Back home, I walked the path up to the house, staring at the girl on the front. She was coated in makeup. More makeup than I had ever seen on a face in real life. It did not look pleasant to me at all. I sighed and opened the door.

A Nerf gun was shoved into my hand, and Braden grabbed me by the arm and pulled me into the dark front room, pushing me up against the wall. “You are now on my team,” he whispered, no more than two inches from my face. A piece of his reddish-brown hair flopped into his eye and he pushed it back. “Three shots equal death.” He grabbed the pamphlet and the bag full of my work clothes out of my hand and flung them onto the couch five feet away. The makeup ad didn’t quite make it and fluttered to the ground in front of the couch.

“You ready?” he asked, stepping back in front of me. He was so close that his hip brushed against my side. A chill went through me.

He tilted his head and his face moved closer to mine. I froze. Then he sniffed my hair and neck. “What’s that smell?”

For a second I couldn’t answer him. My breath seemed caught in my throat. Then I held up my wrist, between our too-close faces, “It’s a spray from work. A girl, Skye, she sprayed it on me.” My voice came out tight and I let my hand fall back to my side.

Braden lowered his brow. “What’s wrong?” he said. His eyes flickered to my lips, then back to my eyes.

My heart picked up speed. What was going on? I put my arms between our chests, needing a little space. Work was making me weird, I decided. Linda, with all her talk of auras and makeup and fashion, was not good for me. “Nothing.” I looked over his shoulder to the shadowy hall, sure my brothers would’ve heard us by now. We were probably about to get ambushed. “Who’s playing?”

“Everyone.”

“My dad?”

“No. He’s at work.”

I slipped off my shoes so I could be stealthier, hooked my arm in his, and crept along the wall. “We are so winning.”

Braden smiled big. “I knew I made the right choice holdin’ out for you to get home.”

“Darn straight.”

“Let’s kick some butt,” he said, in his horrible imitation of me.

A low voice from across the hall said, “I could’ve killed you guys three times by now. Stop flirting with my sister and get your head in the game. I’ll give you a ten-second head start.”

His accusation made my heart jump. But this was Gage. He was always joking. Plus, he never stopped flirting. Ever. He probably just assumed the same of everyone else. “Shut up,” I said, then pulled Braden the opposite way down the hall. Ten seconds wasn’t very long.

Chapter 9

That night in my room I stared at the girl in the ad some more. Makeup wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t practical with sports—sweat and makeup did not mix well—but I’d worn mascara on occasion. And ChapStick was my best friend. The extra money helping Linda out with this project sounded great to put a dent in what I owed my dad so I could quit this job faster. But there was no way I’d come home with my face caked in the stuff. I’d never hear the end of it. I sighed and shoved the ad in my desk drawer.

I walked in to work Thursday, set the pamphlet on the counter in front of Linda, and said, “It’s not waterproof, right?”

“What?”

“The makeup. I want to be able to wash it off easily when I’m finished.”

“I bet your mom would love to see you all made up.”

This was why it wasn’t good to lie. I’d honestly thought the subject would never come up again. This was way worse than the pity looks she would’ve given me. I shrugged.

She looked back at the ad. “It will come off easily with a good face wash.”

I nodded slowly, still not sure I wanted to do this. “And I won’t have to talk?”

She threw her hands in the air in an excited gesture like she thought I’d made up my mind. “No. Just a canvas. It will be great. She’ll do the first class this Saturday morning.” She pulled a form out from beneath the counter, proving she knew I would agree. “Because you’re underage, I need your mother—well, either of your parents—to sign this consent form. For liability issues. Amber isn’t licensed, which is why she isn’t putting makeup on anyone but you during the class. And also, I’m not worried about it, but if you have some sort of allergic reaction, this says you won’t sue me.”

I nodded and took the form, my eyes scanning over the words but not reading them.

“You should tell your mom to come watch.”

Every time she mentioned my mother, my stomach tightened. I should just tell her the truth and get it over with. Instead the words “My mom has to work Saturday so she won’t be able to make it” came out. My mouth had a mind of its own lately. I held up the form. “But I’ll get this signed.”

“Sounds good. Let’s get to work.”

That night I couldn’t sleep for two reasons: one, because I hadn’t run, and two, because the paper that I had forged my dead mother’s signature on screamed at me. It sat in my desk drawer, yelling at the top of its lungs. I should’ve just asked my dad to sign it. He would’ve . . . probably. After asking lots of questions.

I remembered one time my dad came home with a bottle of conditioner and put it on the desk in front of me. “Do you need this? Carol at work said you might.” I stared at the bottle. Of course I knew what it was, I’d seen enough commercials, but I had never used it before. He had guilt in his eyes like he had somehow failed me. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know. It would’ve been so much easier if he had four boys. I knew that, and I knew he knew that. “No, I’m good. My hair doesn’t really get that tangled. But thanks. I’ll use it.” And I did. I couldn’t believe I had lived that long without it.

I wondered if he’d feel just as guilty now for not buying me makeup. I sighed and stared at my desk as if the form Linda gave me was going to burn its way through the drawer. I finally rolled out of bed at one a.m. and turned on the lamp on my nightstand. What was wrong with me? I had justified the act by telling myself that the release was just a formality. I wasn’t going to have an allergic reaction, so it was unnecessary. And my dad would never find out. It wasn’t like this paper would be sent to the government to check and verify. It would get filed away in the ugly metal desk in the stockroom at Bazaar, never to be pulled out again.

I made my way downstairs. Once in the kitchen, I had a clear view of Braden’s house. His bedroom light was on. I grabbed my phone and texted him. Up for a fence chat?

