Addison Blakely: Confessions of A PK

To Lori—and not just for the T-shirt.

Special thanks to all the girls who helped me remember my high school days—and kept me up to speed on all that has changed since! Mallory, Andrea, and Julianne—you girls are the best! Sarah, thanks for sharing your high school teacher expertise and cheering me on, and Georgiana, for being the world’s best crit-partner. Also thanks to my spectacular agent, Tamela Hancock Murray, for always believing in me, and my editor, Kelly McIntosh, for seeing everything in Addison that I did. As always, I couldn’t do anything without the support of my hubby—Brandon, I love you! And last but never least, thank You, Jesus, for blessing me with the opportunity to do what I love—and shine a light for You.

H
e looked good in those jeans, and he knew it.

There was no other explanation for the way Wes stood on the sidewalk across the street, one arm braced against the light post, his back to me as he chatted up a curly haired blond in a midriff-baring top. I’d always hated those shirts. It’s like, are you that proud of your belly button? Really?

I still think he only pretended to care about the poodle-ish waif who lived a few streets over. In fact, I was as sure of that as I was sure his favorite song was “Free Bird” and his favorite color was green—well, okay, I assumed that because he wears it the most often, and it does ridiculous things for his eyes. I’d almost told him before, but every time I got that close I froze and could only stare at his crooked grin that had a tendency to melt my legs like a 3 Musketeers bar in the sun. So, to avoid the risk of babbling incoherently and dishonoring my 4.0 reputation, I’d mumble some excuse to head home before I leaped into his arms like the dozens of ska—sorry, there’s no other word for it—skanks that willingly did just that. I definitely wasn’t the only one who found Wes charming.

But I was the only one who didn’t have a clue why.

He turned and caught me watching, and I quickly looked down at my book bag, wishing I hadn’t stopped to rearrange the contents before heading home from school. If I’d kept going, then I wouldn’t have seen Wes and Poodle Girl making out in front of my house, and I could have naively slipped inside the front door like any other weekday. But my English book had been digging its hard corner into my ribs for the last block, and enough was enough. I grimaced as I tugged the straps of my tote around my shoulder.

I had teased Wes once that his black leather jacket was cliché, and he replied that he needed it for his motorcycle. I didn’t even go there. Besides, if leather made him stereotypical, then what did that make me, a bookworm carrying a book bag? Whatever. I loved my books—fiction more than textbooks, of course, though I was never without a variety of both—and they needed a bag, so what was the harm? At least there wasn’t an actual picture of a worm on the front. My tote was solid beige, a blank canvas.

Sort of like my love life.

My traitorous gaze darted back to Wes. He winked before redirecting his attention to the blond. Did she notice that he’d noticed me? Did she care? My grip tightened around the strap, and I breathed a loud sigh through my nose, fighting the violent green monster that always threatened to lop off Wes’s head.

Though, really, it was my fault she was there with him and I was here, on the outside looking into the mystery of Wes Keegan. It wasn’t like Wes hadn’t shown interest when he first moved to my hometown of Crooked Hollow, Kansas, four months ago—and how well I remembered that day. I’d been walking home from the library on a breezy Saturday afternoon when a motorcycle blazed down the street beside me. I’d looked up long enough to catch dark eyes with equally dark lashes staring at me from beneath a helmet, and suddenly it was as if my entire world ceased to exist. Yeah, I know—that’s corny—but seriously, even the wind stopped whistling through the trees, and the birds hesitated midchorus like in a Disney movie. Then with a grin, he roared away, and I didn’t hear about him again until the following week, when the entire town buzzed with rumors of “the new guy.” At first, word was he rode a motorcycle and had a few tattoos—then, according to the good ol’ gossip mill’s churning power, he shoved old ladies into traffic, frightened children with his knife collection, and stole food from the homeless. The rumors got more ridiculous from there—we don’t even
have
homeless people in our tiny town—until I finally stopped listening.

But somehow, I couldn’t stop caring.

I’m a sucker for an underdog, and while everything about Wes—the bike, the jacket, the tattoos—screamed power and danger, I saw something else. Something that lingered in his dark eyes, something that made me think the outer layer was just that—a facade. A thin, superficial surface.

