Dangerous Boy (2 page)

“Yeah, didn’t Harper tell you she was Dairy Princess last year?” Adam asks, turning toward the double doors behind him. He holds one open, and Allie slips by.

Logan looks down at me, and I blush, following Allie through the door. “No, she neglected to tell me that,” he says. I can feel his eyes on me, but I resist meeting his gaze.

“Harper, I’m disappointed. This is first date material,” Bick says, following Adam through the door, until we’re all inside Frankie’s Pizza.

“I guess it didn’t come up,” I say, inhaling the warm, delicious scent of tomato, cheese, and garlic. The place is packed with people from school. No surprise there. There’s not exactly much else to do in Enumclaw, Washington. Except run for Dairy Princess—which is pretty much like a pageant with cow trivia thrown in for good measure—and come up with stupid nicknames for your friends.

We ignore the P
LEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED
sign and plunk down at the last available booth near the windows. Bick borrows a spare seat from another table and sits at the end. Last
summer, before Logan moved here from Cedar Cove, Oregon, to start his junior year, Bick would have been sitting next to me, not in a spare chair at the end of the table.

I try not to notice how awkward it is, because Bick’s not the sort of guy you give your sympathy to. He’d just mistake it for pity, and he doesn’t do pity.

“I really don’t feel like going to school tomorrow,” Adam sighs.

“When do you ever?” I ask, kicking his foot under the table. He glares and kicks me back, like the big brother I never wanted.

“Hey. Some of us weren’t born geniuses,” Bick says, reaching over to pluck a menu out of the rack on the table, and then studying it as if he doesn’t have the whole thing memorized already.

I roll my eyes. “An IQ of one-thirty-nine does not make me a genius.”

“We know, we know. You’re short one point,” Allie says, her blonde curls bouncing as she shakes her head.

“Don’t give me that! It was your idea for us to take the tests.”

“You have an IQ of one-thirty-nine?” Logan asks, squeezing my knee under the table. “That’s amazing.”

“Mm-hmm,” I say, looking out the window as a few orange leaves swirl in the autumn breeze before descending to the cold sidewalks. It’s not like I’m some brainiac or something. I get good grades because I have a lot of time to study. When your best friend constantly ditches you to hang out with her
boyfriend—who happens to be your cousin, the
other
person you normally hang out with—and your dad is too busy to notice you, there’s not much else to do. “We did tests in August, a few weeks before I met you,” I say, turning back to look at Logan again. “Allie still has some left over. You should take one,” I say, grinning up at him. “You know, if you think you’re an
actual
genius, and not just an almost-genius.”

“Challenge accepted,” he says.

I allow myself a small smirk. I knew he would agree. Logan’s like that, never one to back down.

The waitress walks up, hands us each a glass of water and a wrapped straw. But before she can scamper away, Adam yanks the menu out of Bick’s hand, putting it back into the table rack, and orders our usual two pizzas and a round of Cokes.

“You guys really like pepperoni, huh?” says Logan.

“Pepperoni, sausage, meatballs…really anything that combines meat with cheese,” answers Bick, patting his stomach.

Allie rolls her eyes. “Um, right. Anyway…we still going to go to the haunted maze this weekend? I have to go to an out of town race with my parents on Saturday and Sunday, but Friday’s free.”

I immediately cringe. Somehow I’d hoped my friends would magically forget about our tradition.

“What haunted maze?” Logan asks, leaning forward. He rests his chin on my shoulder, so that his breath tickles my ear.

I try to act casual, ignoring the warm tingles sweeping down my back.

“There’s this insanely creepy one in Buckley every year. Right off the highway,” Adam says. He twists the paper at the end of his straw and then blows the wrapper off.

It sails across the table and narrowly misses Bick. He grabs it in midair and tosses it back onto the table. I dart a look at Logan, but he doesn’t seem to mind their childish antics.

