Chapter 5: Damaged Goods: Chapter 4

Miserable Fact #2,993: The Turritopsis dohrnii jellyfish is the one and only immortal creature in the world.

I floor it the entire drive home in my Bugatti Chiron Sport.

I love a good monster engine, which is why I am obsessed with planes, among other things.

We, the Followhills, Spencers, and Rexroths all live in the same cul-de-sac.

It’s the size of a golf course, but it’s still close enough that we always have our noses in each other’s business. Both a blessing and a curse.

I park my car, blocking Dad’s Maybach, and torpedo my way to Bailey’s doorstep. I don’t knock or ring the bell. We’re all practically family. Which is a gross-ass idea, considering the things I’ve been fantasizing about doing to my ex–best friend these past five years.

I punch in the code to their door and throw it open, kicking my Nike Blazers against the wall.

Mel’s voice greets me from the kitchen. “Lev, honey, you hungry?”

She must have seen me coming through the cameras on her phone app.

“Perpetually.” I stop in front of her with my good-boy smile.

She turns around and walks over to hug me, holding a spatula. She is making dynamite shrimp and zucchini fries. Bailey’s favorite.

Rather than acting on my impatience, I spend twenty minutes small-talking her. Bailey probably knows I’m here and it’s driving her mad I’m in no rush to see her. Good. Only after Mel and I cover every subject under the sun—weather, school, summer plans, college applications—do I finally ask, “Is Bails upstairs?”

“She better be.” Mel’s friendly smile morphs into a scowl. She looks like she’s aged five years in the last four days.

“Hey, thanks again for…” She swallows, her fingers fluttering the air to indicate, you know. She’s this close to bursting into tears.

I shrug. “Bailey saved my life every single day for two years straight after I lost Mom.”

“She was amazing,” Mel agrees. Past tense. Yikes. Bails is in the doghouse for real.

“Still is,” I say, low enough that Bailey can’t hear me from upstairs. “She’s just going through the adolescence she never had, I think.”

“Maybe,” she whispers. “I didn’t think you’d grow apart, you know.”

But we didn’t outgrow each other. Bailey outgrew me.

She changed, and I stayed the same. Stretched her wings when I wanted to clip them to ensure she never left. It backfired. Big time.

“Don’t let me keep you.” She steps back, wiping her eyes. “Please tell her food’s ready.”

I feel bad for Mel.

She means well. Everyone always criticizes her parenting skills, but the truth is, it’s fucking hard to raise two smart, independent girls. And mothers always get double the blame for everything. Nobody said shit about Dad back when Knight’s favorite hobby was blow and alcohol.

I take the curved marble stairway, passing floor-to-ceiling portraits of the entire family. Daria is impishly grinning back, wearing an Oscar de la Renta golden sequin dress. Bailey is in a blue sailor dress, embroidered with little flowers. Her smile is serene, polite, contained, her eyes two clear pools under a cloudless sky.

They’re so different it’s comical.

Daria is a she-devil who loves her parties and designer clothes. Bailey is an angel with a love for books and charities.

My stomach bottoms out when I step into the second-floor hallway of the Followhills’ house. Too many things have happened since I last saw Bailey. I have a new girl-something, and she has a new fucking drug problem apparently.

I follow the trail of warm vanilla and new book scent leading to her room.

I knock on the ajar door, then remind myself she’s an addict and doesn’t need privacy right now.

I barge right in. “Bailey?”

Someone jumps me from behind. Long, muscular legs coil around my back, her arms are circling my shoulders.

She giggles in my ear, her breath toasted cinnamon and vanilla. She’s fucking everywhere, gorgeous and alive and warm as a perfect August day, and for the first time in my life, I want to break her instead of mending her, because FUCK. THIS. SHIT.

She broke my heart, then went and almost killed the girl I love. Who does that to a person?

