"I'm doing social studies," the girl says. "I'm in my final year at Seattle University." Her voice is high and clear, confident, yet with a hint of nerves. I glance at her out of the corner of my eye-direct eye contact seems like a horrific idea-and I can see she's smiling at me.

"Yeah, that's right. Social studies, whatever that is," Mac says gruffly. "She's gonna leave her car with me while you run her over to her cla.s.s."

"What? I thought you wanted the Firebird finished by midday?" I don't want to drive this beautiful, frightening creature the whole way across the city. Eye contact would be completely unavoidable. As would small talk, and I'm no f.u.c.king good at small talk.

Mac just raises his eyebrows at me. "Faster you get going, faster you get back, right?" He tosses the keys to the shop's run around at me; Mac bought a very sensible, reliable Volvo for this very purpose. It's an extra service people travel specifically to the shop for, since they know they can get a ride while their own cars are being worked on. Normally I'd be jumping at the chance to get the h.e.l.l out of here for an hour, but for some reason my heart feels like a clenched fist rising up in my throat.

"Come on. I'll let you choose the radio station," the girl says, heading toward the Volvo.

As soon as she's out of earshot, Mac thumps me really f.u.c.king hard on the arm and grins. "You can thank me later, kid."

"f.u.c.king thank you with my fist, a.s.shole," I grumble under my breath. The girl tosses her bag onto the backseat and then gets in the pa.s.senger side, and I climb into the driver's side, dreading the next thirty minutes.

As I pull out of the shop, I see Zeth on the other side of the street, standing outside the gym with that friend of his. They both look seriously p.i.s.sed, lost in conversation as I pull out and drive by with the midget blonde sitting beside me. If they see me, they don't acknowledge me. A good thing right now, I think; I wouldn't want those stern expressions directed toward me. No way, no how.

"So you're a mechanic, huh?"

I grip the steering wheel with both hands. Millie would be rolling her eyes at me right now. For a five-year-old, the kid sure does have att.i.tude. "Yeah. Apparently."

The girl beside me nods. "Apparently." She pulls a face, like she's pretending to be mulling this over. She turns her head toward me and places her cheek against the headrest, her attention solely fixated on me. "I'm Kaya." I steal another sideways glance at her, and there it is: eye contact. d.a.m.n. She blinks at me in a rather owlish fashion. "Aren't you going to tell me your name?"

"You already know my name. Mac told you."

"But it's nice to have a proper introduction, right?" She's still looking at me. Still not looking away. f.u.c.k.

"Mason." My name comes out clipped, like I resent parting with it. I can see the girl-Kaya-nodding her head thoughtfully out of the corner of my eye.

"You're not very comfortable right now, are you?"

"Not particularly."

"And why is that?"

I draw in a deep breath through my nose, not sure how to respond. "I don't know. I'm just not."

"Just not? Bit of a lame answer, don't you think?"

"I just-"

"You just think I'm pretty and you don't know how to talk to me?"

"What?" This girl has absolutely no filter. And apparently no sense of modesty, either.

"You think I'm pretty. It's okay, I think you're pretty too."

"I am not pretty."

"Yes, you are. In a way." She laughs, fog still on her breath inside the car. Weird, because I feel like I'm burning up. I lean over and hit the heating anyway.

"Guys aren't pretty. They're hot or handsome or whatever," I say.

"You'd prefer me to tell you that I think you're hot?"

"I don't care what you call me."

"Sure you do." That laughter again. Kaya pivots in her seat, turning her whole body to face me now. "Aren't you really tired of these veiled conversations you have with people, day in, day out? Wouldn't it just be so much more interesting if you said what you were thinking?"

"Is that how you are? All the time?"

"Mmm-hmm." I hear a snapping sound. She's produced some red vines from somewhere and is ripping pieces off with her teeth. Grinning, she breaks some off with her fingers this time and offers it out to me. She is perhaps the strangest person I have ever met. I take the red vine and bite down on it, feeling completely out of my depth. This is not something I enjoy doing. Girls are an enigma to me at the best of times. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a virgin by any stretch of the imagination. But interacting with women has always seemed like some complex puzzle I haven't had time to figure out. Not with Millie to look after.

"Life is just very short, Mason. I don't like to waste time. By the end, when I die, I want to look back and know that I climbed mountains and jumped out of planes with the time other people wasted talking about the G.o.dd.a.m.n weather."

"I suppose that's something to aspire to."

