Speed Demon (2 page)

I did close the demon portal, as noted earlier, but did I mention I did it all by myself? With no help from Levi, who was the otherworldly entity here? Yep. All by my little bitty self. You’d think that would earn some respect from him, but so far it hadn’t surfaced.

I gave him an eye roll and moved past to drag Zoe’s little carcass out of bed. Fortunately, that proved easy enough since she was already awake and searching through her closet in her pink satin nightgown.

“I can’t find my denim miniskirt,” she said as a greeting, desperately digging through a pile of clothes on the floor. “Help me look, Kenzie.”

“You’re hanging around our house with a bunch of other girls,” I said, halfheartedly glancing around the room. “Just wear something else.”

Zoe shot me a look of utter disbelief. “But it goes with my black boots and striped tights, which I’ll
die
if I don’t get to wear.”

My sister, the five-year-old fashionista. She was my mother’s great hope for future homecoming queen.

“Right, of course. We can’t have you croaking. That would really ruin my Saturday.” I picked through a pile of clothes on her zebra-striped chaise and was amazed at the vast quantity of studded, appliquéd, and sequined clothes Zoe had. She had enough glitter to hit the stage in Vegas. I pulled my black hoodie a little tighter around me for comfort. So much pink and gold glaring up at me was totally traumatizing.

A very tiny and short skirt with scrolling hearts on the pockets appeared and I tossed it to Zoe. She’d better be wearing tights with that thing or she’d be pulling a Britney. “Thick tights, Zoe. That is a short skirt.”

“It’s a skort,” she informed me disdainfully, lifting the flap on the skirt to reveal the little shorts underneath.

Feeling much better and like maybe my sister’s future didn’t include dancing in a bikini for money, I went back downstairs only to hear Levi talking to my mother.

“If you need extra help with the girls, Mrs. S, I can hang around.”

Who volunteers to make crafts with a Girl Scout troop at the crack of dawn on a Saturday?

“Oh, that’s so sweet of you, Levi. I’d love some extra help.”

A suck-up, that’s who.

“I think it’s just wonderful that you don’t complain, Levi. You just dive in whenever help is needed. I appreciate that.”

Was that a dig at me? Hey, I was grounded. I wasn’t supposed to be happy about that. That was just too much to expect from any teenager who wasn’t taking antidepressants.

“They’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” she added, and breezed out of the kitchen with a smile for Levi, who she thought was just such a nice boy.

Teenage boy . . . demon from hell. I guess it’s not really that different, is it? But it was irritating that I seemed to be the only one who saw through Levi’s over-the-top Nice Guy routine. He wasn’t all sweetness and light, I’m telling you.

As was evidenced by the smirk he was giving me. “I’m appreciated,” he told me.

“Glad someone feels that way,” I commented.

“That’s your problem,” he said. “You should appreciate me, but you don’t.”

“I’d appreciate you more if you lived in someone else’s house.”

I thought he would sling another barb my way, but instead he actually came up to me and wrapped his long arms around me and gave me a hug. “Poor Kenzie. It sucks being grounded, I know. I’m sorry.”

Awwww. How sweet was that? Okay, true confession here. I actually sort of liked Levi. He made me laugh, and he really was actually a nice guy (demon) for the most part when he wasn’t being obnoxious (aka Every Guy I’ve Ever Met). “Thanks, Levi.”

I rested my head on his chest and put my arms loosely around his middle, staring at his chin with its wispy stubble. Levi wasn’t as muscular as Adam. (Did I mention Adam is my boyfriend? If I did, so what, it bears repeating. Frequently.) But it was nice to lean on Levi and think of him as a friend. When we weren’t giving each other a hard time, we really did get along.

“Man, you have morning breath,” he murmured. “You’d better run up and brush before you knock anyone out.”

Nice. So much for being tight with him. And for the record, I already had brushed and flossed. I pulled back and spoke extra loud, with lots of forced air right into his face. “
Sorry
.”

I saw the young construction hulk glance over at us, and I moved a little closer to Levi. There was something about that guy that freaked me out. He was just so . . . big.

Levi grinned. “I’m kidding, you know.”