“Levy!” She plasters her lips to my cheek, oblivious to my mood. Her blond hair rains down on my face, an avalanche of yellow and gold. “Holy shrimp. I haven’t seen you in a few months and you’re the size of a town house now.”

She’s acting like Old Us. Our families labeled us #Bailev sometime before we turned six because we were inseparable. People shipped us. Everyone thought we’d become a couple.

No dice.

Slanting my gaze sideways, I ask dryly, “Sorry, do I know you?”

“Brainiac. Knows your darkest secrets. Obsessed with lists. Your best friend. Ring a bell?” She nibbles at my ear, and just like that, my entire bloodstream goes straight to my dick and I get light-headed.

Still, I play the part of the jaded asshole. “My best friends are mommy issues and a god complex. Try again.”

“Nope.” She rubs her smooth cheek along my stubbled one. My dick is seriously a second away from unzipping my ripped Amiri jeans and bursting out to say hi. “Those are your therapist’s best friends and the reason she owns a vacation house in Cancun.”

I don’t have a therapist, though I probably should get one, considering the amount of rage I’m bottling up inside these days.

“Get off my back, Bailey.”

“Or else?” She grins, and who the fuck is this girl?

Feeling like I’m goofing around with one of my fangirls and not my best friend, I reach to tickle her armpits and she falls on her back on the sheepskin carpet, giggling and kicking her legs in the air.

She’s wearing a pair of white boy shorts and a pink Nirvana hoodie. A Walmart bargain, I bet.

Her laughter in my ear and her body writhing beneath mine makes me feel like I’ve woken up from a long, lethargic sleep.

How can people find Bailey and Thalia remotely similar? Thalia is a daisy and Bailey is a rose.

Thalia is an open book, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kinda girl. I figured her out long before I laid a finger on her. Bailey is a tightly wrapped gift. Her velvet petals are clasped together firmly, each hiding another layer of her.

Dropping to my knees, I continue tickling her sides, the sensitive spots of her neck, not even cracking the faintest smile. She thrashes and pretends to struggle but really just pulls me deeper in, seeking more contact.

We pretend-fight. Let loose some of that tension that’s built up the past year.

Bailey presses her socked feet to my face, laughing breathlessly.

I’d love to continue this game, but my boner is about to rip through my boxers and run toward her bathroom for a cold shower. Plus, there are some burning topics on my agenda. I stop abruptly. Our eyes lock. Green on blue. I’m on top of her, my weight pinning her down.

She looks a little thinner than last time I saw her, but she’s still the most beautiful girl on planet earth. I lower my face until we’re an inch from one another. Her hot breath prickles the whiskers on my cheeks.

“Argh.” She tries to kick me off, but I’m stronger, bigger, and have a zero-bullshit policy. “You have the eyelashes of a giraffe,” she moans. “Boys with long, curly eyelashes should be outlawed.”

“Heard they’re trying to legislate this in Congress. Visit me in jail?” I lick my lips.

She shakes her head slowly. “Nah. Play your cards right, though, and I’ll top up your iPay.”

I can’t help but laugh, pressing my forehead against hers. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”

She nods but doesn’t say anything.

She’s sobered up now, and I can tell she wants to ask why I didn’t come to see her in the hospital. But she won’t. Because she knows. It’s written all over my face—I didn’t come because I hate her guts for overdosing and she’s not off the goddamn hook.

“I’m sorry,” she rasps. “I really, really am.”

I swipe a lock of blond hair from her forehead. “You okay, Dove?”

“Yeah,” her voice is husky. Hoarse. “Thank you for…you know.”

Our mouths are an inch apart.

She licks her lips, her gaze lowering to my mouth. A small, longing sigh escapes her.

There’s a moment where I wonder if she wants me to kiss her. There were a lot of moments in our past where I thought she wanted me to kiss her. And just like in all the others, her wispy ballerina body slips beneath mine, and she’s up on her feet in a flash, avoiding me.

She marches into her walk-in closet and examines the rows upon rows of summer dresses, arranged by color to create a wall-to-wall rainbow. “What took you so long?”

