Chasing Midnight (19 page)

The closer I get to home, the slower I drive,

Whoa,
hold up.

What is going on over there in front of that house? I slow down to a crawl at the sight of a tanned, shirtless dude mowing the lawn. Tall. Built. Broad shoulders. Something close to a six-pack on his—

Wait a second. Is that
. . . ?

Cale.

I feel myself blushing. Why am I blushing? And how did I not know Cale lives up here, practically in my backyard?

Or that he has a six-pack?

I pull up next to the curb, gaping—I mean, wondering if I should say hi. He doesn’t see me idling; his head is down and he’s swimming in earphones—the heavy-duty kind designed to block out noise from a nuclear bomb. I honk, but he keeps on mowing the lawn, completely oblivious to me or anything else around him.

I get out of the car and walk across the lawn until I’m directly in his path. The lawn mower dies as he lifts his head in surprise and yanks the headphones down to his neck, shading his eyes with his hand. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asks, the freckles on his nose seemingly multiplying every second in the sun, little beads of sweat trickling down his chest.

Me not noticing.

“Why are you mowing your lawn?” I ask, assuming this is his house and not some lawn-mowing job. “Did your service not show up today?”

He tilts his head sideways, eyeing me with suspicion. “I always mow my lawn. You know that.”

I do?

“Don’t you know living up here means the only thing you ever
have
to do is what you can’t afford to pay someone else to do for you?”

“Yeah, well, my parents never got that memo.”

“Sucks for you. You know it would look a lot better if you crosscut it,” I say, pointing at his measly, crooked lines cutting through the lawn. Wondering why everybody doesn’t know about crosscutting.

“What—you’re giving me lawn-mowing tips now?” he asks, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You ever mowed a lawn in your life?”

“I’m offended by that question, you know. And, as a matter of fact, yes, I have. So, if you want your lawn to look amazing, you’ll take my advice,” I say, heading back to my car.

“That’s it? You stopped by to give me lawn tips?”

I try to think of another comeback, but then remember the record in the front seat of my car. I
have
to show it to him. He’s going to love it, I know it. Plus, it feels sort of to awesome to be able to wave it in his face the way he did mine.

“Hold on a sec,” I say, running to the car and returning a few seconds later with the album. “Boom,” I say, slamming it into his hands.

“What’s this?”

“Well, for starters it’s a sweet Love and Rockets album I just bought. But more importantly, it’s our ‘alternative inspiration.’” I throw my own quote marks up in the air, feeling a little stupid about it, though. “For our art project.”

He flips the album over and back again, finally settling on the white and red image on the front. I wait as he studies it, watching the expression on his face morph from hesitant to curious to satisfied. “Not bad, Love,” he says, walking me to my car. Opening the door for me.

“So how about we meet up tonight after you’re done here, and we’ll get this stupid thing over with once and for all?”

Cale leans into the car and reaches across me to straighten out my rearview mirror. His bare torso is much too close to my face. He sort of reeks, but I don’t mind. “Looks like we have a date, then.”

I slide on my shades. “Slow down, there, cowboy. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a date.”

Woops. Is that me flirting again? And I didn’t even have to try.

“See you tonight,” he says, his face nearly brushing against mine as he backs out the window. Then he taps the hood of the car, like a signal for me to take off.

I peel out, honking as I go.

Through the rearview mirror, I watch him watch me drive away, the lawn mower still on pause. The smile still on his face. A smile still on mine.

ten

M
y street is eerily quiet as I leave for Cale’s house
after dinner. It feels closer to midnight than only eight o’clock—deserted and cold and empty—and I shiver beneath the street lamps and swaying trees.

A car passes. I cross the street to the other side when a car approaches from behind, the headlights lingering on me, distorting my shadow in front of me. It slows, its motor idling over the sound of squeaky brakes. I turn, wondering why the car doesn’t pass, but its headlights keep me from getting a decent view of the car.

Hoping it’s only someone turning into a driveway, I keep walking, glad Cale’s house is only a few houses away. At the corner I cut across a lawn, turning up Bellevue Avenue. The car continues to follow me. I hug my arms against my body and slow my pace, hoping to bore the car into leaving.

No such luck. It keeps plodding along until it pulls up right beside me. I stop and turn, throwing my hands out in front of me. “What?” I yell.

The darkness masks the occupants inside, offering nothing more distinguishing than moving shapes and vague shadows. If only I could see inside the car to know whom I’m up against, I wouldn’t feel so helpless.

The front passenger-side window lowers, leaving an opening wide enough to reveal the top of someone’s head. The ticked-off
half of me is already starting to overpower the paranoid half, and my only wish in the world right now is for a baseball bat or some sort of weapon—even pepper spray will do.

“Hey, there,” calls a deep voice all buttery and smooth, like I am hanging out at a bar and not only sixteen. It sounds vaguely familiar, a variation of somebody’s voice I already know but can’t place.

“What’s your problem?” I yell, trying to swallow the knot in my throat.

There is a pause, and then, “I don’t have a problem, unless you count the fact that you’re out there, and I’m in here.”

Gross.

Laughter spills out of the car. “Where you going, sweetheart?”

The tinted window rolls down just enough for me to hear another voice coming through the crack. “You want a ride?”

“Grow up,” I say, turning up the Blackburns’ driveway. Wanting to run but not wanting these losers to think I’m scared of them. So I continue slowly up the driveway with my head down, my eyes trained on my feet.

“Tell your
friend
I say hi,” a girl’s voice calls out to me.

That voice.
I whirl around to find Liv Sandstrom’s head poking out of the front passenger window, her hair flying wildly around her. I gawk at her, stunned, wondering who else is in the car with her. Which of the lucky ones’ voices I heard before hers . . .