"Isn't it, though?" Kaya leans across the console between us and my head is suddenly full of the sweet scent of flowers and something else, like jasmine. She's so d.a.m.n close. Her face is just inches away from mine.

"What the h.e.l.l are you doing?"

"Looking at you," she whispers. "Looking at your eyes."

"Why?" She's so perplexing. I have absolutely no idea why she would need to be looking at my eyes. Especially this frickin' close.

"I'm into Kinesiology. You can tell a lot about a person from their eyes."

"Like they're the windows to the soul?" My voice drips with derision. I feel like a d.i.c.k even as I'm saying it, but I can't stop myself. Mom used to be into that hippy dippy s.h.i.t. All I saw when I looked in her eyes was broken blood vessels and the same haunted desperation all junkies wear.

Kaya shakes her head, smiling softly, like she was expecting better of me. "Not quite. It's more to do with physical illness. Tension and stress in your body. That kind of thing."

"So what about me? Am I physically ill?"

I can see her shaking her head slowly again. "Don't think so. Hard to tell." I expect her to tell me she needs to get a better look-I'm already trying to come up with an excuse as to why I'm not going to let her gaze deeply into my eyes-but she doesn't. We sit in silence for a moment, the city pa.s.sing us by out the window, Seattle University getting closer and closer. I'm so f.u.c.king desperate to get her there as quickly as possible that I barely pay attention to where I'm going. Our journey takes us past Mil's school; the kids are out at recess and the sound of children screaming and laughing sets me on edge. My sister's always so f.u.c.king quiet. Her teachers tell me she doesn't really interact all that much. When I asked her about it, she sat there and stared at the floor for what felt like a f.u.c.king age, and then she whispered that they made fun of her. Made fun of her because she had a seizure one time and wet herself and now they all avoided her like the plague. Like the poor kid is some kind of leper or something. Such f.u.c.king bulls.h.i.t.

"What are you thinking about right now?" Kaya speaks softly but her words snap me out of the black tunnel I was falling head first into.

"Huh?"

"What are you thinking about? You look like you're trying to rip the steering wheel right out of the dashboard."

Sure enough, my knuckles are white, locked around the steering wheel, my fingers digging into my own palms as I grip on tightly. It takes effort to relax my hands. "Nothing." I clear my throat. "Just trying to concentrate." Kaya makes an amused sound, shifting in her seat. As she swivels around to face forward, it feels like some sort of wall has gone up between us. "What? Is concentrating not allowed?"

"Sure it is."

"Then what?"

"I just thought you weren't going to be one of those people."

"One of what kind of people?"

"The bulls.h.i.t kind." She pulls out more red vines from the pocket of her ma.s.sive jacket. This time she doesn't offer me any. "The small talk kind. The kind who tell small, pointless lies instead of just being honest."

"I don't even f.u.c.king know you. Why would I just start spilling my s.h.i.t to you?" She doesn't say anything. The silence is the pointed kind-the kind designed to make you uncomfortable. "Jesus. Why do you even care?"

"Because you looked sad, Mason. And I've dealt with sad my whole life. It's a lonely place."

"You're digging into my s.h.i.t because you think I'm lonely?"

"Yeah, maybe. Right now, I'm rea.s.sessing, though. There's a strong possibility that you're just an a.s.shole."

"Yeah. Now you're getting the picture." My hands inadvertently tighten around the steering wheel again.

"What are you doing tonight?"

"What?"

"What are you doing tonight? I think you should take me out on a date."

I can't really believe what I'm hearing right now. This chick makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. "You're here in this car with me right now, right? You've been present for this conversation? What about the last twenty minutes has convinced you that a date in on the cards for us?"

"Don't you like me, Mason? If you drop me off at school right now and you never see me again, aren't you going to wonder about me? Next week, won't you be thinking, man, I should have asked that kinda crazy girl out on a date?"

"So you realize you're kinda crazy, then? It's not just me."

"You haven't answered the question."

I let out a deep sigh. She's exhausting. Maybe that's why I give in and do what she wants me to do. I tell the truth. "f.u.c.k, fine. Yeah. I guess, maybe, for some stupid, insane reason, I might be wondering what would have happened if I asked you out on a date. But then I would experience a moment of clarity and realize that I probably dodged a bullet."

"Just do it, Mason."

"What?"

"Ask me out." Kaya snaps more of the red vine off with her front teeth.

"I can't take you out tonight," I tell her. "I have a thing."