Hopping to my feet, I grumble, “You rolled into town without a text.”

Bailey makes a surprised face. She might be a great dancer, but she has the acting chops of an eye booger. “Really? I thought I texted you back.”

“No, you didn’t. I can deal with you fucking up, but I won’t put up with lying.”

She gathers her hair into a long ponytail and drops her gaze to her feet. “Sorry. The last few days have been overwhelming. I was building up the courage to call you. Trying to figure out what I wanted to say.”

Ambling toward her, I ask, “And have you?”

She bites down on her lower lip, shaking her head.

“Fine. I’ll do the talking, then. Do you have a drug problem?” I rest my elbow on the doorframe, blocking her way out of her walk-in closet.

“Jesus, Lev!” She slaps her thigh with the cardigan she’s holding. “Why’s everyone so upset the moment I start living a little and trying new things?”

“That wasn’t a yes or a no.” My voice is a steel blade. Sharp. Cold. Cutting.

“My only drug problem is that everyone keeps talking to me about drugs.”

“You overdosed.”

“No, I experimented with painkillers. Bought something laced. Got burned. I only did it to keep my injuries’ pain at bay. But I’m done with all that.”

I want to believe her because the alternative is going to drive me nuts.

I also don’t want to micromanage her, but if it’s tough love she needs, she’s cruising for some bruising because I’m gonna make it my job to tail her ass and make sure she’s clean.

“Then why was it so hard to figure out what to say?” I eyeball her.

“Because what happened to me was embarrassing.”

“Yet in that moment, you called me.”

“Duh.” Peevish look.

“Why?” I press.

She swallows hard. “Because.”

“President of the debate team, ladies and gents.” I slow clap, sneering down at her.

“Because you were the first number I could find!” She stomps like a child. “It means nothing, okay? Don’t read too much into it.”

I’m torn between calling her bluff and walking out of here.

Bailey sighs. “Look, I have cabin fever. Can I go for a ride?”

Sure can, Dove. You can go on three. On my cock.

See, these are the kinds of thoughts I really should stop thinking about when I’m next to her.

“You need permission now?” I crack my knuckles, whistling. “How the mighty have fallen.”

She purses her lips. “Mom and Dad said I can only leave the house chaperoned by them or you.”

I tsk. “Well, whaddaya know. What goes around really does come around.”

She was the one treating me like a Tamagotchi growing up.

“No one’s coming in this scenario between us two. I’m not that high.” She rips the pink Nirvana hoodie from her body, spheres it in her fist, and throws it at me.

I catch and drape it over my face, head tilted up, sniffing it like a pervert. “Joke’s on you. This goes into my spank bank.”

I tuck the hoodie into my back pocket, because she is that small, and I am that big.

Bailey growls exasperatedly in her pink sports bra, her abs tightening with the movement. She really has changed. Old Bailey doesn’t growl, huff, scoff, or any of those things. She smiles politely, fusses, and beams.

I rake my eyes over her upper body until my gaze lands on the tape on her arm, the purple marks of the IV. Then I start noticing the wear and tear on her flesh. Her body is marked—painted purple and black and blue.

I’ve seen plenty of sports injuries in my lifetime. This is different. Worse. Way worse.

The knots in my stomach twist harder and tighter, grow bigger like a rubber band ball, and it feels like they’re about to snap through my skin. Even if she doesn’t have a drug habit, she’s a great candidate for one because living inside her body must be painful. As she slips a blue satin dress on, I say, “Maybe it’s a good thing Mel and Jaime are keeping an eye on you. You haven’t been taking care of yourself.”

Bailey rolls her eyes. Bailey never rolls her eyes. “And you know this because…?”

“I have eyes. Look at you. You’re battered.”

“No, you’re delusional,” she snaps.

Whoa. Okay. I have no fucking idea who this girl is or what she did to my best friend.

