The Boyfriend Thief (7 page)

When I pulled up in front of Greeley Lock & Key, a small brick building with a sign shaped like a house key hanging over the front door, I could see Zac inside through the big plate glass window. He stood behind the register, nodding his head and bouncing around as he hung keys on a giant pegboard on the wall. He danced in the space between the counter and the wall, spinning circles and doing crazy disco moves mixed with what looked like the Macarena, as if he didn’t care that anyone driving or walking by could see him.

I sat there in my car in front of the store for a long time, watching Zac dance around in his own little party inside his dad’s shop. It was hard enough forcing myself to do the Hot Diggity Shuffle a couple times a week, and yet here Zac was dancing as if he never wanted to stop. How could he dance so freely without worrying about being interrupted by someone walking in the front door? What would it be like to feel that carefree?

When I stepped inside Greeley Lock & Key, I had expected to be greeted with a blast of loud, fast-paced music from the way Zac still danced around the room. But instead, a tinkling of soft muzak met my ears.

The bell over the door chimed when I walked in and Zac turned toward me, still dancing away. He grinned wide and gestured toward the pegboard behind him.

“Hey,” he said. “Just doing a little work. Hanging new key blanks.”

I raised an eyebrow at him as he launched into the Running Man. “Do you always dance while you work?”

“Sure,” Zac panted. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“Only when someone insists on seeing the Hot Diggity Shuffle.”

Zac looked at me as if I were the crazy one. “You need to dance more often,” he said, pointing a key blank at me. “Come on, let’s see your moves.”

I shook my head. “No way.”

“Come on.” Zac moved from behind the counter and danced his way toward me. “A little disco, maybe?” He rocked his hips back and forth, pointing one hand toward the sky. “Or the Robot?” His arms and torso twisted around with stiff movements for a moment before he grinned at me again.

“How about homework?” I asked, tapping my bag. “Economics class, remember?”

“Oh, I see.” Zac nodded, a smug smile on his lips.

“What?”

He shrugged and returned the handful of key blanks to a box on the counter. “Nothing. Just that you can’t dance.”

“Just because I don’t want to dance doesn’t mean I can’t,” I snapped.

Zac hopped up onto the counter, kicking his legs back and forth. “Sure. All talk and no action.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring at him. “I am not dancing here in your dad’s store to prove I can.”

“Then I stand by my statement that you can’t dance.”

The way he smiled at me made me furious. I took jazz classes for six years when I was a kid. I could dance. But I didn’t want to, even if doing so would wipe that stupid grin off his face.

I unzipped my bag and pulled out the business notebook. “We have a matchmaking business to run, remember?”

“Tell you what,” Zac said suddenly. “If we ace the economics project, you’ll dance for me. Deal?”

I snorted. “Yeah, right. And what are you going to do for me if we ace the project?”

“What do you want me to do? Teach you all my signature dance moves?” He launched into the Cabbage Patch, rolling his arms in wide circles.

“I’ll pass, thanks.” I leaned against the old, battered counter, next to dusty boxes of key chains and those magnetic key boxes you stick under your car to hide a spare key.

“Come on,” Zac said. “It’s not a fair trade if you don’t get something in return. What do you want me to do? Name your price.”

I should have said I wanted him to dump Hannah. A quick and easy end to this whole mess I’d gotten myself into. But I couldn’t. The words got lost somewhere between my head and my lips.

What came out instead was, “Teach me how to not be miserable.”

Where had that come from? I clamped my mouth shut, wishing I could pull the words back in and hoping maybe Zac hadn’t heard.

But he had. “No one can be miserable when they’re doing the Electric Slide.” He launched into a fast-paced rendition of the dance, sliding across the dingy floor and beckoning to me to join in.

I shook my head. “You have to ace the project before you’re getting me to dance.”

Zac’s shoulders drooped as he sighed. “The untalented always have plenty of excuses to keep from dancing in front of anyone.”

