Page 32 of Lucky 14

I blink, registering the voice. Then I make out the features of the man above me. The man with curly hair.

“Seven?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Sixteen years old

“What do you mean you love cotton candy but hate Peeps?” Connor’s outraged voice comes from the kitchen. “They’re like, the same thing!”

I frown, instinctively looking around for my parents to come down the hall. But my parents are gone for the weekend, like they always are. “Don’t yell,” I say. “And they aren’t the same thing at all.”

Connor pops around the corner, waving a bag of marshmallow treats, mouth open in an ‘o’. “They’re literally both puffed sugar.”

I roll my eyes, but can’t help the amusement that bubbles up. Connor and I have been talking for a while. At first, I thought he was trying to get in my pants, and maybe he was at first, but now he seems more…lonely than anything. And that’s something I understand.

Connor flops down on the couch, eyeing me. “If you hate them so much, why is your pantry full of them?”

I swallow. Dad thinks I love Peeps, based on an offhand comment I made when I was, like, seven. Now, he buys them for me every time he sees them. I hate them, but it’s kinda the only time I can tell Dad cares. In his own fucked up way.

I just shrug. Connor watches me, face softening. When I meet his gaze, he just shrugs. “Okay, keep your secrets.” Then he throws me a side-eye and mutters, “Are you Secret Service?”

I stifle a laugh. It’s a running joke that Connor thinks I work for some government agency, despite the fact I’ve told him they don’t hire teenagers, and why the fuck would I be living here if I did? Anytime my expression cracks, he acts like I’ve given him the biggest clue and crows about it for days.

“I knew it,” Connor’s watching me try not to smile, and there’s a conspiratorial tone in his whisper. “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.” Then, he jumps up. “You have a bed for me to move. Will you put in a good word for me to your supervisors if I do it right?”

“I don’t have supervisors.” I laugh. “Go upstairs.”

“Riiight.” Connor grins. “Lead the way, fourteen.”

Suddenly, I’m shy. Connor’s going to see my bedroom. I told him he could come over today to help me rearrange my room. Can I move my bed by myself?

Maybe.

Do I secretly want him over because he’s at his Dad’s house this week, and every time that happens, he comes back with a black eye?

Yes.

Connor blames it on football. The same way I told my parents that I slipped and fell in the bathroom when the bitch squad got me the second time. But I suspect that’s why Connor is so good at teaching me how to fight. Connor doesn’t say anything about it, just like I don’t say anything about my own problems. But I know he knows. He’s given me tips about handling multiple people at once. The tips seem to come from experience, and it makes my heart hurt.

I think Connor is going to make fun of my pink room with the frilly curtains and pink, well, everything. But he doesn’t. He just puts his hands on his hips, demands a Peep, then gets to work. By the time we’re done, the room looks so good. Connor falls onto the bed, panting.

“More puffed sugar. The hummingbird is dying.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re anything but a hummingbird.”

Connor flaps his large arms. His large, muscled arms. My mouth waters.

“I can feel my heart giving out. Please. Sugar.”

I chuck a Peep at him. He snatches it out of the air at a speed that makes me blink, then shoves it in his mouth. I’m stuck, staring at him. Connor is kinda everything in a guy. Sweet, cute, funny. So why in the hell is he hanging out with me? I’m the most closed-off, angry girl who will absolutely cause him social problems. The outcast. The girl for whom my parents threw a party when I was eight, and invited my whole class, but no one came.

Did my parents pay him to be friends with me?

My heart drops an embarrassing amount. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Mom and Dad are never home and always busy with work. I rarely see them, even when they are home. Growing up here is like growing up in a ghost town. It’s just me, my phone, and the weekly grocery deliveries against the world.

But is it just me now?

I glance over to see Connor throw a Peep into the air, try to catch it in his mouth, and miss.