“What happened to you?” I frown. Who the hell am I talking to anyway? “You were this insanely successful girl. The pride of Todos Santos.”

“And you think just because I work super hard and it shows that I’m no longer that person?” she spits out. “Well, newsflash—succeeding at an elite school comes with a price. Welcome to life outside our childhood bubble, Cole.”

She spreads her arms theatrically. “You have to bleed to succeed. When you do sports competitively, injuries happen. Of course, you wouldn’t know anything about it. I’ve never seen a quarterback who barely breaks a sweat. What’s the worst you’ve ever endured, a scraped knee?”

Shut the front door. This is a top-tier meltdown.

Like, amateurly edited, badly written cable reality TV shit. I’m wondering if she’s experiencing some type of withdrawal.

Whoever this girl is, she soldiers ahead, grinning at me tauntingly. “Face it, Lev. Even if I did overtrain, you’re the last person to lecture me about it. You’re cruising through life too scared to tell Daddy Dearest you hate football and want to go to flight school. You’re a coward. You just hide it well. When are you gonna tell him, by the way?”

I’m thinking never is a good timeframe.

When I don’t answer, she makes a face. “You are gonna tell him, right?”

My jaw clenches. “We’re not talking about me now.”

She tips her head back and laughs humorlessly. “Oh. Wow.”

Football is a sore subject for me. I’m good at it, but I hate it. It’s like being a porn star with a ten-inch dick who aspires to be a celibate priest. Just because I can doesn’t mean I should.

Thing is, I’m second-generation football royalty at All Saints High.

My dad played. My big brother, Knight, played. Last year, my letterman jacket went for seven thousand bucks in an auction. It’s hard to throw this kinda love away. Truth is, I’m addicted to the glory.

Fucking sue me.

“Sorry, I’m on edge.” Bailey rubs her forehead tiredly.

You’re on something, all right.

“You do seem…scattered,” I say gently. Because telling her she is one hundred percent a stranger probably isn’t going to get me far. “You need anything?”

She shakes her head. “Just need some fresh air. Wanna grab lunch before we head out?”

“Shrimp and zucchini fries with a side of your fucking bullshit?” I arch an eyebrow. “It’s a pass from me.”

“I’ll behave.” She gives me a small, desperate smile. “Please? I just need…”

“An urgent trip to rehab?”

She gives me an exhausted smile, and I think I see the real Bailey through the cracks. “A break.”

I groan, running a hand through my buzzed hair. “Fuck. Fine.”

We both shuffle downstairs and eat Melody’s food. It’s good, but Bailey makes the best food in the world, hands down.

Mainly because in the months before Mom died, she visited her daily and scribbled down all of her recipes so I would never go without my favorite dishes.

She learned how to make my comfort everything—waffles (with a dash of cinnamon and silan), chicken noodle soup (celery, dried onion, yolk), chocolate cake (extra-eggy).

All the Rosie Cole staples. She would push Mom’s wheelchair into our kitchen and make her watch as she made my favorite food and get pointers.

“One more yolk.”

“Generous with the salt.”

“A little parsley never killed nobody, Bails.”

If watching your best girl-friend race against the clock to ensure she knows how to make your favorite homecooked meals doesn’t make you fall in love with her, then I don’t know what does.

No wonder I’m trash for this girl. My entire history, my making, is in the palm of her hand.

One time, when Bailey was already at Juilliard and we were no longer technically friends, she sat on the phone with me and we FaceTimed for forty minutes at three in the morning Eastern time while she taught me how to make Mom’s waffles just because I felt nostalgic and couldn’t fall asleep.

She had an important exam the next morning, but that didn’t stop her. That was always the problem with Bails and me. We were pretty crappy with setting boundaries with one another.

I look across the table at the girl who spent six months of her life shadowing a dying woman so I can still enjoy Mom’s waffles and decide I’m being unreasonable.