“Untalented?” I asked. “You’ve never seen me dance, so you can’t make an assumption of my skills.”

“Then let’s see your moves.”

My hands planted firmly on my hips, I scowled at him and said, “I’m not dancing for you. Especially not here in your dad’s store, where anyone could walk in and see me.”

“Okay, okay,” Zac relented. “Project first. Dancing later.”

We worked on our project for a long time, my hand trying desperately to keep up with all of the ideas flying out of Zac’s mouth as he spoke. Mr. Freeman had given us our first random event we had to deal with as a company: an unexpectedly large tax bill that was three weeks overdue. Zac’s ideas for making up the money ranged from setting up a speed dating event for which we’d charge tickets to a bikini car wash match up.

“That’s so sexist,” I told him. “A bunch of girls in bikinis, parading around with soap and water. Of course you’d come up with that idea. You are male.” I shot him a disgusted look.

“What if we made the guys wear Speedos?” Zac asked. “Equal opportunity skin flashing.”

I laughed at the idea of a bunch of guys from school voluntarily wearing tiny little Speedos. “Sure, if you can get teenage boys in Speedos, be my guest.”

Zac flicked my nose with his thumb. “Don’t forget your bikini then.”

“Oh, you’re so sure of yourself?” I asked, ignoring the heat exploding from the spot where Zac had touched my nose.

“The one thing I have never lacked,” Zac said, holding his shoulders back and his chin high, “is confidence in my abilities to convince anyone to do anything.” He paused, then added, “For the right amount of leverage. And girls in bikinis would otherwise be known as ‘leverage’ when dealing with teenage boys.”

I almost didn’t hear the sound of the bell over the front door tinkle as I laughed. We turned to find Mr. Greeley striding across the room, unloading a stack of papers from his front shirt pocket.

“Zac,” he said, glancing at me. “I didn’t realize you had company.”

“You remember Avery?” Zac asked. He tapped the books we had spread across the counter. “We’re working on our economics project.”

Mr. Greeley’s jaw was tight, but he nodded and gave me a polite smile. “Any customers tonight?” he asked.

Zac shook his head. “It’s been quiet.”

“Did you put away the new key blanks?”

“Most of them.”

Mr. Greeley raised his eyebrows. “Either you did it or you didn’t. I don’t pay you to stay here and goof off. If I wanted to waste years of hard work, I’d give in to the offers I’ve gotten and sell this old place.”

The muscles in Zac’s jaw twitched a little. “I’ll finish organizing them before I leave. We’ve been doing homework.”

Mr. Greeley frowned, but he said, “Good. I’ll be in the office, entering these receipts. If I’m not done by ten, you can go ahead home without me. Nice to see you again, Avery.”

The smile had barely spread across my face before Mr. Greeley turned and stepped into the office, closing the door behind him. He obviously wasn’t one for small talk. Zac stood at the counter, staring down at the books in front of him and absently tapping his fingers on the wood.

“So,” I said, trying to think of something to break the silence. My gaze fell on the key making machine along the wall. “Um, how does that work?”

Zac’s gaze followed where I pointed and he gave me a half-grin. “Want to learn?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Oh, no. I was just curious. Let’s get back to work.”

“Come on, it’s easy.” Zac took my hand in his and led me around the counter toward the rusty machine. “There are much newer models that do all the work for you, but my dad insists on keeping this old dinosaur around. He says you can’t really make an exact copy unless you can
feel
the grooves in the key. Let me see yours.”

I blinked at him. “See my
what
?”

“Your key.”

“Oh.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small keychain, which contained only two keys: my house key and my car key. Molly’s keychain had at least ten different keys on it, half of which she couldn’t remember what they went to.

“So we take your key,” Zac said, holding up my house key, “and clamp it into this side of the machine.” He twisted a knob on the left side, clamping my key between two metal pieces. “And then we take the key blank—” He grabbed one from the pegboard on the wall. “—and it goes on the right.” He clamped the key blank in place.

