I wince inwardly. “My dad is—”
“A dick?”
“Anxious.”
Lennon snorts. “So that’s what we’re calling it.”
“Look, you’d be stressed too, if the business you built was going to hell because all your clients were scurrying away faster than rats on a sinking ship.”
He makes a low, thoughtful noise, and the sound rumbles through the screen, scattering my thoughts and doing strange, unwanted things to the inside of my chest. It’s the feeling you get when a large truck trundles down the road. You can’t see it, but you can feel it, and that makes you leery for no logical reason.
“That’s wrong, actually,” he points out. “The original phrase was, ‘When a building is about to fall down, all the mice desert it.’ ”
“Yeah? Well, you better actually hope that doesn’t happen, seeing how we’re all stuck in the same building,” I say, suddenly irritated with his know-it-all factoids. “If we fall down, the rubble might bury your shop. And then where would all the neighborhood perverts buy their butt plugs?”
“Gee, I don’t know.” He braces his hands on the wooden frame of the habitat and leans down until his face is at my level, pressing his forehead against the screen between us. A clean, sunny scent wafts from his clothes, one that’s painfully familiar. The scent of Lennon. “Maybe they’ll go to the same store where your dad buys the sticks that are stuck up his ass. I think it’s next to Adulterers Are Us.”
Fury bubble ups. “You . . . ,” I start, and then realize how loud I’m being. I lean closer to the screen and lower my voice. “You cannot tell anyone about that photo book.”
“I think anyone with a working bullshit meter already knows he’s a scumbag.”
“My mom doesn’t!” I shout-whisper at his stupid face.
Sharp eyes lock with mine. He makes a small noise. “You didn’t give her the package.”
“Because it will break up their marriage,” I whisper. “I can’t do that to my mom. It would kill her.”
Lennon doesn’t respond. Just studies my eyes.
“You cannot say anything to my mom,” I plead. “And until I figure out what to do, you need to tell your moms to keep quiet about it too.”
“I can’t control what they say to your mom. If you recall, they were once all friends. Come to think of it, so were the two of us, before you decided moving up the social ladder was more important.”
“What?” That’s not how things went down. He ditched me.
“Frankly, I’m surprised you’d risk being seen in public talking to me,” he says. “Every second you’re near me, your hit points drop. Better watch it, or your life meter’s going to drop to zero.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“That’s because you’ve been hanging around with Reagan effing Reid for too long.”
“Says the boy who sits home alone with a bunch of snakes.”
“Hey, you would know, spymaster general.”
I press my forehead again the screen. “I already told you, that was a mistake.”
His dark eyes are centimeters from mine. “Was it?”
“Huge.”
“If you say so.”
“Enormous.”
“I’m flattered.”
“I . . .” Wait. What are we talking about?
His smile is slow and cocky.
I pull back from the screen. My ears suddenly feel like someone’s holding a blowtorch up to my head. Tugging the curling ends of my bob, I try to cover the telltale redness, wishing it away before the blush spreads down my neck.
“Screw this,” I say. “I was going to apologize for my dad’s behavior, but now I might be glad he bit your head off. I hope you have to get a rabies shot.”
“Am I the bat or Ozzy? Because if your dad was doing the biting, technically he’d have to get the rabies shot.”
“I hate you so much.”
“You know,” he says after huffing out a single, sarcastic chuckle, “I genuinely felt bad for you. I really did, for all of two seconds. Guess I was an idiot, because I can see now that nothing’s changed. You’re still the same cold-as-ice girl. You’re just like him. You know that, right? More concerned with appearances than anything real. Maybe lying runs in your blood.”
Chaotic emotions bubble up. Embarrassment. Pain. And something else I can’t identify. Anger. That must be what it is, because without warning, my eyes sting with unshed tears.
Don’t you dare cry in front of him, I tell myself.
“Zorie,” he says, voice low and rough. “I . . .”
He doesn’t finish, and it doesn’t matter. I don’t care what Lennon Mackenzie thinks. Not now, and not ever.
“I thought I could come in here and talk reasonably with you,” I say, using the calmest, most professional voice I can muster as I step farther away from the cage. “But I guess I was wrong. All I ask is that if you and your parents have any respect for my mother—”
“Zorie—”
I raise my voice to talk over him. “—that you’ll stay out of her business and let me handle it. If anyone’s going to destroy her life, it should be me, not some stranger who doesn’t care about her.”
And with that, I walk out of the store.
Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.
6
“You have everything?” Mom asks, testing the weight of my backpack. It’s almost ten in the morning, and Reagan’s supposed to pick me up in a few minutes. I stopped by the clinic to tell my parents goodbye. “Good lord, this is heavy.”
“That’s my portable telescope and camera.” Who knew ten pounds could be so heavy? It takes up a lot of space in the pack, so I’ve got one of the tents Reagan bought stuffed in the bottom, a compressed sleeping bag, clothes neatly rolled to save space, a couple of energy bars, peanut butter cups, and some chocolate-covered espresso beans—you know, all the major food groups.
I also may have brought a grid-lined journal. Just a small one. And a few gel pens.
“You have the emergency cash I gave you?”
I pat the pocket of my purple plaid shorts. They match my purple Converse, which match my purple
