Tiffany put both hands over her mouth. She moved them away to say, "Oh my God," then put them back.
"I didn't know his brother got killed," I hissed, lowering my voice in case John was sneaking around. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?"
"You did know his brother got killed!" Will insisted. "You and I had a conversation about this at the beach. You compared John to Mulder searching for his lost sister. I know I remember. I wasn't that drunk."
"I was talking about The X-Files\ It was an analogy, a very loose analogy!"
"Oh," he said, and his shoulders relaxed. "Well, this morning, I convinced him otherwise. I also made him believe you're a manipulative bitch. Sorry."
I was gearing up to tell Will what I thought of him when I was attacked from behind. Eric picked me up, put me on the countertop, and pushed his hips between my legs. Which was all the more offensive because the skirt of my dress was short. Leering at me with red-rimmed eyes, he leaned in and whispered in my ear, "Is your ride-along with John over?"
He was going to ask me if I needed a new ride. If he asked me if I needed a new ride, I was going to slap him.
"Do you need a new—"
I raised my hand.
He caught both my wrists in his hands and squeezed. Hard.
I leaned around him. "Tiffany," I called, trying not to sound desperate. "Remember why I brought you here?"
"Unhand her, dumbass," Will yelled across the kitchen.
With a sidelong glance at Will, Eric let go of my wrists and backed up a pace.
"My ride-along with John is not necessarily over," I told him haughtily.
Eric made a face. "You mean you're f**king the fuzz?"
"Not yet. But check back with me." Since he was still practically between my thighs, I decided this might be a good time to ask a question that had been bothering me for the past few hours. If I was nice enough at first, and he was stoned enough, maybe I'd get a straight answer. "Did you know John's brother was the boy who died on the bridge?"
Eric shrugged. "Sure. Everybody knows that. It happened when we were in third, maybe fourth grade."
"And when you suggested that we go to the bridge, was that because you knew John would find us down there and freak out?"
"Not the first time," he said. "I didn't know then that he watches the place. But when you and I parked down there, yeah." He met my gaze, with absolutely no shame.
I went cold in the tiny kitchen, and the beat of music from the next room seemed to swell louder. I couldn't believe I'd ever thought Eric and I were a lot alike. "That's evil," I said.
"You ain't seen evil yet."
I thought he was going to grab my crotch or something, and I jumped down from the counter to prevent such an unfortunate event. But he didn't try. He just walked out of the kitchen.
"Meg, when do you want to get our apartment?" Tiffany called. "I know you always say you're leaving town as soon as you can in June, on graduation night. But Will thinks it would be easier for us to get a lease starting on July first." They were standing very close together. The pitcher of tea sat on the countertop, forgotten.
I walked over to them, nodding. "That would be okay. I can stand to hang around town a few extra weeks. I may try to enjoy my last few months of high school. I might even go to the prom, if I had a date."
Tiffany's eyes sparkled at Will, like she knew who her prom date was, if she could argue a college boy into coming.
Will leaned back against the cabinets, grinning at her. "What's your major going to be?" "Either English or pre-med."
"English or pre-med," he mused. "That's quite a spread. Let me give you a hint. Next fall, don't go around telling people you're majoring in English or pre-med. You'll sound like a freshman."
"Oh, yeah?" I asked. "What are you majoring in?"
"Chemistry," he said defensively. "Or interpretive dance." He winked at Tiffany.
She beamed. "I was going to major in English," she explained. "But I've had a life-changing experience that makes me think I might want to go into medicine. I've been riding around in an ambulance all week."
Will leaned forward and asked conspiratorially, "Were you one of the naughty ones on the bridge?"
Tiffany smiled a secret smile.
"You don't look naughty," Will said. He gestured to me. "This one, I can understand, but you? What's your GPA?"
"It's 4.0," she said.
"You're the freaking valedictorian?" he exclaimed.
She just grinned. "What's jour GPA?"
"It's a 3.75 right now, and I'm trying to bring it up to a 3.85 this semester." He shook his head sadly. "The freshman flunk classes really did a number on me. I only made a B last semester in calculus—"
I interrupted, "Let me just stop the two of you right here and tell you that you disgust me. You're both so freaking well-adjusted. Why don't you skip over this part and get a joint retirement fund?"
They both turned to me with wide eyes. Then Tiffany told me she might not want to room with me after all, at the same time Will grumbled, "She's just upset about Johnafter." He put his arm around me and hugged my shoulders. "I wish I could tell you that it would work out between you two. But you did this yourself, before I was involved this morning. I'm afraid you got on the wrong side of his temper."
"What temper?" I asked before I thought. The John I'd ridden with for a week was very even-keeled, with a high threshold for suspects cussing at him, or blue-haired delinquents pushing his buttons. Then I remembered how he'd looked as he yelled at Brian and Eric at the bridge. I remembered how his knuckles had turned white on the grate in the cop car as he told me, If I had pulled Eric out of the car myself I'm afraid of what I would have done to him.
"Don't do it, John," Angie's shrill voice called from the next room. "Eric's just messing with you."
John was in the kitchen doorway. Funny, I half expected to see him in his cop uniform, but he was wearing faded jeans and a green T-shirt that hugged his chest. Maybe it was the reflection from the shirt, or his eyes really were more hazel than brown, and I hadn't noticed when he wore his dark blue uniform. But now his eyes looked green.
Angie clung to him from behind, making a helpless show of holding him back.
He saw me and did a double take. But he didn't bask in my newfound beauty nearly as long as he should have.
Almost immediately, his gaze flicked to Will and hardened into the dangerous, dead-eyed look. I saw myself through his eyes: dark hair, low-cut dress, with Will's arm around me.