If I Break THE COMPLETE SERIES Bundle (151 page)

I roll my eyes.

“This could be your chance to get back in her good graces too,” she advises.

I pretend to vomit.

“See, it’s that kind of reaction that makes me wonder whether you’re seventeen or seven,” she says pointedly.

I let out an exasperated breath. “Fine. I’ll smile and act polite and even wear a pretty pink dress,” I say sarcastically.

“That would be great actually, and you can tone down the heavy eye makeup or lose it altogether.” She tries to smudge off my eyeliner while I swat her away.

“What’s wrong with my makeup? This is what’s in.”

“Yeah, maybe if you were onstage shooting a music video. Not for a seventeen-year-old attending her parents’ dinner.”

“I’m going to wait on the porch.” I pick up my backpack and pull her former sunglasses onto my face.

“Wait, Gwen,” she says, grabbing my arm. “We love you. I love you. I know Mom may treat you like a child sometimes—maybe even I do as well—but you’re my little sister, and I care about you. The thing is you’re not a little girl anymore. In a few months, you’ll be an adult and able to do whatever you want. Mom is just scared. She wants you to have a good life.”

I sigh. She frowns a bit and lifts my chin to make me look at her. She takes off my glasses, but I keep my eyes on the floor.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she says, making my curiosity get the best of me. “If you finish the rest of the school year strong, without giving our mother a nervous breakdown, once you graduate, you can come stay with me.”

My eyes widen in disbelief. “Really?”

She giggles. “Yes, really!”

I give her a big hug. “Oh my God, it’ll be great. I can get a job, and we can hang out all the time and—”

She puts up her hand, and I feel my face fall. “There are some conditions.”

“Like what?” I ask skeptically.

“Like I said, you’ll have to pick up your grades, at least end with a solid 3.0,” she says, and I frown. “Okay, a 2.7, but you have to get two As. They can be in whatever you want.”

I shrug and nod. I can do that.

“And you can get a job here, but you have to take some classes too. William teaches a few classes at the community college. They have classes for everything,” she says excitedly.

This is starting to not sound as fun as I’d imagined. “Gia, I hate school.”

“That’s fine, but unless you have an alternative, those are my conditions,” she says.

I contemplate her offer. I don’t even know if I could survive staying at home with Mom once high school is over. A few classes at a community college can’t be that bad. She didn’t say how many. Two could count as a few, then I could find a job, get my own place, and live by my own rules.

“Do we have a deal?” she asks, trying to read my expression.

“Yeah, we have a deal,” I say.

She hugs me excitedly. “That means being better all the way around, no missing curfew, being nicer to Martin, trying more with Mom.”

My eyes almost bulge out of my head. “You didn’t mention all of that. You said good grades!”

We hear William blow his horn.

“Oh, well, it’s implied,” she says quickly, walking me to the door.

I frown at her. The temperature’s dropped since I arrived. There’s a chill in the air that makes us walk quickly. As Gia wraps her arms around herself, her dark hair blowing in the wind, she walks in front of me. William gets out of the truck and meets us at the bottom of the porch.

“It’s cold as shit out here,” he says, and Gia shoots him a warning glare. He glances at me and laughs. “Sorry, I forgot she’s ten.”

He pulls her to him and kisses her. I look away, feeling oddly embarrassed. I’ve never seen my sister so affectionate with any guy, but that was when she was in high school and had her image to maintain. Once they break their embrace, Gia gives me a long warm hug.

“It was so good seeing you, sis. Even under the circumstances, I’m glad you came,” she says into my ear.

I squeeze her a little tighter before letting go. I’ll miss my sister. I’ve missed my sister. I didn’t realize how much until just now when I feel tears attempting to well up in my eyes. “I’m glad I came too, Sis.”

We squeeze hands before finally releasing each other. I climb in the truck, put my backpack on the floor, and adjust the seat for the long ride. I glance at Will and Gia telling each other good-bye. I turn on the radio and hear a song I’m vaguely familiar with. There’s a cassette in the player, but I don’t look at it. Sometimes looking at someone’s music choices is like looking into their soul, and I do have some boundaries. That’s good thing because Will is just opening the car door. As he settles into his seat, Gia leans on his window.

“Take care of him with Mom,” she says to me.

“Oh, Mom is going to just love him,” I say with fake enthusiasm.

Will laughs, but I detect a hint of nervousness.

“You’re going to be fine, sweetie,” she says before giving him a quick kiss.

“I guess we better get this show on the road then,” he says, and Gia nods. “I’ll call you as soon as we make it.”

She blows us both kisses as we pull off.

Will’s truck is definitely an upgrade from the bus and Zach’s rust bucket. It’s not brand new or top of the line, but it’s surprisingly clean for belonging to a guy his age… though I’m not sure how old he is. He looks young. And the truck smells good, nothing like that dead-flower-in-a-spray Zach uses to cover up the stink when he sneaks his mom’s car. Then again, this is Gia’s boyfriend. I can’t imagine her sitting in a car anything like Zach’s.

