SIX DAYS (3 page)

“Then it’ll be better if you see for yourself.” He smiled at me. “Surprises can be good,” he breathed. I gazed at him for a moment. “I’m going to take your word for it,” I said, suddenly feeling more comfortable with him—probably because I’d finished my beer.

“It’s eleven-thirty,” Luke announced, interrupting us. “She should be out by now.”

“Tosh’s mom is like the rest of ours. She says she takes a pill to help her sleep, but really it’s to keep the horrors of her reality from surfacing in the quiet because she doesn’t want to deal with her problems,” Kasey explained.

That information made me wonder if my mother would benefit from that sort of drug therapy, but she’d probably never agree to give up ranting about my father and Nico in exchange for peace and a desire to move on. I think lately, bashing him and “the infant” has become the most joyous part of my mother’s day.

Luke clicked the TV on. The screen image flipped over a few times until there was a live feed of a woman I assumed was Tosh’s mother asleep in her bed, alone.

“She’s down. Let’s go.”

Tosh put a finger over her lips signaling for everyone to be quiet as she held her cell phone to her ear. “Michka, please tell the
gate that Hazel and Ryen are spending the night and that Fredrick can go. We’ll be going to bed soon. Thank you. Good night to you, too.” 

Tosh slid the phone into her back pocket, and then everyone started walking toward her closet. Kasey took my hand, which made my heart beat so hard that I thought it might pop. I didn’t question it or try to read too much into it. I just enjoyed the way it felt as I imagined it would never happen again.

Tosh pushed a button on the remote she’d shown me earlier, making an entire rack of clothes split down the center, revealing the elevator’s shiny steel door behind it.

“This is how the boys come and go without anyone seeing them,” Hazel said. “It’s supposed to set off an alarm when it’s in use, but Luke took care of that. He wired up the camera in Vita’s room, too.”

“Yeah, Luke’s, like, our very own MacGyver,” Chase laughed.

“What the fuck do you know about MacGyver?” Tosh asked, swatting at Chase.

“Ummm…TV land,” Chase deadpanned. Tosh rolled her eyes and looked at me.

“It’s not like we spy on her or anything. I just have to cover my ass—make sure she’s asleep before I leave. When my father is home,
which is almost never, my parents sleep in a different wing of the house. She has a wing, he has a wing, and they have one together. Don’t ask me why. I have no idea. What I do know is that when he’s home, I don’t do shit. Nothing. He’d probably have me executed if he had any idea of the kinds of things I do.”

“I heard that,” Luke mumbled, and then
frenched her. I looked away—at Kasey. He smiled slightly, then his fingers moved, entwining with mine. He brushed his thumb slowly over the inside of my wrist, moving it back and forth, resuming the hard pounding in my chest.

The elevator led to a garage filled with limousines that appeared to have never been on the road. “Those are my dad’s,” Tosh said. “I never touch his stuff. Like I said—executed.” She moved her finger rigidly across her throat and then laughed hard—probably at my shocked expression.

“C’mon.” She pulled me away from Kasey, forcing our hands apart. “There’s a tunnel from the garage to the road behind my house. It was built for my dad, so he could come and go without anyone knowing, but since he’s never here...”

Tosh took me around a corner in the garage where a small-stretch limo was waiting for us. A dark-haired lanky man in a black suit and hat stood holding the back door open.

“Thank you Frederick,” Tosh sang sweetly, and brushed her fingers over his chest before getting in the car.

“Why don’t you just give it to him already and get it over with,” Luke scoffed.

“Like I’d need an invitation from you,” she grinned sinfully. “And if I feel like giving it to him, I will.” They stared fiercely at one another for a moment, giving me chills. I was afraid they were about to fistfight or something. Then Tosh pushed Luke backward on the seat and lay on top of him. They began making out in a way that made me think they were going to do it right there in front of us.

“Ignore them,” Kasey whispered. “They’re always like that—have been since junior high. It’s their twisted way of spicing things up.”

