This Wicked Rush Read online

  “Won’t he honk?” Heather, my best friend Isaac’s girlfriend, asks.

  “He’d better not.” Isaac glances up from the bloody Xbox game he and Danny are playing while the little kids play outside. He sits up straighter on the couch, puffing out his broad chest. “He’d better come to the door and let me glare at him so he knows to behave himself.”

  Heather laughs, twirling one of her tight brown curls around her finger as she keeps an eye on the pasta boiling on the stove. “You’re not Caitlin’s dad, Isaac.”

  “Thank God,” I mumble, glancing toward the back door, half expecting Chuck to stumble in drunk off his ass and ruin this date before it starts.

  I trust Isaac and Heather to watch the kids, but I don’t trust anyone to handle Chuck, but me. My dad has been known to get belligerent with non-family members—and occasionally gets rough with Danny if my brother insists on running his mouth—but my father has never raised a hand to me, not once in my entire life. I can always get him talked down from the edge and tucked safely into bed.

  Chuck has ruined my plans many, many times before—he has a sixth sense that alerts him on the rare occasions when I’ve arranged to do something fun—but this time around a Chuck crisis might be a blessing in disguise.

  I have no idea what I’m going to say to Gabe’s parents, or how I’m going to convince them that Gabe and I are in love. I barely know the guy, and considering how much trouble he caused at the diner yesterday, I’m feeling more inclined to punch him in the gut than hold his hand at the supper table.

  Liar. Such a terrible liar.

  I sigh, and busy myself laying out plates and silverware for the pasta dinner Heather graciously offered to cook.

  I am a terrible liar. Hearing someone call out Mr. Noel before he could get a hand up my skirt was one of the highlights of my year, and totally worth incurring Gretchen’s wrath. Gretchen is always miffed with someone. By Monday, she’ll be pissed at one of the other servers and forget she threatened to fire me, but Mr. Noel won’t be putting his hands on me again. And I have Gabe to thank for it.

  Gabe, who sounded like he actually cared whether I was treated well at work, who sounded like he cared about me…

  “But he doesn’t,” I mutter, tossing the final fork onto a napkin and heading back into the kitchen. “He’s a huge, asshole player.”

  “Then why are you going out with him?” Isaac asks.

  “Talking to myself,” I call out, snagging the salad I made earlier from the fridge.

  “I don’t care,” Isaac says. “I heard it, and I want to know why you’re breaking your ‘no dating ever’ rule for some guy you don’t even like.”

  “She didn’t say she didn’t like him,” Heather says, eyes dancing in her pale face.

  She’s given up the Goth makeup she loved senior year of high school, but with her ivory skin, dark eyes, and thick brown curls, she still looks like the heroine of a vampire novel. She and Isaac, who is about as gothic looking as a cocker spaniel, are a mismatched couple looks-wise, but their personalities fit just right. They’re one of the most functional couples I’ve ever met, and I love having them around. It’s good for the kids—hell, for me—to see a romantic relationship can actually work.

  “She said he was an asshole player,” Heather continues, a teasing note in her voice. “You can still like a player. I mean, I have dirty dreams about Howie all the time, and he treated me like crap when we were dating and broke up with me on my birthday.”

  “Hey, I heard that.” Isaac glares across the room, making Heather laugh. “Seriously babe, I didn’t want to hear that.”

  Heather shrugs. “I’m just saying, sometimes a girl can’t help falling for the wrong guy.”

  “I’m not falling for him.” I plunk the salad down on the table, barely resisting the urge to go peek out the window again. “I’m doing him a favor. His parents want him to have a girlfriend, so I’m pretending to be his girlfriend. It’s like…a job.”

  “Why do his parents care if he has a girlfriend?” Danny asks, his disdain for this “date night” obvious in his tone.

  “Some parents actually care if their kids are going to get married and have a family someday,” Isaac says, the fact that he has to explain that to my brother making my chest feel bruised. “It’s a real thing.”

  “I want you to get married and have a family someday too, D,” I say. “Someday far, far from now when you’re at least twenty-three and have a really good job.”

  Danny snorts. “I’m not getting married.”

