Nothing.
FOURTEEN
GRAYSON
WREN CASWELL IS TOO GOOD FOR YOU.
Luke Dobson’s words were a time bomb. I hadn’t given a second thought when he’d said it, knew he was just trying to get in my head. But as I was about to answer Wren’s text, which had been adorably vague and shy . . .
Hey. Sorry I had to leave.
Badaboom.
The truth hurts.
She was too good for me, and I’d known it since the day she saved my sorry ass from choking. I’d hypnotized myself into believing I deserved her. She was right to leave Andy’s party and better off getting far, far away from me. The inconvenient thing was . . .
I was pretty sure I was falling in love with her.
Luke’s threat to speak to Wren gnawed at me. She didn’t need to fall victim to the Dobson mindfuck, and if I didn’t do something, I knew he would get to her one way or another. The best way to avoid that was for me to stay away. For now. Or forever.
So I lay on my bed on a Thursday afternoon, pondering what route out of Wren’s life I should take and deciding whether to answer her second timid but logical “Hey, are you working Friday?” text, because yes, in fact, I was working on Friday, but if I took the Gray the total douche bag route, I’d just exit stage left. Never text or call again. End of story.
And the conclusion I came to as I stared at my popcorn ceiling (which was really more like an acne-vulgaris ceiling, because it sure as shit didn’t resemble any popcorn I would eat) was that I couldn’t do that. I wanted to see her again. I kept thinking of her eyes, the depths of them, the way she looked right into me, and I wasn’t afraid of what she’d find. Even though I should have been, because if Wren knew all the shit I’d pulled . . . the way she looked at me would change forever.
And that was instant freakin’ karma.
“Grayson? You home?”
My rumination was interrupted by Pop’s voice. I grunted something that hopefully sounded like “Come in” and continued my staring match with the ceiling.
“When did you get in? I didn’t hear you.”
I propped myself up on my elbows.
“About fifteen minutes ago,” I lied. I’d been home for about two hours, skipped out on Physics. Ditching at Bergen Point was easy. They didn’t hunt you down and publicly flog you like at St. Gabe’s. I’d get a slap on the wrist and a computer-generated phone call telling Pop and Tiff I’d missed fourth block, which I could easily intercept, and no one would be the wiser. Call it a mental-health break.
He inhaled and made a face.
“Smells like a sewer in here.”
Pop swung my door back and forth to get the airflow going, then gave two clicks to the ceiling fan. Satisfied, he pulled out my desk chair and sat down, gathering his plaid robe around his bare legs.
“I’m about to crawl the effing walls,” he said, leaning back and swiveling toward me. Pop was usually hair-gelled, suited-up, real-estate-mogul perfection. His eyes looked rested, but his hair stuck up every which way, like he’d been trying to pull it out of his head. Tiffany had made Pop go cold turkey—no smokes, no Bushmills, no trans fats. Sugar was next on the roster. He was not a happy camper.
“Feeling better?” I asked.
“Yeah, like a cool mil,” he said.
“What’s up?”
These father-son powwows had been routine in the weeks following my expulsion from St. Gabe’s. At first it had been all anger. You’re smart, effing brilliant, he had yelled. How could I do this to myself? To him? To Tiff? To my mother, who always deserved better? On nights he’d been mellowed with Bushmills, there were high school confessions. Things he’d screwed up royally himself, admitting that if he’d been smart enough to pull off what I did, he probably would have done it too. That if I needed money, why hadn’t I just come to him? And more anger with the brow piercing . . . You come home with a tat and I’ll kill you, Grayson.
But things had changed when school began. I spent less time staring at my ceiling and more time trying to pick up the pieces of my life. Our one-on-ones became few and far between. Something was up.
“I’ve been talking to your mother,” he said.
I rubbed my eyes. Oh, what, now?
“Grayson, this is a wake-up call for me,” he said, patting his chest. “Life’s too short. You need to have a relationship with your mother and her family.”
“Thanks, Dr. Phil. I do have a relationship with them. It’s just not a good one.”
“I mean a more solid one. Once you had a car, you were supposed to visit more. What’s it going to take?”
A rewiring of my frontal lobe.
“She’s having a tree-trimming party—” he began.
“Oh, no fucking way, Pop.”
“Hey, cool it,” he said. He wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to really mind my dropping an F-bomb with him, but he had to pretend. “Tiffany found a box of ornaments up in the attic—belongs to your mother, some antique hand-blown glass she thought she lost. Your mom would like you to bring them and stay for the party.”
“You’re kidding.”
“You could bring Wren. Have some fun, Grayson. You’re allowed, you know.”
Hearing Wren’s name made me smile. I could practically hear Grier saying, When and Gwayson.
“I’ll think about it.”
“It’s nice to see you getting serious about a girl, Grayson.”
“Serious? Pop—”
“I know, I know . . . you don’t want to talk about this with your old man, but even in the ER I could see the way you were around each other. She seems like a nice girl, Gray,” he said, rising from the chair with a creak. “I always liked those Sacred Heart girls. Thought those plaid skirts were cute.”
Guess the horndog doesn’t fall far from the tree.
“Dinner’s at six, when Tiff gets home. Will you be around?”
“I guess,” I said. My butt vibrated.
I made a deal with myself. If it was Wren, I’d answer. I could explain away two texts, but ignoring three would just be plain cruel. I stared at the screen.
Fuknuts, cum pick up ur drums @ Andys. L
Andy’s house had been the hub of my St. Gabe’s extracurricular life. And it was one constant after-party. After school. After lacrosse practice. After games. As a freshman, I had my first beer in Andy’s basement. It was also where I got my V-card stamped by some girl who was friends with Andy’s older brother. The Foleys were loaded and spent a good portion of their time working for it, overcompensating for their absence with a rec room that was pretty much a wet dream. Plasma TV. Killer audio. Every video-game system as soon as it came out. The bar was always fully stocked with premium liquor, although I wasn’t sure how much of that was their doing and how much was Andy’s and his brother’s.
Andy’s basement was also where Operation Amsterdam was conceived.
The name was a goof, but it stuck, because it was better than saying “selling stolen goods to finance our post-graduation trip to Europe.” We all liked the sound of backpacking across Europe, but Amsterdam, an eighteen-year-old’s version of Disneyland, was our goal. Our reward for four years of breaking our balls at St. Gabe’s.
And the whole thing had been started so innocently . . . by yours truly.
I’d met Caitlyn just over a year ago in the fall at a lacrosse tourney in West Orange. She was there watching her best friend’s brother play. I got her digits and, bingo, instant connection. We texted, she sent me some racy pics, and we set a date to meet. This was pre-Chrysler, so our hookups were limited to whenever I could catch a ride from Andy’s brother, who was seeing someone from the same town.