“Here?”
“Of course here,” Mom said. “I have everything I need.”
“Okay.” I headed back to my room to grab my uniform and put the phone up to my ear. “Chase? Mom says you can come over. I’ll send you the address.”
Chase Hooper knowing my address. That had to be the start of a true crime podcast, right?
“Thanks,” he said, like the word had been torn from him, and ended the call.
I texted the address, took my uniform back to my mom, and said, “He’s coming over.”
She gave me a look. “Why are you being so weird about it?”
Because he hates me and I fucked him on a prep table a few hours ago, Mom.
But it wasn’t like I was going to say that.
“I’m not being weird about it,” I lied and decided to go and be weird about it in another room where she couldn’t call me on it.
Sam was in the living room, her ass on the floor and her back against the couch. Her textbooks were scattered all over the coffee table, and she almost looked like an industrious student doing her homework, except for the K-pop concert she was watching on her iPad.
I sprawled on the couch behind her and said, “That doesn’t look like U.S. History.”
“Fuck off,” she said with a grin.
It was already getting dark when Chase arrived from Goose Run, and Mom had relegated Sam and me to making tonight’s dinner of Shit from a Jar. We hadn’t started yet because Samhad decided to help me make a list of Filipino pastries I could make for the bakery, and we’d gotten stuck reminiscing about our lola’s best food. Needless to say, when we visited our grandparents, nothing came from a jar.
Headlights arced against the living room windows as a truck pulled into the driveway.
I went and opened the door.
Chase jumped out of one side of the truck, and a hot guy with long, messy blond hair climbed out the other. Then the hot guy reached back inside the truck and helped a little girl out. She was wearing a hat shaped like a panda. The hot guy picked her up and put her on his hip.
Chase cast a wary look at the front door, and me, and then squared his shoulders and walked over to meet me. “This is my roommate, Wilder,” he said. “And his daughter, Gracie.”
“Hey,” I said. “I’m Lee.”
Wilder shook my hand. “Thanks for doing this, man. I really appreciate it.”
Gracie stared at me, wide-eyed, and her bottom lip wobbled before she leaned over to her dad and whispered loudly, “Ishecutting my hair?”
Wilder hitched her up and said, “No, sweet pea. Lee’s mom is a hairdresser and she’s going to make your hair look all pretty again, okay?”
Gracie nodded solemnly, but it was obvious she wasn’t quite sold.
Mom bustled out from behind me. “Hi there! You must be Gracie! I’m Lindsay, Lee’s mom. Can you take your hat off for me, sweetie?”
Gracie tugged the panda hat off.
Yikes.
Gracie’s lower lip wobbled.
“Well now,” Mom said brightly. “That’s not too bad. Let’s get you inside and see what we can do!” She held out her hand to Gracie and flashed a smile at Wilder. “Come on in, Dad.”
They headed upstairs to the bathroom, where Mom had been cutting Sam’s and my hair since before we were Gracie’s age.
Chase lurked on the doorstep like a suspicious animal sniffing around a trap.
