He gave one last shuddering groan, sinking so deeply, almost painfully, inside of me. It was like being impaled with a spear and I could have sworn I tasted him at the back of my throat as he came, every white-hot burst of his cock spilling millions of his seed, marking his territory, making me his in a way no man ever had—or ever would again.

I kissed his moist cheek, his jaw, found his mouth and kissed him fully on the lips, our breath still hot and fast and gasping, wishing I could tell him how much he meant to me, but there just weren’t words.

When he opened his eyes and looked at me, I was lost.

Smiling, giving me just a brief flash of that dimple, he touched the tip of my nose with his and asked, “Do you really think we’ll make it to the finals?”

I cupped his face in my hands, kissing him again, soft and brief and loving.

“You’ll make it,” I assured him, confident.

And they did.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“You’ll be my Bonnie, baby,

I’ll be your Clyde

You’ve got my shotgun

On this suicide ride

If they ever catch us

They ain’t gonna like what they find

We’re taken no prisoners, baby

No one gets out alive…”

I sat and watched them, quietly sketching Dale. We were in the academy auditorium and Black Diamond was practicing on stage. It was going on four o’clock and we’d been there since two-thirty. They were finally gearing up for the finals in April—they had sailed through the semi-finals as easily as the first round. They were a favorite to win the finals, which would be held in New York and televised on MTV.

Dale had written this song and they were trying it out and drawing quite a crowd with it.

“If we’re going down

We’re going down in a blaze of glory

Our burning hearts will tell the story

We will rise from the ashes, baby

Going down in a blaze of glory…”

Dale was playing to an audience of about thirty who’d been drawn by the music. There were two janitors who had decided to stick around and watch and the rest were fans who had heard he was practicing and had decided to stay after to watch. My sketches of him were getting better, I decided. I’d managed to capture part of his energy on paper, but it was still so difficult to do.

“If we’re going down

We’re going down in a—”

Dale stopped singing. “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute!” The music came to a clanking, jerking halt and I looked up. “I don’t like this key. My throat is killing me.”

“Lower or higher?” Terry asked.

“Lower.” Dale played a few bars in a lower key on his guitar. “Can you guys get that?” They picked it up in an instant.

“All right!” Dale grinned. “I’ll be back in a minute. I’ve got to get a drink.”

Dale set his guitar down and hopped off the stage, heading toward where I was sitting. I smiled up at him. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

“Want to come with me?” he asked. “If this keeps up, I’m not going to have a voice left at all.”

“Sure.” I closed my sketch book and took his hand, following him toward the auditorium doors.

“What did you think?” he asked, heading toward the drinking fountain in the hallway.

“What do you think?”

“I hope we’ve got it wrapped up.” He shrugged. “Finals are April twenty-second. You’re coming, right?”

He’d only asked me a hundred times.

“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

“Good, because—” He bent down to get a drink and that cut off any more words. I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, I pushed the back of his head and he looked up at me, eyes wide, face dripping. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“You’re going to get it!” he growled, but he was grinning. I backed away as he advanced, still laughing. When I began to run, he grabbed me around the waist, whirling me around to face him. He pulled me close, rubbing his cold, wet cheek against mine until I squealed in protest. Laughing, he wiped his face with the tail-end of his t-shirt and then wiped mine too, giving me a very nice glimpse of his washboard abs.

I put my arms around his neck, sliding my thigh up between his, watching his eyes darken, my nails lightly raking over the back of his neck the way I knew he liked, the way that got him instantly hard.

“Stop distracting me,” he insisted, but he kissed me, tongue probing, making my limbs feel heavy and weak, like I couldn’t hold myself up, but that was okay, because I was in his arms, his hips pinning me to the wall, and I couldn’t help remember how he licked me and fucked me in the storage room at the club, how Carrie and Wendy had looked at us when we came out, all disheveled and flushed.

That’s when Dale told me they were lesbians.

“Are you sure about Carrie and Wendy?” I murmured, as Dale distracted himself now, nibbling on my collar bone.

He chuckled. “Sweetheart, your gaydar is so broken it’s not even funny.”

“It is not,” I protested, letting my head tilt a little to the side so he could rub that gorgeous stubble over my neck. “I knew Boy George was gay.”

Dale snorted laughter. “The Pope could tell Boy George is gay.”

“It’s just… I guess it makes sense. I’ve never seen either of them with a guy, and they’re always together. I just thought they were friends, like me and Aimee…”

He pulled back to look at me, amused.

“Gaydar. Broken.” He touched my nose with each word.

“But they talk about guys!” I protested.

He smiled. “Wouldn’t you, if you didn’t want anyone to know?”

“So who else?” I asked, frowning. “What am I missing?”

“George Michael is gay,” he said, watching with amusement as my eyes widened.

