She shrugs and pulls the tray of chicken in front of her, slathers the pieces in the buffalo sauce lining the bottom of the tinfoil pan, and scoops up great big gobs of blue cheese dressing before gobbling them down. I resolve to eat some pizza before I lose my appet.i.te from watching.

"d.a.m.n," Apollo blurts out, "This is better than I expected."

"It's Antonio's. Local place. They know me."

The three of us eat in silence. Charity eats almost all the chicken, but Apollo tries it and eats the rest, complete with the dressing, while I polish off half a triple cheese meat sensation pizza by myself. Antonio is creative with his naming. When Charity finishes eating, she wanders back into the sitting room and sprawls out on the couch, thankfully laying on her side as she begins to snore.

"She's going to have a monster headache in the morning," Apollo notes, peering past me to watch her. "She only has her mother?"

"Yeah, her Dad was killed in Iraq."

A pall falls over the room.

"Oh. s.h.i.t."

"You didn't know. She's a mess. Charity's uncle does a lot for them, gave her the job. She'll probably take over the shop one day. She likes it."

"She have a boyfriend?"

"No. She did but they broke up when he moved away."

"How about you."

"No, I don't have time for-"

He's grinning.

Oh.

I turn beet red. "As I was saying, no time. You don't get a 4.0 average at a private school by twiddling your thumbs. It took a lot of work."

"School's over, right? You can let your hair down."

"Hardly. Now I have to go to college."

He turns solemn, staring at nothing. "That's how it is, isn't it? You finish one thing and then there's another thing and something else after that, and it's like all the time between them just goes up in smoke."

I get up and move to the fridge, to grab another soda. As I pa.s.s he catches my wrist, lightly, and pulls me to him. A squeak jumps out of me as I fall right in his lap, wide-eyed. Our faces are inches apart. I can feel his breath tickle my chin, warm my lips. Holy c.r.a.p he's handsome, like model handsome. Just looking at him makes my heart flutter, and more than that, I feel a stir between my legs that makes me bite my lip and rub my thighs together, like an itch.

Then he kisses me.

Sparks fly. The world swims around me, and I feel something I've never felt before. This is supposed to be happening. Right now there is a center to the universe, and it is in this room. I slip my arms around him, and he feels so warm under that tight shirt. His arms fall around me, settle around my waist and I breathe against him, pressing my chest to his. The kiss deepens and I feel like I'm falling into a pool of warm syrup, heat flushing through my body.

As first kisses go, this is pretty good.

Then I hear my mother's voice, and soft laughter, then concerned voices. Mom walks into the sitting room with her new boyfriend, and they contemplate the drunken girl with the buffalo sauce smeared on her lips currently lying on the one hundred and ten year old antique couch, and then they both look at us.

Still sitting in Apollo's lap, I smile weakly. "Uh, hi, Mom."

"Hi, Dad," Apollo says.

Wait, what?

Chapter 5: Apollo.

Well, this is a problem.

I remember this happening when I was in ninth grade. I had an erection and I had to stand up for some reason. That was merely embarra.s.sing, this is a little different. This isn't one of those involuntary teenage b.o.n.e.rs. I have a raging hard-on from Diana sitting on my lap. I very slowly move my hand down her side, away from her breast, as our parents stare at us. When she moves on top of me to swing her legs around and stand up, it's agony. I want her right now, bent over the table, and I don't care who sees. It takes everything I've got not to pull her back into my lap. As she stands up I cough and try to figure out what the h.e.l.l I'm going to do. I could try a reach-and-tuck while they're all distracted. As I stand up, I poke Diana right in the b.u.t.t. She flinches and glances over her shoulder at me.

"So," she says. "Hi."

"This is awkward," I mutter.

Her mother speaks in clipped tones. "Diana. Upstairs. Now."

I turn around and smooth back my hair with one hand, and tuck myself up with the other. It'll have to do. Dear G.o.d, please don't let Diana's mother look at my crotch.

"What are you doing here?" Dad asks.

"It's a long story..."

He sighs and folds his arms over his chest. I can't tell if he's acting or not. He may genuinely be mad or he may expect me to play along. Either way the safest option is to act naturally.

"I ran into Diana at the bookstore. Her friend," I nod towards the pa.s.sed out goth on the couch, "was at this party at this kid Lucas' house. We went to get her," I consciously leave out the bit of tossing Lucas and his friends around, "and ended up eating some take-out."

"You neglected to mention the part where you groped my daughter," Diana's mother (Carol, right?) chimes in, scowling at me.

"I, uh, didn't know she was your daughter..."

I must have carried the lie off well enough. She looks stern until she catches a hint of a smile on my father's face, and a little smirk cracks on hers. She is actually pretty, Diana's mom, but doesn't hold a candle to her daughter. I shift on my feet, stick my hands in my pockets and look apologetic and sheepish.

"Have you been drinking?"

"No. She has," I nod out to the living room. "We didn't attend the party. We just went to get her."

Carol scowls at me. "How old are you?"

"Twenty."

"My daughter is eighteen years old, young man."

"Uh, good?"

Her scowl turns into a sneer, and Dad grabs her arm.

"It's fine, hon. Just a... misunderstanding. I'm sure it won't be a problem in the future, will it?"

