Most Likely to Succeed

Nobody budged. Everyone glared at everyone else.

“Come on in,” Harper repeated, daring to encircle my mother’s waist with her arm and push her along toward the door. “Everyone’s welcome inside, where you can continue to discipline your daughter and . . .” Harper was not the best at making small talk, which is why it had been a good idea for her to stop working at the B and B in the first place. “. . . castigate Sawyer,” she finished.

Sawyer elbowed her.

“I said castigate,” she told him.

“You see,” my mother said straight to me as I followed Dad through the door, “this is what happens when you date trash. We all start acting like trash.”

Sawyer dropped into one of the side chairs around the coffee table. He’d been ready to defend himself physically against Dad, but he was no match verbally for my mother.

“Gosh,” Harper protested at the same time Dad started, “Sylvia—”

“No,” I told my mother, “this is what happens when I finally stand up for something I want. You say you’re training me to be a strong woman. But really, you want to be a strong woman with a weak daughter you can push around.”

My mother stared at me in stunned silence.

“I refuse to be grounded anymore,” I said. “I won’t let you tell me who I can date. If you want to take away my car, fine. Kick me out of the house and I’ll get a job and a place of my own. I’ll take the bus to Tampa and try out as a professional cheerleader.”

Harper raised her hand. “I don’t think those jobs pay very much—”

“Listen,” Dad said to me. “Your mother came here to give you a piece of her mind. Which she did.” He turned to my mother. “I followed you here to tell this young man that as far as I’m concerned, he can ask Kaye out if he wants. He should consider me an ally, and I will work on you.” He held out his hand to her. “Come on, I’ll take you out for a drink.”

She looked at him. Her expression was somewhere between a glare and a smile.

He wiggled his fingers. “Come on, I’m loaded. I just sold another article.”

She took his hand, but she refused to look at anybody as he led her toward the door.

Dad patted Harper on the head as he passed her. “Sorry, honey.”

“That’s okay, Mr. Gordon,” she said. “Glad to be of service.”

He touched the tip of my nose. “Be home by two. And don’t go looking for an apartment just yet.” He opened the door for my mother and closed it behind them.

I collapsed into Harper’s arms. “I am so sorry!”

“No, don’t be sorry! It’s all worked out!” She called over my shoulder, “Sawyer, it’s all worked out. Are you okay?”

Sawyer was silent.

Frightened, I walked over to stand directly in front of his chair. He glared up at me. He wasn’t expressionless, as when he was furious. He had a look even madder than that. His anger showed in every line on his face. I’d never seen this expression before, but I knew it when I saw it.

“He’s not okay.” I reached down and cupped his cheek in my hand. “Baby, I don’t blame you for feeling that way, but it doesn’t matter now.”

“It doesn’t matter?” he exclaimed.

“Let’s go back over to the party,” Harper suggested brightly, “and forget all this.”

“Let’s do.” I held out my hand to pull Sawyer up.

But I knew from the way he looked at me that it had not, in fact, all worked out.

16

HARPER WENT AHEAD, AND I held Sawyer’s hand, but the three of us didn’t say much as we followed the path back to Tia’s house. We were passing through several backyards after midnight, and every adult in Florida owned a gun.

When we arrived, though, Brody and Noah were playing a very slow, sore game of hoops in the driveway. Brody took one look at Sawyer and said, “Oh God, what’s wrong? Don’t let him go in there.” But Sawyer had already broken away from me and disappeared inside.

“Why not?” Harper asked Brody.

“Aidan is plastered, and Will is in rare form.”

That made Harper and me speed up. As we hustled inside, I could hear Tia talking with Angelica right beside the door. “Aidan dated Kaye for three years, Angelica. You can’t expect him to forget that overnight— Oh.” She’d seen me, and she stepped into my path. “Sawyer just came in. He looks awful. What happened?”

I just shook my head, but Harper right behind me said, “Everything we thought, and worse.”

From the next room, I heard Will’s voice rising. Along with Harper and several other people, I peered into one of about six living rooms or dens or libraries on the bottom floor of the vast house.

The first thing I saw was Sawyer, with the same scary look on his face, standing in the opposite doorway.

Second I focused on Will, who was standing over Aidan, pointing down at him. Aidan was definitely drunk. There wasn’t any alcohol officially at this party. My class’s usual way around that was to go drink in someone’s parked car, then come back.

I’d known Aidan to imbibe that way. But not like this. His eyelids were heavy, and he seemed to be having a hard time keeping his head high as Will shouted down at him in his Minnesota accent. “How could you do that? So she’s your ex-girlfriend. You broke up with her. You’re trying to ruin her life, along with Sawyer’s, and you don’t care if you take some of the rest of us down too. We’re just collateral damage. What kind of student council president are you?”