In Plain Sight (3 page)

The arguing continues in the kitchen, although I hear Mom laugh a few times, so I guess they’re slowly going back to normal. The thing is, my parents both hate being broke, but they both also love to spend all of their money. It doesn’t take a financial genius to know that’ll never work out in the long run.

Last time Greg was visiting from Rice University, he gave me a long lecture on how we need to make sure we get a good education and a high-paying job because we’ll be the ones who need to take care of them when we’re older. I don’t exactly like the idea of finally growing up, having my own family, and then moving my parents into the back room. Maybe the wonder child Greg will take care of that for me.

Back in my room, I flip on the TV and settle into my bed, trying to get some of that relaxing in before what I know will be an annoying night out. The Getaway is literally the stupidest place in town and I have no idea why every senior at RCHS is freaking obsessed with it. Yeah, sometimes it’s kinda hot watching the girls pretend to be drunk and dance on the bar, but mostly it just makes me feel bad for them.

An hour later, when my show is over and I’ve sadly reached the end of the newest season, something dawns on me. Dad said he can’t give me any money, which means he probably won’t have money for the rest of the week. I’ve got about fifty bucks in my wallet, and the entrance fee at The Getaway is ten. Add in the food and non-alcoholic drinks and I’ll be nearly broke after tonight.

Trust me, I hate getting money from my parents, but they refuse to let me get a job, no matter how badly I want one. Dad thinks it’s a sign that he’s not a good provider if his kids work, and Mom thinks I should focus on school. Being in all AP classes with a straight A average just isn’t good enough, I guess.

With a sigh, I reach for my phone and call Josh.

“Dude, let’s go somewhere else tonight,” I say. “Somewhere free.”

“I feel ya,” Josh says. He does get to work because his parents aren’t as well-off, so money means more to him than to the rest of my friends. “What about the beach? I hear there’s gonna be a bonfire tonight.”

The beach is an hour’s drive away, but it’s Spring Break so it’ll be packed. With girls who
don’t
pretend to be drunk and dance on bars.

“Sounds good,” I say. “But you’re pitching in for gas.”

“Deal. Come get us.”

Bryce lives down the street from Josh, so he’s already waiting there when I arrive, a case of Bud Light in his hand. Together, these two idiots are my best friends, but Josh and I are the closest. Bryce disappears a few weeks at a time when he gets a new girlfriend. Luckily for us, they never stick around very long, and he’s back to stealing beer from his parent’s massive stockpile in the rec room.

“Spring BREAAAAK,” Bryce says, followed by a whoop as he piles into the back seat of my BMW. He sets the case of beer in the seat next to him, then buckles it in, saying, “Precious cargo,” when I lift an eyebrow at him.

I jam out to the radio while the guys argue about whether PlayStation or Xbox is the greatest gaming console ever invented, and by the time we get to the beach, they still haven’t come to a conclusion.

The sun is still up, so the bonfire hasn’t started yet, but in the distance I can see the pyramid-shaped stack of logs waiting to be lit. The beach is definitely busier than usual for Spring Break, and a ton of vehicles are parked on the sand, tents set up and grills cooking mouth-watering food. Too bad we only have beer because now I’m starving.

We find some guys from the football team who have already lit their own bonfire, although this one is a small, personal size. I actually like these better than the huge ones. You can roast marshmallows on them. Billy, a junior linebacker who is always stuffing his mouth, brought a shit ton of s’mores ingredients, and he invites me to have some.

I sit next to him, making s’mores and drinking a beer, and gazing out at the hot ass college girls running into the water. Josh and Bryce are still arguing like idiots over the video game thing, although the amount of girls in skimpy bikinis are starting to win over their attention.

I’m not delusional enough to think I’d ever find the future love of my life at a bonfire on the beach, but that doesn’t stop me from imagining it. And I know for a fact that if I were to mention this to the guys, they’d rag on me until I die from embarrassment.

So I take another sip of beer, eat another s’more, and just chill.

“Hey there,” a sultry voice calls out a while later.

I know the voice before I see her face, and maybe that’s why I take a while to look over. “Sup.”

