his leg by his hip, and the red bruise on his cheek.
“Yikes, you okay?”
“Sure,” he says. “No biggie. I would have texted, but this piece of junk ran out of charge.” He waves his phone at me, and shoves it back in his pocket. “You ready to get out of here?”
I nod.
“Well, good for you guys,” Ethan says. I almost forgot he is standing there.
“Good to see you, Ethan,” I say. The words burn my throat. They make me kind of sad, too, but I mean them.
He walks to his car, and turns when he reaches his door.
“Hey, Max,” he calls, “be good to her, okay?” He gives me one last look before climbing into the driver’s seat and taking off.
“Pompous dickwad,” Max says when he’s gone. He buries his face in my neck and I take in the sweaty, smoky smell of his hair, of his jacket, and try to swallow past the lump in my throat that, lately, doesn’t ever seem to go away.
LATE MAY
TENTH GRADE
“Not a dirt bike, Jailbait,” Max corrects me, “the Kawasaki. At least once I get it fixed.”
We’re sitting on the floor of my room, my back pressed against him, body slipped into the vee of his open legs, watching the butterflies. He revs his lips like an engine, and puts his hands on my shoulders, steering them like handlebars, making me laugh. “This guy gave it to me cheap. It’s fast and powerful, but it needs a complete overhaul. When I’m done, it’ll have a four-stroke engine, six-speed transmission. You can’t ride a dirt bike three thousand miles to California.” I tip my head back to look at him, and he combs his fingers through my hair before grasping it into a fisted ponytail to keep it held back. “Jesus, you’re fucking beautiful,” he says, kissing my forehead, and my nose, and my lips.
“How much will it cost?” I ask, sitting up straight, turning myself to look at him. Two of the Jezebels are out of the habitat and circle the room, their wings catching bits of light that filter in through the half-open shades. They alight on the windowsill, drawn to the warmth of the sunbaked wood.
“I could get a crap one for like four hundred, if I wanted. A mint one for under a grand. Depends what I want to put inside her. You still need to see her. She deserves the very best.”
I nod, my mind skirting to the pink metal boxes that have been stuck in my head, the ones I saw Mom shoving handfuls of bills into the morning after the fight she and Dad had the night of the Rainbow Room.
“There’s also the issue of the transmission,” Max adds, “and gas, and motels, I guess, if you come with me. Otherwise, I’ll crash at a campsite, or on the side of a highway. I don’t give a shit.” He chuckles like he doesn’t believe for a minute I’ll go with him.
But more and more lately, my head fills with the salty scent of the ocean, the image of me on the back of Max’s bike, arms clutched around his waist, the wind blowing our hair as we breeze past wheat fields, traveling miles and miles of open highway.
“On the road, just the two of us, imagine it!” Max said when I first said I was, maybe, in fact, considering it.
Of course, it’s ridiculous to think I can, and I know it. It’s a joke. I’m a joke. The idea is a total joke. I’ve barely been on the back of Max’s dirt bike—only from school to here—let alone on a four-something, six-whatever engine thing he’s talking about riding across country. Besides, crazy or not, never in a million years would my mother let me go. Forget about Nana or Dad.
And yet there are ways—and a ripening alibi and money to execute it all—that have taken up residence in my brain. And the crazier Mom seems, and the more I fall in love with Max, and the further away Aubrey drifts, the less I can think of one good reason to stay here.
“Why do you ask, Jailbait?”
“Ask what?”
“How much it would cost?”
“No reason.” I shrug, and shake the thoughts away, watching a Glasswing emerge and lift off, flying directly at Max, landing on his shoulder for the first time since they’ve been let out while he’s here. “Don’t touch it,” I whisper, as he reaches up. He yanks his hand back, except it’s only a myth that a