Nothing.
I was going crazy. I probably couldn't tie my own shoes anymore either. I took the key out, put it back in, turned it.
Nothing. No dash lights, no radio, definitely no engine.
Looking over at me, Doug knocked on the hood of the police car to wake up his brother.
***
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER OFFICER FOX STRAIGHTENED from peering into the engine and let the hood of the Benz fall back into place. "Only thing I can tell you is, my friend owns the garage around the corner. He works late. I'll call him and ask him to tow it for you. Maybe it's something simple." When I nodded, he went back to the police car and spoke into his radio.
Doug had held the flashlight for his brother. Now he turned the beam on me. "I need to lie down. My leg's swelling again."
I winced for him.
"Lie down with me." He leaned so close, I felt the heat of the flashlight beam on my cheek. "Y ou're tired."
I was tired suddenly, bone-tired and sore, as if I'd swum a hundred races. Or was this Doug's power of suggestion?
I couldn't lie down with him, though. Lying in the back of a police car with him would not be my consolation prize after I couldn't go parking with my boyfriend. That would make me a ho.
Keeping one hand on a crutch for balance, he put the hand holding the flashlight on my shoulder. I couldn't see him as well anymore in the dim light of the parking lot, but my other senses took over. His hand was hot through my shirt and his low voice vibrated in my gut as he coaxed, "Come on, Zoey. Y ou look like death. Lie down with me. I won't try anything."
I left the keys in the Benz and walked with Doug to the police car. Doug spoke a few words to his brother, who stuffed a couple of pillows through the window between the front seat and the back. Doug must have been using the police car as a sleeping car quite a bit. He had the whole drill down. He put one pillow on the seat for our heads and one at the other end to elevate his leg, and folded his tall frame into the space.
I lay in front of him, just as we'd lain together on the swim team van. Except the police car seat was smaller than the van seat, so we couldn't lie together without touching each other. We touched. He didn't put his hands on me or anything obvious like that, but I couldn't help that the crooks of my knees hugged his knees. His thighs pressed the backs of my thighs. My butt was tucked against his pelvis. His chest radiated heat against my back, and his warm breath whispered in my hair. My headache slowly dissipated. Officer Fox cranked up the thrash metal on the radio and cruised out of the lot.
"Doug," I said softly.
"Zoey," he whispered.
"When you ran away, where did you go?"
He sighed into my hair. Chills raced down my neck. Finally he said, "Seattle."
"That's a long way." I tried to picture Doug at fourteen, as innocent as I'd been at fourteen, alone in Seattle. Smaller than he was now, just a kid. His Florida-weight jacket was no match for the wet breeze off the Pacific, and his wallet was empty.
"I went as far away as I could." He nuzzled the back of my neck--inadvertently, I was sure--as he made a bigger hole for his head in the pillow.
We didn't say anything else. The car hummed, buildings flashed by. We must have been taking the longer southern route through Fort Walton and Destin, along the beach. Streetlights flashed in and out of the car. And Doug's breathing at my back fell into a deep rhythm.
He touched me all over, down the length of me, yet his hands touched me nowhere. He didn't mean to touch me. I shouldn't touch him either, because I had a boyfriend, and I didn't want to lead Doug on. But my hand lay along my side, resting on my hip. I wouldn't need to slide it far to touch Doug in a place I really shouldn't touch Doug.
The closer to home we got, the stronger the urge grew. Every car we passed swished a sexy Doppler effect: do it, do it, do it. If I did it and he was awake, I would die of mortification. If I did it and he was asleep, it would seem almost criminal, like I was taking advantage of him when he was most vulnerable.
I could not do it. But just thinking about it, I was hotter than when Brandon and I had actually done it.
Familiar landmarks flashed by--Slide with Clyde, the Grilled Mermaid. We were close to home. Doug would wake soon. I would miss my chance. Slowly, slowly, a millimeter at a time, I slid my hand down into the space between my butt and . . . him. Let him think I was asleep and my hand had slipped there. Let him be surprised.