In the past six months alone, two guys from the team have woken up in the ER after partying too hard, Coach barely saying a word. As long as they perform, they’re golden.

Bailey has made some poor choices, but I can’t deny living up on a sky-high pedestal must get pretty boring, never mind lonely.

I should know—she and I are both considered the “perfect” ones.

She’s banged up from ballet. And so what if she experimented with drugs a little? Who the fuck am I to judge?

I shift my hand under the table and find hers. Squeeze. She brushes her thumb over my knuckles. A shiver runs down my spine. A silent truce.

After we eat, I drive to YoToGo and get us huge frozen yogurt cups, then we make our way to our secret spot in the woods. Now’s probably a good time to tell her about Thalia, but something stops me.

Maybe the fact that there’s not much to tell—it’s just a steady hookup—or maybe it’s that I know if she doesn’t care, I’ll die a little inside.

Fine, a lot.

Bailey finally penetrates the silence and asks, “Are they still there?”

She’s referring to the turtle doves we found all those years ago. I nod. “They have a tin of food up on that tree. I top it up every week or so.”

Bailey slouches back against the passenger seat, plucking at her lower lip. “Why do you think they never had babies?”

“Maybe they’re the same gender. Maybe one of them is infertile. Maybe they’re platonic. Maybe they value their independent lifestyle and don’t bow to outdated societal norms. Also, kids are fucking expensive, yo.”

Bailey laughs, covering her face with her hands. “I forgot how funny you are.”

I let loose a little smile but refuse to show her how I glow inside out at her words.

“I think they’re both female.” She pouts. “The doves.”

“That’d be my fault.” I scratch the stubble on my chin. “I probably manifested it. You know two chicks is my fantasy.”

“Didn’t think you’d be so literal.”

Now we’re both laughing, and the ice might not be broken, but it sure is cracked.

It was freaky, the way we found these doves. The day we found these doves. An omen. A message from above. Turtle doves aren’t common in North America, which meant they were runaways. Just like we were that day.

We park and hike the way to our corner in the woods.

A while back, I stretched a huge piece of canvas across four valley oaks and tied it to each of the trunks, so now Bails and I have a giant-ass hammock raised off the ground to hang out on. About twelve-by-twelve feet.

It’s always full of leaves and dirt, and it’s the only instance when Bailey doesn’t mind looking less than completely perfect. When we’re out here in nature.

We climb on top of the canvas.

Bailey’s tongue twists around her neon-green spoon. “What’s new with you?”

I have a steady ride and every time I’m inside her I think about you, which is probably the shittiest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

Dad and Knight are pushing me to play ball in college.

And every time I think you might not be okay, I want to stab the faceless, nameless asshole who sold you those drugs.

“Same old shit.” I crunch a frozen cherry between my teeth. “How’s Juilliard?”

“Amazing.” Her eyes are two shiny snow globes. “There’s so much talent and inspiration there. The city is full of culture. I go to a different exhibition every weekend and tutor a low-income junior in Harlem twice a week. And the food, Lev!” She gasps. “New York is heaven for foodies.”

“Mom told me New York was her favorite city,” I say. “Dad and she started seeing each other there. I think they only moved here because she wanted to be close to Aunt Emilia.”

Bailey smiles, and for the first time today, I recognize the girl who taught me how to tie my shoes and rock-skip in the river by our house.

“I always think about it,” she murmurs. “Remember the time your mom told us your dad ordered her every rose from every florist on the block?”

“Yeah.” My smile is about to split my face in half.

Bailey pinks, sinking her white teeth into her bottom lip.

“A couple months ago I went down to that street to see if the florists were still there. Four out of the five are. I bought a few bouquets from each store and sent them to Mom. She put them on Rosie’s grave.”

“That was you?” My eyebrows jump. “Dad thought she had a side piece. You should’ve seen the meltdowns.”

Bailey laughs wildly. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“A little,” I laugh.

“Yikes! I thought I told you. My cognitive skills should be peaking at nineteen.”

