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Authors: Shana Norris

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Hannah wrote out the check and ripped it from the checkbook. “That’s what I thought.”

Chapter 6

 

“So, Avery,” Trisha said as she smiled across the table at me over the vase of fresh lilies Dad had bought earlier that day. “Your father tells me you’re in the running for valedictorian of your class?”

I’d finally had a night free from hot dogs, screaming kids, and Elliott Reiser. A brand new book on disorders of the spine sat untouched on my bedside table, waiting for me to crack it open.

But no. Dad ambushed me with his
other
plans. When Ian and I had arrived home from school, Dad had called to say that we were to be dressed nicely and ready for dinner at six-thirty with his girlfriend.

His
girlfriend
. People over the age of forty shouldn’t be allowed to have girlfriends or boyfriends. They should be friends, nothing more.

Trisha Montgomery was a fifth grade teacher at Willowbrook Elementary. She didn’t look like the red-eyed, rabid beast with huge horns I’d half-expected. Instead, she looked nice in a floral print sundress and gold sandals, and her light brown hair was piled up on her head in a messy twist that probably had taken a lot longer to make perfectly messy than what it looked. One of those hairstyles I could never master the right balance between messy and styled.

The neckline of her dress, however, was slightly too low, especially for an elementary school teacher. I’d had to kick Ian in the leg several times when I caught him staring.

“Maybe,” I answered, shrugging. “You never know. A rocket scientist in training could transfer to my school next year and knock me down a rank or two.”

Dad laughed. “Avery is being modest. She’s always had excellent grades. She hopes to be a doctor.”

“She’s going to Costa Rica,” Ian the Suck Up added. “To help poor people.” Throw a pair of breasts in his face and Ian forgot all about standing united as a family against the intruder.

Trisha’s smile widened. “That sounds awesome. I’ve always wanted to go there.”

Awesome.
My dad’s girlfriend, who had to be at least thirty-eight, actually said the word awesome. I was never using that word again now that I’d heard how ridiculous it sounded coming out of Trisha’s mouth.

“Well,
maybe
she’s going,” Dad corrected. His smile faded slightly and his body tensed, as it always did whenever the subject of my going to Costa Rica was brought up. “It’s not decided for sure yet.”

Dad didn’t like to talk about the trip. He supported my dream of becoming a doctor, but he didn’t like the idea of me going so far away. I knew a big part of it was because of Mom. What if I went away and decided not to come back, like she did?

It was in my genes, but that part of my DNA would never be allowed to take over and hurt anyone. That adventurous spirit that made stupid mistakes could be controlled and killed. The difference between my mom and me was that I had
complete
control over any outside distractions.

I straightened the spoon on the table, making sure it was exactly parallel to my plate. Then I moved my water glass over half an inch to the perfect position three inches from the top right side of my plate. Total order.

“I’m going,” I told him. “
This
summer. I have almost all of the money I need.”

Dad took a sip from his water and then swallowed, setting the glass carefully back on the table. “Let’s talk about this another time,” he said.

I couldn’t bite back my words even though I knew this was not the time to have this discussion. “You treat me like I’m a child.” My anger at Dad’s unexpected dinner guest made me unable to stay quiet. If Trisha wanted to be a part of this family, let her see what we were really like behind the fresh lilies and grilled steak. “I’m more than capable of making major decisions like this for myself.”

Ian bent over his plate and shoveled beans into his mouth as if he couldn’t eat fast enough. Whenever Dad and I argued, Ian would eat. After our mom left, he started a habit of hiding boxes of cookies and snack cakes in his room. Dad didn’t see anything wrong with this behavior, but I hunted down the junk food every few months and tossed it out.

I scowled at my dad, but he stared down at his plate as he ate, pointedly ignoring me as Ian stuffed his cheeks like a chipmunk preparing for winter.

“So,” Trisha said after a moment of uncomfortable silence, “are you seeing anyone special at school?” This question was apparently directed at me as she cut her steak into bite-sized pieces.

What was with the personal interrogation? I was in the middle of a never-ending game of 20 Questions that I was not in the mood to play. Especially with Trisha’s cleavage staring across the table at me. Ian’s gaze wandered away from his plate and I delivered another kick to his shin.

“No,” I answered. “Not seeing anyone.”

“Well, that’s okay,” Trisha said. “You never know when Mr. Right may show up. He could be that guy you’ve always thought of as a friend.” She reached over and twined her fingers into Dad’s. “Your father and I were friends for a while before he asked me out. Did he tell you how we met?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued on, her face beaming. “It was at The Percolator. We always ordered the same drink and muffin, and one day, after getting tired of waiting for your dad to make the first move, I said something about it. After that, we met at the café each morning and talked for weeks before he got up the nerve to ask me out.”