“So you’re going to be my map buddy,” he says, gesturing toward the glove compartment.

I open it and see that it isn’t neat and organized like I’d expected from the condition of the car. There are a bunch of old pamphlets, some candy bars, and restaurant menus. Who keeps restaurant menus in their glove compartment? Then I find the map folded into a square.

“I’ve already outlined our route. You’ll just keep me on track. I’ll be good for the next hour or so, but after that, you can kind of direct me. You know how to read a map, right?” he asks, and I nod.

“So whose idea was it for you to meet my parents by yourself?”

He chuckles, running his hand through his light brown hair. “That would be Gia’s.”

“You’re crazy. I’d never meet anyone’s parents without them being there. It’s already awkward enough. Good luck.”

Something that I swear is annoyance flashes over his face. “Well, you do things like that for people you love. You’ll understand that when you grow up.”

“Are you aiming for the role of annoying big brother or something?”

“No, I just think you’re too immature right now to understand,” he says matter-of-factly.

“I turn eighteen in just a few months. I’m not too young,” I spit back.

“I didn’t say you were too young. I said you were immature, meaning you need to grow up. There’s a difference,” he corrects me.

My anger, which had been on a three, goes up to five. How dare he? “Excuse me? You’re calling me immature, and you’ve known me, what, two days?”

“It doesn’t take long to get a feel for who someone is.”

Why is he upset? Because I said he was crazy for meeting someone’s parents without them? That
is
crazy. I start to ask him who exactly he thinks I am since he’s such a psychic when it comes to knowing someone’s character, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of thinking I even care what
he
thinks of me. I don’t even care what my family thinks. I feel my face heating up.

“You know what? I was wrong. My family is going to love you. You’ll fit right in: judgmental, egotistical, hypocritical, and completely clueless,” I say angrily.

I expect him to get mad or retort, but he just shoots me a dismissive grin. “I think you’ve used up your allotted adjectives for today.”

He chuckles, and I’m so angry I huff—I literally huff—to keep myself from doing something that will jeopardize my move with Gia this summer. I shift my body as dramatically as I can toward the window, letting him know our brief conversation is over, and so begins the long, awkward silent treatment he’ll get the rest of the car ride. My sister’s possible fiancé is an asshole.

The next hour of our car ride isn’t as awkwardly silent as expected. Will seems to like singing along to almost every song on the radio. Even though his voice is surprisingly good, it’s still rude to sing with another passenger in the car and to assume that your voice is pleasing to the other party… even if it is.

“You don’t even know the words to this song,” I mutter.

He turns the radio down. “What was that?” he asks playfully.

“You’re messing up the words to the song.” I huff again, annoyed, especially since he’s singing a song by my favorite artist on the planet—Madonna. I do give him points though. Most guys would cover up the fact that they even vaguely know the words to this song.

“I am not messing up the words,” he says and starts to sing more loudly and dramatically.

“Yes, you are,” I say, unable to cover up my laugh anymore.

“Well by all means, show me how it should be done,” he challenges.

I don’t take the bait though. Instead I turn the music up, shush him, and tell him to listen. He shakes his head and sings again.

I turn the radio back down to a normal level. “How about we just talk and not sing?”

He looks at me, exaggerating his skepticism. “I would, but the words that come out of my mouth may make me seem like a really big hypocritical, egotistical, judgmental jerk.”

I roll my eyes. “Well, I think the mature thing to do is to accept people for who they really are.”

He can’t help but chuckle.

“Look, I promise not to assume things about you if you promise to do the same for me… and we can try to not talk about anything that could make one of us look like a really big jerk,” I say.

“Deal.” He beams.

It feels good to sense the animosity evaporating between us.

“So I guess since we’re going to be in this car for a long time together, we might as well get to know each other.”

I fight back a comment about him already knowing me since we’re trying to get on a good note and we are going to be in this car a pretty long time.

“Or we can guess what we know of each other, so it’s not like a weird first date thing,” he kids.

I smirk. That actually sounds fun. “Okay, I think your favorite color is blue.”

He frowns. “Red. Yours is purple.”

Lucky guess.

“Your favorite food is… lasagna,” I say, and he nods.

“One point,” he admits.

I did kind of cheat since the way he devoured it at dinner the other night was kind of obvious.

“Your favorite singer is Madonna, you love to cook, and you got an A in your self-defense class,” he says.

I laugh. “You don’t have a favorite singer, you love to eat anything that’s not nailed down, and you have a knack for amazing entrances.”

“Very good.”

“And you love my sister,” I say, and he nods.

“That I do.”

“Well, we have that in common,” I say.

“She loves you too.”