“Nothing, as far as I can tell, but it’s early. And grab me a beer while you’re in there, Zoe.” He looks at me. “Do you want something to drink?”
I shake my head. “Your parents let you drink?”
“We’re all very progressive here,” Bobby jeers as he uses a church key to pop off the top of some kind of imported beer.
I laugh. “Not really.”
“Yes, really,” Zoe says. “But I think Linda is using reverse psychology. If she pushes him to behave like the old man he’ll only push harder not to. They have a hostile relationship. Len left a giant Costco-size box of condoms in Bobby’s bedroom on his twelfth birthday. Can you believe it? By the way, Bobby, have you cracked the seal on that box yet? They do expire. Best check the date.”
“Fuck you, Zoe.”
Zoe laughs and sinks down on the bed beside me. Her pudgy face turns toward Bobby again. “You know, you have two of us here, Bobby. You might be able to use a few of the Trojans before they expire. Think how happy that would make Len.”
He ignores her and looks at me. “She’s joking. Zoe and I are just friends.”
I flush, wondering why it pleases me that it was important to him to tell me that there was nothing going on between him and Zoe.
I shrug. “It’s nothing to me if you weren’t.”
I flip open the MacBook lying beside me and the screen opens on his Facebook page. I start to strike the keys.
“What are you doing? I didn’t say you could mess with my page,” Bobby says.
“You’re sending me a friend request. This has got to be about the saddest Facebook I’ve ever seen. You’ve only got, like, twenty friends. What’s up with that?”
“He doesn’t like anyone,” Zoe says.
I smile. “Well, he likes me. You can de-friend me later if you want to, Bobby.”
“I’ll de-friend you as soon as you leave,” Bobby counters, reclining in a sitting position on the bed beside me.
Under slightly lowered lashes, I give him a sideways look and those intense green eyes lock on me. I feel it again, that little charge.
I focus on the computer screen. Fuck, how pathetic I am. I’m nearly eighteen and this is the first time I’ve been alone in a bedroom with a guy—well, alone if you didn’t count Zoe, which I don’t—and all Bobby has to do is look at me to get me hot and make me think about things I shouldn’t be considering.
But crap, my virgin status is almost that of a nun. Jeez, I’ve hardly dated. Boyfriends: no can do. It’s always been like having a normal life had seemed an impossible thing in my family, and before Jesse’s death I was considered too young in Chrissie’s world for anything more than PG-13 activities with the male population. And then there is my hang-up about guys and sex.
Guys and sex are at the center of all my life problems, the complication they created, the creations they created, and the strange hold sex seems to have on people. It has to be sex that has kept my mom tied to Alan Manzone for over half her life, climbing into bed with him at his choosing, spawning his brats and lying about it to everyone, and being willing always to take him back whenever he drifts into her world.
Nope, the last thing I want is to end up like my mother. I definitely don’t want anything to do with guys or sex. That’s why I am always careful if I do mess around with a guy to go only so far. So far…
I look at Bobby and wonder where I will draw the line with him. I know it is more than idle musing. He is into me. I’m certain I’m not wrong about that. I can feel the power of that racing all through me and the static electricity radiating between us. Yep, this dude wants to fuck me.
“Log in to your page and friend me. We’re going to be great friends. I can tell.” Zoe’s voice cuts through my thoughts.
I shift my gaze to her. “I don’t know if I want to be friends with you or show you my page.”
Zoe only smiles and begins to click away. “Then, I’ll log into mine and friend you.” She starts tapping on the keys. “Have you ever Googled yourself? Have you looked at your Wikipedia page?”
Bobby makes a face. “Christ, you use Wikipedia. No wonder your grades are barely Cs.”
I roll my eyes and lie back on the bed. “I don’t have a Wikipedia page.”
Zoe looks up. “Oh, yes you do. I can’t believe you haven’t seen it.”
She does more typing and turns the screen around. I tense from head to toe. How is it possible that I’ve never seen my own Wikipedia page? Of course, it had never occurred to me that I’d have one, even with how much I find online about me when I Google myself. But there it is, Kaley Stanton wrapped in half-truth and speculation.
“Give me the computer. Let me see that,” I shout.
“Zoe, get that damn thing off the screen,” Bobby orders harshly. “Why the hell did you have to show her that?”
Zoe’s eyes widen in dismay. “I thought she knew. How could she not know that she has a Wikipedia page?”
I snatch the MacBook up off the bed and begin to scroll down the page. I click on a highlighted name and it takes me to Alan Manzone’s page. Oh fuck, we are linked together on Wikipedia in a truth I am not permitted to live.
I am breathing rapidly when Bobby takes the computer from me and turns the thing off.
“I take it you’re not a fan of Wikipedia?” he says after several tense, silent moments.
I shake my head, feeling fuzzy and disoriented. “I avoid it on principle.”
“You’ve really never seen your page before?” Zoe asks.
I shake my head.
Bobby fixes his eyes on me in a sympathetic way.
“It’s just bullshit, Kaley. No one really takes it seriously,” Bobby tries to reassure me. “Even I’m on Wikipedia. On my dad’s page. It’s just bullshit.”
I sharpen my gaze on him. “Did you read my page? Did you, Bobby? Then don’t tell me it’s bullshit. It’s about me and it’s out there.”
They both stare at me as if my reaction over this is illogical.
“Calm down. It’s just bullshit,” Bobby repeats calmly.
“Bullshit, huh? Well, you try living with it, even for only a day. At least you know who your dad is. Alan Manzone won’t even admit to being my father.”
“I don’t know my dad,” Bobby replies with calm, heavy meaning. “I’m adopted. Remember?”
I flush.
I’d forgotten that.
I just said a really shitty thing.
“It’s not important what other people know,” Bobby continues seriously. “It’s only important what you know. I won’t ever know who my biological father is, but I don’t give a shit. But you already know the truth. You can do whatever you want with it.”
I stare at him, his calmness and logic taking some of the steam from me. But still—
I stare at him, angry.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Bobby. I don’t really know. Not really. Not any more than you do about your dad. Maybe you don’t care who your birth father is, but I do. I hate not knowing anything for sure. I want to know why they’ve lied to me. Why he won’t claim me. What the fuck I ever did that he doesn’t want me. I hate knowing the truth and having to pretend I don’t. It makes me feel sort of disconnected and lost and really out-of-place everywhere.”
Bobby’s gaze bores into me. “Then find a way to get to know everything you need to know. With how you feel the ends justify the means.”
I’m not sure, but it sounds to me as if the guy has just given me permission to use him.
I decide to stay for dinner.
CHAPTER 4
Dinner in the Rowan household when Len is on the road is a strange thing. I wonder if it’s just strange because Len Rowan isn’t home. He’s been on tour with Alan Manzone for nearly a year.
I politely pick at my food, trying not to betray on my face what I’m thinking. Fucked-up marriage à la the digital age. Crap, it’s bizarre. Old people are bizarre. Even Chrissie and Jesse’s marriage wasn’t this weird. In fact, compared to this, it was nearly normal.