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My dad quiets for a moment, getting ready to be serious now. When he needs to talk to us, he tries to start off with something funny. I’m not sure if it’s a Madoc Caruthers’s thing or a politician thing, but he’s good at easing into people’s space. With me, he leads with my sister because he knows I adore her.
“I agreed to this,” he tells me in a stern tone, “because you said it would settle things.”
“It will.”
My dad didn’t want me to come here. He missed me when I left and went to St. Matthew’s, but it’s a good school, so he sucked it up. Weston doesn’t send anyone to good colleges.
“Twelve days.” His tone is clear and firm. “You will walk through our door, home to your mother, win or lose, intwelvedays.”
“I remember,” I reply, but it sounds more like I’m re-agreeing to our terms.
“I love you,” he says.
“You, too, Dad.”
“Bye.”
We hang up, and I toss my phone onto my bed.
I release a breath.
I’m lucky in the parent department. They weren’t dumb enough to believe my grandpa when he said he’d be leaving his mansion in the Chicago suburbs and living here with me,but I’m not Kade. I don’t make them worry about drinking, fighting, or petty crime.
And I don’t sneak girls into my room.
I walk to my window, seeing Dylan walk past her bed and open her closet. She disappears inside.
I’ve only snuck one girl into my room.
“Take her!” Kade yells to me as he pulls his girlfriend’s hand.
I glare at him across the hall as he shoves Gemma Ledger out of his room and toward mine. She pulls her sweatshirt on over her bra, the shirt cut halfway up her stomach and sliced at the neck to hang off her shoulder. She scurries into the hall in her white sweatpants and sneakers.
I hang out my door. “Kade, seriously.”
I cast a worried glance down the hall, knowing our parents are on the move. We have a picnic for Memorial Day.
But he just spits back, “Oh, Dad’ll be happy if he finds a girl in your room.”
Gemma shifts on her feet. “Will someone get me out of here, please?”
Footfalls hit the stairs, a shadow climbs the wall, and Kade practically snarls at me, baring his teeth.
I slide back, opening my door. Gemma scurries inside, and I step back in place, watching my father reach the second-floor landing. He charges toward Kade. “Whose car is parked outside and has been there all night?”
“I don’t know.”
My brother shrugs, and if I didn’t know for a fact that he was lying, I would still know. And so does our dad. Kade’s certainty that our parents can’t punish him for things they can’t prove shines through in his arrogance.
Dad steps up to him. “Open the door.”
“It’s my room.” Kade doesn’t budge. “I don’t invade your privacy.”
“You trying to lose your phone too?” Dad growls. “Move.”
Finally, Kade steps back, giving our dad space to enter. He goes in, and I watch him look around and dive into Kade’s bathroom, searching for the girl who slept over last night.
I almost smile. It’s kind of funny, my dad trying to catch his kid with a girl in the same room that we accidentally found out that our dad took our mom’s virginity in when they were sixteen. Same age as we are now. I’m not going to remind my dad of that. He’s not mad at me—yet.
