Slow Burn (28 page)

“He probably didn’t think about it.”  He shrugs.  “He never sleeps.”

“Never?”

Johnny takes the photo album from my lap, and opens it up.  “Three or four hours a night, tops.  I don’t know—I never sat there and timed him.  He’s out almost every night, doing who the hell knows what.”

“Hm.”  I give a little laugh before I climb to my feet.  “Maybe he’s Batman.”

“I can totally see that.  Is this
Mack—or his sister?  Damn, look at the size of that ‘fro!  I wonder if he claimed air rights for it.”

“I heard that!” Mack shouts
from the pool.  He glares ominously in our direction.  “Put the photo album down, Parker, and walk away.”

Johnny and I exchange grins.  He quickly puts the boo
k down, but as I believe he mentioned before, he has fast hands.  He casually slides the pilfered picture into the side pocket of his Cargo shorts.

“What are you going to do with that?” I murmur, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing good,” he replies with a wicked gleam in his eye.  “You leaving now?”

“
Yeah, if I can pry Heather away from her new bff.  She—what are you doing?”

Johnny continues to pat my ass.  “There was grass on the back of you shorts.  Jesus, Juliet, get your mind out of the gutter.  It wasn’t like that.”

But he says this with a smirk, so yeah—it was like that.

“Don’t worry about her—I can give her a ride home, or Ben and Arianna will
if she doesn’t want to go with me,” he offers, standing up. 

I watch Johnny as
he stretches his long lean body in a way that he damn well knows makes me kind of drool.  I’m already suspicious that he’s letting me run away from him again…what’s he up to?

A chorus of protests sound off when I announce I’m leaving.  Well, there was a muffled cheer, but since it came from the sea harpy, I’m ignoring it.  Unsurprisingly, Heather is having too much fun to leave. 
She and Arianna are huddled together like plotting terrorists talking about strappy sandals.  I’m totally okay with with my bestie being so snuggle bunny with the enemy.  I don’t know why I have the urge to bake two strawberry rhubarb pies topped with whipped cream, and smash them into both girls’ faces.  Must be about that time of the month.

Johnny walks me to my car, and I half expect him to invite himself over tonight.  But he gives me a
lingering kiss on the cheek, taps the roof of my car, and says he’ll see me at school tomorrow.

Well, fine.  I’d much rather finish my Biology report, anyway
.

******

Chapter 20

“Oh, my god.  What are you doing to that onion?”

Dean looks up from the cutting board, holding the knife at an awkward angle.  “Chopping it.”

I stare at the mangled mess he’s made.  The whole kitchen smells strongly of onions, and my eyes start to water.  “That’s not chopping.  That’s, like, onion murder.  I’m not putting that mess in my omelet.”

“I told you, I’m no good in the kitchen,” he says.

Dean Yo
ungblood is in my kitchen.  I seriously forgot he was coming over, and was in the process of making myself an omelet.  I’m wearing the skintight shirt I’ve had since I was seven—and can’t bear to get rid of because it still plays the “Little Red Monkey” song when you press the banana—and my enormous Aunt Flo shorts.  It’s got giant red flowers on it, and I could smuggle a toddler in it, no problem.  What possessed me to answer the door dressed like that, I’ll never know.  I won’t even talk about my hair.

Look how cute Dean is,
standing there.  Of course, there’s no disputing he’s gorgeous—but cute?  I don’t think I’ve ever mentally applied that term to him before.  But he
is
cute now, looking around uncertainly.  What does he think of my tiny hobbit house?  Must seem pretty shabby compared to what he’s used to.  And judging from his extreme lack of culinary skills, I’m betting he’s never had to prepare his own meals in his life.  Sad.

“You can get the leftover chicken fajitas out of the freezer.  It’s in a Ziploc bag,” I tell him.  Then I hold my hand out.  “Now give me that kn
ife before you hurt yourself.  Oh, and prepare to be dazzled by my incredible onion-chopping skills.”