No. I did not dare.
And then, as I watched Jamaica Joe's flash past out the far window, his mouth took the back of my neck, kissed it like it was my mouth or my ear or my breast. I wasn't sure where these ideas came from. A boy had never put his mouth on my breast before. The thought frightened me and I loved it. His tongue massaged circles across my neck and made me lose my mind. His hand found my hand and pulled me back against him until I rubbed him as I had imagined, then harder.
The engine and the thrash metal on the radio switched off.
We both sprang up, blinking under the dome light, as if we shouldn't have been lying down together in the first place. Guilt is a funny thing. If we hadn't been guilty, I wouldn't have noticed how pink and swollen his lips were from kissing me, or how glazed his green eyes looked from the way I'd touched him.
"Don't get out," I said. "I'll see you tomorrow." I climbed out of the seat and stopped at Officer Fox's window. "Thank you so, so much for everything."
Officer Fox touched two fingers to his forehead in a salute, like a complete dork. "Just doing my job, ma'am."
"Uh-huh." I hoped he couldn't tell I was still tingling and swirling from everything Doug and I had and hadn't done to each other. I hurried into my dad's house, past the cameras and into my room, to finish what we'd started.
"ZOEY."
"Mmmmm."
"Zooooooooeeeeeeeeeey, wake up."
I jerked upright in my bed at the sound of Doug's voice. He'd hovered just above me all night in my dreams, but I knew they were just dreams. Reality wasn't that good. Then I figured out I was pressing my cell phone to my ear. "Y I'm awake."
ep,
"Are you coming to school?"
I flopped back on the bed and gazed at the clock on my bedside table. "I'm not late."
"I just wanted to let you know you have a ride. I thought it might not occur to you to look for it, but my brother's friend fixed the Benz. It's parked outside your house."
I rolled over and gazed toward the front of the house, but my room didn't have a window in that direction, and I couldn't see through walls. "Y ou're kidding. What was wrong with it?" "Y know how people speak Japanese and you know it's Japanese but you have no idea what they're saying and you definitely couldn't repeat it?"
"Y mean you don't know anything about cars?"
He laughed. I pictured him throwing his head back and laughing.
"Wow," I said. "I'm so grateful to your brother. I think. Do you know how much it cost? I have a credit card." I hoped the garage bill wasn't too much--but if it was, at least I hadn't rolled a joint on the cutting board while my dad was gone. Of course, that was the sort of argument I'd make to my mom, not my dad.
"No charge," Doug said. "My brother and his friend may have drag-raced the Benz and the cop car."
"What?" I jerked upright again. "That's illegal! A damn sight more illegal than collecting donations in a bucket on the highway."
"My brother is a very bad policeman. So . . . you're coming to school, right?"
I was dying to see Doug. The low notes of his voice on the phone gave me chill bumps all over again. But as I ran my free hand through my hair, crispy from chlorine I hadn't washed out, I pictured Brandon giving me that awkward hug under duress last night. And behind him, the swim team watching me like an exhibit at the zoo. "Nnnnnnno."
"Come so you can be around people," Doug coaxed. "I don't think you should be alone today."
"I think I definitely should."
"Come so I won't worry about you."
He'd made the one argument that could persuade me. I owed him big-time. I owed him that much.
WE HUNG TOGETHER ALL DAY--EXCEPT CALCULUS , of course. It was delicious. Like we'd hooked up. Or, okay, like I'd felt him up in the backseat of a cop car.
Really more like he was my dear friend looking out for me. We weren't doing anything that unusual. Since the school year started we'd followed each other along the same path from English to history, from biology to lunch. The only difference today was that we walked together. I wondered whether everyone avoided my eyes or just wasn't looking at me. I wondered whether they whispered about me and my mom. Doug knew how I felt without me telling him. He gave me someone to walk with and talk to so I wouldn't feel alone.
