Page 98 of The Breakup Artists

I laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve been lifting weights outside forever.”

“Exactly,” he says, so close now that his warm breath tickles my face.

My heart thuds at the word. “Line,” I say with a grin.

He runs his thumb over my bottom lip. “Truth,” he counters, his eyes so intent that my breath catches.

He closes the distance between us, his weight pressing pleasantly into me and his mouth teasing my neck with kisses. I wrap my legs around his back, and his hand finds my knee, pulling it tighter and running a warm palm up the outside of my thigh.

He trails kisses from my neck to my cheeks. He even kisses my eyelids. But when his mouth finds mine, loud voices spill into the hallway. Bentley and I jump apart, my heart pounding against my breastbone.

“That’s not what happened and you know it,” my mom says in an angry tone.

A door slams, and just as quickly the loud voices stop.

I sit up, taken aback. My parents never fight in front of me. Ever. “What did that sound like to you?” I ask, my tone indicating this question matters.

Bentley sits up, too. “Argument?”

“Exactly.Finally,” I say forcefully and slide off my bed.

Bentley looks confused. “Finally?”

“I’ve been telling August that something’s up with my parents, and he kept saying he didn’t see it. But you heard that, right?Thatwas a fight.” I point at my closed door.

“Yeah,” he agrees, searching my face. Then after a beat, “You wanna talk about it?”

The offer takes me by surprise. Despite all the new things I’ve learned about Bentley, pausing a make-out to talk about my family problems still isn’t what I’d expect. I nod, this time not shying away from a personal conversation with him.

“Here’s the thing. My parents rarely fight, and if they do, they’re careful not to do it in front of me. Then all of a sudden, I catch my mom crying over old pictures, snippy comments between them followed by overly affectionate cuddling. And this.” I wave my hand toward the hallway. “Now they’re openly and loudly having a fight and slamming doors whenthey knowyou’rehere?”

“Maybe they’re trying to fix something?” he offers.

“Like what?”

He scratches the back of his head. “Not sure if it’s the same, but I have a friend whose dad had an affair, and her parents are in couples therapy. She says they go hot and cold a lot. Fighting and then making up.”

“Huh,” I say, not sure what to do with that information. My first thought is,There’s no way my parents are in couples therapy, and there is definitely no way one of them had an affair.And my second thought is,Oh crap, but what if they are?

48

august

I pull Tiny’s Jeep to a stop in front of Ella’s house and quickly glance at the Holden version of myself in the rearview mirror. But before I can turn off the engine, Ella comes out of her house, saying something over her shoulder as she leaves.

I lean across the passenger seat and open the Jeep door for her, which earns me a smile as she gets in.

“Quick, let’s get outta here before my parents try to suffocate me with another family discussion about actions and consequences,” she says, and the air fills with her coconut scent.

“So being home all the time has been fun, huh?” I say, glancing at her as I head out of her driveway.

Her hair is in a loose braid down her back, and she’s wearing a strapless dress, highlighting the smooth skin of her shoulders. There are tan lines from her bathing suit running along the curve of her neck and over her collarbones. I swallow, shocked by how beautiful she is, and decide that I just won’t look for the rest of the afternoon. Or ever if need be.

“You have no idea,” she says and pauses. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s nice that my parents care. Amber’s parents didn’t punish her, but they didn’t bother to pick her up from the police station, either. They sent her awful older brother, who made her wait two hours because he was out with his friends.”

“Sounds like my mom,” I say, once again responding as August, and for a split second I feel odd that I can relate to Amber in that way.

“Yeah?” Ella says and turns to me. “What about your dad?”