Dead Ends (18 page)

When my lips were back on Seely's, I opened my eyes for
just a second, to see what I wanted to kiss next, and my eyes fell on the window and Billy's house across the street.

Billy. He'd had a crush on her first. Maybe he wouldn't like this. I didn't even realize I'd stopped kissing Seely until she pulled away.

“Um … Dane?” Her lips were pinker than before and a little swollen.

“I'm sorry.”

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Shit. I'm sorry.” I reached a hand up to flatten my cowlick out of habit.

“You always do that when you're nervous,” Seely said.

I half laughed. “Billy says I do it when I like a girl.”

“You like me.” Seely cocked her head. “You just don't want to kiss me.”

“No, I do. … I just … you surprised me, and I'm distracted and—”

Seely touched my arm. “I understand.”

“No, I'm sorry. I'm glad you … I'm glad we … I'm glad it happened. I'm just—”

“I know,” Seely said. “I'm worried about him, too.”

• • • X • • •

By Saturday, I was done worrying and ready for answers. I watched at the window until Billy's mom drove off at her usual time, headed for work, then I bolted across the street and walked straight through his front door.

“Billy D.!” I thundered, and my voice echoed around the
bare house. “I know you're in here.” I poked my head into the kitchen and moved down the hallway toward Billy's room, shouting as I went. “I'm over this silent treatment. If you don't—”

“Hi.” Billy's big head popped through his cracked bedroom door.

I scowled. “Hi? You ignore me for a week, and all you can say is ‘Hi'?”

“I'm not ignoring you.” Billy opened his door all the way, inviting me in. “I had … appointments.”

“I know you're seeing a shrink,” I said. I flopped down on Billy's mattress.

Billy's face flushed, and he looked away.

“It's no big deal,” I said. “But why so many? Why every day?”

Billy shoved a pile of dirty clothes off his bed and sat next to me. “Mom says we're testing them. We met one with glasses and one with a big couch and one with a small couch and one with lots of stuff on the walls, like your mom. He doesn't put pictures in his frames, either, just pieces of paper with lots of words. And one who called me ‘buddy.' And then I had to tell Mom which one I liked talking to the best.”

“And what'd you say?”

“I said I like talking to
you
the best.”

I had to pretend to cough to cover up my smile. It was one thing to want the kid around. It was another thing to go all soft.

I pointed to Billy's atlas on the floor, open to the map of Kentucky. “You figure out that clue yet?”

Billy perked up as he showed me Barefoot, Kentucky, and explained how he and Seely had figured out the first part of the
clue. I didn't tell him Seely had already shared the story, and I tried to act surprised and impressed all over again. He showed me a list of Kentucky towns with funny names, but he slumped a little as he admitted none of them matched the second part of the clue:
Your favorite and mine, plus what's paired with a frown.

“Too bad we can't ask your mom for help with the clues,” I said. I cast a sideways glance at Billy to see if I was dipping a toe in dangerous waters. He seemed unfazed.

“Yeah, too bad. She's good at this stuff.”

“She is?”

“My dad used to hide her Christmas present. He gave her a clue, and she had to figure it out to find her present.”

“That sounds kind of fun.”

“Yeah, my dad is fun.”

I slid off the mattress onto the floor, so I could face Billy square. “So if he's so fun, why did your mom split?” I held my breath, waiting to see if Billy would dodge or get worked up the way he did when Seely quizzed him.

But he only shrugged. “She says some things are unforgivable.”

“Like what things?”

Billy flipped through the atlas pages, not meeting my eye. “I don't know. But it's not true. I forgave you for beating up that boy.”

“You mean
I
forgave
you
for not sticking up for me.”

“Yeah.”

“So you don't really know what happened with your mom and dad,” I said.

Billy looked up from his maps and smiled. “When we find him, you can ask him!”

Oh, yeah right. Hey, Mr. Drum, so who were you banging on the side and how did you get caught?

