Her eyes narrowed. I thought she might rear back and swat me, like she had on the roof. But instead, oh-so-coolly, she pressed her palms against my grasping fingers and pushed me away. It was a gentle gesture, but a final-feeling one. My heart sank.

“We can't do this. Landy.” Back in the living room, Anya let out a ridiculous, high-pitched laugh. I watched Ash's eyes flick in the direction of the living room. The maternal look had returned to her face. It was like she was worried about leaving her mother alone, for even a few minutes. She spoke to me next without making eye contact.

“This is the first time, do you understand me? I'm Ash. You're Landon. And it's nice to meet you.”

“I'm not an idiot, you know.”

Her eyes snapped back to me, and I shivered as they seemed to bore through my skin. Her chest heaved with a sigh, and then she tilted her pretty head back, so it fell against the flimsy wall with a soft thud. Her lips parted slightly. If we were anywhere else, I would have pressed myself against her. I would have sunk my mouth into the white, soft expanse of her exposed neck, like I was fucking Dracula or something.

“If you're not an idiot, you need to stop drooling.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I'm not an idiot.” She peeled herself off the wall. Though she was beautiful even in this harried state, I decided I could do without the whole careworn teenager shtick. Sure, Anya seemed flaky—but I'd seen nothing so far to suggest that the woman couldn't take care of herself. Why did Ash need to act so very protective? So wise, so holier-than-thou?

“Eighteen means you're still kind of an idiot,” I tried. But the air had gone out of my flirting tires. She didn't laugh. She didn't even crack a smile. She just looked mad at me.

“If this is you playing my older brother, we can just skip past that noise right now. I'm not looking for a role model, ‘kay? Especially not some guy who would have fucked me but for an inconvenient peep at my driver's license.”

“How about you cut it with the lip, Ashleigh? I'm just trying to make the best of an awkward situation.”

“Where did your Dad even meet her, huh? What is he? Some cult-leader, who preys on recovering addicts? How much medical debt are we gonna have to bail you out of?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” I could feel the nausea returning to my stomach, and transforming itself into rage. She couldn't talk about Pop like that. Only I was allowed to talk about Pop like that. “You don't know me. And it's not my fault that your hippie-dippy Mom wandered into his church. For all I know, she's the one trying to scam us.”

“Don't you dare talk about my mother that way!”

“Oh, is she your mother? I thought she was your Anya. By the way, what the fuck is that about? Are you some celebrity kid? Who calls their mother by her first name?”

Her face was beginning to stripe purple, too—she was becoming blotchy with anger before my eyes. Her eyes darkened, her eyebrows knit, the rat's nest suddenly struck me as witchy and unkempt. The tube top suddenly looked like it was trying too hard. Maybe the spell is lifting, I thought to myself. And it must have been a spell to begin with, right? How else could I have gotten so hung up on some smart-mouthed, punk-ass, eye-rolling teenage girl? Hadn't they been bad enough the first time around?

“You don't know a single thing about me, jock boy. So why don't you and Father Hillbilly just fuck back off to your storefront operation.”

“Ooh, I just love it when jailbait feminists think they know shit. Whatever absent Daddy made you this twisted, please slap him for me if you ever find his address.”

By this point, our faces hovered within centimeters of one another. But her pouty red lips had lost their whole appeal. It was as sudden to my attraction to her in the first place—in the span of thirty seconds, she'd become just a yelling ball of evil. No different than the sophomore fan club, or Zora. One day, I'd have to find out why almost all the girls I was attracted to were crazy brats.

Ash quivered with rage, and her long, dark lashes seemed hell-bent on preventing a few shining drops of moisture from falling down her face. I was breathing through my nose in short, bullish bursts. We stared at one another for what felt like a long time, before she finally whipped her hair in my face in her haste to return to the living room. I got a mouthful of cucumber melon and Virginia Slim—that familiar smell, from the party—and spat it out with a grumble. I didn't watch her ass as she flounced off that time.

After one of the angrier pisses I've ever taken, I returned to the living room determined not to look at Ash. I'd eat my pizza, then shuffle the old man home. I'd find some sneaky way to avoid dinners like these in the future. And heck, in a few weeks, I'd be back at school—and Ash would probably be returned to whatever progressive love-in high school she'd wandered out of. I'd graduate, and in the worst-case scenario, I could avoid her for all but certain, very special, Christmases.

It will be good for Dad to have a lady. I can't begrudge him that. But I’m not about to put up with the devil's spawn so he can be happy. I’m a star quarterback. I’m a motherfucking contender.

When I returned to the living room, Anya greeted me with a manic grin and a plate of stale grocery-store coffee cake. “Your father and I were just talking, Landon, and we've had the most wonderful idea.” I should have known enough by then to brace myself. But Anya, to her credit, knew how to surprise a guy.

“It's getting so late, and we're having such a blast—why don't you both just sleep over? I can make up the couch for you, and we've got a whole big box of extra night clothes...then maybe we can all do a big family brunch in the morning!” Her eyes were wide, appealing. It took concentrated effort not to pull a face at Ash.

“I think we can have a little sleepover,” Pop said, his tone as lecherous as it had been a few weeks before, when he'd been sizing up Zora in the shower. As if this night couldn't be any more nausea-inducing, now I had to imagine my derelict father getting his D wet for the first time in thirty years, or whatever it was.

Meanwhile, Anya was nodding her head like the matter was decided. She stood and stretched elaborately, before holding out a hand to the Pastor, who took it. She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, engulfing me for an instant in a hot cloud of patchouli. I watched Ash bending down to gather the dinner dishes, over her mother's shoulder.

“Happy birthday again, sweetheart!” Anya murmured at her daughter—but she spoke into my ear. It somehow sounded seductive. I was aware of the moisture popping off her lips as she spoke. “We love you! Take good care of your step-brother-to-be.” Ash didn't so much as shrug, she just continued stacking plates. I realized there had been no presents, no cards, no heralding of this eighteenth birthday at all. I wondered then if she really had turned eighteen that night. I wondered if she really had asked her mother not to celebrate it, or if that was just bunk for our benefit.

Anya repeated herself, as she pulled away from me. “Take good care of him, baby.” And I thought I spied a wink.

Chapter Nine

Ash

The walls were too thin. The walls were disastrously thin, in fact. It took about ten seconds (and some of my newly minted woman's intuition) for me to jam my headphones into my ears and blast The Clash, so as to overwhelm any sounds of Anya and the Pastor...going at it. This wasn't exactly a new tactic—Lord knew I'd overheard my mother doing just about everything a person could do, despite even the biggest speakers—but The Clash was working better than most bands. Mr. Dempsey had suggested them to me. He'd brought me a mix CD on the last day of school.