Anyone with a tattoo of a bird on his forearm couldn’t be that bad, huh?

Wes’s eyes cut over to me again, and I realized how long I’d been staring. Great. That wasn’t obvious. I headed toward my front-porch steps, cheeks flushed, but not fast enough to avoid seeing Poodle Girl take Wes’s face in her hands and initiate Kissing Session Round Two. Or was it three? I’d seen them out there several times in the last week, and the fact that the light post they preferred to stand under is stationed directly across from my house didn’t go unnoticed. Again, he did it on purpose—same with the jeans.

I just wish I could figure out why. Apparently Poodle Girl was a willing enough cohort—what could he want with me? Was one woman not enough?

Not that it mattered. With a few quick steps, I turned the knob of the renovated, two-story farmhouse I’d shared with Dad all of my sixteen years, slightly out of breath, and blamed the four powdered doughnuts I’d had for breakfast that morning. I’d made Dad wheat toast again, and I pulled the doughnuts out (he’d probably eat half the package), so the pastries were stashed incognito between two slices of bread as I’d hurried out the door for school. I’d then spent the entire first period wondering how Wes’s lips tasted and annoyed at my active imagination.

PKs aren’t supposed to think about such things. Yeah, did I mention I’m a pastor’s kid? Sounds like it should be a confession.
Hello, my name is Addison Blakely, and I’m a PK
. Just like my native status of Crooked Hollow, Kansas—some things are unfortunately predetermined. (Trust me, unless you have a passion for cornfields, there’s not much to living in a small town in the heart of the Midwest.)

Maybe
unfortunate
isn’t the right word. It’s not like I have a problem with God or anything. He’s been there through a lot—like the death of my mother when I was five. It’s just that lately my prayers don’t seem to be getting farther than my bedroom ceiling.

And I can’t help but wonder what living outside of the fishbowl labeled “PK” would look like.

I let myself inside, grateful Dad was still at the church on this September Wednesday afternoon and wouldn’t be home until dinner. Maybe somehow I could avoid the inevitable litany of how’s-the-second-week-of-school-going type of questions I didn’t want to answer, and truly, Dad didn’t want to hear. What was I supposed to say?
Going great, Dad. Had to borrow a tampon from a stranger in history class, then I not only dropped my books in the hallway but kicked them when I tried to pick them up, and yes, that happened right in front of a group ofcheerleaders who were already whispering about my book bag, and oh yeah, I was offered a hit of marijuana—all before lunch
. No thanks. Dad wasn’t ready for that level of honesty. Sometimes I think in his mind my classmates and I wore ankle-length uniforms and played Maypole during recess.

I dropped my bag on the table and snagged a Coke from the fridge. Despite his own love for sugar, Dad used to allow me only one pop a day, and to him, that rule hasn’t changed even though I had my sixteenth birthday almost nine months ago. I usually saved my pop for dinner, but this tiny piece of rebellion was all I allowed myself.

A girl’s gotta have
something
.

Fighting the urge to look out the window to see if Wes was still outside, I turned my back to the living room and instead flipped through the cherry-print recipe box on the counter. Wednesday was my night to make dinner (along with Monday and Friday), and I knew Dad would expect something hot and covered in gravy after a long day at work before rushing back to the church for the evening prayer service. At least my attendance wasn’t required on Wednesday nights during the school year. It gave me a few hours of peace and quiet at home by myself, not to mention the rare right to the remote control.

People seem to think pastors have it easy. That they go to the office, play a few games of solitaire, field a few phone calls, work on their sermon, and head out early to catch a round of golf. Not my dad. He’s invested in his congregation—to a fault. And trust me, that list of faults is long. Half of those people don’t deserve an ounce of the patience and attention Dad devotes to them. They form committees and complain about the worship music or protest his assigned parking space in the lot that’s been in effect for twenty years. After all the hours my father puts into that church, is it really that big a deal for theparishioners to walk an extra ten feet to the front door? But no one asks my opinion.