I fought hard to resist the urge to gag. I did not want to hear details of my father’s love life. Not even the seemingly innocent ones that took place at The Percolator.

“Avery is too young to be thinking about romance,” Dad said. “She has a bright future ahead of her. No need to have her distracted by some boy.”

“Oh, Mitch,” Trisha said, rolling her eyes toward me, as if trying to let me know she thought my dad was
so
out of touch. “It’s perfectly natural for girls to have an interest in boys. Even the smart ones.”

Was this Let’s All Talk About Avery Day? Time for a change of subject. “So how’s your art project coming along?” I asked my brother.

“Great,” Ian said through a mouthful of food. “I’ve got a lot of good pictures.”

My subject change worked. Trisha turned toward Ian, her eyes shining. She was certainly an equal opportunity brown-noser. “What kind of project are you doing?”

Ian jumped up from his seat. “I’ll show you.”

He dashed down the hall and returned a moment later with a shoebox. Pushing his empty plate out of the way, Ian opened the box and spread dozens of pictures across the table.

“I’m planning to make a collage of people around town. ‘Every Day Life in Willowbrook.’ It will be random people I see all over town doing the things they always do. I’m thinking this one will be the centerpiece.” He pointed at a picture of the old woman who ran the bakery, picking her nose behind the counter.

Trisha giggled. “Well, that’s certainly eye-catching. These are fantastic pictures. You have an eye for how to capture people in general life settings.”

Ian beamed. “Thanks!”

“You’re very lucky, Mitch,” Trisha said as she sifted through the photos. “You have two very intelligent and talented kids.”

“I am lucky,” he said, smiling wide at all of us.

Through the blur of tears in my eyes, Trisha could almost pass as my mom. They were the same build—or at least, Trisha was about the same size as what I remembered my mom to be before she left. This could almost be a typical family night dinner instead of the waste of time it really was.

The one thing I had learned in my sixteen years was that you couldn’t count on anyone to stick around. Opening yourself up only caused trouble in the end.

And tonight, trouble came dressed in a too-revealing sundress.

I stood up suddenly and said, “I’m going to my room. I have some homework I need to work on.”

“I thought you did that earlier,” Ian said. “I saw you at the table working on it.”

Add another item to the list of why my brother would never live past puberty before I clobbered him. “I have
other
homework I need to do.”

“How much homework does one person have?” Ian shuffled through his pictures again and pulled out another one to show Trisha. “Take a look at this. One of my best shots, I think.”

No one else tried to stop me as I slipped from the room and disappeared down the hall. They were all absorbed in Ian now, having forgotten about me and my bad attitude for the moment.

I headed to my room, feeling more than a bit annoyed. I wanted to slam doors or punch walls or something.
Focus,
I told myself, closing my eyes and letting out a deep breath.

My footsteps traced a line back and forth across my room as I recited the names of the bones in my hands. “Distal phalanges,” I muttered.

Why did Dad insist on letting his hormones ruin our lives?

“Intermediate phalanges,” I said, moving to the next bone.

Mom left a big, gaping hole when she took off. It had taken a lot of work to begin to repair the damage. We didn’t need someone else coming along and ripping it open again. What we needed were answers to the questions left behind.

I reached the end of my room and spun on my heel, marching back the other way. “Proximal phalanges.”

Ian and I did not need a replacement mother. Hadn’t I done a good enough job taking over that role? What was wrong with the way things were? I had done everything possible to make up for Mom not being here. After Mom left, it had taken Ian almost a year before he was able to let Dad leave the house without him bursting into tears and insisting that Dad would go away too. We hadn’t had a family vacation in years, because there wasn’t ever enough extra money to take one. I dedicated myself to my schoolwork to ensure I’d have high enough grades so I’d get a lot of scholarships and be able to pay my way to college without straining Dad any more than he already was. Then I worked to earn enough money to buy the things I needed and wanted so I wouldn’t have to bother Dad with them. I cleaned and cooked when I wasn’t working, I paid the bills and made sure everything in this household ran efficiently, made sure Ian didn’t walk around in grungy clothes and survive on only pizza and cheeseburgers.

“Metacarpals.”

I was the one who had poured over her old journals, her letters, even the grocery notes she’d left stuffed in drawers, hunting down the most logical places she could be and narrowing the list to the five marked on my map. I was the one who had figured out Costa Rica was the most likely place, the one she talked about the most, the one where she dreamed of living hidden away on a lush mountain.

