With the August registration date breathing down her neck, she approached Henry again in July.
“Don’t be silly. I know what’s best for you,” he said. “Your mother and I have discussed this, Delaney. Your plans for your future are aimless. You’re obviously much too young to know what you want.”
But she’d known. She’d known for a long time, and somehow she’d always thought that on her eighteenth birthday she would get it. For some mixed-up reason, she’d thought that with her freedom to vote would come real freedom. But when her February birthday had passed without the slightest change in her life, she figured graduation from high school had to mean liberation from Henry’s control. She would get the freedom to break out and be Delaney. The freedom to be wild and crazy if she wanted to. To take silly college classes. To wear holey jeans or too much makeup. To wear the clothes she wanted. To look like a preppie, a bum, or a whore.
She didn’t get those freedoms. In August Henry and her mother drove her four hours north to the University of Idaho in the town of Moscow, Idaho, and she registered for the fall semester. On the way back home, Henry kept saying, “trust me to know what’s best for you.” And “Someday you’ll thank me. When you get your business degree, you’ll help run my companies.” Her mother accused her of being “spoiled and immature.”
The next night, Delaney snuck out of her bedroom window for the first and last time of her life. She could have asked Henry to use his car, and he probably would have let her, but she didn’t want to ask him for anything. She didn’t want to tell her parents where she was going, who she was going to be with, or what time she’d be home. She didn’t have a plan, just a vague idea of doing something she’d never done before. Something other eighteen year olds did. Something reckless and exciting.
She curled her straight blond hair on big fat rollers and put on a pink sundress that buttoned up the front. The dress reached just above the knee and was the most daring thing she owned. The straps were thin and she didn’t wear a bra. She thought she appeared older than her age, not that it mattered. She was the mayor’s daughter and everyone knew how old she was anyway. She walked all the way into town in pair of huarache sandals and carrying a white cardigan. It was a warm Saturday night, and there had to be something going on. Something she’d always been afraid to do for fear of getting caught and disappointing Henry.
She found that something outside the Hollywood Market on Fifth Street where she stopped to call Lisa from a pay phone. She stood beneath a weak light screwed into the front of the brick building. “Come on,” she pleaded into the receiver she held to her ear. “Meet me.”
“I told you, I feel like my head is going to explode,” Lisa said, sounding pathetic with a bad summer cold.
Delaney stared at the metal numbers on the face of the phone and frowned. How could she rebel by herself? “Baby.”
“I’m not a baby,” Lisa defended herself. “I’m sick.”
She sighed and glanced up, her attention drawn to the two boys moving across the parking lot toward her. “Oh, my God.” She hung her sweater over one arm and cupped her hand around the receiver. “The Finley boys are walking toward me.” There were only two other brothers who had worse reputations than Scooter and Wes Finley. The Finleys were eighteen and twenty and had just graduated high school.
“Don’t make eye contact,” Lisa had warned, then lapsed into a coughing fit.
“Hey there, Delaney Shaw,” Scooter drawled and leaned one shoulder against the building beside her. “What are you doing out by yourself?”
She glanced into his pale blue eyes. “Looking for fun.”
“Huh huh,” he laughed. “Guess you found it.”
Delaney had graduated from Lincoln High with the Finleys and found them slightly amusing and somewhat dense. They’d kept the school year interesting with false fire alarms or pulling down their pants to show their very white butts. The Finleys were big on mooning. “What did you have in mind, Scooter?”
“Delaney-Delaney-” Lisa called into the receiver. “Run. Run as, fast as you can away from the Finleys.”
“Drink a little brew,” Wes answered for his brother. “Find a party.”
Drinking “brew” with the Finleys was certainly something she’d never done before. “I gotta go,” she said to Lisa.
“Delaney-”
“If they find my body floating in the lake, tell the police I was last seen with the Finleys.” As she hung up the receiver, an old convertible Mustang with rust spots and rustier pipes pulled into the parking lot, the twin beams spotlighting Delaney and her new friends. The lights and engine died, the door swung open, and out stepped six feet, two inches of bad attitude. Nick Allegrezza had tucked an “Eat the Worm” T-shirt into a pair of old jeans. He looked Scooter and Wes over, then turned his gaze on Delaney. In the past three years, Delaney had seen little of Nick. He spent most of his time in Boise where he worked and attended the university. But he hadn’t changed that much. His hair was still shiny black, cut short at his ears and the back of his neck. He was still breathtaking.
“We could have our own party,” Scooter suggested.
“Just the three of us?” she asked loud enough for Nick to hear. He used to call her a baby, usually right after he’d thrown a grasshopper at her. She wasn’t a baby now.
A frown pulled at the corners of his mouth, then he turned and disappeared into the market.
“We could go back to our house,” Wes continued. “Our parents are out of town.”
Delaney returned her attention to the brothers. “Ah… are you going to invite anyone else?”
“Why?”
“For a party,” she answered.
“Do you have any girlfriends you can call?”
She thought about her only friend home sick with a cold and shook her head. “Don’t you know some other people you can invite?”
Scooter smiled and took a step closer. “Why would I want to do that?”
For the first time, apprehension fluttered in Delaney’s stomach. “Because you want to party, remember?”
“We’ll party. Don’t you worry.”
“You’re scaring her, Scoot.” Wes pushed his brother and knocked him aside. “Come back to our house and we’ll call people from there.”
Delaney didn’t believe him and lowered her gaze to her sandals. She’d wanted to be like other eighteen-year- old girls. She’d wanted to do something reckless, but she wasn’t up for a threesome. And there was no doubt that’s what they had in mind. If and when Delaney decided to lose her virginity, it wouldn’t be with one or both of the Finleys. She’d seen their pale butts-and thank you, no.
Getting rid of them was going to be difficult, and she wondered how long she would have to stand in front of the Hollywood Market before they finally gave up and went away.
When she looked up, Nick stood by the side of his car shoving a six-pack of beer in the backseat. He straightened, rested his weight on one foot, and pinned his gaze on Delaney. He stared at her for several long moments, then said, “Come here, princess.”
There’d been a time when she’d been both frightened and fascinated by him at the same time. He’d always been so cocky, so sure of himself, and so forbidden. She was no longer afraid, and the way she saw it, she had two choices: trust him or trust the Finleys. Neither option was great, but despite his nasty reputation, she knew Nick wouldn’t force her to do something she didn’t want to do. She wasn’t so sure she could say the same for Scooter and Wes. “See you guys around,” she said, then slowly walked to the baddest of the bad boys. The leap in her pulse had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the smooth rich tone of his voice.
“Where’s your car?”
“I walked into town.”
He opened the driver’s side door. “Climb in.”
She looked up into his smoky eyes. He wasn’t a boy anymore, no doubt about it. “Where are we going?”
He nodded toward the Finleys. “Does it matter?”
It probably should have. “You aren’t going to take me on a snipe hunt and dump me in the forest, are you?”
“Not tonight. You’re safe.”
She tossed her sweater into the back and climbed across the console and into the passenger seat with as much dignity as possible. Nick fired up the Mustang, and the dash lights flashed to life. He backed out of the parking lot and pulled onto Fifth. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?” she asked, excitement tingling her nerve endings. She couldn’t believe she was actually sitting in Nick’s car. She couldn’t wait to tell Lisa. It was just too incredible.