  “You’ll change your mind,” Isaac says. “You’ll start liking girls sooner than you think.”

  “I like girls fine.” Danny blows up a zombie’s head, filling the television screen with blood splatter. “I just don’t want to get tied down. I’m going to be an asshole player. Like Caitlin’s date.”

  “You see this? This is what comes of talking grown up stuff in front of the children.” I step over to the couch and knuckle Danny’s head.

  “Ow!” Danny smacks my hand away without taking his attention from the screen. “You’re not a grownup. You can’t even get into a club without a fake I.D.”

  Before I can ask Danny how he knows about my fake I.D.—or check to make sure the I.D. is still in my purse, and my brother hasn’t “liberated” it the way he liberated the fireworks I hid in my closet last summer, or the six pack of Coke I tucked behind the bill box on top of the refrigerator in hopes of keeping a can for myself for once—there’s a knock on the front door.

  My stomach flips and acid burns the back of my throat. I’m considering grabbing a roll of Tums before hurrying to the door to whisk Gabe away before anyone can meet him, when the door swings open, revealing a very dressed up Gabe. He’s wearing an expensive looking suit, and holding a red-faced, hiccupping Emmie in his arms. Sean and Ray are not far behind them, pounding up the stairs and into the house seconds after Gabe steps inside.

  “What happened?” I hustle across the room, irritation that Gabe didn’t stay in the driveway forgotten in my hurry to get to Emmie.

  “Sean let Emmie get on his old bike, even though I told him not to,” Ray said, words emerging in a breathless rush as I reach for Emmie and she dives into my arms.

  I run my fingers gently over her face, wiping her sweat-damp curls off her forehead as my eyes skim the rest of her, finding no obvious injuries aside from a bloody knee and a scrape on her hand.

  “I told him she was still too little,” Ray continues, “but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “It has training wheels!” Sean shouts, sounding near tears himself. “It’s not my fault she didn’t know how to use the brakes.”

  “It is your fault!” Ray shouts back. “I told you, she’s just a baby!”

  “But you’re the oldest, Ray,” I say in my “calm down” voice as I start toward the kitchen. “You should have come to get me if Sean wouldn’t listen. Now, is it just the scrapes on her hand and knee? Did she hit her head?”

  “He’s eight, that’s old enough to know better,” Ray says, ignoring my question. “I don’t know why I always get blamed for everything!”

  “Ray, come on,” I say as he turns and flees up the stairs. “I didn’t mean—”

  I break off with a sigh and a roll of my eyes, continuing into the kitchen, knowing there’s no point in going after Ray. When Ray’s upset, he locks himself in the upstairs bathroom and nothing can coax him out. He’ll take a long bath and emerge when he’s good and ready, and no amount of sweet-talking on my part will make a damned bit of difference.

  “I pulled up right as she fell.” Gabe appears beside me as I settle Emmie on the edge of the sink, bracing her back with one of his big hands as I turn on the water, surprising me with how comfortable he seems amidst the chaos. “She caught herself and didn’t hit the pavement too hard. I think she’s more scared than anything.”

  “Well, yeah,” I say, catching Emmie’s eye, glad to see her tears have stopped. “It’s scary not to be able
to stop. Right, doodle?”

  Emmie nods, watching me run cool water over her knee before glancing up at Gabe. She’s usually not big on strangers, but he doesn’t seem to be freaking her out. I’m sure the fact that he came to her rescue is helping.

  “But you were doing great before you fell,” Gabe says, using his normal voice, earning instant points for not talking to Emmie like she’s a dog, the way a lot of people do when they talk to little kids. “Stopping is easy once you learn how. I bet Caitlin can teach you.”

  Emmie widens her eyes at me.

  “Of course I can,” I assure her, answering her unspoken question. “We’ll have a lesson tomorrow morning. But with jeans on, so you won’t get an owie if you fall.”

  “Owie,” Emmie echoes, squirming her bare toes as I gently pat her knee dry with a paper towel.

  “Can you make sure she doesn’t fall off the counter while I get medicine and a Band-Aid?” I ask Gabe, flustered by how close he’s standing.

