What are you doing here?’ His voice was raspy, and he raked one hand through his dark, tousled curls.
I stared at Derek, totally speechless. I hadn’t seen him in almost three years. He looked so different. And by different, I mean really, really hot.
Gone was the lanky, awkward teenager I’d known. His chest had filled out, his face slimmed down. He’d grown a few inches and now towered over me. He was wearing skinny black jeans and a fitted black T-shirt that was tight at the biceps. A silver chain necklace was coiled twice around his neck.
‘Derek, hey.’ My voice squeaked, and I coughed to cover it. ‘I forgot you were back from New York. Sorry about pushing on the doorbell. I thought Madison would answer.’ The words rushed out of me too fast, and I knew I sounded like a dumb little kid.
I was desperate to know whether he’d thought about me while he was away the way I’d thought about him. Last time I’d seen him, I’d declared my undying fourteen-year-old love. He’d kissed me gently on the cheek and said, ‘See you later.’ The next day he’d left for New York.
I never told Madison about my crush on her brother. She’d hate it. She could be jealous and nasty when it came to Derek. Once I was at their house and I didn’t feel well, so I played Nintendo with Derek instead of hide-and-go-seek with her. She went to his room and took all his certificates he’d glued into a scrapbook and shredded every one of them.
‘You want to come in?’ Derek asked.
I followed him through the dining room into the designer kitchen. The stainless steel shimmered in the afternoon light. An expensive watercolor of trees hung above the mahogany dinner table.
I shrugged out of my wet jacket, draping it over a chair. He pulled two bottles of water out of the refrigerator, tossing one to me.
‘So.’ I took a sip of my water. ‘You back for good?’
‘Yep.’
‘Did you like it?’
He shrugged.
‘Well, what was it like?’ I had so many questions, but this new Derek wasn’t like the one I’d known three years ago. Plus, all the things Madison had told me about him . . . maybe I was a little bit scared of him.
‘It was fine, it’s a big city, so it’s pretty busy, but yeah, I liked it.’ He sounded bored. Or maybe annoyed. ‘Madison isn’t here,’ he added.
‘Where is she?’
‘Auditioning for some play or something.’
I hit my forehead with my hand. ‘Oh yeah. Shoot. I forgot about that.’
He set his water on the counter. ‘So, what’s up?’
‘Nothing much. Just school and finals, getting ready for senior year and stuff.’
‘No.’ He looked exasperated, like I was the dumbest person ever. ‘I meant, why’d you come storming over here?’
I hesitated, not sure I wanted to tell Derek about my mom.
‘Did you get in a fight with your boyfriend?’ He smirked.
Anger boiled in me, and I clenched my fists. I wasn’t used to feeling angry. But I felt like it was leaking from me, set free by the acid of my mom’s lies. I couldn’t control it, and suddenly it took a new direction.
How dare he? The last time I was with him, I’d thought – well, it didn’t matter now, but I’d thought we shared something special. It was silly, just the slight brush of our arms against each other while watching a movie. A long gaze. It was stupid.
I didn’t even recognize this new Derek.
‘I’ll come back later. Sorry I bothered you.’ I put my water bottle on the counter and spun around, heading for the door.
Derek stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
‘No, I’m sorry.’ The smirk fell off his face, and for the first time since I’d arrived he looked like the Derek I used to know. ‘Honestly, you’re not bothering me.’
He was so earnest, it reminded me of when we were little kids and I got stuck in the washing machine trying to hide from him during hide-and-seek.
‘So. Boyfriend problems?’
‘No,’ I snapped. ‘For your information, my mom lied to me and I’m really pissed off about it.’
Derek leaned away, as if blown back by the force of my anger. ‘Shit. Sorry. What about?’
When I didn’t reply, he headed toward the stairs. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go downstairs.’
I hesitated, confused by his quick change of personalities. Maybe he was more like Madison than I’d thought. I followed him to the far side of the kitchen, across the hall, and down the stairs to the basement.
‘My mom and dad gave me the downstairs. I think they’re just hoping I’ll disappear down here.’ He chuckled, but the laugh didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Downstairs was more welcoming than upstairs, all blond wood and worn brown leather. A grunge band blasted on a massive surround-sound stereo system. A huge entertainment center and two leather chairs took up one side of the basement, while the other side had an unmade king-size bed. At the back of the room, a hallway led to darkness.
He shoved clothes off a leather chair. ‘Here, sit down.’
He picked up a set of remote controls and turned off the stereo, then pressed a button. The ornately carved walnut doors of the entertainment center opened slowly, revealing a huge plasma-screen television. He flopped onto the other chair and flicked through the channels until he found a rerun of Family Guy.
He looked up at me. ‘You gonna sit?’
‘Um, sure.’ If Madison came home and found me hanging with her brother, she’d totally flip. I perched on the arm of the chair and tugged on the tail of the silver bracelet at my wrist.
‘So, what’d your mom lie about?’ he asked.
‘Well, last week some kids from my school and I were at U-Dub at this thing to get juniors ready for college. We saw this girl – Kendall – and she looked just like me. I’m not even kidding. Everybody said it. Like sisters.’
‘That’s weird.’
‘Yeah. So yesterday I asked my mom about my dad. Like what was he like and did he have any other family and she mentioned that he had brown eyes.’
‘So?’
‘First of all, I’m in advanced biology. My mom has blue eyes, so if my dad had brown eyes, it’s pretty unlikely I’d have green eyes. Not impossible, but genetically unlikely.’
‘And second?’
‘Second of all, I asked her when I was thirteen what color eyes he had, and she said green. And now she said
