They never fought.

They slept in separate bedrooms—yep, that one was weird—but heck, we were practically the Cleaver family compared to this.

Shit, why doesn’t Linda shut off the damn tablet?

I take a careful peek at Bobby from the corner of my eyes and struggle not to laugh. The dude is definitely looking uncomfortable. I’m not sure why. Is it having me here or having me see this?

All through the meal, after expecting us to gather around the kitchen table in a Waltons sort of way, Linda’s eyes have been locked on her iPad chatting away with Len via FaceTime. I don’t know where Len is or what time it is, but his voice is gravelly, the way my mom’s is after she’s been on stage. I feel kind of bad for him about how long Linda has kept this going because he looks tired and like he hasn’t had time to change out of the clothes he’d worn on stage.

Len Rowan is a trooper. I’ll give him that, since I would have clicked Linda off a half hour ago, but clearly making the dinner linkup with his family is a priority for Len.

I poke at my tamale. That’s kind of sweet. I have a few vague memories of Len from when I was little. He was a nice guy and kind of goofy. At least I think that’s what he was, but what the heck do I know? And as odd of a family dinner as this is, it’s been interesting with the Rowans, given me time to covertly study Bobby, and Linda sure as hell can cook. Her Mexican food nearly rivals our housekeeper Lourdes’s.

“You’ll never guess who joined us for dinner tonight, Len,” Linda exclaims after talking at him for an hour nonstop.

“I couldn’t guess. Why don’t you tell me?” Len replies in his heavily accented voice.

“Little Kaley Stanton,” she announces with heavy satisfaction.

Inside my head, I roll my eyes.

She laughs. “Though not so little. And you were right, Len. I was imagining things. Everything is fine with Chrissie. We’re having dinner Friday. Say hello to Kaley.”

Linda flips the screen around and being here rapidly moves from strange to all-out creepy. I’ve not seen Len Rowan since I was very young and, to be honest, I don’t feel like I’m seeing him tonight since via technology is no different than seeing him on Palladia.

I smile, praying that Linda will quickly turn that damn screen away from me.

“I wouldn’t have recognized you,” Len says, surprised.

I stare and say nothing.

“Well, well, well,” he adds. Then something changes in his expression. “I wouldn’t have recognized her, Linda.”

Linda flips the screen to give a meaning-filled stare to her husband. “Exactly.”

I hear Len say, “Aha.”

I tense. There it is again. That freaking aha. It must be some kind of code in the Rowan household. They all use it, understand it, even Bobby’s eight-year-old sister, Madison. I wonder if I’m making more of the ‘aha’ than necessary or if this is just the way families who stay together communicate, some kind of familial shorthand. I don’t know why, but the ‘aha’ has the strange power to piss me off.

Another half hour passes and dinner is finally done. The iPad is set aside and Linda gives us the go-ahead to leave. I decide to correct an earlier flash of bitchiness.

“I’ve really got to get home. Chrissie freaks out when I take off without letting her know where I am. Do you want me to drive you back to school to get your cars?”

On the drive back to the school parking lot Zoe talks in her relentless way. It doesn’t seem to faze her that both Bobby and I haven’t said a word during the ten-minute drive. She just keeps rambling on, and we are parked five minutes without any indication she plans on leaving soon.

“I really need to go, Zoe,” I interrupt her, knowing I’m being rude but, darn, she hasn’t even paused for air. “Can we finish this tomorrow at school?”

Her round face colors. “Oh, sorry. See you guys tomorrow, I guess.”

She climbs from the car but Bobby stays in the seat beside me and I wonder if he just realized my rudeness to Zoe was a calculated move to get some alone time with him. For a long time we sit by ourselves in a deserted school lot, side by side in the front of my Lexus.

“I’m sorry about my folks. Dinner. Don’t think I don’t know how messed up they are,” Bobby says. “You OK?”

I shrug. “I think it’s kind of sweet how into each other your parents are.”

“No, you don’t. It’s weird and they are totally rude. But for what it’s worth I think technology saved their marriage. I wouldn’t be surprised if Linda had a tracking device implanted in Len one night when he was asleep.”

I laugh. “You don’t like them, do you?”

Bobby shakes his head. “Well, not Len. And my house is always messed up. Can’t wait to get out of there. Just when I think it’s gotten as weird as it can get, it gets a little weirder. I’d be out of there if not for Linda. I promised her I’d stay at least until graduation.”

I smile, not really knowing how to answer that.

The front window is beginning to fog from our breath. Everything is quiet and muted here. I unfasten my seat belt and turn in my seat, staying on my side of the car, more to see his reaction to this while I make an overt study of him.

He is so casual about everything, comfortable in who he is, all tall and muscled, lightly tanned, nerve-poppingly male. He waits while I study him and I’m bothered by his calmness.

Fuck, why is he being so low-key, so remote? He hit on me first. At school.

“You baited me when we first met,” I accuse. “I saw it when you did it. You were obvious. You used knowing Alan Manzone to get me interested in you. It was obvious.”

He shrugs.

“Why did you do that?” I say into his quiet.

“Why do you think?”

“Because I’m incredibly hot.” His annoyed reaction to that makes me laugh. “What? Am I not supposed to say that? I see how guys look at me. I’m not blind. Mr. Jamison gives me a look like he wants to bend me over a chair every time he sees me. So do you. You give me that look only you don’t know it.”

He turns in his seat to face me better. “No. Not that you’re not hot, but no. That’s not the reason. You just seemed really lost under all the bitchiness. You look like you could use a friend.”

Oh shit. That comment I did not expect and I definitely don’t like it.

I spring forward and push into his chest with my finger. “Don’t play me, OK? I’m not up for the fucked-up games of the male population. If you want to fuck me, ask. I may do it, but don’t play me.”

“I don’t want to fuck you at all. I thought we already covered this.”

Covered this?

What the heck does that mean?

Is he trying to make me believe he’s gay?

After a moment, I climb over the center console until I’m straddling his hips. There is nothing gentle about the kiss I give him or the way my hands close on his face. I put my tongue to his lips and he opens his mouth obediently to let me in.

Two seconds into it, I’m sure I haven’t misread the guy. He likes me. He is attracted to me. And he is most definitely not gay. That is confirmed by the instant rise of his dick beneath me.

Good. He’s hard. That’ll teach him not to fuck with me again.

I feel that flash of female supremacy surge through me. Just to be a bitch, I move my hips slightly to brush my clit against his erection before I end the kiss and scramble back over the gearshift to my side of the car.

“You can go now,” I say.

“I was planning to.” He opens the car door. “Do you want to hang out with me?”

I shrug. What a strange ‘that’s it.’

“OK.” He’s almost out of the car. I stop him with my hand. “Hey. Honestly, why do your parents think you’re gay? Unless I’m misreading the signals, and I don’t think I am, you are as straight as I am. And don’t give me that line about liking to fuck with your dad.”

He climbs back into the car and we sit for a while in the changeless color of the streetlights.