I snatched the atlas out of Billy's lap.

“Hey!” He clawed for it, but I held it out of his reach.

“What I'd like to ask your dad is how to solve this stupid clue.” I read the last riddle aloud, and Billy settled next to me on the floor as we went backward through the maps.

I stopped on Missouri and tapped the riddle at the bottom that had stumped us for so long. “It's weird that we actually had to
go
to Mexico, Missouri, to get the answer to this one,” I said. “I wonder if you went to all the towns if someone there would always have the answer.”

Obviously Billy's dad didn't expect him to go to all these places, but I wondered if he'd been to all of them himself—if he'd traveled and met people who inspired the clues. I wanted to meet a guy who put that much thought into a gift for his kid. The more I thought about Billy's dad, the more I agreed with Billy—nothing was unforgivable. And the more I thought about his mom keeping him away from a guy like that, the more she seemed like nothing but a kidnapper.

Seely wasn't on board with my kidnapping theory. She told me as much with a giant eye roll Monday morning as she shoved her skateboard into her locker. I'd shooed Billy off to class, hoping for a minute alone with Seely, but I'd spoiled that minute.

“Dane, she's not a kidnapper. She's his mom.”

“I know. But if she's hiding Billy from his dad—”

“Hiding him?” Seely slammed her locker shut and looked at me like I was some kind of moron. “Hiding him less than an hour away from the town where his parents grew up? I found better hiding spots when I was five years old, and for the record, I suck at hide-and-seek.”

I opened my mouth to disagree but closed it again when I realized there wasn't much to disagree with. It did seem strange that she would move so close to Mexico. It almost seemed like
someone who wanted to be found or—A new thought tangled with the old ones: Maybe she was looking for Billy's dad, too? Maybe she'd changed her mind about leaving him and tried to go back, but he was already gone. But that would mean he wasn't looking for Billy after all, and that was an idea I couldn't stomach. I had to believe there was a dad—
any
dad—out there as great as the one Billy had described. A dad worth finding. So I pushed the new nagging thought aside.

A bell sounded in the hallway, signaling we had thirty seconds to get to first period.

“You can't be late!” Seely said, pushing me toward my first class. I laughed at the concern on her face and caught the arm she was using to shove me away. My hand circled her wrist, and I pulled her so close our breath mixed together in a little cloud of heat between our lips.

“You're going to get a detention,” she whispered, but she was smiling as I kissed her. It was a kiss worth getting kicked out of school for, but Seely eventually pressed her hands against my chest and waved me down the hall. “Go!”

I slid into my seat just as the warning bell went silent.

• • • X • • •

I looked for Seely in the parking lot after school, hoping to finish what we'd started, but instead I spotted Billy. He was waiting in the usual spot at the edge of the parking lot next to the baseball field, and he wasn't alone. He was chatting up some girl sitting on the hood of a car. No, not just some girl—Marjorie. Not the kind of girl I would have picked for Billy, but hey, great to see the kid giving it a shot anyway.

Just as I opened my mouth to call out to them, I saw Marjorie fly off the car. A second later, her hand connected with Billy's face.

I could hear the smack of contact from thirty feet away.

“What the hell?” I screamed, tearing across the parking lot.

I covered the distance in seconds and lunged at Marjorie, my fist raised. It was all I could do to pull up short and keep from hitting her. She flinched and slumped backward against the car. I didn't care that she looked like a frightened animal, didn't care that I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that she had no business laying a hand on Billy D.

I'd always said I didn't hit girls or challenged kids, and when it came to a fight between the two, I didn't know which side I'd pick—I'd probably just stay out of it. But when it came to
anybody
versus Billy, there was no question whose side I was on.

I uncurled the fist and wrapped my hand around Billy's shoulder instead. My other hand pointed a finger in Marjorie's face.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Your little friend is a pervert!”

“What?”