Bailey does nice things because she wants to do them, not because she wants the recognition.

A year ago, I’d have exploded into red heart-shaped confetti at this confession. But she isn’t the same girl from a year ago.

“Thanks, Dove. That was a nice touch.” I press my fist to her arm.

She bumps her shoulder against mine and steals a spoonful of my Froyo. “Don’t be a sap, Levy.”

“Do you even know what sap means?” I quirk a brow.

“Duh. Systems, applications, and products in data processing. One of my APs was computer science, remember?” She taps her temple.

“Nerd,” I whisper-shout.

“Stupid jock.” She blows a raspberry.

We both pretend to laugh even though I’d rather take her tongue in my mouth and kiss the shit out of her.

As if on cue, both of our turtle pigeons descend from their nest, making their way to us.

Perseus and Andromeda.

Bailey chose the names. Something about great, unconditional love and overcoming obstacles together. Joke’s on her because these bitches are living rent-free in a nest I literally made for them. Privileged assholes.

Andromeda, without blue in her feathers like Perseus, is also missing a leg, so it’s easy to tell them apart. They land on the far corner of the canvas, close to us but not too close to comfort.

They know us and are happy to see us.

To Bailey, I say, “I wanna go to New York before college. Visit all the places Mom loved. Her old apartment.”

“We should do it together!” She lights up, and it feels so stupid. Making plans with this girl who isn’t even my friend anymore and isn’t even herself anymore. “Go on Tour de LeBlanc.” She wiggles her brows, putting on a horrible French accent. “St. Paul’s Chapel, Lady Liberty, Battle of Brooklyn…and here, ladies and gents, the dame Rosie LeBlanc handed Mr. Dean Cole his butt back to him!”

I laugh in spite of myself. Now she sounds like my best friend again. We were the last of the litter. The invisible kids. No issues. No drama. Perfect grades. Our SATs are crazy—mine is 1560 and Dove’s is a perfect, shiny 1600.

“How’d you find your way to a drug dealer anyway?” I can’t seem to give this thing a rest.

At my question, Bailey’s face rears back, and her nostrils flare. “Does it really matter?”

“Is that a real question?” I blink slowly. “Bastard’s going around selling people laced painkillers. Yeah, I think it matters.”

She visibly shrinks. “I didn’t catch his name, and it wasn’t on school grounds anyway.”

“What if he sells to other people? What if—”

“Ohmymarx, would you shut up?” she snaps, pulling a joint from her pocket and lighting it up like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “I’m not the one with the substance abuse genes here. Stop projecting, Cole.”

She’s back to being a bitch again.

I’m getting whiplash, but I’m starting to see this is the new version of her.

Nice and normal one moment, then a goddamn hellion the next. She’s exhibiting an addict’s behavior.

Plus, she’s only a year fucking adultier than me. Not a thirtysomething-year-old with a key to all the hard-knock truths of this universe.

My jaw locks tight. “Your mood swings more than a limp dick in a locker room these days.” My eyes drop to the lit tip of the joint. “And since when do you smoke?”

“Since I found a joint in Daria’s room—probably Penn’s—and decided to mellow down a little. What’s your problem?” She twists her face like I stink. “You were the one who offered me my first hit when we were in school.”

“That’s right.” I give her a leveled stare. “Before you were a fucking junkie.”

There. I said it. It’s out in the open, and I ain’t taking it back. All you need is to take one look at her to see that she is definitely not the same person.

She shoves her Froyo cup into a trash bag with a huff. “Welp. I’m fed up being interrogated.”

“I want you to piss into a cup,” I hear myself say.

“Excuse me?” Her eyebrows are about to jump off her forehead and attack me.

“Problem?” I drawl. “I piss into a cup every other month. I can do it in my sleep. And I know a lab that gives back test results within six hours. Prove to me you aren’t using. Put my mind at ease.”

“Your mind is none of my concern.” Her face bricks up. “Maybe I should be asking you to piss into a cup, family history considered.”

