Slammed (Slammed #1)(33)

"What are you doing?" she asks.

"Stretching. My back hurts."

She doesn't buy it, so I clasp my hands behind me and stretch my arms upward, bending forward.

"Take some aspirin," she says.

"Okay."

"I'm off tonight, but I have a lot of sleep to catch up on. I didn't get any at all today so I'm going to lie down. Can you make sure Kel gets a bath before he goes to bed tonight?"

"Sure."

We both start down the hallway. "Wait, Mom?"

She turns back to me, her lids dragging over her bloodshot eyes.

"I'm going out Thursday night. Is that okay?"

She eyes me suspiciously. "With who?"

"Eddie, Gavin and Nick."

"Three guys? You aren't going anywhere with three guys."

"No. Eddie's a girl. She's my friend. Her boyfriend is Gavin and we’re double dating. I'm going with Nick."

Her eyes brighten a little. "Oh. Well, good." She smiles as she opens the door to her bedroom. "Wait," she says. "I work Thursday. What about Kel?"

"Will has a sitter on Thursdays. He already said Kel could stay there."

She looks pleased, but only for a second. "Will agreed to pay a sitter? To watch Kel? So you could go on a date?"

Crap. I didn't realize how this would look. "Mom, it's been weeks. We went on one date, we're over it."

She eyes me curiously. "Hmm." She returns to her room, still unappeased.

Her suspicion brings me a small sense of gratification. She thinks I'm lying about something. Now we're even.

***

"I'm not going to third period," I say to Eddie as we exit history.

"Why not?"

"I just don't feel like it. Headache. I think I'll go sit in the courtyard and get some fresh air."

She shrugs as we start to part ways in the hallway.

"Layken." She grabs my arm. "Does it have anything to do with what happened at lunch? With Mr. Cooper? Is everything okay?"

I smile at her reassuringly. "No, it's fine. Mr. Cooper just wants me to refrain from my colorful choice of words in his class."

She purses her lips together and walks away with the same unappeased look my mother had last night.

The courtyard is empty. I guess none of the other students need a breather from the teacher they're secretly in love with. I sit at a bench and pull my phone out of my pocket. Nothing. I've only spoken to Kerris once since I moved. She was the one friend in Texas I was closest to, but she was actually best friends with another girl. It's odd when your best friend has an even better best friend. I chalked it up to the fact that I was too busy for best friends, but maybe it was more than that. Maybe I'm not a good listener. Maybe I'm not a good sharer.

"Mind if I join you?"

I look up as Eddie takes a seat on the bench across from me. "Misery loves company," I say.

"Misery? And why are we miserable? You have a date to look forward to tomorrow night. And your best friend is me," she says.

Best friend. Maybe. Hopefully.

"You don't think Will is going to come looking for us?" I say.

She cocks her head at me. "Will? You mean Mr. Cooper?"

Oh god, I just called him Will. She's already suspicious. I smile and come up with the first excuse that pops into my head.

"Yeah, Mr. Cooper. We called teachers by their first names at my last school."

She doesn't respond. She's picking at the paint on the bench with her blue fingernail. Nine of her fingernails are green, just the one is blue. "I'm just going to say something here," she says. Her voice is calmer. "Maybe I'm way off base, maybe I'm not. But whatever I say, I don't want you to interject."

I nod.

"I think what was happening at lunch yesterday was more than just a slap on the wrist for inappropriate verb usage. I don't know how much more, and honestly it's none of my business. I just want you to know you can talk to me. If you need to. I'd never repeat anything, I don't have anyone besides Gavin to repeat stuff to."

"No one? Best friends? Siblings?" I hope this changes the subject.

"Nope. He's all I have," she says. "Well, technically. If you want to know the truth, I've had seventeen sisters, twelve brothers, six moms and seven dads."

I can't tell if she's making a joke, so I don't laugh in case she isn't.

"Foster care," she says. "I'm on my seventh home in nine years."

"Oh. I'm sorry." I don't know what else to say.

"Don't be. I've been with Joel for four of those nine years. He's my foster dad. It works. I'm content. He gets his check."

"Were any of your twenty-nine sibling’s blood related?"

She laughs. "Man, you pay attention. And no, I'm an only child. Born to a mother with a yearn for cheap crack and pricey babies."

She can see I'm not following.

"She tried to sell me. Don't worry, nobody wanted me. Or she was just asking too much. When I was nine she offered me to a lady in a Wal-Mart parking lot. She gave her a sob story about how she couldn't take care of me, yada yada, offered the lady a deal. A hundred bucks was my going rate. It wasn’t the first time she tried this right in front of me. I was getting bored with it, so I looked right at the lady and said, 'You got a husband? I bet he’s hot!' My mother backhanded me for ruining the sale. Left me in the parking lot. The lady took me to the police station and dropped me off. That's the last time I ever saw my mom."