“Now, stand here in front of it, with one hand on this knob and the other over this switch,” he instructed. He gently led me into place in front of the machine, his hands over mine as he showed me what to do. He was so close I could feel the heat from his body radiating toward my back. His breath tickled my neck as he breathed out and I shivered slightly.

“What now?” I asked, my voice a little hoarse.

“Press this button.” He pressed my finger down over the switch and the machine roared to life. “Then with your other hand, you gently guide the slide back and forth.” I let him envelope my right hand in his as we moved the slide over the rotating blade that would cut a copy of the key. A few movements and it was done. Zac switched the machine off and stepped around me to unclamp the two keys.

Instantly, I could feel the absence of Zac’s body against mine. I stepped back, my head spinning dizzily and my hand tingling where he’d touched me.

He held up two keys, giving me that impish grin. “Now I have a key to your house. I could sneak in tonight and disturb your beauty sleep.”

I tried to shake off the remaining effects Zac’s closeness had on my mind and body. “Eight hours of sleep is crucial to a body that functions at peak efficiency,” I told him, laughing.

“A body that functions at peak efficiency?” Zac repeated. He made a face at me. “Are you sure you’re really sixteen? You sound like Einstein.”

“What would you prefer I say?” I made my voice high and giggly, twirling a lock of hair around one finger. “I, like, totally need tons of sleep or else I’m, like, a complete zombie.”

Zac stared at me for a moment before we both burst into laughter. “I don’t think that’s much of an improvement. How about being normal?”

“What’s normal?” I asked, moving past him to where our books were still spread out across the counter.

“I think I’m pretty normal,” Zac said. “And I get this way by existing on four hours of sleep and five bowls of Lucky Charms a day.”

I faked a gagging sound. “Do you know how much sugar is in that stuff?”

“Yes. Lots. It’s good.”

“You’re killing yourself.” I tilted my head to the side, examining him. “You don’t really get only four hours of sleep a day, do you?”

Zac shrugged. “Sometimes. Sometimes less. I told you, I don’t exactly sleep much. My brain is too wired.” He held his hands up on either side of his head, wiggling his fingers and making buzzing sounds, as if electricity were coming out of his skull.

“No one can exist on that little sleep,” I insisted.

“That’s what the five bowls of Lucky Charms are for.” Zac leaned against the counter as I packed up my things. “Any time of night you’re bored and have no one to talk to, I’m most likely still wide awake. It drives my mom crazy. A doctor prescribed me some sleeping pills once, but then I started sleepwalking. One night I made pancakes while I was still asleep. My mom found me eating half-cooked pancake batter and decided my not sleeping was safer than my sleep cooking.”

I slung my backpack over my shoulder. “There are rituals you can do to help get your body ready for bed. Like a warm bath and meditation. It could help settle your mind and ease you into sleep.”

Zac shook his head. “Tried it all. My mind is never calm. It wants to do like five billion things all at once, twenty-four hours a day.”

“You should try to find a way to get more sleep,” I told him. “It’s important to your well-being.”

“Thank you for caring about my well-being,” he said, with a grin.

I blushed and dropped my gaze to the floor. “I should go. I didn’t realize how late it was. I need to get
my
sleep so I can function fully tomorrow.”

Zac nodded. “Okay. Thanks for coming tonight.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks for teaching me how to make a key.”

Zac laughed as he tossed the extra key to me. “Now you’ll have a career to fall back on in case the doctor thing doesn’t work out. We could open our own locksmith shop together.”

“Let’s try to survive this matchmaking business first.”

“Deal,” Zac said. He pointed a finger at me. “Don’t forget. You owe me a dance.”

“We have to pass the project first,” I reminded him.