“Tosh and Luke have been together since junior high?”

“Met on the first day of seventh grade, been together ever since.” I thought that was amazing. Most adults couldn’t make a marriage last seven years, much less a dating relationship.

Tosh and Luke were making out and now so were Hazel and Chase. I wondered for a second if they had orgies and junk. That if I wasn’t about to be left for dead in a trunk, maybe I was going to be offered entry into some freak show sex thing. Like fight club, only X-rated.

“We’re not promiscuous,” Kasey whispered to me. “I’m sure it looks that way, but growing up with parents like ours has made us crave stability, which is something you won’t ever have if you’ve got a revolving bedroom door.” I never would have expected that a guy who could have any girl he wanted didn’t take advantage of it. It made me even more curious about him.

“What’s your story?” I asked softly. Kasey brushed a strand of hair away from my face and smiled at me.
Derrick who
? It was the first time since he’d dumped me that I felt I would be better off without him.

“You mean how did I wind up entangled with these misfits?”

“No—I,” I stuttered, exiting the spell I’d been under while gazing into Kasey’s eyes. I looked at everyone staring back at me, hoping they didn’t think I thought of them as misfits.

“Kasey’s hidden talent—twisting a person’s words,” Hazel laughed.

“I didn’t twist anything. We know what we are,” Kasey said. “And it won’t be long before Ryen figures it out, too.” He looked at me, almost dismally. “We each have our demons,” he said, which seemed to sober everyone’s mood.

“Who
doesn’t, asshole?” Chase cracked.

“I bet what she figures out is that she’s just as screwed up as the rest of us,” Luke offered. “Why the hell else would she be here?” I wanted to tell him I was there because I’d been invited, but thought better of it. I knew that wasn’t what he meant.

“Ignore him.
Again
,” Kasey said, louder that time. “He’s just mad that my father is screwing his sister.”

Luke started pushing Tosh off of him, coming after Kasey. Tosh fumbled her way to Luke, yelling for him to stop. She put her hands on his cheeks and forced him to look at her. “Calm down,” she asked gently.

“Your dad’s gonna get his,” Luke threatened, pointing at Kasey.

“I imagine he already has. There’s no telling what that trampy sister of yours has given him.
Hopefully nothing that a little penicillin can’t kill.”

“I’m
gonna bust your ass, Grayson, if you don’t shut the hell up about my sister.”

“Would the two of you stop whining?” Chase said, exasperated. “It’s a fact—a fact that’s not
gonna change, even if the two of you beat the shit out of each other over it. Luke, your sister’s just as slutty as Kasey’s dad, and everyone knows it. Just fucking drop it.”

I’d been taught that there were certain things you shouldn’t tell people. What happened in your house was your business and not meant for the public. A rule my mother had recently decided no longer applied to her because she felt she had a right to be angry and that the rest of the world deserved to know why.

Kasey looked at me, the gold in his chestnut eyes intense, his jaw rigid. “You still wanna know my story?” Somehow, the question felt rhetorical. It almost made me feel like he was trying to warn me what I’d be in for if I stuck around.

The car rolled to a slow stop. “Where are we?” Hazel asked, looking around, panicked.
“Oh, uh-uh. No. No way,” she complained. “T. What the hell?”

“It wasn’t me,” Tosh said, wide-eyed.

Hazel looked at Chase. “Yeah, right,” he laughed.

“It was me,” Kasey spoke up.

“Why would you—you know how I feel about him being around,” she said, shaking her head and crossing her arms hard across her chest.

“He called earlier. I told him what we were doing. He wanted to come. It’s been a while…”

Hazel mumbled under her breath as Frederick opened the car door. A blond couple holding hands stepped inside and sat down next to Kasey and me.

“Grayson,” the guy said, and slapped hands with Kasey.
“Been too long, man.”

“Got that right.”

