In the Bad Boy's Bed (8 page)

Mr. Wilson looked away.

I softened my tone. "I don't know what happened to form your low opinion of Nick—I hate to think it's just the size of his family's bank account—but he's not that person at all. Let me warn you, Mr. Wilson: if there's anyone you should be keeping an eye on, it's not Nick Donnelly."

I opened the door. "It's his accuser."

He grabbed my arm to stop me, and leaned in. "And let me warn you, Ms. Abbott: you don't know your boyfriend as well as you think you do."

He shut the door on the questions that tumbled out of my brain.

The bell rang as I left Wilson's office, so I raced to the commons to see if I could catch Nick before he left for work. He wasn't there, and when I reached the parking lot, his motorcycle was gone. It was Friday, which meant I wouldn't see him until Monday.

Unless I went to his house.

But of course, I didn't go see him. My parents invited Sean and his parents to our house for dinner on Saturday. As much as I begged to be let out of it, my parents held firm: I would attend.

"I swear, Betsi, one of these days I'm going to lure Carmen away from you. She's
the
best cook in town." Rhonda Carrington, Sean's mother, patted her flat stomach and settled with a sigh onto one of the white Spanish leather couches in our formal living room.

"Glad you enjoyed the meal." My mother shot a little smile at my dad as she sat next to him. He gave her an answering smile with his eyes and laid his arm along her shoulders.

"I swear we'd pay that woman whatever she asked," Rhonda continued. "Wouldn't we Rey?"

Reynold Carrington, Sean's father, stood at the bar mixing himself his usual Chivas over ice. He snorted. "We would have until someone vandalized Sean's car. Now we're in no position to pay a top-notch chef to make mac n cheese for us."

"Oh, no," mom said, turning to Sean. "Not your new Jaguar?"

Sean nodded.

"Happened at school," Rey said.

"Do you have an idea who's responsible?" my dad asked.

Sean's eyes darted to me. "I
know
who did it."

"Good," mom added. "At least you won't have to pay the damages yourself."

Rey sipped his drink and went to sit by his wife. "Sean saw the boy do it, but Wilson said he didn't have the evidence to pursue it."

The conversation and the lies were turning my stomach. I got up from the love seat and headed to the kitchen for a drink of water and a couple of Tums. Mom grabbed my hand as I went by and pulled me next to her on the couch. I glowered at her, but she glowered right back and held my hand captive as if she knew I would bolt if not tied down. She was right.

"That hardly seems fair considering Sean was an eye witness to the crime," dad said. "Who was it? Anyone we know?"

"Nick Donnelly." Sean practically spat out the name.

I felt Mom's eyes burning into me, and her hand had a death grip on mine, but I couldn't sit still, keep quiet, another minute.

"He didn't do it." My outburst drew the stares of everyone in the room.

"How do you know?" Sean accused. "You told Wilson you didn't even see him that day."

"I heard he had an alibi that proved he wasn't even at school when it happened."

Sean and I stood toe to toe now.

"You heard? Ha! Well, I saw!" he said.

"No you didn't. Why do you hate him so much? Why do you want to mess up his life?"

"Why do you care so much?"

"Because I—"

In the silence that followed my halted response, I realized I was inches from outing my relationship with Nick . . . something I wasn't ready to do. I lowered my temper and fought to keep my voice less emotional.

"Because I think it's wrong to blame him for something he didn't do. Why do you care so little about that?"

"Have you considered that maybe his witness lied to protect him?" Sean asked, his words wrapped up in a pout meant to elicit sympathy.

"Are you friends with this boy, Angela?" Rey asked.

"Not really."

"Good."

"Do you know something about him, Rey?" my mom asked.

"When Sean told me about this Nick, I did some checking. It's not a pretty picture.

He was expelled from three different schools for fighting and vandalism, and when he was 14 he had a brush with the law for breaking and entering, but he was a minor and it was his first real offense so the judge gave him probation."

I swallowed the bitterness in my throat as Mom asked the question I wanted to ask:

"Any recent problems?"

