Rock Bottom Girl(32)

I heard the jingle of chain metal and a distant giggle.

“Uh-huh,” Jake said. “Sure.”

Shit.

“Okay, Weston. What’s it going to take to get you to forget you saw us here?” Vicky asked.

Hands on his hips, he studied his feet for a beat. He was still wearing those dorky shoes. “You still make those salted caramel cookies?” he asked Vicky.

“Hell yeah, I do. I make ’em good.” Apparently, Vicky took her baking very seriously.

“Two dozen of those babies and, providing you didn’t commit a felony, your secret is probably safe with me.”

“Deal,” Vicky said.

We heard another giggle in the dark. I coughed loudly to cover it and looked everywhere but Jake’s sweaty torso.

“I guess we’ll be on our way,” Vicky said slowly.

“Yeah. I guess we’ll be going.”

“I’ll just finish my lap around the field,” Jake said.

“No! I mean, you should walk us to our car?” It came out as a question. “I mean, since it’s dark and nighttime.” Those things meant the same thing.

“It is both of those things,” he agreed, clearly enjoying himself.

“Ugh. Just come on,” I said, spinning his sweaty body around and pushing him in the direction of the stadium entrance.

“Getting a little handsy there, Mars.”

“Funny. Move.”

He walked us to our cars, and while Vicky listened to the four voicemails her family had left for her with a variety of small emergencies, Jake opened my car door.

“I take it you’ll be behaving from here on out,” he said, leaning into my space.

I held up a couple of fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

“I don’t think that’s quite right,” he said, adjusting my fingers into the proper formation. Zing! My blood wasn’t just sludging its way through my veins. Now it was simmering. Had I ever felt that zing with Javier just from his hand touching mine? Yeah, that was a solid no.

“You look like you’ve got a lot going on in that head of yours,” he observed.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” I told him. Just a mild case of lust with a side of self-doubt, insecurity, and…hope.

He reached around me, and for a second, I thought he was going to wrap his hand around the back of my neck and pull me in for a kiss.

Instead, he tugged the end of my ponytail.

“See ya around, Mars.”





19





Marley





“You must be Miss Cicero.”

I jumped out of my skin and bobbled my insulated lunch bag. I was standing in the hallway, debating whether to brave the teacher’s lounge for lunch or if I should just hide in the locker room and eat my salad alone in my dungeon. If it helped me avoid Amie Jo, it would be worth it.

“Uh, yeah, hi,” I said, recovering slightly. “Marley.”

“I’m Andrea.” She was medium height, medium build, with brilliant red hair and really nice pale skin. I felt like I was staring at a Disney character. “I’m the guidance counselor.”

“Oh, it’s nice to meet you,” I said, executing a sloppy handshake and wondering if I’d been busted. Had someone figured out I’d tampered with the irrigation system last night? Was she really a guidance counselor, or was she an undercover Culpepper cop?

“I’ve been meaning to meet up with you, but floating between the elementary school and here makes it hard,” she told me. “You wouldn’t happen to want to have lunch with me in my office, would you?”

I didn’t care if the woman had bear traps on the floor of her office. If it kept me away from Amie Jo, I’d happily gnaw my foot off. “I’d be happy to,” I told her.

She brightened, and I looked around for the cartoon deer and birds that should have flocked to her.

“Great! Follow me!”

Andrea’s office was a cramped but cozy space with two armchairs in front of a desk that held an ancient computer and a chrysanthemum in a pot painted by some toddler artist. She immediately earned my trust by kicking off her heels at the door and slipping her feet into comfy slippers.

“Do you try to get to know all the new faculty?” I asked, unpacking my lunch—a chopped Ni?oise salad with lemon vinaigrette. After Tuesday night’s frozen fish sticks, I’d begged my parents to let me take over the grocery shopping and meal prep.

For dinner, we were having marinated chicken breasts that were currently cooking away in the Crock-Pot Mom had never used and a new green bean recipe I’d found while I should have been studying soccer drills.

“I do,” she said, pulling a foil-wrapped sandwich from her lunch bag. “And your mom is one of my good friends.”

I paused, mixing the hardboiled egg and tuna into the lettuce. I smelled a setup.

“And my mom asked you to talk to me,” I guessed.

Andrea smiled, and I blinked when she didn’t burst into a song. “Maybe. She’s been concerned about you for quite some time.”

“Why ever would that be? Because I showed up on her doorstop unemployed, single, and homeless?” I took a big bite of salad. It tasted bitter on my tongue.

“Actually, she was worried before that.”