I take a step toward them, and Liv laughs. She sinks back through the window as the car jerks forward, taking her and the rest of my tormentors away. Two empty cans fly out of the back window and land at my feet with a clank. My gaze drops to the dented cans while I try to stop the anger from swelling up inside me. Not just anger—confusion. What does Liv have against Cale? What do all of them have against Cale?

At the front door, I ring the doorbell, forcing myself not to dwell on what just happened. A big smile with a bigger voice under a mop of bright red hair greets me, yelling, “Cale!
Kenzie’s here!” before running down the hall and leaving me agape at a dark, empty hall.

Who is that kid and how does he know me? My mouth hangs open at his whirlwind of an exit while I wait for someone to come around the corner or bound down the stairs to tell me where to go.

But it looks like I’m on my own here.

As I step through the entrance, a flash of light encroaches on my vision, and now I’m staring at the same small face with the same mop of red hair, only a little bit younger. He runs up to me and hugs my torso, then stares up at me with a gap-toothed smile. I reach down to lift him up, but the memory fades before I do, and I’m standing in the foyer of Cale’s house, the same house I’ve been to dozens of times since freshman year.

“Hello?” I call out, closing the door behind me.

Music from a TV spills down a hallway as I pace further along the floor toward the kitchen, where I can make out some kind of commotion going on in there.

I look around. “Cale?” The kitchen is smaller than mine, but still on par with the rest of the house—white cabinets, shiny black granite and sleek stainless steel. This is how I remember it. The backside of Cale’s tall, athletic torso stands in front of a huge square window at the sink, doing dishes. A white towel is draped over his shoulder as if he were someone much more important than just Cale. He’s also in the middle of busting a move to whatever tune blasts through his earbuds.

I never knew he was so smooth.

Watching him lifts my mood, and I inch forward, careful to stay hidden behind his bobbing, twisting head so he can’t see me. When he’s only a foot away from me, I reach out to tap him on the back, but before I make contact, he spins around and yells,
“Hola!”
right in my face.

To call the noise I make a
scream
is putting it lightly. As in, calling an explosion a burst or an earthquake a shiver. Cale’s eyes shift from playful to scared for his life as my instincts kick
in before my brain has a chance to register that I am really not about to die. My fist shoots straight into Cale’s face, but he ducks just in time, catching hold of my hand and twisting me around in front of him.

“Suck it!” I yell, punching him in the chest with my other hand.

He lets go of me, laughing. “Did you just yell ‘suck it’? In your big moment of crisis, that’s the best you can come up with?” He pulls the towel off his shoulder and snaps it at me, as if fending off a charging bull. “Ouch. You have such a potty mouth. Shall we wash it out with soap?” He swipes a slimy bottle of green liquid soap off the counter and pretends to pour it over my head.

“Watch it.” I grab the bottle from him and toss it into the sink. “How’d you know I was behind you, anyway? Are you a ninja in training or something?”

“I saw your reflection in the window. At first I thought I was about to get knifed until I realized how short and cute my killer was.”

“Har.
Har.
By the way, you need to give that kid—your
brother,
I mean—a few lessons on safety . . . and etiquette. For all you know, I
could’ve
been a murderer.”

“A
cute
one, remember?”

“Shut it.” I snatch the towel off his shoulder and smack him with it in the chest. He spins me around, trying to wrestle it away from me. I scream, refusing to give in. The harder he pulls, the tighter I hold on. Finally we’re at an impasse.

“Uncle?” I offer, unable to twist out of the headlock I’m in.

“Uncle-what?”

“Uncle. As in, I give up.”

He releases me, and I fall to the floor. “Quitter.”

I rub my hip. “Smooth.”

He cocks his head sideways and gives me a lopsided smile. A light spattering of freckles skip across his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose, his hair gelled and sticking up, making him
appear mischievous, like a little kid who can’t be trusted. What is it about freckles that instantly bring to mind trouble?

I have to admit he looks pretty cute there in his kitchen, surrounded by fruit and flowers and without the usual ski cap on his head, his regular low-key style replaced by some fancy Pac Sun ensemble.

“Cool hair, by the way,” I say, patting the top of his coiffed ’do with my hand. He darts away from me like I’m going to ruin it or something. “What’s up with the fancy hairdo?”

“Just keeping it real.”

I look at him funny, wondering what he’s talking about.

“Mom. Dad. Clients. Dinner party. You know the drill,” he adds, a dignified look on his face.

No, I don’t. In this life, my parents never seem to eat dinner, much less turn it into a party.

“Okay, you ready to talk art?” I say. “Get this thing over with?”

Cale looks all serious again as he heads for a door at the back of the kitchen, grabbing a set of keys off the counter along the way. “Don’t just stand there. Let’s go,” he calls over his shoulder.

“Where?”

“I want to show you something,” he says, opening what appears to be the garage door for me.

“What?”

“It’s a secret.”

I tag him in the shoulder. “A secret? What kind of secret?”

“You have to wait and see.”

“Can you at least give me a hint?”

He thinks for a minute and cracks a smile. “We’re going on a field trip.”

“We are? Where to?”

“Surprise, remember?” he says, standing beside a black Mercedes G box, opening the door for me.

“Whoa—is this your car?” I ask, sliding inside, surprised I’d never seen him driving it.

“Um. You know it’s my car.”

Oops. Stuff I’m already supposed to know. “You should drive it to school. It’s so sweet.”

“I prefer my bike.”

“Oh,” I say, wondering what kind of rich person he is.

Not a very good one.

We drive down the hill and past the school, into town. At the next light he veers right, cutting across a big, half-empty parking lot. I size up the next street, trying to guess which building he’s headed for. Other than the liquor store and butcher shop, nothing stands out. Call me crazy, but I kind of figure we’re not stopping for meat or booze.