I’m in.
The next day, Asha was still avoiding me in the cafeteria. I’d been watching her and a bunch of her girlfriends across the big hall. She hadn’t looked over at me once. Jake sat down next to me. He followed my gaze.
“Hey, why is Asha sitting over there?” Jake said. “This is our table.”
“I don’t know what’s up,” I said. Jake raised his eyebrows.
“I don’t believe you,” he said. His big hands folded around a burger, and then he took a monster bite. Chewed. Waited. He knew that eventually I’d spill. He was right. It took about a minute.
“So we had a fight,” I admitted. “About her going away this summer. But it’s all good now. I’ve got it all figured out.”
“Bex, you’re one of the smartest guys I know,” said Jake. “But you’ve always kind of sucked when it comes to girls. Run the plan by me.”
“All right, but this stays totally with you,” I said. Jake nodded.
I lowered my voice and filled him in on what Kieran and I were planning. By the time I finished, he was mopping up the last of the ketchup with his fries. My plate was still full of cold cafeteria food.
Jake shook his head. “The DMA place sounds cool,” he said. “Might be worth checking out just to explore. I bet no one has ever been in there before.”
Bingo. Jake was on side.
“But, seriously-stealing phones?” he said. He rubbed a hand through his short brown hair. “What happened to ‘take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints’?”
I shrugged. “Guess I’m not the Boy Scout everyone thought I was.”
Jake looked at me.
“You’ve never been a Boy Scout.
You’re just smart about risks.” Jake leaned closer to me. “This plan of yours goes wrong, you’ll get busted huge. Like, cops, jail, the works.”
“It’s not even really a crime,” I said. “Nobody will get hurt. It’s a massive company. They won’t even notice the phones are gone. They’ve probably already forgotten that those phones are in the warehouse.”
“Maybe. But what do you know about Kieran? He strike you as reliable? Think he’ll save your ass if things go wrong?”
I hadn’t told Jake about the bridge the other night. Kieran had saved me.
“And even if it all works out and you get the money, then what?” he continued. “Her parents won’t have a problem with this? You think Asha won’t have a problem?”
“What do you mean?”
“Handing Asha some cash won’t fix things between you two. I doubt she cares about the money at all. This is about letting her do her own thing. Trusting her.” Jake sounded just like Asha. He was supposed to be taking my side, not hers.
“Jake, why the hell was I asking you for relationship advice?” I stood up, grabbing my backpack. I pulled out my headphones and my iPod. “Just stay out of my way, all right?”
Phones on, tunes cranked to maximum, I walked toward the door. My music sounded like static with a pulse. I was sealed in a bubble of noise. I felt angry and sad and scared, all at once.
I was losing my girlfriend.
Now my best friend was against me.
I just wanted to be able to think straight. I knew I could figure out the right thing to do. The right way to pull everyone together, to get control of the situation. If I could just get all the pieces straight in my head.
I was out of the cafeteria and into the main hallway when I was suddenly grabbed from behind. Jake spun me around, slamming me against the lockers. He pushed my headphones off.
“What the hell?” I said. Was Jake looking to fight? Had I pissed him off that much? I felt a cold knot in my stomach.
“You’re being an idiot, Bex. I don’t know what’s up with you. But you’re my best friend. And that means that I’ve always got your back, even when your head’s up your ass. You understand?”
I nodded.
“I’m coming with you. That’s not an option. You make a mistake, you’ll make it with me beside you.”
I knew I should be mad at Jake for acting like some kind of overprotective big brother. But the truth was, I was relieved. I guessed that Kieran wasn’t going to be happy about this. I was supposed to go see him tonight. Maybe I’d tell him about the new addition to our team then.
Maybe not.
I decided I didn’t care what Kieran thought about this. If my life was filled with static, at least I had one friend with me to try and see through it.
Chapter Seven
After school, I had to take three buses to get to Kieran’s house. It was out in a new development, one of a row of homes carefully designed to look old. I pressed the doorbell and heard a ringing far away in the house. Kieran’s dad opened the door. He was dressed in a pale gray sweater and collared shirt. He had small pinched eyes that frowned at me.
“Are you Kieran’s friend?” he asked.
“Yes, uh, sir,” I said. “We’re studying for the geography test.” Kieran had suggested the lie to me earlier. Studying on a Friday night sounded like a weak excuse, but whatever.
“I’m Mr. Ridgeway,” he said. He held out his hand, and we shook. “Come in.” He turned and walked inside. Weird. He gave off the same vibe that Kieran did sometimes. It was like he was an alien or something, just learning how to deal with humans.
“I’m glad Kieran’s made a friend,” he said over his shoulder. “Since we moved he’s spent far too much time in his room alone.” I wasn’t sure how to react, so I didn’t say anything. We walked through to the living room.
“Wait here,” said Mr. Ridgeway. He disappeared upstairs. I studied the room. The house was completely silent except for the hum of a fridge. The living room was perfect, like a set from a tv show. No mess. No clutter. No sign of what the Ridgeways were like. Maybe they hadn’t had time to really settle in yet. Mr. Ridgeway returned with Kieran. He looked like he’d been up all night. His hair was tangled, and his black T-shirt was wrinkled. He had huge bags under his eyes. He nodded at me. “Hey.”
“Boys,” Mr. Ridgeway said, “I’d appreciate it if you kept the noise down. I’ll be in my office.” It bugged me how he was looking at Kieran. Like he was something that smelled bad.
Kieran didn’t reply. We waited until his dad left.
A few minutes later we were upstairs in Kieran’s room. Like the living room, it looked as if it came straight from a furniture store. A cheap generic poster of a sailboat was neatly framed on one wall. The single bed was perfectly made up. Looking at Kieran, I guessed that he hadn’t slept in it recently.
“Dude,” I said. “You have the cleanest room I’ve ever seen. Do you actually live here or just visit?” I was trying to make a joke, but Kieran didn’t smile. He slumped into an office chair beside an empty wooden desk.
“It doesn’t feel like my room,” he said. “When we moved here, my dad paid someone to decorate the house. He bought everything new and left all our old stuff behind. I think he might have left me behind as well if he could have.” Kieran pulled out a battered black laptop from under the desk. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not planning on staying here for too long.” He jammed a memory stick into the laptop and typed.
I looked out the bedroom window at the sun setting behind the identical houses marching down the street, like an army of clones. This wasn’t a place I would want to stay in either. Before I could ask any more questions, Kieran spun the laptop around so I could see the screen.
“Here,” he said. “Like I said, I’ve got a bunch of blueprints and maps of the DMA site in here. It’s not complete. My dad nearly busted me copying this stuff off his computer, so I had to rush it. But there was enough for me to see that there’s no way in. That I could find.”
I sat down on the bed, taking his laptop with me. As I scrolled through the computer files, the screen filled with digital pictures and maps. I realized that this was going to be like breaking into a bank. There were security
