We are our own worst enemies, but our digging is also compromised by the fact that Jonathan is still icing me out, and Sullivan doesn’t have a very close relationship with his brothers. Only Dalton and Sullivan, the two youngest, still live at home. Sterling is married—no kids—to a girl who used to bully me in junior high. Her name is Kari and she’s a good six years older than me, but that didn’t stop her from calling me “Mop Head” when I was in sixth grade and she was a senior. Sure, my mom cut my wild hair in a ridiculous bob, and I did look exactly like a dirty mop with my frizzy, dishwater-blond hair, but Kari was a legal adult and felt the need to pick on a twelve-year-old. She made my life miserable, and I think that perfectly summarizes the sort of person Kari Tate is—and by association, her adoring Sterling.
Wyatt’s not married but lives on his own in a farmhouse on a property the Tates own. It borders their land, and the Murphys’ land, too, and everyone knows that Wyatt throws crazy parties there that sometimes have to get broken up by the cops.
When I bring up Wyatt’s reputation—carefully, worried Sullivan might take offense—he laughs.
“Wyatt’s a pup. He’s wild, but he’s not mean. My mother has the corner on that particular market.”
“Did you just say your mom is mean?” I tug on the hem of his T-shirt and he laughs.
“As a snake.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It’s true. She pulled a gun on my dad once.”
The look on my face must startle some sense into Sullivan, because he hurries to explain. “Oh, she’d never shoot him, she was just trying to get his attention.”
I try to imagine it and can’t: Reb pulling a gun on Law “just to get his attention.” The scene doesn’t translate.
Sullivan tells me other things. About the time a cop pulled his dad over and got the “Do you know who I am?” speech. He got off with a warning. Of course, Franklin Tate wasn’t quite as lucky when he broke a guy’s jaw in a bar fight and spent a couple nights in the county jail before Annabelle posted bail.
“Settled out of court,” Sullivan says, a dark cloud passing over his features before I smooth it away with a kiss.
The Tates are certainly eccentric, prone to a bit of trouble, and not unlike many of the families in Jericho. If there is a clinging sense of peril to them, it’s insubstantial as a whiff of smoke. A warning, maybe, but not enough to keep me away. They are churchgoing and gift-giving—the new atrium of Jericho High bears their name—and from the outside looking in, they are as inconsistent and complex as any family. A clash of reputation and reality.
Sullivan himself is probably the greatest contradiction, and as much as I wish I could push him away, as the days peel off the calendar, I find myself pulling him closer and closer still. His forehead wrinkles when he tells me about his family, and while it’s clear to me that he loves them and understands them—that they are home—I can also tell that he’s conflicted. He’s not like them, not exactly, and that vein of something different that runs through his very core is the exact thing that keeps me up at night thinking about his touch. Sometimes, you want to run away from home.
It’s dangerous, this feeling. I know that.
One night, tucked in the bed of his truck as we stare up at the glittering sweep of the Milky Way, I tell him, “Ashley will never, ever forgive me.”
I’m laying with my head on Sullivan’s chest. His arm is curled around me, fingertips just inside the fold of my shirt where he’s stroking the warm curve of skin beneath the jut of my hipbone. I shiver, but he doesn’t respond, so I push myself up to look at him.
“I mean it. I’m going to lose my best friend over you.”
Sullivan has one arm propped beneath his head, and he lifts the other to cup my face. “I’ve told you a dozen times. I’m not interested in Ashley. Never have been, never will be.”
“Don’t you know anything about girls? It doesn’t matter. She’d hate me if she knew.”
“Then she’s not a very good friend.”
“We’ve been best friends since fourth grade. We can’t throw it all away over a fling.”
Sullivan sits up and leans so close our noses are almost touching. “This isn’t a fling.”
My heart stutters. We’re not even a couple, not really, but I know exactly what he means. Still, I whisper, “What are you saying?”
“I hope you don’t lose your friendship with Ashley over us. But June…” He traces my lips with his fingertip. “I think I’m falling for you.”