The Lovely Reckless(4)

“It was a joke.” I scan the shelves stocked with Dad’s staples: Diet Pepsi (Coke isn’t sweet enough), whole milk (for his cereal), white bread and American cheese slices (in case he gets sick of cereal and switches to grilled cheese), and a gallon of 2 percent milk (store brand).

“I bought extra Diet Pepsi and the milk you like,” he offers.

“I drink Diet Coke.” And I stopped drinking 2 percent milk when I was ten, a fact I don’t bother mentioning anymore.

My father memorizes dozens of car makes, models, and license plates so he can bust car thieves and the chop shops that sell stolen parts, but he can’t remember what kind of milk I drink? Skim. I should make him a list of my food preferences and stop torturing us both.

“I’ve got cereal.” He shakes a box of Froot Loops.

“No, thanks.” I close the refrigerator empty-handed.

Cujo’s ears perk up and he bounds for the front door.

“Did you hear something, partner?” Dad asks.

The dog barks, and a split second later, the doorbell rings.

“It’s probably Lex.” I give Cujo a quick scratch behind the ears and start unlocking the deadbolt.

“Frankie!” Dad shouts as if I’m a child about to run out into traffic.

I turn around, searching for a sign of danger. Nothing looks out of place. “What’s wrong?”

Dad points at the front door with a fierce look in his eyes. “Never open a door without checking to see who is on the other side.”

It’s official. My father has crossed over from paranoid to crazy. “That’s the reason you yelled at me like I was about to set off a bomb?”

“Depending on who is on the other side, you could’ve been.”

I gesture at Cujo sitting next to me calmly, with his head cocked to the side. “Cujo isn’t growling. He always growls if there’s a stranger at the door.” A retired K-9 handler trained Cujo as a protection dog. He’s the definition of an intruder’s worst nightmare.

“You can’t let anything lull you into a false sense of security. Letting your guard down one time is all it takes.”

Does he think he’s telling me something I don’t know? I stifle a bitter laugh.

“This isn’t funny, Frankie.”

No, it’s painful and pathetic, and I live with it every day.

Parents are supposed to understand their kids, or at least make an effort. Mine are clueless.

The doorbell rings again.

Crap. Lex is still standing in the hallway.

I make a dramatic show of peering through the eyehole and turn to Dad. “Happy?”

“These are critical life skills. As in, one day they might save your life,” he says as I open the door.

Lex stands on the other side, smoothing a section of her choppy hair between her fingers. It’s dyed a lighter shade than her usual honey blond, except for an inch of brown roots where her natural color is growing in. The inch is deliberate, like the smudged charcoal eye liner that looks slept in and makes her blue eyes pop against her coppery-brown skin.

Her eyes remind me of Noah’s.

Thinking about him feels like standing in the ocean with my back to the waves. I never know when it’s coming or how hard it will hit me.

“I was starting to wonder if you left without me.” Lex breezes past me. “Ready for your first day in the public school system, or, as my mom calls it, ‘the place where every child is left behind’?”

We haven’t seen each other since the beginning of the summer, but Lex makes it feel like it’s only been days. I spent the last three months trying to leave the old Frankie behind, avoiding Lex and Abel, my closest friends, in the process.

“How’s it going, Lex?” Dad asks.

“Pretty good.” She yawns. “Please tell me you have coffee, Frankie. The line at Starbucks was insane.”

“There’s a pot in the kitchen,” Dad offers.

“Thanks, Mr. Devereux.” If she keeps acting this cheerful, Dad will think she’s high. We’ve known each other forever, but when Lex developed a gross crush on my dad in seventh grade, it almost resulted in best friend excommunication.

“Don’t thank him yet,” I whisper. “His signature blend is burnt Maxwell House.”

“I’d rather go without food for a week than caffeine for a day.” Lex pours herself a cup of liquid coffee grounds.

Dad fishes a Velcro wallet out of his back pocket and lays two twenties on the table next to me. “Swing by the store after school and pick up some Diet Coke and anything else you want.”

I leave the crumpled bills on the table. “I won’t have time. Community service starts at three thirty, right after classes let out.” Thanks to King Richard, I already have a probation officer and a community service assignment. He called in a favor at the district attorney’s office, and my case was bumped to the top of the pile. “Lex is dropping me off at the rec center and picking me up when I’m done.”

I told Dad all this last night.

“You don’t mind?” he asks Lex. “You’re already driving Frankie to school in the mornings. I would take her myself—”

“But you can’t blow your cover. I totally get it.” She takes a sip of her coffee and cringes, but Dad doesn’t notice.