But it wasn’t good enough. Nothing I’d done had ever been good enough. Not good enough to keep my dad from wanting a new mom in the family, and not good enough to make my real mom want to stay.

“Carpals,” I whispered, letting out a long breath. My mom was the one who had gotten me interested in medicine. I could remember looking through an old medical book with her when I was little, learning the names of various bones and organs. It became one of the special things between us, and she would surprise me sometimes with a new medical book we could look through together. Mom had wanted to become a doctor once, when she was a kid. “Then I got married,” she would always say whenever I asked why she didn't go to medical school. “And had you and Ian.”

That was the first time I'd felt like I'd done something wrong just by being born.

After she left, I poured through the medical books she'd left behind, searching for an answer as to what had happened to the mother I'd known.

I moved my fingers in a steady rhythm, feeling the pieces work. Smooth. Controlled. Parts of the body that could be seen and studied made sense. The other parts—the hormones—were unpredictable.

The men of this house would be lost causes if it weren’t for me. I had to be the voice of reason for everyone around here and remind them about the effect hormones had on our ability to think clearly. We didn’t need anyone. I could be valedictorian, get into medical school, and pay for the trip to Costa Rica myself. I could hunt down the answers we needed so we could heal all the wounds and close up the past.

Once things ended between Trisha and my dad, as I was certain they would before too much longer, I would be the one to swoop in, pick up the pieces, and take care of everything.

Again.

Chapter 7

 

“Morning, sunshine,” Dad said as I padded into the kitchen Saturday morning. Or at least, I thought it was my dad. I had to do a double take to make sure. He sat at the table, dressed in a T-shirt, athletic shorts, and running shoes with a white sweatband wrapped around his head and matching mini sweatbands around his wrists.

I raised my eyebrows at him. “Did Halloween come early?”

“Funny,” Dad said as he drank the last of his orange juice. “I’m meeting Trisha for a jog around the park.”

I had pulled open the refrigerator to grab the milk from its spot on the third shelf, but now I froze, my hand hovering in the air. “Jogging?
You?
” This statement had spun me for a loop so fast that I ignored the mention of his girlfriend.

“I jog,” Dad insisted.

“Since when?”

“Okay, I haven’t done it since college, but it’ll be good for me,” Dad said. He thumped his chest with his fist. “Get some fresh air into these old lungs.”

“I think you should be more concerned with not getting any air at all into your old lungs. No offense, Dad, but you’re not exactly athletic. It’s been over twenty years since you regularly exercised.”

I poured myself a bowl of cereal and then sat down at the table across from him. Dad looked indignant that I was questioning his jogging abilities.

“I used to run track in high school,” Dad said. “A little jogging won’t kill me.”

“Jogging?” said Ian as he stumbled into the room, his eyes still half-closed. “
You’re
going jogging?”

Dad slapped the table. “Why do you kids think I can’t do something as simple as jogging? It’s not like I’m running a marathon.”

I stuffed a spoonful of cereal into my mouth to avoid answering.

Ian wasn’t so worried about sparing Dad’s feelings. “I’ve never seen you even walk fast,” he said as he grabbed his Cap’n Crunch off the top of the refrigerator. “Except for one time at the grocery store when they announced there were free samples of buffalo wings in the meat department.”

Dad got up from the table and put his empty glass into the sink. “You two think you know everything,” he said, turning around to scowl at us. “I’ll see you later—after my nice jog.”

With that, Dad stomped out of the room. The front door slammed a moment later.

“He’ll be coming home in an ambulance, won’t he?” Ian asked as he sat down.

“Very likely. He’s jogging with Trisha.”

“So?” Ian asked, spraying bits of food across the table.

“Ew.” I wiped a chunk of chewed up Crunchberry off my arm. Dad’s latest self-help book caught my eye on the edge of the counter.
Finding Love When All You Feel is Lost
.

“How serious do you think he is about her?”

Ian shrugged. “I’d say our dad jogging is pretty serious.”

I swirled my spoon around in my bowl, watching the last few pieces of cereal spin in circles on top of the milk.

“Do you think much about her?” I asked quietly.

The thing about Ian and me was that I didn’t have to tell him who I meant. He’d know. We had been through it all together: him crying while curled up in my lap, me rocking him back and forth and promising everything would be okay. And I had meant it. Everything
would
be okay. I would make sure of it.

“Not really,” he answered after a pause.

And the other thing about Ian and me: I always knew when he was lying. So I pretended not to notice when he pulled a few Hershey’s Kisses from the pocket of his pajamas and added them to his cereal.

