. I wouldn't have said anything to him.”
“I know.” I sniffle into his shirt. “I guess I was afraid to say it out loud. Or that you'd tell me it was true.”
“Ah, princess,” he says, and runs a hand down my back. “You're crazy sometimes, you know that?”
We're quiet together for a few minutes. I'm almost asleep when he says, “Holy crap, Abs, I might be an uncle!”
“Abby, you need a girlfriend,” Cody says as he fast-forwards through the commercials on Monday's episode of
Passion's Promise.
It's a two-fer Tuesday nightâMonday and today together, because we got behind on
Veterans' Hospital
and
Promise.
We're in my living room, but somehow, he's in charge of the remote. When Cain and Lacey fill the screen, picking up right where they left off under the cream satin sheets, he hits PAUSE.
I glance up from the important work of painting my toe-nails Pistol Packin' Pink. “Just because you've come out of the closet, doesn't mean I'm with you. I mean I'm
with
you, but not
with you
. Definitely into boys here. Waitâyou, too, so that means I'm more
with
you than notâ”
“Shut up,” he says. “I know you're not gay. I'm saying you need a friend-girl, someone to hang with and talk boys and stuff.”
The hand holding the nail-polish brush trembles. “That's what you're for, Cody. It's always been you and me.”
He shifts position on the couch, crooking one knee toward me. “And it'll always be you and me, but don't you think there's room for some other people, too?”
This isn't about me and girlfriends at all. I click my wet nail against the polish bottle. “Is this about Brian?”
“He mentioned we could use some guy time.”
“So is
he
your new best friend or something?” I don't want to sound so hurt. I jam the nail-polish brush back into the bottle.
“No, of course not. It's just . . .”
“What? What aren't you telling me?”
“I feel guilty, okay? Like if Brian and I are hanging out, you should have someone else, too. I don't know how to say it exactly. Like for balance, y'know?”
“It's not that easy,” I mumble into my knee, which I have squished up under my chin. “You and Brian have the whole gay thing in common, but who am I supposed to talk to? Can't Brian be my friend, too? We could all hang out, have more movie nights. It's not like I
can't
talk about boys and hair with you guys, right?”
“Yeah, but . . .” Cody sighs, really loud and long, like I'm Hannah and have pulled down my training pants but haven't quite made it to the bathroom in time. “Girl. Friend. Is it really that hard?”
I scrunch myself up tighter. “Have you taken an estrogen-level reading in this house lately? I am drowning in girls here. Why on earth would I go out of my way to find more?”
He laughs, startled. “I hadn't thought of it like that.”
“Besides,” I say, warming up to my defense, “I have other friends!”
Cody cocks a brow at me. “Really? Name one.”
That Kait is the first name that pops into my mind is truly sad, especially since I haven't spoken a word to her since she moved out. Lucas Fielding and I are lab partners, but that's not the same as friends no matter how many times he lets me copy his homework. There are people in all my classes, people I say hi to, but no one I eat lunch with or walk to class with or basically do anything with. This isn't fair. Cody and I have always been best friends. I didn't know I was supposed to have backups.
“See, I'm right.” Cody flicks the remote, and Cain and Lacey's moans fill the room. “But you know what? It's fine. I kind of like being the testosterone fix to your over-estrogenated life.”
“Yeah, you're the man, all right.” I roll my eyes at him and pretend to go back to watching
Promise
. But inside, I'm thinking how I'll show him. I'm going to get a girlfriend, and we'll see how much he thinks it's still such a great idea when I go shopping without him.
I decide that Lucas Fielding should be my new friend-girl. Okay, so he's not a girl, but he's been nice to me in Bio, and I figure he'll make a better girlfriend than Kait would.