“He is not!”

Dale cracked up. “I’m afraid so.”

“Next thing you’ll be telling me Tyler Vincent is gay,” I muttered, playing with his belt, wishing I could undo it right here and now.

“That would solve a few problems.” He made a face, shaking his head. “But no. Not gay.”

“Dale! There you are!” Holly Larson hurried toward us. “I saw you at the semi-finals. You guys were great! Are you doing that song for the finals? It’s so awesome!”

“Don’t know yet,” he replied. He was never short or cold or mean to anyone who came up to compliment his music, although sometimes, like now, I really wished he would just tell them to take a hike. Especially her.

Holly stood in front of us, playing with the end of her ponytail, trying to look all seductive. She acted like I wasn’t even standing there.

“Hey, maybe I can say I knew you when.” Holly smiled. That was the smile that caught her Josh Wilson, quarterback, in high school—and got her pregnant, I thought, a little ungraciously. He’d dropped her like Van Halen dropped David Lee Roth when he found out, and Holly had disappeared for the rest of the year. We all heard she gave her baby up for adoption.

“Maybe.” Dale looked like he was enjoying her attention a little too much.

“My birthday’s coming up at the end of March, and I know it’s a little early, but I was wondering if you wanted to help me host?”

My eyes widened and then narrowed at her. Unbelievable! Was she kidding?

“I think I have plans.” Dale turned, seeing the look on my face and immediately steering me toward the auditorium doors.

“Maybe you can call Josh Wilson and ask him to host your party with you?” I called snidely over my shoulder.

Dale snorted as he pushed me through the doors, and I didn’t hear Holly reply, but I saw the hurt look in her eyes and the flash of her ponytail as she turned down the hallway.

“That wasn’t very nice,” Dale said when we were inside. “It was downright catty.”

“Good,” I hissed.

He smiled, amused. “Are you jealous?”

“No,” I denied it. “I’ve never liked her.”

Dale just smiled.

“Oh Pete, now what are we—”

“Carolyn, he’s a liar! He had no right to fire me. Besides... he can’t prove anything.”

I turned my music off and sat quietly on my bed, listening.

“What are we going to do?” My mother again. “We’ve got rent to pay. We can’t afford for you to lose your job!”

“Then you go out there and work, you stupid bitch! All you do is sit around on your ass all day while I go out and work for you and that brat of a daughter of yours! Go ahead, go find a job. You know you couldn’t bring home half the money I make!” he roared.

“Made,” my mother corrected softly.

I stared at my closed bedroom door, wide-eyed.

No, Mom—you’re going to get yourself hurt.

Sure enough, a second later, I heard a sharp sound and my mother cried out.

“Bitch!” he snarled. “I’m taking him to court. I’m fighting this. He can’t prove I took anything from that warehouse and he knows it. I’ll take him for all he’s got, if there’s any justice in this world!”

I rolled my eyes, amazed. He stole the juice. The evidence was stacked up waist-high in the closet, yet here he was, self-righteous and hypocritical, demanding “justice!” There was no logic to it—unless you were him. It seemed to make perfect sense to the stepbeast.

“Pete, he’s my brother,” my mother said softly.

“I don’t care if he’s President of the United Fucking States!” he exploded. “He ain’t got no proof! He ain’t got grounds to fire me! Fucking excuses, that’s all he’s got! There were never any complaints from customers! It’s all bullshit!”

I closed my eyes, so full of bitterness I could taste it, acrid and painful on my tongue, burning my throat. Justice? If there was any justice in the world, I knew I wouldn’t be sitting there listening to him.

I stood up, grabbing my winter coat from off the back of my desk chair, shrugging it on. It was time to make like Casper. Sometimes I wished I could disappear permanently. I slipped my boots on. They were the only boots I owned, suede, not waterproof, and they now had a hole in the bottom. My stepfather said he didn’t have enough money for new ones. I’d noticed he hadn’t cut back on his cigarettes, but I had to go around with a hole in my boot in the middle of winter.

“He’ll be crawling back to me, you watch!” The stepbeast yelled. “He’s going to beg me to come back! And you know what I’m gonna say? Fuck you, buddy! Fuck you!”

I stood, trembling, in the doorway, watching them. I could only see the top of my stepfather’s head above the chair back. My mother was on the couch, legs curled under her, face streaked with mascara. A cigarette trembled between her fingertips.

“I swear, I’ll sue him. I’ll take him for everything he’s got!”

I came to stand beside his chair, stomach churning, hands clenched into tight fists, as much to keep them from trembling as anything else. My mother looked at me with wide, dark eyes, and I suddenly saw myself in those eyes and it tightened my chest. She looked old, haggard, and I felt so much pity for her. And hate for him. He made her this way, I thought. She could have been... alive.