“I wanna go. I’m not sure if I have to milk, but I’ll check,” Bick says.

I nod. Bick and I both live on dairy farms. I have some basic chores, but my dad never makes me do the actual milkings. Right now I kind of wish I had the same excuse. “Have fun with that.”

“You know it, DQ,” he says, grinning.

“Count me in,” Logan says, picking up his own straw. He shoots the wrapper at me, and it somehow slips into my shirt.

When he gives me a mischievous, flirty smile, I know he did it on purpose, and I shake my head, fighting the heat rising in my cheeks. “Don’t even think about it,” I say, batting his hand away and fishing the paper out of my top.

He smiles a much-too-innocent puppy dog smile that’s impossible to resist. I stare back at his dark, deep brown eyes for a long moment, until Bick clears his throat, shaking us from our all-too-public flirting session.

What were we talking about? Oh, right…“I don’t know about the maze. I feel creeped out enough already with the stuff going on in town. I don’t think I’m up for it.”

Adam shrugs. “Oh, come on. It’s just some pranks.”

“It
is
kind of weird,” Allie says. “The police blotter has actual crime in it.”

“It’s not really that weird. It’s just some idiot with too much time on their hands,” Bick says, leaning back in his chair so that it’s balancing on two legs.

“Bloody bones left in mailboxes is not a joke,” I say, the revulsion evident in my voice.

“They were cow bones,” Adam reminds me.

Allie makes a disgusted face. “Yeah, but you know it must have looked like they could’ve been human, because the old lady called the cops.”

I nod. “I don’t care what it was; I wouldn’t want to find it in
my
mailbox.”

“It was probably just that guy who was peeping in windows. They arrested him three days ago, and nothing since,” Adam says.

“The whole point is that there
was
a Peeping Tom,” I say, sipping my water. “We’re not supposed to have those in Enumclaw.”

“Wasn’t the Green River Killer from around here?” Logan asks, spinning his straw around in his glass, so that the ice swirls.

I shake my head. “No, he lived in Kent. I mean, the Green River runs just north of town, by your house, but I don’t think they found any bodies in that part.”

“They found one near the golf course,” Allie says, snatching her unwrapped straw back from Adam when he tries to take it.

I shudder. The golf course is only about a mile down the highway—the highway I can see from where I’m sitting. “Yeah, and who knows?” I say. “They said he killed so many people he lost count at seventy. There could still be bodies out there somewhere.”

Bick lets his chair drop back down on all four legs. “It was twenty years ago. The guy is serving, like, fifty life sentences. Nothing ever happens here anymore.”

“I dunno. I guess,” I say, twisting Logan’s errant straw wrapper in my hands. “I still don’t want to go to the maze. Why willingly creep myself out when someone else is doing a fine job with it already?”

“That’s what makes it more fun,” Adam says.

“We haven’t missed it in six years. You can’t skip it now,” Allie adds.

“Besides, I’ll protect you,” Logan adds, slinging an arm around me and giving me a totally cheestastic grin.

I meet Bick’s stare and roll my eyes—it’s impossible not to—but I actually find the sentiment kind of charming. “Fine, fine. I’ll go. But for the record, I am doing so under duress.”

Our sodas arrive then, and we fall silent as we overload on caffeine. By the time we’ve devoured the pizza, it’s pitch-dark outside. We push through the double doors and out into the brisk October night. I zip my jacket up to my chin and accept Logan’s hand when he puts it out for me, his skin warm against the cool autumn air.

Then we pause as Bick steps off the curb. “See y’all tomorrow,” he says, crossing the lot. His dairy is the one next door,
with the Mickey-Mouse-spotted-calf, so he’s walking home, across the grassy fields.

“Bye,” I say, turning to Logan’s Jeep, my hand on the passenger door.

“Have a good night!” Allie calls out.

