I shake my head. “My dad’s ego is big, but I don’t think it’s that big.” Then, because I really don’t want to talk about my father, I say, “You go to the university?”
“Riverview High.”
My gaze slides to the laptop and then over to the Olympia. “And you’re cheating on your laptop with an ancient typewriter because . . . ?”
“Don’t you ever just find old things interesting?” He presses one of the keys three times. Rat-tat-tat. “Tell me that sound isn’t cool. Besides, I flunked English and have to take classes over the summer.” He flashes a self-deprecating grin that somehow manages to do the exact opposite of self-deprecate. “Turns out that in order to pass a class, they expect you to actually show up. Figured typing my papers on this would make things a little more interesting. Or at least atmospheric.”
Feeling slightly more comfortable, I step farther into the room, far enough to set the stack of paper down on top of a threadbare ottoman that had to have been rescued from the depths of the house. An expensive-looking camera bag sits on the floor next to it.
“So, you’re still in high school but you live here?” Normally, I wouldn’t ask what feels like a very personal question of someone I’ve known for all of five minutes, but we are virtually living together.
A low laugh slips out of his throat. It’s a good laugh. It’s the kind of laugh that wraps itself around you and makes your pulse jump and skip. Pretty boys should not be able to laugh like that. There should be a limit on the number of advantages one person has. “I’m an army brat,” he says. “Dad got transferred to the base outside town last summer, but after seven months, they moved him again. I didn’t want to go, so I stayed here. I’m a year older than everyone else because my family moved so much when I was a kid. Since I’m eighteen, it’s not like there’s some big issue with me being on my own.”
“What about your mom?”
An expression I can’t read passes over his face. “Where he goes, she goes.”
“My mother’s in California,” I say.
“Do you see her much?”
“No.” I hardly ever talk about my mom—even to Lacey, who is slightly obsessed with all of my mother’s movies—and I’m not sure what compelled me to open up to a guy I’ve just met. Maybe it’s because I know what it’s like to get left behind when you don’t fit into someone else’s plan. Even with Dad, a lot of the time it feels like I’m something he grudgingly works around—like I’m on his list of priorities, but maybe only third or fourth down. “I’m sorry about your parents.”
Aidan shrugs. “Honestly, I seem to get along with them a lot better when they’re on the other side of the ocean. Besides, this place isn’t so bad. And at least now there’ll be someone my own age around for the summer. Back in May, when your aunt told me you’d be spending a few months here . . .”
The surprise must show on my face because he trails off midsentence. I swallow. “My aunt told you about me coming in May?”
He shrugs. “Around then. End of April or the start of May.”
So at least six weeks.
Dad had acted like sending me here had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, like some last straw had finally split in two, but he’d been planning to off-load me on Jet for months. And Jet? Back in the car, she hadn’t bothered correcting me when I said she’d known I was coming for two weeks.
Logically, it doesn’t change anything—I’m still here for the same amount of time regardless of when they told me—but my chest still feels tight with anger. “I’d better go,” I say awkwardly, taking a step back. “Stuff to unpack.”
Aidan crosses the room before I can turn away. “Hey,” he says, leaning toward me and putting a hand on the doorframe. “I don’t know if I said something wrong, but if I did, I’m sorry.”
There’s enough room for me to squeeze past him, but only barely. Even being careful, there would be only inches between our skin, and after what happened on the bus, I’m not exactly feeling adventurous.
His brows pull together, a small crease forming between them. “Seriously, you look upset. If I did or said anything . . .”
“It’s not you. You didn’t say or do anything wrong.” Aidan continues to stare, that tiny line still there. “It’s really not you,” I say, overcompensating and overemphasizing.
The crease disappears like it never existed. “A bunch of my friends are watching a movie tomorrow night. Calling it a ‘party’ probably makes it sound a lot more interesting than it is, but why don’t you come?”
“You’re asking me to hang out with you and your friends?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“So much suspicion in one so young.” He presses a hand to his chest like I’ve mortally wounded him. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“No . . . It’s just . . .” I have friends back in New York. Or at least I did. Depending on who you asked, my proximity to Lacey even makes—made—me somewhat popular. But there’s no Lacey here to make me look good. I’m exhausted, I smell like I’ve been on a bus forever, and thanks to the unexpected bombshell that Dad and Jet had my arrival planned for ages, I probably seem like Mood-Swing Girl. “You don’t know me,” I say, settling on the least embarrassing and/or revelatory answer I can think of.
“So, you’ll come hang out with us and I’ll get to know you. Besides, we’re essentially going to be living together. Chances are I’ll go downstairs to get a glass of milk some night and forget to wear pants. I’d like the chance to win you over before the sight of me in Transformers boxer shorts turns you off completely.”
It almost sounds like he’s flirting, but I’m not the girl guys flirt with. Not often, anyway. Not with Lacey around. And, honestly, it’s probably better that way. But Lacey isn’t here, and Aidan is staring at me, waiting for me to respond. “They make Transformers boxers?”
“Probably not,” he admits, one corner of his mouth quirking up and the other following in an uneven grin as he steps back, “but think of all the insecure guys it would give hope to.”
I want to say something witty and biting, but instead, I just shake my head and turn away.
As I retreat down the hall, I think insecurity is not a problem a guy like Aidan Porter has ever needed help with.
Four
I WAS SUPPOSED TO CALL DAD WHEN I GOT TO MONTGOMERY Falls—“So I know you got in safely,” he’d said as he practically pushed me onto the bus—but I don’t trust myself to talk to him without yelling, and all yelling will do is convince him that he was right to keep things from me as long as he had.
I can’t even take my anger to Jet because, as it turns out, Montgomery House being home to a bunch of strangers translates to a distinct lack of privacy.
Each time I try to talk to her—in the kitchen or the study or even coming out of the bathroom—someone else wanders past. A nursing student on her way downstairs with a basket of laundry. The man who’s staying at Montgomery House until his divorce goes through. Aidan with his pale eyes and his sandy hair and his crooked smile.