Dean twirls the sharp knife in his hand in an impressive display of dexterity.  He tosses it in the air, deftly catches it by the handle, and offers it to me with a
slight smirk.  “In the freezer, you said?”

I smirk back at him, raising my eyebrows.  “Yes, ninja boy.  Watch how you open the door, though—sometimes the ice trays fall out.”

Under my close supervision, Dean mixes the ingredients together, and makes a perfectly edible chicken fajita omelet.  We sit down at the table, and I can tell he’s prepared to eat in perfect silence, but I ruin that plan by reminiscing about childhood friends.  I almost choke on a fajita when Dean tells me about Aaron Davies, his former partner in crime (and a huge perv), is a father of two little girls—and currently serving time for grand theft auto.  I wonder if his parents, both big-shot lawyers, represented him in court?

“It’s almost eleven,” Dean finally says with a glance at his
rugged black watch.  “We should probably start working on our project.”

“Actually,” I begin, then pause to take a sip of my diet coke.  “I’ve already completed
the outline—and I talked to Heather and Nick about helping us out, since they’ve both got that period free.  How awesome am I?”

“I don’t know,” he says warily, sitting back.  “Let me see the outline.”

“Sure, let’s go up to my room.”

I try to tell Dean he can leave the dishes in the sink and I’ll get to them later, but he ignores me and cleans up after the both of us.  So, hm, he’s not totally
clueless.  Must’ve picked that habit up at military school.  It’s weird to see him do something so domestic as loading up the dishwasher.  Weird, but kinda hot.  If his fangirls could see him now, I bet their hearts would melt like butter.

Dean follows me to the stairs, but pauses at the first step.  I turn back
to look at him, curious.

“
Is your mom home?” he asks abruptly, rubbing his chin.

I roll my eyes.  “Uh, of course not!  You wouldn’t be here if she was.  She’s working the night shift at the hospital.  So if you’re worried she’s going to pop out at you from somewhere—don’t.”

A thought occurs to me, and I pause at the top of the short flight of stairs.  “Um, so where’s
your
mother?  Do you get to see her often?”

Dean seems to freeze for a se
cond.  His expression is unreadable when he replies.  “She’s in Seattle, and I haven’t seen her in seven years.”

“Seriously
?”  I frown down at him.  “Why?  Seattle’s not
that
far away, if you wanted to visit her.”

His face closes off. 
I don’t think he’s going to say anything, but then he shrugs his broad shoulders.  “She’s not allowed to see me.”

“What?  What do you mean?”

“My dad.” Dean’s voice is completely emotionless.  He stares past me, over my shoulder.  “He gave her a lot of money to stay away from me—at least until I turn eighteen.”

“And she took it?” I blurt out, horrified.

A corner of his mouth crooks up in a wry smile.  “My father can be very persuasive.”

I grasp the banister of the staircase, and forcibly swallow the
biting adjectives that come to mind for a woman who would choose money over her son.  Dean watches the struggle on my face, and seems to accurately interpret my unvoiced opinions.  I’m sure it looks like aliens are trying to escape through my eye sockets.  Fortunately, he looks more amused than offended.  I would never call anyone’s mother a greedy bitch.  Not to their face.

I clear my throat, and search for something neutr
al to say.  “Do you want to see her?”

Dean steps
onto the landing with me, so that he’s once again, much taller than me.  “Someday, maybe,” he says with another small shrug.  He pointedly looks away in a not so subtle hint that he doesn’t want to talk about it.

Curiosity has me asking another
personal question.  “Do you get along with Johnny’s mother?”

“Yeah, we do alright.  She’s nice.”

I open my mouth to something, but then snap it shut again.  It’s not my business.  Instead, I turn down the short hallway to my bedroom.  “This way,” I say over my shoulder.