"What kind of thing?"

I almost feel like laughing. She strikes me as the touchy feely type. No way is she going to like this. "I have a fight. I'm going to be beating the c.r.a.p out of someone."

"Cool. At French's?"

I do my best not to look absolutely stunned. She knows about French's? There's a very select few people in this city that know about the underground fighting ring that sets up underneath La Maison Markets every Sat.u.r.day night. She doesn't even sound fazed by what I've told her. "Yeah, that's right. You go?" It sounds like a ridiculous question, even as I'm asking it.

"My brother fights there every weekend." She sounds perfectly bored.

"Huh. What's his name?" Like I would know his d.a.m.n name. Tonight is my first night fighting. I won't know a single person there, apart from my buddy, Ben, and he's in the higher ups. He won't be able to babysit my a.s.s for me. I'm going to be flying solo.

"Jameson. His name is Jameson Rayne."

I feel my own d.a.m.n breath catching in my throat. For a second there I feel like I'm choking. "Jameson Rayne is your brother?" Jameson was the youngest guy to take the pot at French's. He bet on himself and won upward of forty thousand dollars in one night, and all at the age of twenty-one. As far as I know, he's twenty-six now and he's still making bank betting on himself. No one ever wants to fight him. And why the h.e.l.l would they? The guy's a savage b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

"Urgh, not you, too," Kaya says. She leans her forehead against the window, looking away from me. "Jameson Rayne, the world's most notorious fighter." She makes an agitated sound at the back of her throat. "Gets really f.u.c.king old."

"It's no fun having a bada.s.s for a brother?"

"Not when he's intensely protective and borderline crazy, no." Kaya absently holds out a whole red vine, still refusing to look at me. I accept it, kicking my own a.s.s. I want her to look at me. I complained about those intense eyes studying me, picking me apart at the seams, trying to figure out what's inside, but now that they're focused elsewhere and it feels weird.

"Older brothers are meant to be protective over their younger sisters," I whisper.

"You say that like you have some sort of experience in the field."

"Maybe I do." I'm pulling into Seattle University, though, so I don't have to tell her about that. Thank f.u.c.k.

Kaya jumps out of the car and grabs her bag from the back seat. When the door slams, I think that's it-she's just going to leave without saying another word to me-but then she's there by the driver's side window, tapping against the gla.s.s. I buzz the window down.

"You never told me if I was right," she says.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said you thought I was pretty. Is that not the case?"

I just stare at her. She barely has to bend down to talk to me through the window, she's so small. Her eyes are bright, her cheeks still blushed red against the cold. She doesn't look like she belongs here. She looks like she's made out of something breakable. China, maybe. I have an overwhelming urge to protect her, to prevent her from ever breaking, but I can't. My hands are already too, too full.

"Of course I think you're pretty. I think you're f.u.c.king beautiful," I whisper. "But we're in different places. If things were different..."

"Oh, I know," she says, smiling. She doesn't seem p.i.s.sed at the fact that I'm trying really f.u.c.king carefully to tell her I'm not interested. Even though I kind of am, which is the hardest part. "Don't worry. Whatever's meant to be always is, right?" She beams, pats her hand against the windshield, and then she's pulling the hood up on that gigantic Parka and walking away. I sit there and watch her as she runs up the steps into the building in front of me, feeling honorbound to make sure she gets inside safely. Once she vanishes, I do the sanest thing I can thing of: I speed out of the parking lot like the very devil himself is on my heels.

Chapter Eleven.

Mason "Why do I have to sleep at Wanda's house?" Millie hugs her soft toy, Roo, to her little pigeon chest, the Winnie the Pooh character looking faded and more than a little worse for wear. My baby sister looks like she might cry. I suddenly feel really f.u.c.king sick.

"You don't have to if you don't want to, Mil. You want me to stay home here with you?"

She looks up at my with those big eyes of hers, shiny from the potential tears that might fall-she hasn't decided yet whether staying at Wanda's is a big enough deal to warrant tears-and blinks. "Where are you going?" she whispers.

"I'm going to do another job."

"But you went to work this morning." She rubs the pad of her index finger against my knee, staring at it, clad in my jeans, apparently absorbed in the feel of the material.

"I know, kiddo, but this is for extra. Extra money. So we can move and get a better place, right?" We've talked about this enough that Millie knows how important moving is for us. She gives me a very solemn nod, still not looking at me.

"Away from next door to Wanda and Brandy?" she asks.