The guy glanced at me and Kasey introduced us. “This is Ryen. Ryen, meet
Asher and Emmy.” As Asher and I were saying hello, Emmy interrupted, “You didn’t tell me
she’d
be here,” she said to Asher, glaring at Hazel.

“You can always get the fuck out. Preferably while the car is moving,” Hazel told her, a Cheshire smile on her glossy lips.

“Not a chance,” Emmy smirked back.

“Glad you both came,” Kasey offered. Hazel shook her head and looked out the window. The air inside the car became so dense that I would have needed a chainsaw to cut through it.

The car stopped again five minutes later. It was the longest five minutes of my life. No one spoke. No one made eye contact. Not knowing what was going on made it that much more uncomfortable for me.

“Damn, it’s already started,”
Emmy complained. She opened the door and bolted from the car, leaving Asher behind. As he followed her, Hazel laughed. “He’s turned into such a whipped bitch. It’s making me nauseous. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll get to puke in her goldilocks.” Hazel stuck a finger in her open mouth and made a gagging noise.

“Here we go,” Chase grumbled. “Drama Time,” he shouted, and danced in his seat like MC Hammer.

“You’re such a tard,” Hazel laughed hard, throwing her head back.

“Yeah, well, you love this
tard, so what does that make you?” he growled.

“I guess that makes me a
tard, too,” she laughed, and quickly kissed his mouth.

“Don’t let them ruin our night,” Chase sweetly told Hazel as Kasey helped me out of the car. I glanced around, but didn’t see much of anything.
The road, some woods, and the car.

Frederick popped the trunk and sat out blankets, battery operated candles, and a cooler full of beer. “I’ll be back at two,” he told Tosh, before driving away, leaving us in almost total darkness, which I wasn’t too excited about until I turned around.

“Wow,” I gasped.

We were on a hillside, angled with the perfect view of a massive movie screen in the backyard below us.

“The couple who lives there throws a midnight movie party the last Thursday of the month during the summer,” Kasey told me.

“How did you find this place? The view is amazing.”

“Asher used to live next door to them. The one guy is a B movie screenwriter and his partner owns a dog daycare.”

“But how they really make their money,” Asher declared.
“Is porn.”

“What?” I gasped.

“They lease out their house for skin flicks. I swear they make over a million a year just by letting a few pervs use their house.”

“You’re a
perv,” Luke accused. “You used to peep on them while they were filming.”

“Only because Dan told me I could—I was fifteen,” Asher protested, as if letting everyone know he was no longer that perverted kid four years in the past.

I joined everyone else, except Emmy, who was already seated, in spreading out a blanket and settling in to watch the movie, which I realized was in black and white.

“What is this?” I whispered to Kasey.

“
The Awful Truth
, it’s an old Cary Grant movie.”

“Is this the kind of movie they always show?”

“Usually, yeah.”

I looked at him funny, surprised. He laughed.
“Told you surprises can be good.” That made me smile. “We’re not complete Neanderthals. We appreciate the arts.” His tone made me laugh. “Shh,” Emmy spit. “Go somewhere else if you’re going to talk.” She waved her hand toward the sparsely wooded area beside us.

“Bossy,” I whispered. Kasey snickered. “At least she’s not bawling,
yet
.”

She was a crier.
Ew.

I looked around and Emmy was the only one actually watching the movie. The others were making out and even Asher seemed to be trying to sway Emmy to follow suit. He was kissing her neck, which she was completely ignoring. I didn’t know how. Whenever Derrick kissed my neck, he’d easily won my attention.

Kasey hopped up and held a hand out for me. I took it, along with one of the battery-operated candles. He grabbed each of us a bottle of beer from the cooler and we walked into the woods. Once we were out of earshot, I began prying into his story.

“So, you said your father is seeing Luke’s sister?” I figured it was okay to ask because no one seemed fazed by what had happened between him and Luke in the car earlier, and after a few minutes, it was as if it hadn’t happened at all.