Rey shook his head. "No. But he lives in a seedy neighborhood—drugs, high crime rate, some gang activity. Once a boy gets a taste of trouble, it's always there trying to pull him back in."

Would these people think any differently if they knew the trouble started right after Nick's dad deserted him and his mom and brother? The truth gnawed at me, clawed to get out. I wanted to slap them with that truth.

"Living in a bad neighborhood doesn't make a person bad any more than living in a good neighborhood makes a person good. A lot of people turn their lives around after a false step."

"Damn, Angela, it's pretty sad that you're so quick to defend a guy like him but not me, your boyfriend."

"We broke up, Sean, remember?"

"What?" Rhonda jumped up from the couch. "When did this happen?"

Rey put his hands on his wife's shoulders to prevent her from getting too excited.

Rhonda was always off and on some kind of mood altering substance, either to calm her down or rev her up.

"Sean, you and Angela should work out this little squabble of yours on your own, without help from us." He tossed him the keys to his car. "Get out of here. Go for a drive.

Kiss and make up."

Everyone laughed at the Kiss and Make Up part. Everyone but me.

"And don't come back until you do," Rhonda added and grabbed her husband's drink from his hand and downed the two fingers of amber liquor cooling at the bottom of the highball.

"I'd rather have my toenails pulled out. Excuse me." I turned away, with the intent to dash up the stairs to my room, but my dad caught my arm at the elbow, the frown on his face so hard it could cut cement.

"Excuse
me
, young lady, but you will not be rude to these people who are like family to you. You will apologize, and you will go with Sean to work things out between you."

They still didn't believe Sean had hit me. The only way out of this one was to tell the truth about Nick and me. I looked at my parents, anger and embarrassment weighing on their faces and bodies.

I turned toward Rhonda and Rey. Rhonda's eyes were soft and kind, her mouth curved in to a small smile as she met my eyes. She had bought me my first bra when my mother couldn't face the reality that those really were breasts filling out my Power Puff Girl T-shirts.

When my dad was out of town on business, it had been Rey who had taught me to waltz in preparation for my first cotillion. He looked at me now with patience and humor in his eyes.

The Carringtons had been a part of our every family holiday celebration, large and small, since the day I was born. They loved me like their own. That knowledge softened my heart and tempered my anger.

"I apologize for my rudeness."

My bare feet didn't make a sound on the thick carpet as I walked to them, hugged them. They hugged me back like all was immediately forgotten and forgiven.

"Sean, take Angela for some ice cream, on me." My dad pulled a twenty from his wallet and handed to Sean. "And bring something chocolate back for the rest of us."

I didn't want to go, but I also didn't want to create another scene. The adults stared at Sean and me, pushing us with their eyes out the door. Right before I climbed into Rey's car, I saw the four of them head outside to the patio. Dad wanted to show off his new grill.

Sean tried to hold my hand, but I pulled it away. A cold sweat popped out on my forehead at the memory of the last time I was in the car with him. If I tried to eat ice cream now, it wouldn't stay down.

"I meant it when I said we're through. We might be able to find a way to be civil to each other because of our parents, but we will never be together again. Got it?"

"You used to be a lot more fun." Sean gripped the wheel tighter as he took a corner going 60. "Now you're just a bitch."

The name stung, but I was actually glad he felt that way. Maybe he wouldn't want to bother with me . . . or Nick. I stared out the window, seeing Nick's face in the passing landscape.

Ah, Nick. I can smell you, taste you, feel your rough hands on my soft parts. All I want to
do right now is get lost in you while you whisper all your painful secrets onto my skin. I need to see
you. Now. I'm crawling out of my skin from wanting to get to you. Can you hear my voice in your
head? Come to me. Tonight. Please. Please.

"Please?"

Hearing my silent word said aloud pulled me from my vaporous thoughts. I turned dazed eyes toward Sean. His hands were at his sides. His eyes were on me, not on the road ahead of him. The car wasn't moving anymore. I looked out the window again.

The ice cream shop stood in front of us, a colorful neon sign announcing the number of flavors they offered.

"Did you say something?" I asked.

"I said, please, let's try to get along."