“Oh, we’ll pass,” Zac said. “I have full confidence in our business skills.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

I stood in the doorway, looking into the kitchen.
My
kitchen. Which at the moment was a complete disaster. Stacks of dirty dishes teetered on the counters and in the sink. On the stove, three pots boiled, one threatening to spill over onto my previously sparkling white stovetop. Cookbooks and chopped vegetables covered the kitchen table. On one corner of the counter sat the small radio from my bedroom, plugged in and blasting Elvis Presley.

Dad looked up from the sink, where he washed mushrooms. “Oh, hi, honey. Trisha and I decided to make a few things for dinner.”

I raised my eyebrows and looked pointedly at the mess. “A
few
things?”

Trisha giggled as she chopped carrots. “Well, we had originally planned on lasagna and salad, but then we changed our minds halfway through and thought chicken cacciatore sounded better.”

“So now you’re making what exactly?” I asked, still taking in the stack of bowls that looked ready to topple over at any moment. One of the pots on the stove bubbled, sending a spray of red liquid across the stovetop and the floor. I cringed as I eyed the stain, which would probably take at least an hour of scrubbing to get out of the tiles.

“Lasagna, chicken cacciatore, gazpacho, Swedish meatballs, potato salad, and Cesar salad,” Dad answered.

“How many people are you planning on feeding?” I asked.

“Just the four of us.”

I sucked a deep breath in through my clenched teeth.
Distal phalanges, intermediate phalanges,
I recited in my head as I fought to control my temper. I couldn’t believe Dad had let that woman do
this
to my kitchen.
Proximal phalanges.
He knew messes drove me crazy. Everything had its place and any sane person knew they should
clean
as they cooked to keep from ending up with a trashed kitchen.
Metacarpals.

Of course, any
sane
person would not cook a feast big enough for twenty people to feed four.
Carpals.

The recitation didn’t work to calm me down any. I stomped across the room and yanked open the refrigerator. I needed caffeine. I usually tried not to drink sodas, but this was an emergency.

When I reached in to grab a can of soda from the usual spot, my hand found fruit instead. I stared at the mango in my hand, blinking a few times, as if it would magically morph into a cold soda can.

“What is this?” I asked, waving the red and green skinned fruit.

“A mango,” Dad answered. “I know you’re a bit sheltered from the rest of the world, Avery, but I believe you’ve eaten mangoes before today.”

The temptation to lob the mango at my dad’s head to knock some sense back into him was almost too great to resist. “I know
what
it is. What I meant was,
why
is it on the second shelf and not in the crisper drawer? The second shelf is the soda shelf.”

“Sorry,” Trisha said, giving me an apologetic grin. “Your dad asked me to unload the groceries and I usually throw things in wherever they’ll fit. I don’t even know what a crisper drawer is for.” Her giggle was starting to get on my nerves.

I pushed the refrigerator door open all the way so she could have a full view of the inside. “The crisper drawer,” I said as I pointed toward it, “is for fruits and vegetables. To keep them
crisp
. Hence the name. Fruits go on the left side of the drawer, vegetables on the right. I even put labels on the drawer to let everyone else know this and a divider to keep them separate. See?” I pointed to the two small labels I had made on the label maker I’d bought a couple years ago after Ian kept putting things into the wrong place.

“The second shelf is clearly labeled ‘sodas.’ Which means, only sodas are to be put there. Fruit does not belong on the soda shelf.” I opened the crisper drawer and slammed the mango inside, most likely bruising it. But I didn’t care. Trisha had crossed the line when she came into my house, messed up my kitchen, and ruined the organization of my refrigerator.

“It’s not a big deal, Avery,” Dad said as he stirred the contents of one of the pots. “It’s a wayward mango. No harm.”

Of course I couldn’t count on him to understand. All he could see was this hot thirty-some-year-old woman who was willing to make out with him. There was no hope of getting Dad to see things clearly as long as he let his hormones run wild.

“Whatever,” I said, grabbing my soda and slamming the refrigerator shut. “Look at the labels next time and put things where they belong.”