We say our goodbyes to Allie and Adam, and then it’s a short drive to the old farmhouse I call home. Along the way, we pass cattail-filled ditches, sprawling dairy farms, and narrow county roads. Then Logan pulls into the gravel driveway, parking near the edge of the back patio.

I look up at the house. It’s dark. Empty. Just like always. My dad’s probably already asleep. He does the first milking of the day at, like, four o’clock, so it’s rare that he stays up past nine.

A few years ago, before my mom died and Dad got so busy, he used to leave me notes before he went to bed, or in the morning before he disappeared into the barns and fields. Just little ones, with smiley faces or short messages like, “Have a great day!” and “Good luck on your test!”

But he stopped doing that a long time ago. You know that saying about two ships passing in the night? That’s us. Now it’s always me and that house and total silence.

Logan walks with me across the cracked cement patio, to the back screen door. I turn back to him, take in the seductive darkness of his eyes. Behind him, sprawling green pastures stretch out below the clear velvet sky, as a smattering of stars twinkles to life.

He smiles, in that way that’s
ours,
and pulls me closer, his
kiss whisper soft. I like the seductive feel of his lips curling upward as I kiss him back.

He rests his forehead against mine, and I close my eyes, breathing him in, memorizing the feeling of being this close.

I’ve never had this before—such an intoxicating relationship. A guy who seems to want me in the same way I want him. The complete inability to think clearly when he’s this close, and the tantalizing hope that he feels the same way.

“Can I ask you a question?”

I nod, and he squeezes my hand.

“We’re exclusive, right?”

My eyes flutter open and I stare straight into the dark depths of his. “Um, are we?”

He looks down at me, a smile playing at the edges of his lips, making me want to kiss him again just so I can
feel
his smile, not just see it. “Do you want to be?”

I swallow and nod. He pulls me against him, and I close my eyes, resting my cheek against his shoulder. “Then let’s. I don’t want to share you with anyone.”

“Okay,” I say, oddly breathless.

“Your enthusiasm is staggering,” he says.

I laugh, slipping my arms around his waist and giving him a squeeze. “Sorry. You just make me nervous.” I giggle, and it sounds stupid and silly. But he must not take it that way because when I pull away, he’s beaming at me, smiling in a way that makes me want to melt into nothingness. Beautiful, blissful nothingness.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he says, kissing the top of my head.

I reluctantly let go, and he steps away, walking to his Jeep just as I’m pulling open the screen door.

“Hey!” he calls out. I turn around. “Sweet dreams.”

Warmth unfurls inside me. “Like I’m going to be able to sleep tonight, thanks to you,” I say, grinning. “But sweet dreams to you too.”

And then I slip into the dark, lonely house.

T
he next morning, I’m sitting at the chipped Formica counter when someone bangs on the back door. I jump, sloshing the milk in my cereal bowl. I can’t see him, but I know without looking that it’s Logan because he’s picked me up every day for school for the last two weeks, and now it’s this unspoken thing, as dependable as the incessant rain at this time of year.

“Come in!” I holler, slurping another spoonful of cereal as he steps through the door.

“’Morning, beautiful.” Whenever he stands in this house, it’s a reminder of our differences. He’s wearing crisp, practically new jeans and a button-down, the sleeves rolled up to expose his muscular forearms. As he leans a hip against our countertop, crossing his arms, I forget to swallow the food in my mouth.

I blush. How can he call me beautiful when he’s dressed like that and I’m in torn blue jeans and an old Darigold T-shirt? When my nickname is DQ and his might as well be GQ?

“Coffee?” I point to the coffeemaker, full to the brim. I started it ten minutes ago in anticipation of Logan’s arrival. When he smiles at me, those dark eyes trained right on mine, I’m glad I didn’t forget.

I slurp another spoonful of cereal and watch as Logan pours coffee into the mug I’d set out for him. He picks the cup up to his lips and my stomach lurches—along the edge, there’s a chip the size of a dime. It makes the whole thing look really cheap and country, even for me. Why didn’t I spot that before?