"Sure. Let's try." My enthusiasm as dry as dirt, I climbed out of the car before he could respond and sprinted ahead of him into the ice cream shop. I paid for my own—one scoop of a chocolate concoction—with a five I had in my pocket. I walked out of the shop while he was still ordering his cone and the tub to go.

The sound of a motorcycle engine rumbling across the street caught my attention.

The noisy bike was inside one of the bays at a repair shop. The broad shoulders of the mechanic working on the bike looked familiar. He stood, and his long legs and tight backside stirred even more familiarity. Could it be I wanted to see Nick so badly I was making him materialize before me?

I walked to the edge of the street and stared into that bay, willing the man to turn toward me. His head lifted, turned left and right. Then he turned my way. It was Nick.

He stared. I stared. Even the cars honking on the road couldn't break our link. He started forward, as if he were going to cross the street. He stopped at the same time I felt Sean's arm slide around my shoulder. I broke the embrace immediately, but when I looked back across the street, Nick was no longer there.

I wanted to run to him, explain what he saw. Make him understand that I wasn't with Sean. But instead, I stood there, staring at the empty spot where he'd been, my heart melting in my chest like the chocolate ice cream running down my hand.

"What the hell are you doing?"Sean asked, looking at me like he thought I'd lost my mind. I shook my head and threw the semi-frozen mess into the trash and climbed into the car.

I caught a break—Sean didn't say another word on the drive home. When we arrived at my house, I ran up to my room and locked the door behind me. Let him deal with the parents and the ice cream and the questions. I had bigger problems.

He was mad. I knew by the way he was avoiding looking my way, which was hard to do since we stood eight lockers apart. A red flag waved on the one cheek I could see, the books he threw into his locker suffering for my sins. His jaw worked, as if grinding me between his teeth.

Everything inside me wanted to slide up to him, press my body against his back, throw my arms around his neck, assure him what he saw meant nothing. Then kiss him until he believed me.

Instead, I let him walk away without saying a word. I felt the pain of a billion wasp stings in my stomach as I watched him shove through the door like he couldn't wait to be away from me.

"Keep staring at him like that, and everybody's going to know you're crushing on him."

I turned to see Gena standing behind me, a grin on her face.

I felt my eyes blink rapidly a couple of time. "What are you talking about?" I slammed my locker door and walked away.

She caught up with me. "You know exactly what—and who—I'm talking about."

"Gena, no offense, but I'm in a lousy mood right now, and if you don't back off, I'm going to say something we both regret."

She jerked back as if I'd slapped her, and narrowed her eyes at me. "Let me know when the bitch leaves and my friend Angela gets back."

An apology pried open my mouth but didn't make it past my lips until she'd already gone. I headed to class on my own.

"Ms. Abbott, a minute please."

I rolled my eyes at and silently cursed the demanding voice calling from behind me. I turned. "Can this wait, Mr. Wilson? I have class now."

"So, you're actually going to class? I'm pleased to hear that."

I wanted to ask him if he had a point, but I thought that would get me into more trouble than I seemed to be in, so instead I bit my tongue and waited for him to continue.

"Your attendance record just came to my attention. Over the past month, you've missed a class or two once or twice a week. Always around the noon hour."

He paused, probably to allow me to explain. I didn't.

"Would you care to explain?"

No, not really. "Time got away from me, I guess."

"I suggest you invest in a watch and get back to school in time for class, or I'll be forced to help you be on time by restricting your off-campus excursions."

"I'll work harder to be on time."

"I'll hold you to it. And while you're watching the time, you might remind Mr.

Donnelly that he's got no room to stray from the straight and narrow."

"I'll pass on your message." If I ever see him again.

Wilson paused again, stared at me, unsmiling, looking like he wanted to add more to his warning. My face grew hot from the creepy way his eyes stared into me. Not creepy like he was in to me, but creepy like how worried he was for me.

"May I go now?" I asked, hoping none of the sarcasm erupting through me had splashed onto my words.

He nodded once, briskly. "Yes, go on. You're late already." He immediately left my side and rushed toward the administration building. Rush seemed to be his only speed, like a wind-up toy that had been wound too tight.