I shrugged.
Mrs. Fairchild’s eyes narrowed. “Micah, where is your mother?”
Unable to meet her gaze, I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“How long has she been gone?”
“A few weeks, I guess. She said her and some guy were going to Florida for the weekend but … she never came back.”
Mrs. Fairchild let out a stream of curses that surprised me. She was always so proper and ladylike.
“I’m sorry. Forgive me, but this is unacceptable.” She gestured around the apartment. “You have no electricity.” She marched across the kitchen and pulled open the refrigerator. It was empty. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Molly, what are you thinking?” Mrs. Fairchild slammed the fridge shut and strode toward the apartment door. When she turned to me, the light from the hallway shone in her blue eyes. They were bright with unshed tears. “She has a good kid … and she leaves him all alone.” She shook her head, and I flinched in embarrassment. “Oh no, no … don’t you take this on yourself. This is on Molly. Not you. Now.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Go grab your things. Pack everything that matters to you.”
“Why?”
“I’m not leaving you here, Micah. You’re coming home with me. You can stay with us until we can reach your mother.”
My voice was hoarse with emotion. It pissed me off. “What if you can’t reach her?”
“We’ll figure that out later. For now, let’s just go home.”
It was about a twenty-minute drive in Mrs. Fairchild’s gold Lexus SUV from South Green to her house in South Glastonbury. The Lexus had white leather seats. I’d never been in a vehicle so fancy in my life. It still had that new-car smell.
A twenty-minute drive, and it was like driving into a different world. It was greener around here, for a start. The houses were nicer, with more land around each of them, the buildings and gardens well maintained.
I couldn’t believe my mom grew up in this neighborhood.
We’d passed a lot of houses that were of average size. But the street we’d turned onto stood out from the rest. It was a quiet court, surrounded on three sides with large, New England-style houses and lots of trees. The driveway we pulled into belonged to the biggest house of them all. While the other homes were clad in painted wood siding, this house was red brick with varying triangular rooflines, a circular drive, and a three-car garage.
“Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath, looking up at it.
Mrs. Fairchild’s lips twitched. “Micah.”
“Sorry. I just …”
“I know it feels worlds away from what you’re used to. But I promise, we’re just like any other family.”
I raised an eyebrow.
Mrs. Fairchild chuckled. “Okay, as a family, we’re like any other family. As people … we’re financially blessed compared to many others. But we don’t take it for granted.”
“You don’t have to apologize or explain it to me. You work hard for what you have.” Even if they only had it in the first place because they had a step up in life to begin with. But I didn’t say that out loud. My mom was proof that a step up in life at the beginning didn’t mean a damn thing if you didn’t take hold of the opportunities offered to you.
“We do. Come on in. Jim was ordering takeout when I left, and he always orders way too much, so there will be plenty of food.”
My stomach grumbled.
Striding through the double-door entrance after her, I drew to a stop, taking in the spacious hallway, the wide staircase that led upstairs, and the warmly furnished rooms on either side of me.
“We’re home!” Mrs. Fairchild called as I followed her through a family room, a library room, and a dining room to get to the kitchen. The kitchen stretched along the entire back of the house. Sliding doors led out into a backyard with a pool, currently covered for winter.
“We’re?” A tall man stood at an island opening takeout cartons. His eyes widened at the sight of me and then drifted to my duffel bag.
I braced myself, feeling like an intruder.
“Jim, this is Micah, Molly’s son. Micah, my husband Jim.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Fairchild,” I said.
Jim chuckled as he rounded the island. His dark eyes glittered warmly as he reached for my hand. “Please, Mr. Fairchild’s my father. Call me Jim.”
I nodded, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do that. It would be like calling Mrs. Fairchild Caroline. Too weird.
“We’ll be back in a minute.” Mrs. Fairchild took her husband’s hand and led him out of the room, presumably to fill him in on my situation.
My pride stung.
It was fucking humiliating taking her charity, but I didn’t know what else I could do. I didn’t want my future to fall to shit because my mom took off, and I didn’t want her life for myself. With a 3.9 GPA and as captain of the swim team, I was on course to receive a scholarship, preferably to Boston University. All this with a part-time job. I couldn’t screw it up.
If that meant accepting Mrs. Fairchild’s help, then I guessed that was what it meant.
“And who are you?”
A girl’s voice made me whip around.
I’d remember the sight of her always because it was like someone had punched me in the gut. All the air went out of the room.
The girl was about my age, I’d guess. She had long, thick, pale-blond hair that spilled around her shoulders in shiny waves, and the prettiest dark-brown eyes I’d ever seen, filled with humor and curiosity. Her lush lips quirked upward at the corners. She grinned and killed me with her dimples.
Dressed like one of those hippie-girl images from the seventies, she wore a thin gold circlet around her head like a crown. Her dress was long, fitted at her tiny waist, then flowed to her feet. It was a light pink with oversized sleeves that narrowed at her wrists.
I’d never seen anything like her.
It wasn’t just her sense of style … it was the way happiness and warmth radiated from her.
I didn’t even know her, and yet I sensed she was good.
Beautiful all the way through.
“Do you talk?” she teased.
I cleared my throat, my heart hammering. “Uh. Yeah. I’m, uh—”
“Oh, good.” Mrs. Fairchild strode back into the kitchen with her husband at her side. “You’ve already met Valentine, our daughter.”
Even though it should have occurred to me that was who she was, I was disappointed as hell.
Valentine Fairchild was most definitely off-limits.
Chapter Two
VALENTINE
AGE 15
Five months.
That was how long Micah Green and I had been dancing around our chemistry. And we definitely had it. According to my friend, Kim, who had been dating older guys since she was thirteen, when two people were truly attracted to each other, there was this electric tension between them. The plethora of romance novels I devoured every month (that my mother didn’t know about) verified Kim’s claim.
For five months, Micah had been living with my family. His mom Molly took off, left him, and when my mother finally tracked her down, Molly refused to come home. So Mom and Dad, being lawyers and all, sorted things so that Micah could stay with us for the rest of his high school career. Then they went further by pulling strings at the private academy I attend so he could start his junior year there. My parents even gave him his own car because he also made the swim team and so he finished his school day later than I did.