I walk into my room (mostly clean, since I’m no slob), but Dean pauses at the threshold.  At first
, I think he’s weirded out about being in his step-brother’s ex-girlfriend’s room—but then I see the bemused, trying-not-to-be-horrified look on his face.

Oh, I forgot.  My room’s kind of…
a lot to take in.  Johnny’s been up here, of course, but I used to tone it way down before each of his visits.  It slipped my mind, this time.

“My room is my sanctuary,” I say defensively, watchin
g Dean try to take in everything at once.  “Don’t judge me.”

Okay, so I love carousel horses.  There’s an army of plush ones on my window seat; min
iature carousels—thirty-seven in all—sit atop every available surface in my room—my desk, the shelves running along two walls, my bookcase…I’ve got a small carousel lamp, and an adorable carousel alarm clock that plays tinkly circus music when the alarm goes off.  I’ve painted carousel horses on my walls, and the little ones I’ve carved vie for space on my dresser.

I can practically hear the psycho stabby music playing in Dean’s head as he
carefully examines my precioussses.  He picks up one of the carves ones—Willow.  She’s got tiny amethysts for eyes, and smells like oranges because she’s closest to the side of the bookcase which I regularly clean with Citrus Blast Deep Cleaning Solution.

“You made these?”
 

Willow looks especially little
and delicate in Dean’s big hand.  He holds her carefully, turning her to study the intricate curlicues that I painstakingly shaped as part of her mane.  If he looks too closely, he’ll see the little heart on her left flank where I carved my initials.  I resist the urge to snatch Willow out of his hand, clasping my own behind my back.

“T
hese are great,” he says finally, gently setting her back down. 

“Thanks,” I say quickly.  “My dad used to take me to Queensberry park every Saturday to ride
that huge indoor carousel.  They had a carving class in the same building.  This old retired guy named Beavis taught us how to make the horses.  It’s fun.  I make them for the kids at the rec sometimes…they seem to like them.  You think I’m a huge freak now, right?”

“No.”  A slow smile curves the corners of his mouth upwards.  “I think you like carousel horses a lot.”

“Um…yeah.”  I smooth back my hair self-consciously.  “My dad and I—we were gonna try to make a life-sized one, but we never got around to it.”  I decide to change to subject.  “So, I started on the script…let me just get my computer on.  It takes forever to boot up.”

I sit at my desk
, tapping my fingers impatiently as my old computer hums to life.  Dean stands behind me, leaning forward slightly.  I try not to notice how good he smells, or how close he standing to me.  Chills dance across my back, making me shiver a little—and I get that itchy exposed feeling between my shoulder blades.  It’s not like he’s breathing down the back of my neck.  It suddenly hits me that him being in my bedroom is really kind of weird.

I’m taken off guard by a sudden surge of guilt.  Is it inappropriate for Dean to be here, considering the aberrant lustful thoughts I
’ve entertained about him one—maybe five—times?

Just as quickly, I shrug the thought away.  So Dean’s really good-looking—of course I’ve noticed.  Not like I’m
dead, right?  Man, and I need to focus.

Shaking my head to
clear my thoughts, I concentrate on finding the file for our English project.  I click it open, then I move out of the way so Dean can look it over.

He does so swiftly, using the mouse to scroll down the page.  “What’s with all the one-liners?” he asks after a brief silence. 

“I don’t know—sometimes when I’m really tired, I think I’m funny.  I can change it, though.  I can totally be serious.” 

I cross my arms over my chest, and suddenly a gleeful little voice sings, “Look at the monkey, funny monkey!”

Well, that is unfortunate timing.  You know, drawing attention to your shirt is fine when you’re seven—but it’s a whole different matter when you’ve got boobs—and a guy like Dean is looking in that vicinity.  Damn it, shut up, monkey!

“So, hey,” I begin once the song is over.  “How about
you
write the dialogue?  You can use my notes as an outline.”

He tears his gaze from my chest, and back to the
computer screen.  “Are we pretending that didn’t happen?” he mutters.