After I ate the last of my breakfast, I washed my bowl and spoon and returned them to their rightful places before heading upstairs to shower and dress. I was meeting Zac that morning at his house to work on our project before I had to go to work.

On my way home the day before, I had stopped in at the drugstore to buy a few magazines. They had headlines across the cover such as “Win Him Over Now! 10 Surefire Tips to Get the Guy of Your Dreams” and “The Art of Kissing: How to Keep His Lips Sealed to Yours.” Any other time, I’d never be caught in public buying those things, but it was necessary research. I didn’t know the first thing about winning a guy over.

Taking advice from one of the dozens of articles I’d read, I slipped into my favorite sundress and then pulled my hair up into a messy ponytail. I dabbed a touch of shiny lip-gloss on my lips to make them eye-catching.

I studied my reflection in the mirror. It was strange how a few minor changes could make me feel like the real Avery was a little lost.

“Pheromones and paint to increase the visual appeal and encourage the release of endorphins,” I reminded myself. It was almost pathetic, the lengths girls would go to get a guy’s attention. Thank goodness this was only a business strategy and not that I was desperate enough to try any of these tricks.

But still, maybe I did look a little nice. Different, definitely. I never wore makeup and usually a cardigan would have been worn over my dress to cover up. I smiled at my reflection, noticing how my eyes sparkled as they caught the sunlight coming through the window.

A few minutes later, I pulled my car to a stop in front of the address Zac had given me, which belonged to a red brick ranch style house. It looked nice, well-maintained, and blended in easily with the other homes around it.

It didn’t look like Zac Greeley at all.

My finger pressed the doorbell, which I could faintly hear chime through the house. I readjusted my bag on my shoulder, then reached down to smooth out the front of my sundress. Why did my stomach suddenly feel like a nest of live squirrels had taken up residence inside it?

This is no big deal,
I told myself.
Think of it like a science experiment.
I liked science experiments. Creating hypotheses and observing data to come to a conclusion based on facts made sense to me.

Hypothesis: An otherwise happily attached teenage boy could be convinced to dump his current girlfriend for another girl through the use of charm, wit, and a little bit of sex appeal.

The door opened and Zac grinned at me. His eyes widened slightly as his gaze traveled down to my shoulders and swept to my feet before snapping back up to meet my eyes.

Data: Zac was definitely checking me out.

“Hey. You look nice. Got a big date after we study?”

“No,” I said, laughing as I shrugged. “Just studying, then work.”

Zac stepped back to allow me to enter his home. “Aw, shucks,” he said in a deep drawl. “You didn’t pretty yourself all up for little ol’ me, did you?”

Maybe the dress and makeup were bad ideas. I didn’t want to look like I was trying too hard. Maybe Hannah could have gotten away with this outfit without a second glance, but my usual uniform was jeans or a simple denim skirt and T-shirts with witty slogans plastered across the front, topped off with my purple Chuck Taylors. My toes felt a bit naked in the sandals I wore.

I was saved from answering Zac’s teasing by the arrival of a tall blonde man dressed in dark blue pants and a pressed white shirt. A name badge attached over his left breast pocket read “Greeley Lock & Key: George Greeley, Manager.”

“Oh,” he said when he spotted us. “I thought I heard the doorbell.”

“Hello,” I greeted him, returning his polite smile.

Zac had suddenly become absorbed in studying a painting of flowers on the wall.

The man extended one hand toward me. “Since my son obviously isn’t going to do the introductions, I’ll handle them for him. I’m George Greeley, Zac’s dad.”

“Avery James. I’m a, uh...friend of Zac’s from school.”

Zac stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I told you and Mom last night that Avery would be coming over today to work on our economics project, remember?”

Mr. Greeley nodded, but the vague look on his face suggested he didn’t remember this. “Ah, yes. Well, then, Avery, I’m counting on you to make sure Zac focuses like he’s supposed to. No letting him goof off and go on one of his wild ideas, okay?”

Our entire project was based on one of Zac’s wild ideas. But the stormy look clouding over Zac’s face told me it was better not to point this out.

I nodded. “I’ll try my best.”

Mr. Greeley smiled, satisfied. “I’m off to the shop. Zac, I expect you there at three o’clock.
Not
three-thirty. Three on the dot. Can you handle that?”

Zac rolled his eyes. “I lost track of time
once
,” he muttered. “It’s not the end of the world.”

But Mr. Greeley was grabbing a bag from the closet and apparently didn’t hear Zac’s response. “I’ll see you then, Zac. Nice to meet you, Avery.”