Since school started we'd eaten at the same lunch table too--just at different ends. Today we sat next to each other at the usual table with most of the swim team, his friends and my former friends who acted like I might bite them now. I'd dropped the ball breaking up the fight between Keke and Lila on Tuesday, but I'd brought them back together without even trying. Nothing cemented a relationship like mutual hatred of a third party. Lila sat between Mike and Keke, talking in turns to each of them. Every time she talked to Keke, she ate a spoonful of Keke's frozen yogurt, and the two of them looked at me with hooded eyes, then looked away. They prided themselves on knowing everything about everyone. They were furious at being kept in the dark about their best friend's mother. It was futile to explain I'd hoped no one would ever find out.
"Let's see the clipboard, Captain," Doug said, giving me something to do.
I set down my fork and pulled the clipboard out of my backpack for him. He flipped through the pages of numbers in his handwriting, really looking. "Y our times the past few days have been amazing." He cocked his head at me. "Demons chasing you?"
"Maybe." Across the lunchroom, Stephanie Wetzel acted out a little skit with exaggerated motions for her friends. My mom pulling me out of the pool. A fisherman hauling a marlin on board. Hard to say.
"The trick is to get you swimming like that every time," Doug said, "even when you don't have something hanging over your head."
I turned to him. "I don't think that will be a problem for a while." I passed my hand in a circle above my head. "This is very crowded airspace right now. If it keeps up, I might even place at State." Keke and Lila watched me. I put my hand down.
"My dad's picking me up after swim practice today," Doug said. "On Thursdays we have a sunset cruise and then a crew meeting."
"Crew meeting?" I echoed. That sounded too New Age a concept for the ruffians I'd seen working on the Hemingway.
"But I hear the swim team is planning a beach party after the football game tomorrow night," he said, "and they're trying to convince the football team to crash it. Keke and Lila aren't subtle. Want to go?"
I couldn't help cutting my eyes at Keke and Lila. They whispered together as Keke gazed at me. I told Doug, "I'm not invited."
"Of course you're invited--you're the captain of the swim team--but let's skip that issue. Y ou're invited because I'm inviting you."
"As a date?" I asked quietly enough that no one around us could hear over the laughter and the clinks of silverware.
"Of course not as a date, because then you'd have to break up with your wonderful boyfriend who hasn't messaged you all day." How did Doug know this? He'd been watching me more closely than he let on.
"As friends, then?" I clarified.
He lowered his chin and gave me that sexy look through his long black lashes. "As whatever we are."
During swim practice he even convinced Gabriel to drag a lawn chair poolside so he could sit closer to me, protecting me. But as he'd said, at the end of practice he gave me a wave and limped out the gate to meet his dad. He couldn't protect me in the women's locker room anyway.
I knew it was coming. In my peripheral vision I saw Keke eyeing me as we showered, dried off, and dressed.
I could have sped up and beat the crowd out the door, robbing her of her chance alone with me. Instead, I slowed down. I'd had enough of the cold stares from her and Lila. Lila had hurried out of the locker room to meet Mike, but disarming Keke might disarm both twins at once. When the last of the junior girls finally giggled their way outside, I slammed my locker door and whirled to face Keke, catching her--what else?--midstare. "What is it?" I demanded. "Tell me."
Surprised that she wasn't the one to confront me first, she blinked and took a deep breath before dropping her bomb. "Y didn't measure the skid
ou marks at the wreck so your mom could get more insurance money for you. Y measured them because you were trying to figure out what happened. Y
ou ou obviously don't remember anything about that night. If you did, you would have been freaking out completely. And you flat-out lied to Lila and me about it."
Y but only because my dad had threatened me. I opened my mouth to say this to her. I couldn't form the words. My brain fixated on what she'd said.
es, Why should I have been freaking out about that night? What had I done?
"Go home and find the accident report," Keke said. "Even after all the lies you've told me in the past two weeks, you need to know what really happened." 13 "Just tell me!" I shouted at her. If a copy of the accident report was at my house, I knew where it would be. And I wasn't allowed in there. "Y know this big