Maria recently cut all her hair off into a short bob, but her insanely drastic cat-eye eyeliner is still the same. She looks good, and she smells good, as she sidles up to me, inching between me and the bonfire with her ass right in my face until she gets to the empty chair next to me.

I know better than to give her any of my time. Her dad owns Blue Star beer bottling company—like, the
entire
company—and she’s been treated like a princess her entire life. I am pretty certain that no teenage guy on the planet is capable of treating her as well as she expects from all of the peasants she considers below her station in life.

I made the very big mistake of getting drunk and making out with her on this very beach last summer, and it took me three months to shake her off. The girl is a big fan of the long, super dramatic text message that tries to make you feel like shit for rejecting her. Why she’s even interested in me when I live in Shady Grove, and she lives on a two-hundred-acre ranch with a mansion of a house, is beyond me. The girl’s dad is friends with
celebrities
. They are literally the jet setters of Louetta, Texas.

And now she’s snaking her slender fingers up my thigh. “Colby, why are you ignoring me?” she whines, tilting a pouty face in my direction.

I shove another marshmallow on my metal stick and point it toward the fire. “I’m not ignoring you. I asked what’s up.”

“No, you said ‘sup’, and that’s not nearly the same thing.” She leans over, resting her elbow on the arm of my lawn chair. She smells like a fruity perfume mixed with sunblock. I look over and she licks her lips, her ample boobs practically spilling out of the pink scrap of fabric she calls a swim suit.

“What do you want with me?” I say.

“I want the famous Jensen treatment,” she says, winking.

I heave a sigh and stare at my marshmallow, which is now on fire. My brother Greg has somewhat of a . . . reputation . . . when it comes to pleasing girls in bed. And because of this, everyone thinks I have it, too.

Like Greg called me aside on day and said, “Brother, let me teach you how to be a sex god” or something.

Trust me, he never did.

“What?” I say, playing dumb. “You want me to make you a s’more?”

She rolls her eyes. Stands up. “I don’t make this offer to anyone,
Colby
. You should really stop playing whatever game this is.”

She walks in front of me again, leaning down low so her boobs are in my face, her lips touching my ear. “You know you want me.”

Her breath is warm and it smells like tequila. A million dickish things to say come to my head but instead I check the time on my cell phone, pretending like her words didn’t mean anything to me.

She scoffs and saunters off, her feet leaving a trail in the sand.

“Dude,” Billy says, coming back from the ice chest with two new beers. “That chick is hot.”

“Yeah,” I say, rubbing my eyebrow. I can still remember her text messages and how they wouldn’t stop until I wrote her back. “But she’s not worth it.”

I love driving. There’s something about being behind the wheel, knowing I’m in control of where the car takes me, that I find really comforting. We only have the one car that I’d bought with my biological dad’s guilt money, and Mom insists that I take it to pick up the girls from daycare. She says she’s going to ride with the movers to our new house and get everything set up for when the girls arrive.

She also gave me a twenty-dollar bill—something insanely valuable in our household—and told me to get them ice cream first so she has time to get ready for the big house reveal.

I leave the windows rolled down as I drive toward the daycare, occasionally glancing at the ripped off piece of paper with Landon’s address on it. I guess it’s our new address too, but that’s a little hard to accept right now.

4848 Pinegrove Lane

Louetta, Texas

It’s so weird. I can’t recall a time we’ve ever had an address without an apartment or unit number behind the street name. An entire house. A
real
house, with a yard and a driveway all to ourselves. This is a pretty big deal, but we still don’t even know Landon, so I can only imagine how awkward this entire thing will be.

When I arrive at Little Texans’ Daycare, my heart gets all excited at the idea of seeing the girls. My little sisters are my life, and pretty much my best friends. I don’t really care how dorky that sounds. I know sometimes Mom feels bad about it because the girls run to me when they’re scared or happy or need someone to talk to. It’s not Mom’s fault they’re closer to me. Mom’s been working her ass off ever since they were born, so many of the parenting tasks have fallen to me over the years.

I wonder if that’s going to change now that we’re moving in with Landon. If Mom doesn’t need as much money to pay the bills, maybe she can cut back on her work hours. She can definitely lose her second job waiting tables part time in the middle of the night. This thought alone makes me happy. Mom deserves a break. She also deserves a man who truly loves her. I hope Landon is that man.

