I tilted my head ever so slightly.Me? For what?
“Maybe we can talk about this later.” Jamie glanced around the table. “When our…guestsleave.”
It was probably a good idea, because Carter looked like he was wishing he could blend into the wallpaper, and Beck looked like he was ready to search for some popcorn.
“Mr. Brighton.” Beck didn’t straighten from his slouch, His voice was warm. Conversational. Unlike Beck. “I didn’t see you at the last ADP social hour. I was hoping to catch up.”
For the first time since we’d sat down, I caught a glimmer of unease on Dad’s face. At first, I chalked it up to the fact that this was forced social interaction, which he hadn’t had in weeks. But the way he stared at Beck was strange, like he was putting on a brave face in front of a ghost. “I don’t get out to them much these days. Are your parents back in town with you?”
Beck grinned. “Nope.”
“You know,” Carter began, leaning around me to focus on Beck. “I don’t know too much about you, Beck. Are you home for the summer from college?”
There was a long pause, and I waited for Beck to sayI took a gap year. Because surely, with that blasé attitude, Beck didn’t go to college. I couldn’t imagine him taking studies seriously. “Yep.” And that was it.
“What school?”
Some community college. Some online school, maybe. Not someplace like— “Stanford.”
Everyone at the table turned to him. Including me. “You’re at Stanford?” I asked, with far too much shock in my voice.
“That’s what I said.”
“Good for you, son,” Dad told him, giving him a soft nod. The hollows of his eyes seemed grayer in the dining room light, making the expression on his face as he regarded Beck look haunted. “Stanford is a great school. I’m—happy for you. You had a rocky go of it for a while with your parents, but I’m proud of how you turned out.”
I wondered how often Dad had uttered those words in his career. He’d mostly served on the juvenile and family courts in his career, so surely he’d used the phrase a few times. He’d said those same words to Destelle’s rockstar boyfriend once upon a time, after having him in court when he’d been sixteen.
I could almost see something dig into Beck. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was, but it wassomething, curling its fingers into his skin and gripping on. “It’s funny.” A trace of a disdainful smile touched his mouth. “Hearing you say that—as if you mean it.”
I sucked in a breath as Dad frowned. “I do mean it?—”
“You don’t. What you really mean is ‘I’m glad you’re no longer a problem.’” Beck rocked a little in his chair, the front legs leaving the ground. “That’s really what everyone thinks. People don’t realize how bad they are at hiding what they’re thinking.” He sipped his water, unbothered.
He also didn’t seem to notice we were all staring at him, even Jamie, who looked alarmed. Beck’s mood, though, had me feeling prickly all over, like I needed to hold my breath.
“I still remember the little speech you gave me before everything that happened,” Beck went on, still talking to Dad. “I think about it from time to time, and think,wow. Mr. Brighton, the hot-shot judge who corrals troubled kids, sure knows his stuff.”
Realization hit me slowly, and then all at once. Dad had talked to Beck before the night in the garden? About what? And Dad’s expression made more sense now, why he looked like he’d seen a ghost. Because whatever chat he’d had with Beck had haunted him as much as it’d haunted Beck.
Carter’s voice was hesitant. “E-Everything that happened?”
“I lit one of the Alderton-Du Ponte gardens on fire.” He lazily looked at Carter. “Burned their award-winning rosebushes to a crisp. Which is a load, don’t you think? How lame do you have to be to hold a contest forrosebushes?”
A strange buzzing filled the air, and it took me several seconds to realize it was in my head. The topic, as taboo as it was, came up so easily on Beck’s lips, as if he didn’t know it wasn’t allowed. As if he didn’t care. If it hadn’t been for the way his lips pressed together, I wouldn’t have realized he was tense at all.
“You… lit thegardenon fire?” Carter balked. “Why?”
“Why?” Beck echoed, staring straight at me. No, it wasn’t an echo—it was the same question.Why?He couldn’t answer Carter’s question, not really, because it hadn’t been Beck who’d started the fire in the first place.
Beck and I stared at each other for a long moment,and the buzzing in my head was almost too loud to think around. His eyes were so fiercely green, but in that moment, transparent, as both of us were taken to a time in the past.
Beck pulled something small from his other pocket and held up a thin silver box. “Here,” he said, and then flicked the lid open, and after sparking the wheel, a flame spouted out. A lighter. “Explode.”
“Fill in the blanks however you want.” Beck slammed his chair forward, the legs cracking against the ground hard enough to make me jump. “I hate Alderton-Du Ponte—almost as much as I hate everyone in it.” And then he got to his feet. “While this has been a nice little chat around the dinner table, I, in fact, am the odd one out. And illegally parked.”
Jamie, silent nearly the entire time, started to stand. “Let me walk you?—”
“I can show myself out.” Beck didn’t meet anyone’s eyes. “Brightons. Pebble Brain.” Then, without another word, he strode toward the front door.