“I didn't do anything, Dane. I didn't do anything!” Billy's hands flapped. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

I tightened my grip on his shoulder. “Billy D., what did you say?”

“Nothing! She sat on the car, and she crossed her legs, and I told her that's great 'cause I thought they wouldn't stay closed, but she's fixed!”

Oh shit.

My eyes bored into Billy's, and I willed him to read my thoughts.

“Because remember you said—”

“No. Billy.”
Please, shut up.

“You said Marjorie Benson can't keep her legs closed.”

“Billy D.!”

“You said!”

“Oh,
really
?” Marjorie glared at me.

I turned a diamond-hard gaze on her. No way was I apologizing. If she didn't want people to say things like that about her, maybe she
should
have kept her legs closed.

Marjorie straightened up to her full height. “You're an asshole, Dane.”

“Yeah, and you're a real princess, right?”

I started walking across the ball field, pulling Billy with me.

“Don't call me anymore!” she shouted after us.

“Like I ever called you before!” I hollered back.

The last thing I saw before turning away was Marjorie's middle finger up in the air. I waited until we were across the field and fully out of her sight before I pushed Billy up against a truck parked on the street and fixed him with my fiercest look.

“What?” he protested.

“Billy D., saying a girl can't keep her legs closed is … is just … it's an expression, y'know? It's like saying she's loose.”

Billy's face was blank.

“She's easy. Get it?” I said.

He shook his head.

I sighed and stepped back. “She likes to have
sex
, Billy.”

His eyes bulged. “Oh.”

“You basically just called her a slut.”

Billy's eyes opened even wider. “Then you called her that, too.”

“Yeah, but not to her face.” I laughed. “I guess it's not your fault, the stuff you don't know.”

Whose fault is it?
I wondered.
His dad's? For not telling him about girls? Or his mom's? For taking him away from his dad before he had the
chance
to tell Billy about girls?

“You want to work on the clue tonight?” I asked when we started walking again.

“Can't. Mom says no more friends over when she has to work.” His eyes slipped sideways toward me, but he didn't have to be sly. It was clear when Mrs. Drum said “friends,” she meant me.

“So she works nights
and
weekends?” I was suspicious all over again. Sure, my mom worked nights, too, but her uniform was spandex and sweats, so it was no secret what she did. Mrs. Drum's gray scrubs made her look like a depressing nurse. But what kind of nurse came home in the middle of her shift to get a bottle of bleach? “Do you know what she does?” I asked. “For work?”

Billy shook his head. “When she took me to school the first time, Mrs. Pruitt said, ‘What kind of work do you do?' And Mom said, ‘The backbreaking kind.' And then they just laughed. And one time, at the grocery store, the man who wraps up the meat said stuff was expensive, and Mom said, ‘At least we have jobs,' and …”

Billy didn't stop talking about his mom until he actually
saw
his mom. We reached the end of our street just in time to see her wrapping her arms around someone in the front yard. We were too far away to make out any details, but the someone was definitely a dude, and the hug definitely lasted longer than your average “hello” hug.

And anyway, it looked more like good-bye, because when they finally pulled themselves apart, the guy got into a car and drove off while Mrs. Drum stood staring after him.

Billy took a giant step forward like he meant business, but I yanked him back by the collar and dragged him behind a car before his mom could see us.

“Who was that guy?” I asked, ducking low.

“I don't know.” Billy scowled and struggled against the grip I still had on his shirt.

“Does your mom have a boyfriend?”

“No!” he practically shouted.

“Shh! Well, if she has a …
friend
here, maybe it's someone like June Bug, who knew your dad.”

Billy stopped struggling and finally looked interested.

“Think, Billy D. Has your mom introduced you to anyone or told you about any—”

“I don't know anyone here,” he said. “Except you. And your mom. And Seely and Mrs. Pruitt and Mr.—”

I held up a hand to stop him. “Got it.”

“You think that guy knows my dad?” Billy asked.