I take a deep breath and shake away the nerves in the pit of my stomach. The girls will be relying on me to show them how to feel about this new move, so I need to keep a straight face and act like people do this all the time. Hell, maybe they do. I wouldn’t know.

The daycare smells like Lysol and diapers, a scent that’s almost a little overwhelming until you get used to it. Emma notices me first. She’s laying on a colorful carpet in front of an old TV where they still play VHS Disney movies in the afternoons.

“Maddie!” she says, jumping to her feet. “I made you something!” She runs over to her cubby, where she grabs her blanket and a piece of construction paper that’s about the size of a postcard.

“Why are you so late today?” she asks, frowning up at me. Emma is very thin for her age, with silky blond hair and blue eyes, all traits of which she got from her dad. He was nice enough, giving me Christmas presents for the two years he was dating Mom. But he left, just like they always do.

“Well, we have a surprise for you,” I tell her, ruffling her hair as she hands me the construction paper. It’s colored like a stained glass window, where she pressed really hard with her Crayons to make the colors silky on the paper.

“This is beautiful, Em. Thank you.”

She grins up at me, all toothy and wise beyond her four and a half years. “Is it a good surprise?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say, taking her hand and waving at the older lady who’s sitting next to the TV. We walk down the hallway to where the toddlers are kept in a room that’s filled with toys and even more of that diaper smell.

“Are we moving again?” Emma asks.

I give her this playful look. “Maybe . . .”

“Good, because I hate our house,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “Is the new house better?”

“I think so,” I say, giving her an unsure smile.

When we get to the toddler room, Starla sees me and lights up, throwing her handful of toys right to the floor as she waddles over to me, something that looks like peas staining her onesie.

Her caretaker, Mrs. Heather, waves at me while looking at her phone. “See you tomorrow.”

I pick up Starla and we head out to the car. The girls are always excited to see me, but when I pull into the Sonic parking lot and announce that Mom has given us money for ice cream, they erupt into screams and giggles.

We all order a hot fudge sundae, even though I know Starla will make a mess with hers since she’s only two years old. It doesn’t matter; we’re celebrating after all.

Whatever house Landon lives in; I am pretty positive it doesn’t have a big hole in the floor that’s covered with plywood.

We jam out to some music on the radio, and after a few moments of reveling in the very rare treat of ice cream, Emma calls my name. Her lips are covered in hot fudge and I’m sure her hands are sticky and gross by now, too.

“Yes, ma’am?” I say, looking back at her in the backseat.

“Are you going to tell Starla the secret?”

“Do you think I should?” I ask.

She nods eagerly, ice cream sliding off her plastic spoon.

“Hey, Starla,” I say, twisting in my seat to see her.

Starla looks up from her ice cream, which is mostly all over her face as well.

“We’re getting a new house today!” I say in my most excited kid voice.

Starla looks at me and then back at her ice cream. “Kay!”

Emma laughs. “I don’t think she gets it,” she says.

“Probably not,” I say, shaking my head.

When we’re finished eating and we’ve wasted a good hour in the Sonic parking lot, I decide it’s probably late enough to head to our new house.

Taking the paper, I type the address into the GPS unit in our car. It thinks for a second and then shows the destination.

I lift an eyebrow. That can’t be right. 4848 Pinegrove Lane is showing up as being in Shady Heights.

Frowning, I reset the address and try again. It takes me to the same location. My blood runs cold.

Shady Heights?

As in, the neighborhood with signs advertising that the homes start from $600,000?

No. Freaking. Way.

I call Mom and she answers on the first ring. “I just need to confirm the address you gave me is right,” I say, trying to focus when a million things are running through my head.

“Yep, that’s right,” Mom says after telling me the address again.

“That’s in Shady Heights.”

She laughs. “Surprise!”

I swallow the lump in my throat and stare at the GPS screen. Not only is Shady Heights the richest subdivision in the county, it’s also still in the RCHS school district, meaning I won’t be changing schools after all.

“Shady Heights,” I whisper to myself after I’ve ended the call with Mom. I put the car in reverse and then start heading that way, my mind going in a million directions at once.

I never in my life thought I’d ever step foot inside a house in that neighborhood.

And now I’m going to live there.