“I know. It’s a totally male behavior to use insulting humor when he’s uncomfortable with his own display of emotions.” Wow. I had actually learned something in psychology that could be applied to real life. When does that ever happen with forced knowledge? I tried to pull away to escape to my room but he held me tighter.

“Exactly. You may not appreciate me, but you understand me.”

Um . . . why was Levi looking at me like that? Sort of intense and amused and intrigued, and when exactly had his leg started touching mine? Were we really that close to each other?

“I do understand how your demonic mind works.” Sort of. I opened my mouth to blow another steady stream of alleged morning breath right into his face to make him laugh or grimace—either would be rewarding—when he leaned over.

And kissed me.

What the . . . ?

You know what it’s like when you totally don’t see something coming and you’re caught off guard, so you just stand there blinking with your mouth wide open?

That’s what I did. He was kissing me, and I was gaping and blinking for a solid ten seconds.

Then an incredibly weird thing happened that while I can explain biologically, I can’t explain intellectually, because I can’t ever imagine that if my brain had actually been functioning independently of my body, what happened next would have gone down. But guys use hormones as an excuse for like ninety-five percent of their behavior so I think I can use it too. This is my hypothesis of spontaneous lip encounter: Without benefit of my brain, which was paralyzed in shock, my body decided that when my lips are kissed, I should kiss back. Cause and effect. Action and reaction. Touch fire, pull back. Windy day, reach for hairbrush. Squirrel in road, hit the brakes. Levi kisses me, kiss back.

See? It was a natural reaction, in essence, just a reflex.

So it didn’t mean anything that I dug my fingers into his short hair or that when he went in with tongue, I felt a shudder rip through me like a 4.0 on the Richter scale, or that the kiss sort of morphed into a really long, extended mini make-out session.

Just reflexes. Normal stuff. Didn’t mean a thing.

Obviously Levi thought so too, because when we broke for air, he looked at me, stunned. Sort of like my dad when he walked in and found the minivan through the kitchen wall.

“Uh ...”

My thoughts exactly.

He should have left it at that. Instead, he had to be stupid enough to keep speaking. “Sorry, K. I didn’t mean to do that.”

With that, he turned and left the kitchen, leaving me standing there wondering why no one had given guys a manual. Like a
Things Not to Say to Girls Ever
kind of guidebook. Because what makes a guy think for one minute that any girl under any circumstances wants him to apologize for kissing her? It’s like saying, “Sorry, but that was a total mistake. If I hadn’t been temporarily insane due to testosterone, I would have never, ever kissed someone as (insert insulting adjective here) as you.”

Apology = insult.

As I stood next to the kitchen island debating whether to let it drop or discuss the kiss further—not that I had any idea what to say about it other than ohmigod—the older construction guy nudged the younger one.

“Friendly family. Wish I was her brother.”

Eew
. I so wasn’t having a good Saturday.

Chapter Two

Without making any eye contact with the pervy construction workers my parents had actually allowed into our house, I ran out of the room and up the stairs. I’d throw in the laundry that my mother had asked me to do first, then when someone else appeared in the kitchen, I’d finally get my cereal. There was no way I was setting foot back in there until another member of my family was present for protection.

I had mine and Zoe’s laundry piled in a basket and was headed for Brandon’s room to retrieve his and Levi’s dirty clothes. I was trying not to feel weird about Levi—waaay too late for that—when it really hit me that Levi had kissed me. Okay, I mean I already knew that, hence the initial freaking out, but it finally sank in what that actually meant. He had kissed me. Put his demon tongue in my mouth. I had kissed him back. Yet I had a boyfriend. Adam. Who I believe I’ve mentioned. More than once.

Boyfriend named Adam, demon named Levi kissing me—that pretty much meant I had cheated on my boyfriend, didn’t it?

Didn’t mean to do
that
. Yikes.

I bit my fingernails and knocked on Brandon’s door and tried to rationalize my way around it. It hadn’t been a premeditated kiss. It hadn’t been initiated by me. Did that really make it cheating? Or just a sort of accidental meeting of the mouths?

