‘So … I could sit in the car,’ he starts, only half joking.
She smacks his chest. ‘Never. Will you wear the waistcoat we’re making?’
It’s a crazy waistcoat. Because, for starters, it’s a waistcoat.
‘Obviously,’ he says.
She tips her head up and he looks down and her smile is so full of undiluted delight that he realises no one’s ever taken her outfit-designing seriously before.
‘I’ll finish my dress,’ she says. ‘This will be my debut display.’
‘And then …’ Sam reaches up to twist a finger around one of her curls. ‘And then you go back to school.’
And he goes back to nowhere.
To being
utterly
invisible.
A shutter tips over her eyes. ‘Can we talk about it later? We’ll work it out. I’m not going to say goodbye.’ Her voice is fierce. ‘I promise.’
She’s so close to his face now that his world is just caramel eyes and lips and the fierce fire that burns through this girl for ever and always. He wants to tell her everything.
That he steals keys because he’s desperate to belong.
That he ran away because he had to, because of what he did at his old school.
That he wants to catch her a bouquet of stars and kiss her under the moon.
Her forehead presses against his for a moment and his thoughts melt and Moxie’s world wraps threads around his chest till he can barely breathe.
She kisses him.
He tips his head up to catch it.
She’s soft and warm, summer nights and sugar. His brain shuts off. His hands circle her back.
Then she pulls away – quickly – and the catastrophe of stars exploding in Sam’s chest cuts off. He did something wrong. Of course he did. He screwed it—
‘I’m sorry,’ he’s saying, breathless and panicked. ‘I haven’t ever kissed—’
She puts a hand over his mouth. ‘Well, that I can tell. But wait.’ She adjusts herself, scooting up higher on the sofa. ‘There’s something in your pocket digging into my hip.’
The key.
Sam’s hands start to shake.
Moxie doesn’t notice as she rearranges herself beside him and then rolls so she’s lying half on his chest. She tilts his chin up. ‘You have a lot of practice to do. It’s OK to move your face, you know. And your mouth.’ She punctuates this by kissing the very corner of his lips. ‘I’m very, very happy to teach.’
His heart threatens to explode and his lips part to tell her so.
‘Perfect,’ she says. Then kisses him again.
And he thinks there is nothing in the world so beautiful as kissing Moxie and please let this never end, this one good and sweet thing—
until
a fist pounds at the front door of the butter-yellow house,
and a voice shouts, ‘Sammy Lou? You need to come get your psycho brother.’
Sam’s perfect world turns to rust.
Sam and Moxie trip over each other as they scramble for the door. Tight fear spirals down Sam’s spine, cuts through skin and bites bone. Pleasepleaseplease don’t let—
He rips open the door while Moxie says, ‘Wait, don’t open it! Who the—’
Vin stands in the thin light whispering out of the De Lainey house. Vin, in a tight black lace dress, with a red leather jacket falling off her shoulders. It matches her hair. Blood and fire.
Her lips curl with disapproval.
‘Who—’ Moxie starts again, but Sam jumps in front of her, not sure if he wants to protect her. Or hide her.
It tumbles out in anguish. ‘Where’s Avery?’
‘Currently embarrassing the hell out of me,’ Vin says.
Shit.
Shit.
‘It’s not like I can call the cops,’ Vin says, her tone acidic. ‘But I figure you know how to stop an overgrown tantrum?’
It’s not a tantrum. It’s never a tantrum.
Moxie’s fingers curl over Sam’s arm. ‘Who is she? What-what’s going on?’
Vin’s already turned on excruciatingly high heels, stabbing back down the path to her white sports car. Engine still running. Lights blazing.
She’s going to wake up the whole house.
‘I have to go.’ Sam turns to Moxie, desperate now. ‘Please, just …’ Just what, Sam? Just what the hell will you tell her? He can’t fit his world with Avery into a single sentence and Avery needs him. Now.
So his fingers just slip through hers and he bolts after Vin.
‘Tell me what’s going on!’ Moxie cries from the doorway.
He gets into Vin’s car. She rips into gear and on to the road in a howl of mufflers and rage before he’s even shut his door.
The soft kisses, the key, the warmth, his stolen family – is crammed out of mind. All he has is a desperate need for Avery.
‘Tell me what happened.’ Sam’s voice is too high. ‘Where is he? At your place? H-how did you even know where I was?’
‘Avery never shuts up about you. If you tell him something,’ she rolls her eyes, ‘then I hear it fifty times a day. I could say your bloody house address in my sleep by now.’
He feels sick that someone like Vin knows where the De Laineys are.
Why would she even bother to fetch Sam to help after he hit her? Probably because Avery being taken by cops would put her shady businesses at risk. Since he can’t shut up. Vin’s only kindness is truly selfishness.
The car spins downtown. ‘We were at a club and—’
‘The hell?’ Sam wrenches to face her. ‘Do you even know him?’
‘I thought he was getting over his pedantic sensitive stuff.’
He wants to hit.
He lays his fingers, flat and sweaty, on his jeans and forces them still. Breathe.
‘He’s autistic.’ Sam grinds each word like crushed glass. ‘If he was deaf, you wouldn’t expect him to get over it.’
‘Whatever. I’m not here for lectures—’
‘You know what’s too much for him? Lights, noise, tons of people, trying to figure out what you want all the time – goddamn alcohol. And you threw it all at him? Do you know what happened when he was nine and went into a club?’ She starts to answer, but he cuts her off, almost shouting, ‘He nearly died, OK?’