Behind me in the reflection, Nick stared at me. Slowly he said,
“The problem with dating a guy to tick off your father is you end up having an idiot for a boyfriend.”
“I’m not dating Bo to tick off anyone.” This was partially true.
Ticking off my father was an added benefit. “Bo accepts me for who I am. He cares about me.”
The horn blared again.
“He cares about you, but not enough to get off his motorcycle?” Despite my best intentions to hate Nick for becoming my replace-ment—he was, after all, the kid my dad had lived with for years—I actually liked Nick. He felt like a brother.
Nick was still staring at me, waiting for some response. Really, he should have been happy I was dating Bo. Bo’s friends had become downright nice to Nick lately. They would nod to him in the school hallways like they’d always been on good terms.
I asked Bo once why he had picked on Nick before I’d moved in.
Bo had looked surprised at the question. “Guys mess around,” he said.
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
And it probably didn’t to Bo. It means a little more if you’re the one getting messed around with.
The horn honked again. Nick went back to his book, shaking his head. “Have a fun time. If that’s possible while you’re out with a troglodyte.”
21/356
Nick liked to throw around vocabulary no high school student should know. It was his way of winning arguments. People couldn’t dispute anything he said when they needed a dictionary to figure out what he was talking about. But I had a vocabulary that rivaled Nick’s.
It came from reading hundreds of novels back before Dad left.
Despite sounding like something that should hang in caves with stalagmites and stalactites, a troglodyte is a stupid brute. They show up a lot in time-travel novels.
Sometimes I missed reading.
“Bo isn’t as bad as you think,” I said.
“Probably not, since I think he’s devil spawn.”
“You should have an open mind,” I said. “Bo does.” Nick flipped a page of his book. “You’re confusing open with empty.”
I ignored the comment, tucked a stray strand of hair back into my braid, and went outside. Even though it was 9:00 p.m., the Arizona air was still so warm it felt heavy against my skin. Dad said it would cool down in October, but I didn’t believe him. Arizona only knew two tem-peratures: hot and hotter.
Bo was sitting on his motorcycle, casually fingering the handle-bars. His dark hair swept across his forehead and a shadow of stubble dotted his jaw. On most guys, I wouldn’t have thought that looked good. But on Bo it worked. He watched me walk up to his bike and smiled.
Nick was wrong about him. Bo wasn’t bad—just misunderstood.
He was the kind of guy who didn’t play by other people’s rules. I could respect that. Bo handed me a helmet, and even though he never wore his, I strapped mine on. I wanted to rebel a little, but I wanted to do it with my head attached.
22/356
“So where are we going?” I asked. Judging from the paint splatters on his jeans and T-shirt, it wasn’t going to be any place fancy. I hoped I wasn’t overdressed.
He gave me a secretive smile. “You’ll see when we get there. I’m taking you to do something you’ve never done before.” That could be a lot of things. I climbed onto the back of the bike, wound my arms around his waist, and we sped down the street. As usual, I tried not to think about the fact that Bo and I were wider than the motorcycle wheels, which would seem to make us an unbalanced load. Especially since the wheels were spinning. Very fast.
Real rebellious girls didn’t worry about those sorts of things.
We drove out of the neighborhood and headed downtown. As the buildings went by, I tried to guess where Bo was taking me. I hoped it wasn’t some concert his brother’s band was putting on. I had already spent hours listening to them practice, and lately every time I heard the band’s name I wanted to snap, “There’s no such word as ‘indestruction.’ You can either be Indestructible or In Destruction although I don’t know why you’d want to be the last one.” Actually, the only things they were destroying were chords, notes, and probably their hearing.
I held on to Bo a little tighter and resolved to act delighted if the surprise turned out to be a whole night of listening to indiscernible lyrics. Indiscernible, that would work as a band name too. Or maybe Indecipherable, Inconceivable, or Insufferable.
We drove through downtown and at last pulled into the city hall’s empty parking lot. It was a boxy two-story building that the architect had tried to dress up by throwing a few columns onto the front. But the columns only made it look like a post office with pretentions.
23/356
I was surprised Bo had taken me here. And even more surprised that four of Bo’s friends stood beside their motorcycles at the far end of the parking lot.
“Why are we here?” I asked. If Bo had planned to stage some sort of demonstration, it wasn’t going to work. The building was closed.
Bo pulled up to the other motorcycles and turned off his ignition.
“Revenge.”
He got off his bike. I stayed on, eyeing the trash bag his best friend, Steve, was holding. “What are you talking about?” Bo held out his hand to help me off his bike and kept his fingers twined through mine as he led me over to the others.
Steve opened up the trash bag. “It took you long enough to get here.”
Bo half nodded in my direction. “You know how girls are. They’re never ready when you pick them up.”
I glared at Bo, because it hadn’t taken me that long, but he wasn’t paying attention to me. Steve reached into the bag and took out two cans of red spray paint. He threw one at Bo and one at me. “Well, hurry. This ain’t the most private place in town.” The spray can felt cold in my hands. A ball of dread formed in my stomach. “You’re not going to vandalize city hall, are you?” Bo laughed and propelled me closer to the building. “I told you I was taking you to do something you’ve never done before.” Yes, he was, and it turned out I was way overdressed for our date.
If he had told me the category for tonight was committing a crime, I could have worn a ski mask. Or better yet, not come at all.
I pulled my hand away from his. “We can’t do this.” He pointed toward the broken street light in front of city hall.
“Don’t worry. I came here before and knocked out the lights. No one will see us.”
24/356
The other guys were already beside the building. They took the lids off their cans and sprayed red streaks across the wall. The night hissed with the sound as the smell of fresh paint drifted back to me.
Bo shook his can and popped off the lid. “Go ahead. Let the mayor know what you think.” He stepped forward and sprayed a red slash on the pale stucco wall. It looked like a bleeding wound.
“This is not a good idea.” I tried to keep my voice low, but it spiraled upward. “We’ll get in so much trouble if we get caught.”
“We haven’t been caught yet.”
We’d only been here for a few minutes.
One of Bo’s friends, Mike, wrote, “Close this dump not the libary!” Which meant even though I hadn’t uncapped my spray can, this was my fault. Bo’s friends were risking getting in trouble to support me.
But it was wrong, and not only because Mike had left an r out of
“library.” I had to push away my sudden urge to spray paint an extra r in to correct the word. Or to add the comma the sentence needed.
You’re not supposed to edit graffiti.
Bo tapped the can in my hand with his own, clicking them together like he was making a toast. “Write something. It’ll feel good.” I stared at the wall. Hadn’t I wanted to be the rebellious type?