  Now that the situation with Emmie is under control, I’m realizing how amazing he looks in his dark blue suit with an ice blue tie the same color as his eyes, and how much smaller the kitchen suddenly seems with him in it.

  Gabe isn’t as big as Isaac—few people are, Isaac is a six-foot-four bear of a person—but for some reason Gabe seems to take up more space. It’s something about his posture or the directness of his gaze or…something. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I know by the time I’ve crawled up on the counter to fetch a bandage and antibiotic ointment I feel self-conscious, and very aware of the fact that Sean, Isaac, and Heather are standing on the other side of the island, watching as Gabe and I finish up with Emmie.

  “There, good as new.” I scoop Emmie off the counter, pressing a kiss to her cheek before setting her on the ground and watching her toddle off past Danny, still sprawled on the couch, toward the toy chest in the corner of the living room.

  Isaac turned off the bloody videogame once the other kids came inside, and the house is weirdly quiet. So quiet it feels like everyone is listening when I turn to Gabe and ask—

  “So, um…should I change, or what?”

  He glances down at my pale yellow sundress with the lace accents at the hem. It’s one of my favorites, but it feels too casual now that I’ve seen what “dressed for dinner” means for the Alexander family.

  “This is great,” he says. “You look beautiful.”

  “Are you sure? I mean you’re so…” I motion up and down, cheeks heating when Gabe smiles in a way that makes it clear he’s enjoying seeing me at a loss for words.

  “I’m sure,” he says.

  I huff, blowing a few stray wisps of hair from my face. “Okay, fine. Then let’s get out of here.”

  “Should I be introduced first?” Gabe casts a pointed look toward the other side of the island, where Isaac is hovering, looking mildly threatening. Isaac is a relentlessly cheerful person without a lot of glaring experience. He can only pull off mildly threatening, even when he’s trying really hard, but still, a scowl is a scowl.

  I shoot him a wide-eyed look, silently begging him to cut it out, but my best friend is apparently serious about standing in for my absent father. His glare stays firmly in place, even when I add a shake of my head to the bug eyes.

  “Yeah, we’d like to be introduced,” Isaac says, ignoring me.

  “Of course,” I say through gritted teeth, stomach burning as I lead the way into the living room. “Gabe, these are my friends, Isaac and Heather, from the neighborhood, who watch the kids for me on Saturday nights. Guys, this is Gabe, an old friend from Christoph Academy.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Heather waves, and Isaac holds out a stiff hand.

  Isaac and Gabe shake in a way that is weirdly grown up, and also just weirdly weird, and makes me even more eager to get out of the house. I don’t know why Isaac is pulling the protective big brother act—he’s the one who’s always saying I should go on dates every once and awhile—but it’s making me nervous.

  Not to mention how plain wrong it feels for Gabe to be inside my house.

  Gabe isn’t a part of my real life. He’s an alien from a strange, wild world I visited once in the dark. I never intended to introduce him to my family, and no matter how nice he was to Emmie, or the friendly note in his voice when he asks Isaac how long the two of us have been friends, I wish Gabe had stayed outside. I wish he’d never seen how shabby the inside of our house is, and I’d never seen him holding Emmie like she was something precious he wanted to protect.

  “And those two are Sean and Danny,” I say, pointing to the couch, where Danny is turning on the T.V. “Danny’s the blond one who looks like me.”

  “Do not. Gag,” Danny says, not taking his eyes off the television as he flips through our few channels. “Remind me to dye my hair black tomorrow, Sean.”

  “The one with curly brown hair is Sean,” I say, ignoring Danny. “And the other one with brown hair who disappeared is Ray. And you’ve met Emmie so…that’s it. The entire clan. Ready to go?”

  “Whenever you are.” Gabe turns back to Isaac and Heather. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for helping me get Caitlin out of the house.”

  “We’re always here for Caitlin,” Isaac says in a vaguely ominous tone.

  “Good to know.” Gabe puts an arm around my waist that makes me flinch with surprise, Isaac scowl, and Heather laugh.

  “Down, boy,” she says to Isaac, threading an arm through his before she turns back to me with a grin. “Have a great time, and don’t worry about the kids. We’ve got everything under control.”

