“You can’t protect me forever.”

“Sure I can. We’ll talk about it later—not here in the house. We’ll talk it out. Maybe Micah’s parents, too.”

“Zane, you just can’t. They wouldn’t believe us anyway.”

“Dave’s an EMT. He knows Graham, and I don’t think he likes him. He doesn’t say, but I can tell. We’ll talk later,” he repeated. “But I’m not going to let him hurt you.”

She started to speak, then shook her head.

“What?”

“Nothing. We’ll talk later. If they hear us…”

He’d read about POWs, about how they’d work together in secret to try to escape. He figured he and Britt were like POWs in their own house.

But for four whole hours, he was a free man. From the time he climbed into the Carters’ SUV until he got out again, everything was normal. And fun.

Yeah, he had to go to Ashley’s door, and go inside, and have his picture taken with her about a million times. Even her grandparents were there, taking more pictures, and talking in their cool accents.

And Ashley looked really good with her hair all ripply—she said her mom crimped it, whatever that meant. He told her he liked her dress, and he did because the blue matched her eyes.

The dance committee had the gym all done up in a beach theme. Ride the Waves! Surf’s Up! He didn’t care about that, but the DJ and all the lights were cool.

And since Micah ranked as the worst dancer in the history of dancers, Zane knew his own moves came off pretty good. He especially liked the slow dances where he just had to sway, and Ashley pressed up against him.

She’d let him touch her breasts already—over her shirt, but he’d gotten his hands on them. He had hopes she’d let him get a real feel before too much longer.

And with the way she smiled up at him, he thought: Maybe.

She linked her arms around his neck, gave that little tug that meant she wanted to kiss. She tasted like gumdrops, smelled like flowers.

“This is the best night,” she murmured. “One more week of school, then summer.”

“Three and a half days,” he corrected.

“Even better. But … I’m going to miss you so much when you go on vacation to Italy.”

“Then you’re going to Ireland.” He held her close again. “I wish we were going over there at the same time. Then we’d be in the same part of the world.”

“You have to write me. I’ll write you. I wish you had a phone. I think we could text if you did.”

“I’m going to try to get one. The parents won’t go for it, but I think I could talk Emily into getting me one in her name, then I’d pay her for it.”

And hide it really well, like the notebooks.

“That would be so awesome! I can’t imagine not having a phone. You must feel so cut off from, like, everything. I mean everybody has one. Your parents are scary strict.”

You have no idea. “Yeah, they are.”

“Well.” When the song ended, she stood with her body against his another moment. “We’re going to be upperclassmen. Juniors. Maybe they’ll loosen up.”

“Yeah, maybe. Want to go outside for a while and…”

She smiled again. She knew what “and…” meant. “Let’s do that.”

Outside the night was lake spring cool so he gave Ashley his suit jacket. Other kids had come out to talk, to sneak a smoke, to sneak a joint. Or to “and…”

He stayed away from the smokers, the stoners. Not worth military school. And drew Ashley just far enough away, just enough into the shadows that they could get serious about kissing, enough so he could touch her breasts.

And just when he thought maybe, she pulled back. “We have to slow down.”

Her heart had been hammering under his hands, and her breathing was unsteady. He thought if he only had another minute, maybe just thirty seconds.

“I don’t want to.” She took his hand. “But we have to.”

“I really like you, Ashley.”

“I really like you, too. But we should go back inside. Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not.” Frustrated, yeah, with a hard-on so big he wasn’t sure he could walk yet. “I get it. It’s just … I think about you a lot. And I think about being with you.”

Her eyes looked like the lake, he thought when she stared up at him. So soft, so blue, almost liquid.

“So do I, you know, about you. That’s why we need to go in. My granny, she was my age when she got pregnant with my dad.”

“Jeez!”

“I know. So, let’s go back to the dance.”

He hadn’t thought about doing it—or hadn’t thought of it in the maybe category yet. He wasn’t sure what to think knowing she had.

And knowing she had didn’t help with the hard-on.

“I just need to, ah…”

She glanced down, grinned. Her liquid blue eyes laughed. “Oh. Okay. Let’s just talk about calculus.”

“That would do it.”

He had the best time. When he walked Ashley to the door, he got a totally serious kiss. And had to think about calculus so he could walk back to the car without embarrassing himself.

He figured when he wrote it all down in his notebook, it would be sort of like reliving it. Plus, he’d have a whole entry where nothing shitty happened, where he didn’t write anything about tests, homework, or Graham’s put-downs.

“Thanks for the ride, man,” he said to Dave, exchanged low fives with Micah.

He headed toward the door, half wishing he could just take a walk around the neighborhood, think about Ashley, that last kiss. But he’d miss his eleven-thirty curfew.

Maybe he’d risk making a snack—strictly forbidden after dinner—since after all the dancing he was completely starving. He thought about risking a sandwich, but he half believed Graham counted the slices of deli ham.

Better not—keep the head down, he decided. Graham had been especially hard-assed the last few days. Not slapping or shoving, but snarling. It was like waiting for a barking dog to bite.

When Zane unlocked the door and went in, those teeth flashed.

“You missed curfew.” Graham stood in the foyer, a glass of scotch in one hand, eyes as cold as ice.

“Sir, it’s eleven-thirty.”

“Eleven-thirty-four. Did you forget how to tell time?”

“No, sir.”

“Time matters. Adherence to the rules matter. Leaving this house for entertainment is a privilege granted, not a right.”

“Yes, sir.” Two years, two months, he thought, repeating it like a mantra in his head.

“My time matters. Do you think I have nothing better to do than wait up for my son because he can’t be trusted to follow the rules?”

Instinct warned Zane to keep his gaze lowered because there was something here. Maybe it was the scotch, maybe it was whatever had been snarling under the surface for the last few days.

“I’m sorry. I guess it took longer to drop off the girls before—”

He’d expected the shove, or worse, so let the force take him back a few steps.

“Do you think I want to hear excuses? You should have been responsible enough to factor in the time, respected the rules. But since, as usual, you’re irresponsible and disrespectful, you’re grounded for two weeks. No phone privileges, no gaming privileges, no outside activities, including baseball.”