Yep.

“Hey,” he said when we stood separated by the wooden barrier.

“Hi.” I waited for him to talk first, even though I was the one who’d called him out here. I felt embarrassed by the rashness of that decision. Instead of facing the fence, staring at his shadowy figure through the slats, I adopted our previous pose of sitting, back to the fence, then looked up at the moon. It was so much easier to talk to the moon than to Braden. At least about real stuff. I listened as he did the same thing.

“So, you’re up late tonight,” I said.

“Yeah.” He offered no explanation.

My neck hurt, and I rubbed at it. “Have you ever done something stupid and then felt incredibly guilty about it?”

“Yes.” Again, he didn’t expound. “What did you do?”

Pretended my life was whole. “Lied.”

“To who?”

“My boss.”

“About?”

“About . . .” Why did the moon make me want to spill all my secrets to Braden? “. . . something really dumb, but now I don’t know how to tell her the truth.”

“What’s your boss like?”

“Weird. I think she took one of those spiritual journeys around the world or something and thinks she’s reached some sort of inner peace. Now her self-imposed job in life is to fix broken spirits.”

Braden sometimes pulled on his bottom lip when he was thinking, and I could hear that he was doing that when he said, “And she thinks your spirit is broken?”

The clouds around the moon glowed white. “No. Not mine. Well, yes, mine, but not just mine, everyone’s. She thinks everyone has a broken spirit.”

“Everyone but her.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“So you lied to keep her out of your personal business?”

“Yes.”

“Then stop worrying about it. She doesn’t need to butt into your life anyway. If it’s nothing big then just forget about it.”

I just reincarnated a dead person, that’s all, nothing big. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“Is that a first?”

“What?”

“Me being right?”

“Ha. Ha.” And then it was quiet. So quiet I could hear his breaths, deep and long. With each breath, it seemed, my shoulders relaxed.

“But if it is something big . . .” He trailed off and my shoulders immediately tensed again. “It will just eat at you.”

I knew this was true. It was already making a meal of my insides. “Well, as long as it starts with some of my more useless organs, then I have some time.”

He laughed.

“You eat a lot of carrots.”

“Uh . . . what?”

“You like carrots. That’s my fact about you. You know, in the game of proving I know more about you and your boring life than you know about mine.”

“But carrots aren’t my favorite food.” He’d sounded smug when he said it, like he was announcing I had lost.

“I didn’t say they were. I said you eat a lot of them. Maybe they’re not listed next to ‘Favorite Food’ in your ‘My Favorite Things’ diary entry, but you like them.”

“No, they’re listed next to ‘Favorite Vegetable.’”

“I knew it.”

“Okay, my match . . . You are forever eating Cocoa Krispies. Loudly.”

“It’s a loud cereal.”

We spent the next several minutes listing off the other items that were in our fictitious Favorite Things diary entries. His: color—blue, subject—history, food—steak, and day—Saturday. Mine: red, PE, pizza, and Friday (previously Saturday until work butted in).

“I have one,” he announced. “You hate girls who wear sparkly words across their butts.”

I laughed. “How could you possibly know that?” I had never said that pet peeve out loud.

“Because I see the look on your face when a girl with the word juicy on her butt is walking in front of us. It’s pretty funny.”

“Yes, it’s true. I’m not a fan.” I raised a finger in the air even though he couldn’t see me. “Never date a girl who feels the need to make her butt a billboard.”

He gave a little humming noise.

“What?”

“I think that’s the first time you’ve ever given an opinion about who I should date. What else should I avoid?”

“I don’t know your type of girls, Braden.” Girly girls were so far out of my circle of friends that I didn’t even begin to try to understand them. “I have no idea what makes a girl undateable. Truthfully, I’m not even sure a girl with a sparkly announcement on her butt isn’t worthy, seeing as how I’ve never spent more than one minute talking to a girl like that.”

“I’m sure Gage will bring one home eventually, and then you can find out.”

I laughed. “True.”

“What did you mean by that, anyway?”

“By what?”

“That you don’t know my type of girls?”

“I hang out with athletes.”

“And?”

I paused, a little surprised. Was he saying he would date my teammates if I set him up? It had been a while since Braden had a girlfriend, but I was pretty sure his last one knew more about nail patterns than defensive patterns. “And . . . I guess I don’t know your type.”

He chuckled. “I find that hard to believe.”

My cheeks prickled and goose bumps formed on my arms. I didn’t let my mind follow that implication down any of the paths it seemed to want to go. That didn’t mean anything. It really didn’t. He just meant that I knew him well, so I knew exactly the type of girl he would date. And I did. One who did her hair and knew how to pick out cute clothes and didn’t wear running shoes everywhere.

Braden cleared his throat. “Do you have a match for my fact, or did I win?”

It took me a minute to remember what his fact was. I had to backtrack to the sparkly-words-across-the-butt comment. “You honestly think you’re going to win that easily?” So did his fact mean that in order to match I had to figure out something he hated about guys? I pictured Braden at school. Even though he was a jock he was fairly inclusive. “Okay, so since I don’t really hate girls with the word juicy on their butts, I just think it’s a poor fashion choice, I’m going to match with loafers.”

“Loafers?”

“You think guys shouldn’t wear loafers.”

He gave a breathy laugh. “I’ll give you credit for that one.”

“But . . .”

“But what?”

“But it’s not quite right. So if it’s not poor fashion, what is it about loafers that you don’t like?”

“It’s not so much the loafers as it is the guys wearing the loafers.”

“Oh, really?” That was news to me. “What about them?”