Once the door had closed behind his dad, Zac’s entire body seemed to relax from the stiffened posture he had taken on. He smiled and I couldn’t miss the relieved look in his eyes.

“Ready to go build a matchmaking business?” he asked.

I raised my eyebrows. “Lead the way, Cupid.”

Zac led me down the hall to his family’s den, which was decorated with cozy, plush furniture situated in front of a flat screen TV mounted over the fireplace. But my eye noticed how one lampshade was slightly crooked and how the table didn’t line up with the couch evenly. Someone had left magazines scattered across the coffee table and for a moment, my fingers itched to straighten them into a neat stack. I sat down quickly, putting my hands under my legs. I would not be the weird girl who came over to other people’s houses and cleaned for them.

A couple cans of soda and a bowl of chips had been placed on one corner of the coffee table, near where I sat on the green couch.

Zac sat down next to me and opened the business plan notebook that he’d taken home with him after class the day before. I had worried that he would lose track of it, but he had insisted on taking it so he could read over everything. He opened it to the first page of questions, on which he’d already filled in some of the lines with his big, sloppy print that seemed to dance off the page.

“Did you already do all of the work?” I asked, looking over the page.

“I couldn’t help it,” he told me sheepishly. “I don’t sleep so I have a lot of free time.”

I glanced at him. “You don’t sleep?”

“Well, I mean, I sleep. But not as much as most people. A couple hours here and there. Enough to get by.” He shrugged, as if this were no big deal, despite the fact that he was ruining his body’s natural cellular turnover process by not getting enough sleep. “Anyway, I was up and I guess I’m really excited about this project. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and I filled in some of the questions. Our business is going to be awesome.”

“Are you planning to start a business of your own one day?”

Zac’s smile faded. “No. I’m going to take over my family’s locksmithing business. According to my dad anyway.”

I thought about the no nonsense look of Zac’s dad and the way Zac’s body had instantly tensed when his dad walked into the room. “And what about according to you?”

Zac shrugged. He didn’t seem like himself at all now. His shoulders had slumped and his usual smile was replaced by a grim expression. “Doesn’t matter,” he said, almost robotically. “What about you? Are you going to run a business of your own?”

“I’m going to be a doctor. Maybe provide medical care in poor areas of the world.”

Zac’s eyes widened. “Wow. Really?”

“Yeah, I think it could be fun and very rewarding. Either that or I’ll go into genetics and try to figure out what makes us who we are. Like, how much of our personalities is influenced by our genes?”

“That would be awesome,” Zac said. “You could help people figure out whether they’re destined to always be short-tempered or a failure at math because their parents were.”

Or whether they’re destined to abandon their family because one of their parents did?

“Maybe you could even figure out exactly what a person’s personality will be like from the moment of their birth,” he went on. The animated Zac I was beginning to know had returned and he flailed his arms around as he spoke. “Or even
before
they’re born! You could create a whole new way of thinking about people and personalities. Maybe even figure out how to manipulate genes to get rid of a personality trait that isn’t as desirable as others.”

“This is all theoretical planning,” I reminded him. “First I have to get through med school and actually pass.”

“Oh, you’ll pass. You’re too smart to fail at anything.”

I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. But maybe we should focus on passing business econ right now?”

“Oh,” Zac said, as if he had forgotten why I was at his house in the first place. “Right.”

He bent over the economics notebook, letting his dark hair fall forward over his eyes. I sneaked a glance sideways at him, studying his profile. I hadn’t noticed before how his nose turned up a tiny bit at the end. Or how he had one curl that hung down over his ear.

I coughed and turned away so Zac couldn’t see the flush I felt creeping up my neck.

Might as well try to get a move on with what I was hired to do. This seemed like a good enough opportunity. “I’ll bet you’re a lot smarter than you think.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” Zac said. “And most opinions disagree with you.” He gave me a grin, but I could see the hurt in his eyes.

“Why do you do that?” I asked.

His brow creased. “What?”

“Put yourself down. I’m trying to compliment you and you turn it into a joke.”

Zac tapped his fingers on the book in his lap. “I like jokes.”

“Not everything in life is a joke.”

Zac cleared his throat, looking slightly embarrassed. “Sorry. Thank you for the compliment then.” He looked cute with the spots of color on his cheeks.

Why was I thinking about Zac being cute?

“You’re welcome,” I said, my own embarrassment making it impossible to maintain eye contact with him.

We were silent for a moment. I looked around the room, while my head screamed at me to think of something to say. Anything to fill the void.

BOOK: The Boyfriend Thief
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