I stomped to my room, my anger bubbling more and more with each thud of my feet on the floor. This was how disaster started. Dad let Trisha into our home, let her do things her way, and then once that relationship was over, I’d have to work overtime to get everything back the way it should be.

When Mom was still here, it wasn’t uncommon to find things in weird places. Like her keys hanging from the cup hooks in the cabinet. Or one shoe sitting on the bookshelf. After she left, I spent hours each day cleaning and organizing and putting things into order. My system worked. Dad and Ian never lost anything. They always knew where things went, thanks to all of the tiny labels I’d attached to practically everything.

Now this woman wanted to come in and ruin it all. How hard was it to read a label?

A knock on my door startled me. I glared at it. Why couldn’t Dad leave me alone? I was in no mood to have a sappy father-daughter heart-to-heart talk with a hug at the end to make everything better.

I snatched open the door. “Dad, I don’t really want to—”

I stopped suddenly, clamping my mouth shut. It wasn’t my dad, it was Trisha. She smiled at me, but I could see nervousness and hesitation in her eyes.

“Can I come in for a second?” Trisha asked.

I opened the door wider and turned around to stand by my desk, crossing my arms over my chest as I looked at her.

Trisha took this as a silent invitation to come in and she stepped halfway into my room, looking around for a moment to take in the shelves of academic awards along the lavender and gray striped walls. Near the closet stood a bookcase of medical books and the few stuffed animals and dolls I still had left over from my childhood. The purple pillows on my neatly made bed were stacked in order from largest to smallest. Everything was neat and orderly, everything in its own place. Just as I liked it.

“Nice room,” Trisha told me. “The X-rays add to the ambiance.” She pointed toward a framed photo of an X-ray I’d had at age ten, when Elliott had dared Hannah and me to ride our bikes off this little ramp he’d made from an old piece of wooden fence and a car tire. Hannah had made it over safely, but I had panicked when I hit the ramp, jerked my bicycle toward the right and fell onto the sidewalk, fracturing my arm. It was still the only broken bone I’d ever had.

The memory of Hannah and Elliott decorating my cast with drawings and their signatures made me smile a bit. But then I remembered it had been Dad who had taken me to the hospital that day because Mom wouldn’t get out of bed. She had spent a lot of time in bed during the last couple of years she was with us.

My smile faded, replaced by a deep scowl.

“Well,” Trisha said, clearing her throat when I didn’t say anything in response, “I wanted to apologize for not putting things back where they’re supposed to be. Your dad told me how much you like everything to be organized.”

Yeah, I could imagine Dad telling Trisha how
crazy
I was about organization. Dad could be pretty sloppy at times, not as bad as Mom ever was, but not exactly the neatest person in the world. He didn’t get how organizing and cleaning could calm me down.

“It’s fine,” I said through clenched teeth. “But next time remember to put things back where they belong.”

Trisha sat down on the edge of my bed, pulling the comforter out of place slightly. “Avery, I know it’s hard to see your dad dating people.”

I shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“I know how you feel,” she went on. “My parents divorced when I was a kid and it was weird when they started dating. I didn’t always like it. I secretly thought my mom and dad would eventually get back together.”

A sting shot through me. “Yeah, well, I know my parents aren’t getting back together. My mom
disappeared
. She’s not coming back.”

Trisha cringed for half a second, but it was quickly replaced by a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure your mom still loves you and thinks about you. Your dad loves you too. You and Ian are his entire world. I feel honored that he’s let me into his life and let me get to know you and your brother.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. She talked as if we were all one shiny, happy family. But we never had been and we never would be.

“I need to do my homework,” I lied, hoping she would take the hint and leave.

Trisha nodded and stood. Before she left, she looked back at me one more time and said, “I hope you and I can be friends, Avery. I’m not so bad once you get to know me.”

“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled, glaring at her back as she left the room. What could possibly make her think I was interested in ever being friends with her? She wasn’t any different from anyone else that had come before her. She would be out of our lives soon.