  “Thanks so much,” I mumble, fleeing toward the door, determined to escape before things get any weirder.

  I snag my purse, shout good-bye to the kids, and shoo Gabe out of the house in front of me with an anxious flap of my hands. The moment the door slams behind us—providing a thin barrier between my real life and my Gabe life—I feel a hundred times better.

  “Thank God that’s over,” I say, sighing as I lead the way to the ridiculously expensive car parked in my driveway.

  The silver BMW probably cost more than our house, and is definitely going to be the priciest ride I’ve ever been inside. Gabe’s lucky he didn’t get his fancy hubcaps stolen. If it had been later, and a little darker on the street, he wouldn’t have escaped our neighborhood unscathed.

  “You didn’t tell me you had a body guard,” Gabe says, reaching down to open the passenger’s door for me like this is a real date.

  “Isaac isn’t usually like that.” I glance back over my shoulder at the house before I slide into the supple leather seat. “I don’t know what’s up with him.”

  “He’s protective. I like it.” Gabe slams the door, taking his time walking around the front of the car to the driver’s side, giving me another long moment to appreciate how fucking stunning he looks.

  Why he’s back in Giffney, instead of off frolicking with the rich and famous, is beyond me. If I had the kind of money he has, I’d buy a one-way ticket to anywhere but here. Anywhere but this dead end town with its dead end jobs and my deadbeat dad and all the sad memories and stories that follow my family around, making sure no one ever expects much from a Cooney. If I could pack up the kids and give them a fresh start somewhere new, I would do it in a heartbeat.

  “I won’t worry about you as much now,” Gabe says as he settles into the car, banishing the question on the tip of my tongue.

  I was going to ask why he sticks around Giffney if he’s so bored it’s driving him to a life of crime, but now all I can think about is Gabe worrying about me. Why would he worry about me? We barely know each other, and worry implies a level of concern for my welfare I assumed Gabe didn’t possess.

  I study him out of the corner of my eye as he starts the car and shifts into reverse, doing my best not to fidget when he puts an arm behind my chair and turns to look through the back glass. His face is so close to mine I can smell the spicy, soapy smell of him, that same scent that lingered on my cl
othes all the way home after I dropped him at the bus stop the night of our heist. By the time I got home, I’d been half drunk with lust, and wishing I’d had the guts to accept his invitation to meet up after he hid the money and jewelry.

  I had never been tempted by that kind of invitation before, but that night…

  “What are you thinking?” Gabe brakes in the middle of the street, attention shifting to my face as he puts the car in drive.

  “Nothing,” I say, voice more breathless than I would like.

  “Liar,” he says. “Tell me. I dare you.”

  I lick my lips. “You first.”

  “I’m thinking that….you have a family worth fighting for,” Gabe says, holding my gaze with an intensity that makes me certain he knows all my secrets. “And that the way you love them is special. They’re lucky to have you.”

  I blink, eyes stinging at the unexpected compliment. “Well…thanks. They’re everything to me so…”

  “And you’re everything to them. Don’t doubt it. Even the troublemaker adores you,” he says with a wink before turning his gaze to the street. “Danny, right?”

  I laugh as he pulls out of our cul-de-sac onto Newberry Street. “Yeah, Danny. We butt heads constantly.” I cast Gabe an assessing look. “You pegged him pretty fast.”

  “I’m an excellent judge of character.” He reaches over, capturing my hand in his, sending a zinging sensation shooting up my arm.

  I curl my fingers around his palm, trying to ignore how intimate it feels to hold hands with Gabe, grateful that he seems to have forgotten that I didn’t honor my half of our dare. If I had to tell him I was thinking about how much I wished I’d gone home with him after our last date—if you can call robbing a pawnshop, and making out in my best friend’s car, a date—it will be more difficult to ensure this date goes according to plan.

  I may have been hired to be a fake girlfriend, but there’s nothing fake about the way my body hums with happiness, simply to be sitting next to Gabe. There’s nothing fake about the way his touch makes me ache, or the soft, melting feeling in my chest left behind by what he said.