I look at him and then look at her and nod. For some reason I feel genuinely sheepish about this.

My head is still swimming. The memory of the taste of her lips, the soft warmth of her body cradled in my arms, the way she kissed me harder and writhed in my lap when I put my hand on her breast. I was this close to getting my hand in her underwear before they walked in. Good think I didn't. That would have been a sight to see, I'm sure.

"We should be going," Dad says.

He leans down and kisses her.

I turn away. I mean, really.

"Are we on for Friday?"

"Of course," she smiles warmly at him. "I'll have a talk with Diana about this." Her mouth twists down. "Then we need to sober up her friend."

Dad nods and I rush to his side, and we're out the door and through the garage to the waiting car. He gets in the driver's seat and I can feel his glare when I sit down and pull my door closed.

"Are you getting too close to this?"

"Um. No."

He scowls at me. "Lucas, I told you to track her down and flirt with her a little to keep our options open, not follow her home and feel her up. It's a good thing we arrived when we did or her mother would have walked in on you fingerbanging her daughter. You're going to put the whole operation in jeopardy."

"What's the big deal? It's not like-"

He slams his fist on the wheel.

"I told you how important this job is," he snaps, his face turning red. "You don't realize what's at stake here. We could lose everything."

I sit there in shocked silence while he starts it up and we pull out. His head shakes and he mutters to himself for half the drive, until I work up the courage to say something.

"The mom likes you."

"She's supposed to," he sighs. "Apollo, don't forget this is just a job."

"Do you like her?"

He looks at me like I've just sprouted a third arm. "What? I'll admit, she's more fun than she seems. The s.e.x is good-"

"Jesus Christ!"

"What?"

"Too much detail. Keep it general."

"I'm setting the hook. I need to get the pa.s.scode and a fresh encryption key out of her." He drums his fingers on the wheel. "The only woman I've ever loved or ever will love was your mother. This is just a job, son."

"What about-"

"A man has needs. That's all. Don't tell me you don't understand. Or are you pining for what's her face from the necklace job?"

"Her name was Brenda. I hope she's okay but I don't-"

"You'll get over this one, too. Trust me. Look, I'm old, I'm not dead. She's a very attractive girl, but you need to be thinking with this head." He taps my forehead. "Do I need to spell it out? We're working for a difficult client. I want to make it out of this alive as much as I want to hit it big and retire."

"Right," I mutter.

He is right, though. I mean, I've known her for what, a day? And by known I mean I met her twice. Sure, there's a spark...

A spark. n.o.body I've ever met has made me feel like this. Just the sight of her. It's more than the lush curves of her body and the sparkle in her eyes. She's bold and smart, she takes charge and stands up to people. I like that. I like it a lot. Still, it's only a backup plan, and I have an excuse to avoid her. How much longer will it take for Dad to work his magic, a week? A month?

All I have to do is hang back and watch, and go over the plans to extract the merchandise. I'm already thinking about that. We could replace it with a dummy crate, buy us a little more time. Getting onto the compound will be easy, but getting inside... some kind of distraction would be needed. If I can figure out what, I know he'll be impressed with me.

When we arrive back at the house, I feel like I'm dragging bags of sand behind me. I ache with unfulfilled want, and I can't shake the image of Diana's face filling my vision as she leans in for a kiss. There's a kind of purity about her, innocence. She's like some kind of rare and beautiful creature from another world, a world I'm not welcome in.

I stand on the porch for a while, look around, watch the other houses. It's three in the morning. I'm used to cities, where there really is no difference between three in the A.M. or in the P.M., except the color of the sky. Here it's quiet at night, like a soft blanket layered all over everything. The only sound is the creaking of trees and the soft voice of the wind.

I could get used to this.

"I've never taken you horseback riding, have I?"

The sound of his voice makes me jump. He snuck up on me. I think my father is the only one who can.

"No." I choke out.

"Might get a chance, when this is done. So many things I've missed, moving from place to place, always on the run. It'd be nice to stay in one place, wouldn't it?"

I nod. It's all I can do. Lightning bugs flicker in and out of sight in the distance, and the low overcast sky catches street lamps and traffic lights and spreads the glow everywhere. It's not hot at night, but it's muggy and buggy. I sweep a mosquito away from my ear.

"You ever think about what it would be like if you weren't with me? If it was different?"

"Yeah. I guess I missed out. Going to that place with Diana was so strange. I felt like I was wandering on another planet."

True. I never attended a wild high school party, or any high school at all after my mother pa.s.sed. I barely remember it. Sometimes I confuse the way it was with things I've seen on television. So much has happened since then, a whole lifetime packed into a few short years.

"You've never talked about Mom."

"No."

He motions his hands like he's got a cigarette pinched between his fingers. He does that a lot, in quieter moments. He quit after he picked me up. I couldn't abide seeing anyone smoke after what happened. I was so lost when she was lying in the hospital withering away. The disease stole everything about her, turned her into a pale, gaunt shade of her former self. At the end she was so thin I could see her ribs through the hospital gown and blankets, and the bones of her hips jutting out. The memory comes back to me hard and I squeeze the railing to stop my hands from shaking.

"I met her on a job," he says, very softly. "She wasn't involved, I just ran into her a few times while I was casing the place and working up my plan."

"Which job?"

"I don't remember."