Most Likely to Succeed

“Or my parents,” I muttered.

I started the engine and cruised under the palm trees. It was a very short drive to the B and B, so I didn’t waste any time before telling him what was on mind. “If we’re going to date, Sawyer—”

“If? Wait, what?”

“—I want to make sure that we’re exclusive,” I said. “That’s the only way I want to do this.”

He was very slowly massaging his wrists where the cop had cuffed him, but he was looking at me. He glared at me so angrily across the car that my heart felt like it was failing.

“What?” he finally exclaimed again. “How long did you date Aidan?”

“Three years,” I said.

“And in that three years, did you ever have a conversation with him in which you made sure you were both on the same page about dating exclusively?”

“No,” I said meekly.

“Then why are you asking me?” he demanded.

“Sawyer!” I said, exasperated. “You have a reputation for getting around.”

“When I wasn’t dating you ! Don’t you think I would automatically stop going out with other girls if you and I were together? I said something like this to you before Aidan even broke up with you, because you said something like this to me. I mean, if you think so little of me, what do you want to date me for?”

I remembered, with a slow burn across my cheeks, the note I’d lost in Harper’s house, in which Tia and I had discussed exactly this. I wondered again whether he’d found it.

I drove up to the gate and punched in the combination. But when it was open, I didn’t pull out onto the road right away. I turned to Sawyer.

He had the same idea. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We’re both stressed out right now. I know that’s not what you meant, and I didn’t mean to—”

I leaned over and kissed him.

His arms wrapped around me and pulled me closer. He deepened the kiss, making it very, very sexy for a moment. Then he backed off and placed a series of light, sweet kisses on my lips. “You have to go,” he whispered before kissing me again.

“I know.”

His lips lingered on mine. “But I want to stay here forever with you”—kiss—“and get gawked at by passing motorists.” A car zoomed by on the road.

“That is so romantic.” I kissed him back, savoring what might be our last seconds together for a while. I truly wanted to stay there forever with him, too. Or, better yet, a hundred yards behind us, alone on the beach. The thought that finally made me leave was that if I stayed, I would make my punishment worse and, if I got grounded, my time away from Sawyer longer.

When I pulled in to my spot in the driveway, Dad was standing outside the garage in pajama pants and his ancient Columbia T-shirt. He said as I dragged my feet toward him, “I convinced your mother that she’s too angry to speak with you tonight.”

“Thanks.” I sighed with relief.

“Are you okay?”

I nodded.

“You’re wet.”

I swallowed. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m pretty sure Aidan called the police to get Sawyer in trouble for nothing.”

“Whether you did something wrong is in the eye of the beholder,” Dad said ominously. “In the morning, the beholder is going to be your mother.”

Then he hugged me close and squeezed me. Immediately he let me go. “Ew, you’re really wet.” He took me by the shoulders and pressed his lips to my forehead for a long moment. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

But a conversation with my mother loomed in the morning. I didn’t feel safe at all.

13

“GET. UP!”

Fight-or-flight adrenaline zipped through me. I sat straight up in bed. Morning light flooded my room. My mother, fully dressed, frowned at me with her fists on her hips. She was the definition of a rude awakening.

“Put some clothes on,” she said, “and be in my car in two minutes.” She stalked out.

In a minute and a half, I was at her Mercedes, but she was already waiting with the engine running like I was late and had a lot of nerve.

She didn’t say anything for a long time as we drove through town. When we stopped at the intersection beside Aidan’s house, I craned my neck and saw his car in the driveway. I’d never considered myself a violent person, but I would have loved to try a Molotov cocktail just then. A gasoline-soaked rag stuffed into a bottle, aimed to roll underneath and explode the car he’d screwed me in three times. I fire-bombed it with my eyes after we’d passed it, until I couldn’t see it anymore.

“The police,” my mother finally muttered as we cruised the interstate. “I get a call at eleven o’clock at night from the police, saying my seventeen-year-old daughter is half-naked on public property with the very boy I have told her to stay away from. This is not a poor grade we’re talking about, Kaye, or a position at school. You are associating with a delinquent who has a bad reputation, and who is a bad influence on you.”

“I agree he has a bad reputation.” No arguing with that. “I don’t agree that he’s a bad influence. He’s cleaned up his act lately. Anyway, you sound like you think I’m five, with no mind of my own.”

“Because that’s exactly how you’re behaving, as if you can’t see you’re throwing your future away. Listen to me. I didn’t go to school with anyone like Aidan.”