“In fact,” Tru says, balancing a stack in each hand. “We’ll even do the dishes.”

I nod in agreement.

Normally chores are among my least favorite things, right after eating grilled steak and starting my senior year in Texas. But I’ll take any lifeline I can get to escape that table for any amount of time.

In the kitchen, I start rinsing off the dishes and stacking them in the sink for him to load into the dishwasher. I’m through half of them before I realize that Tru isn’t helping.

“Hey,” I say, looking over my shoulder at where he’s lounging against the counter, “this was your idea.”

He laughs. “Just wanted to see how long it would take you to notice.”

I look at the small mountain of dishes in the sink. Longer than it should have.

I stick my tongue out at him and go back to rinsing.

We quickly fall into a rhythm. I rinse the dishes and hand them to Tru so he can set them in the dishwasher.

“Sorry about that,” he says quietly.

About what? I almost ask. But when I look at him, he nods his head back toward the dining room. Toward his dad.

“Not a big deal,” I say. “He’s not the first carnivore I’ve had to take on.”

“If anyone can put David Dorsey in his place, it’s you, New York.”

I can’t tell if he’s joking or not, so I ignore it.

As I set a dish in the sink and he reaches for one, the backs of our hands brush. A shiver of tingles races up my arm and down my spine at the insignificant touch.

The next time, it happens again. At first I think it’s an accident, but then it happens every time. With each new touch, a new wave of tingles washes over me, and my heartbeat speeds up. I’m sure if I could see myself in the mirror right now my cheeks would be magenta.

The bad thing is, I think I actually like it. It’s like a game to see how he will make contact this time, how long he will make it last. And even though I know it’s a game, even though I know he’s trying to work his charms on me, I’m not immune.

I dare a quick glance, to see if he’s having the same kind of reactions, but he is studiously focused on his work. If it’s affecting him at all, it doesn’t show.

“Hurry up,” Mr. Dorsey calls out in a teasing tone. “This cobbler won’t eat itself.”

Tru stiffens at his father’s words, and just like that our game is over.

I make a gagging gesture. I would rather wash dishes with Tru all night long than go back in there. Does that say more about what I think of the situation in the dining room…or what I think about Tru?

Correction, what I should not think about Tru. If all goes according to plan, I won’t be here for more than a few more weeks. Letting Tru Dorsey make my heart beat faster is the last thing I should be doing.

We’re just finishing, so I dry my hands and then grab the stack of dessert plates and forks Mrs. Dorsey had set out next to the cobbler. Tru carries the cobbler into the dining room, stepping back at the door to let me go through.

“The traffic is overwhelming,” Mom is saying as we enter. “I left early and was still thirty minutes late today.”

Almost an hour, but who’s counting? I hand out the dessert plates.

“I could ride the bus,” I suggest.

Even if it takes five times as long, I would love to take the bus. Not having to wait on Mom and not having to spend two hours a day in the car. Getting back a taste of my pre-Incident freedom.

“No, no,” Mr. Dorsey says. “That wouldn’t be safe.”

Not safe? I want to point out that I grew up in New York City. If I can handle the MTA in grade school, I’m more than capable of riding a bus as a teen in Austin.

Tru serves a slice of cobbler onto his mom’s plate. “I can take her.”

Everyone turns to stare at him. Even me. Especially me.

He ignores us and dumps a slice of cobbler onto Mom’s plate.

I look at her. I can tell she’s skeptical but maybe also desperate.

“I can take the bus,” I insist.

Mom’s eyes narrow just a tiny bit, and I can see the question. The chasm of my lost trust. She’s weighing the options between giving me even a taste of freedom and putting me in regular, direct contact with the serial screw-up.

“Let Truman drive her,” Mr. Dorsey says. “He needs to do something to earn his car.”

Tru makes a face that I think means he’s pretty stunned that his dad is siding with him on this. I’m pretty stunned that anyone is siding against Mom. It’s usually everyone against me.

In the end, she turns a tight smile on Tru.

“All right,” she says. “That will make things a lot easier. Thank you.”

I fork a mouthful of cobbler between my lips. I can’t even appreciate how delicious it is—okay, I’m lying, it’s amazing—because all I can think about is how my own mom doesn’t even trust me enough to take the bus to school, and it requires reinforcements from a virtual stranger to get her to let me out of her sight for the duration of a car ride.

Getting back enough trust to earn my ticket home to New York is going to be harder than I thought.

Chapter Five

Tru smiled to himself as the front door closed behind the Whitakers. He stood in the kitchen, rinsing off the dessert plates in the sink and adding them to the dishwasher, replaying the film of tonight’s dinner in his mind.

If he were making a short, he would do the whole thing in black and white, with only Sloane’s bright red lips in color.

From the moment he’d come downstairs and seen her chugging the glass of his mom’s pink lemonade, leaving a semi-circle of shiny red on the rim of the glass, he was a goner. Her lips were a perfect blood-red Cupid’s bow against her olive skin, and the contrast only made her green eyes burn brighter. That bold statement, a big screw you to her mom and his parents and anyone who tried to get close, only made him want to know her more. It was like a challenge, like waving a big red cape at the bull. His self-appointed mission to get her to crack, to break down her armored facade, was in full effect.

He’d almost succeeded at the table. When he pretended to drop his napkin and used the excuse of retrieving it to whisper that his dad wanted NextGen to place a statue of his ass on the campus lawn so the entire school could kiss it, she’d really struggled to keep in the laughter. The small success filled him with a strange kind of light. An energy.

When the subject of Sloane getting to school came up, he volunteered without thinking. It would give him more time with her, more time to provoke a blush that made the freckles on her nose disappear. More time to bring out the joy he sensed was buried deep inside.

Tru had always been an expert at pushing people to lose control. It would be nice to unleash something good for once.

The sound of footsteps approaching cut off his thoughts.

Heard his mother whisper some plea for her husband to let it go.

Heard his father’s barked response. “He needs to learn.”

Tru stiffened. Oh yes, it was always a lesson. Always punishment under the guise of education. Of training.

Tonight, Tru knew, he would be trained to not embarrass David Dorsey in front of guests.

“Turn around,” his father demanded from right behind him.

Shoulders squared, ready for first contact, Tru kept rinsing the dessert dishes.

“I said turn around.” His father’s voice was low and calm. Too calm.

The calm before the storm.

Tru finished rinsing the last plate, slid it into the waiting dishwasher, and closed the door. Only then, when he had finished his task, did he turn to face his father.

If the world saw David Dorsey as his son did now, they would have a far different opinion of him. Face red, nostrils flared, veins throbbing. The very picture of a man on the verge of losing control.