“Being a bitch ain’t winning you any sobriety points.” I shake my head. Old Bailey was never this prickly, this testy. And she’d never smoke a joint. She called cigarettes “cancer sticks” and joints “dumb wands.”

Which sounded kind of erotic, but whatever.

“Being an overbearing asshole doesn’t make you my BFF again, either.”

Dove has officially parted ways with her faculties. That’s how I know she’s a user.

There’s no way my ex–best friend would ever say something so nasty. She knows my older brother overdosed back when my mom was dying. She was the first person I confided in after Luna told me.

“If you don’t have a problem,” I grit through clenched teeth, “then how come everything I say makes you jump out of your skin? Why do you look like you have a Victorian wasting disease? Why are your pupils the size of dinner plates?”

“Well, that’s because when I was discharged they gave me—”

But I don’t let her finish. “You have two options—either you let me help you or I walk away from this clusterfuck and we’re back to being strangers. Because watching you destroy yourself is not a possibility. I’ve watched the person I love more than anything in the world die, and she didn’t have a choice. She didn’t do it to herself. I won’t let you kill yourself on my watch. Got it?”

“Nice little speech.” Bailey hops off the canvas, making Andromeda flee over her shoulder. She dusts off her knees and looks around, her nose up in the air. “I’m ready to go home now, GI Jackass.”

A fucking joint.

She straight up pulled out a fucking joint.

My thoughts swirl inside my head. We exchange zero words on our way back. After I drop Bailey off, I go home.

I feel like crap.

Bailey is okay like I’m a fighter pilot. Which, unfortunately, I never will be, thanks to Dad and Knight riding my ass about going pro and, you know, avoiding getting myself killed.

It’s not like Bailey to pussy out of stuff. Normal her would piss into a goddamn milk jug to prove me wrong.

I push the door open and drop my duffel bag at the entrance. Dad is shuffling on the patio. His phone is pinched between his ear and shoulder. His voice is muffled through the glass doors, “Lev’s home. I’ll call you later, Dix.”

He slides the glass doors open and steps inside, a kitchen towel slung over his muscular shoulder. There’s a pile of juicy steaks on a plate in his hand. Dad’s a silver fox. And a hedge fund manager.

He could have anyone he wants. But what he wants, apparently, is to friend-zone Knight’s biological mother, Dixie, into the next century and live like a monk.

He also calls her Dix, which is too close to dicks. Now I’m not a big romantic, but I would never call anyone I wanted to bump uglies with Dicks.

Or any kind of genitalia, really.

Maybe I don’t know shit. Maybe he hung up with her in a hurry because they were having phone sex and are actually screwing on the reg. I hope that’s the reason. But he doesn’t seem like he is ready to move on.

When Mom died, they buried his heart right along with her. There’s a huge hole in his chest. And the only thing that seems to somewhat fill it is my football.

“Why so secretive?” I steal a pickle from the salad, popping it into my mouth.

“Why so paranoid?” He drops the steak-filled plate on the dinner table. “Just wanted to greet you. Wasn’t Thalia supposed to come for dinner?”

Dad walks over to the designer kitchen, where there’s a freshly tossed salad and Hawaiian bread rolls waiting at the crystal table, along with San Pellegrino.

I follow him with my eyes as I wash my hands at the sink. “I canceled.”

He produces a sound from the back of his throat. “Gee. Didn’t see that one coming from a hundred miles away.”

“Sarcasm is the lower form of wit, Dad.”

“Still wit, though. I take my victories where I can find ’em. How was practice?”

Shit. “Good.”

“Yeah?” His eyes linger on the side of my face. “Funny, ’cause I saw Coach Taylor at Whole Foods a couple hours ago and he said you were off. In fact, he said that he’s met offensive football signs more capable than you were in practice today.”

That damn snitch. He knows Dad from his heyday playing football, so he always overshares with him.