Shouldn’t there be like a five-second rule, anyway? Like dropping food on the floor. If you retrieve it immediately, you can still eat it. If the kiss lasted less than say, a minute, it didn’t count. Right?

I thought about the way my toes had curled and my cheeks had flushed and I had leaned straight into Levi, my fingers in his hair.

Okay, who was I kidding? It was cheating. I couldn’t deny it, because I had actually liked it. How disturbing was that?

Yet I really liked Adam. We were an odd couple, I’ll admit, since he was Athlete and I was Artist, but it worked. We talked, we hung out, we giggled and kissed, and looked fab together holding hands.

Was I really going to ruin all that by snogging with a demon?

Brandon’s door flung open and my brother glared at me, his hair sticking straight up. “What?”

My brother was fourteen and generally cranky and unhygienic. I don’t know where he got that trait from. The unhygienic part that is. Cranky probably ran in the family.

“I need your laundry.”

“It’s in the closet.” He moved to let me past, then peeled his T-shirt off of his head. “Take this one too.” Swiping the shirt over his armpits, he held it out. “I’ve been sleeping in it for a week and it’s getting ripe.”

You think? I recoiled. “I’m not touching that. Just drop it in the basket.”

He did, and it rolled off the pile and hit me in the chest. “Ugh.” Using another shirt, I shoved it back onto the pile, then went to the closet and dumped their basket. I tried not to touch anything or think about the fact that I was staring at both my brother and Levi’s dirty boxer shorts. That was just wrong on so many levels.

“Here’s another one,” Brandon said, holding up a white T-shirt. He put it to his nose and blew in it, the sound of snot releasing loud and revolting. Then he balled up the shirt and tossed it in my general direction.

I dodged it, my empty stomach churning with nausea. “You are completely disgusting.”

“You’re grounded,” he said smugly.

And I was leaving. I left him and his snotty shirt to his disgusting devices and went down to the laundry room, grateful my mother was in the kitchen. She was a prosecuting attorney, so I did have some faith that she’d run a background check on the construction crew before she’d hired them, but that still didn’t mean I wanted to be alone with them.

I threw the laundry in the washer, then poured my cereal before my mother could disappear and leave me defenseless. I started into the family room with my bowl.

“You can’t eat in there!” she called after me.

“Why not?”

“The girls will be here in five minutes and I don’t want any of them thinking they can eat in the family room.”

“Fine.” I started toward the stairs.

“Don’t take that to your room! You’ll leave the bowl for a week and then your room will smell like sour milk.”

I paused, annoyed. I just wanted to be alone with my corn flakes. Was that too much to ask? The doorbell rang. Clearly it was.

“I’m eating in the van,” I informed my mother, heading for the garage. “Zoe eats in there all the time,” I added, to head off any arguments.

“Why can’t you eat in the kitchen?” Mom asked, looking bewildered.

Because I didn’t want creepy men staring at me while I chewed. Hello.

I didn’t respond, just went for the car keys, and she was distracted by the doorbell ringing again.

“Whatever, just don’t make a mess, Kenzie.”

What was I, five? I could eat my cereal without incident, I was fairly confident. I grabbed a Diet Coke for good measure and skirted the creepy men to access the garage. At least sitting in the minivan I could see straight ahead into the kitchen and keep my eye on them. I wasn’t sure why the workers were giving me that proceed-with-caution feeling—well, aside from the nasty brother comment—but they definitely were. Maybe it was just because I was in my pajama pants with bed head and it was early in the morning and they were in my kitchen. Or maybe my weird-ar (internal radar that goes off when weirdos are around) was giving me a warning and I should respect it.

After hitting the garage door to open it (just wanted privacy, not to kill myself with carbon monoxide), and climbing in to the driver’s seat of the van, I spooned a mouthful of now soggy corn flakes into my mouth and chewed, staring at the hole I’d made with the front end of the minivan.

I wanted to be mad at Levi for entering my life, getting me grounded, then apologizing for kissing me, but it was hard to always stay mad at Levi. Most of the time I had to really work at it. I figured maybe I should think about that and why exactly that would be the case. Later. Like when I was in the nursing home. I’d have plenty of time to kick back in my footies in the lunch-room and think about it then.