“Bailey’s back,” I grunt.

“So I heard.” He plates each of us a sirloin, salad, and some bread. I’ve already had food at Mel’s, plus the Froyo, but I’m already starving again.

“How’s she handling things?” He eyeballs me from across the table when we take a seat.

To no one’s surprise, the house remained completely untouched after Mom died of cystic fibrosis four years ago.

Not one picture was moved. One wall painted. We even kept the old light bulbs until we started experiencing some next-level paranormal shit. Lights flickering, electricity cuts, stuff exploding; Dad isn’t in denial about Mom dying. He knows she’s dead. He just decided to kill any chance for love or companionship right along with her. A true turtle dove.

I hum into my food in response.

“Got that with words?” He studies me.

“Don’t be greedy.” My utensils clink on the expensive plate. “Next thing, you’ll ask for entire sentences with commas and all that jazz.”

He pins me with a look. I’m being difficult. I’m on edge because of Bails, and I just wish he’d tell me what’s going on with him and Dixie.

If he has someone other than Knight and me…maybe it wouldn’t feel like a betrayal to apply to the Air Force Academy before the cutoff date.

The clock is ticking. I don’t have much time left. It makes me uncomfortable that Dad’s entire hopes and dreams are around the idea of me becoming an NFL player.

“She seems tired but fine,” I relent.

“Keep an eye on her.”

“Plan to.”

“Addiction is a tough motherfucker.”

“She says she’s not an addict.” I chew a juicy piece of steak, deep in thought.

“I said that too.” He sighs. “And so did Knight.”

“Thanks, Dad, for reminding me literally every single person I give a crap about tried to off themselves at some point.”

Guess it’s my destiny to love people who play Russian roulette with their lives.

Thanks a fucking bunch, Karma. Wrong address by the way.

I stuff my mouth with a bread roll, chewing slowly.

“Change of subject?” He elevates an eyebrow.

“That’s a good idea.”

“You got a pamphlet in the mail today. The Air Force Academy.” He rolls his eyes like I was asked to join a Satanic cult.

My heart picks up speed. He has no clue, does he? That’s how little he knows me. “If you ask me, it’s outrageous that they still send this propaganda to every high schooler who’s about to graduate.” He spears some meat with his fork, pointing it at me before taking a bite. “I like my kid alive and in one piece.”

It’s not all about you, Dad.

The Air Force Academy sent that pamphlet because I filled out an interest form.

Now I’ll have to dig through the trash to find it. I’m equally terrified and excited. I want to read it. Even if nothing is going to come out of it.

“Everyone wants their kid in one piece. Check your privilege, Dad.”

“When you’re right, you’re right.”

There is silence.

There never used to be silence. But then I built an advanced flight simulator in the attic, complete with a cockpit, TPR pedals, and curved monitor and spent five hours a day in it max, and he and Knight started getting suspicious. When I began volunteering at the local private airport and got connected to their ATC, they really lost their shit. They knew I was serious about becoming a fighter pilot.

Dad ignores the tension. “Next Friday is gonna be a tough one. St. John Bosco has an excellent track record. You nervous?”

“Last time we played them, their coach lit into their quarterback and had the backup warmed up before we even broke a sweat.” I shrug.

If Dad took a second to get his head out of his ass, he’d see that I don’t find football interesting or enjoyable. Last time I watched the Super Bowl, I was, like, twelve. “You gonna eat that bread roll?” I jerk my chin toward his plate. I don’t even know why I’m asking. I lost all appetite.

He shakes his head. “Knock yourself out.”

We eat the rest of our meal with Dad dishing out football statistics and giving me pointers for the approaching game.

When we’re done, I wash the dishes, fish the pamphlet out of the trash can, and go to my room and look over the street at Bailey’s window.

The lights are turned off. Just like her eyes were today. Still, I push my window up and yell to her, “How’s the sky looking tonight, Dove?”

She doesn’t answer.

Fuck her.