It’s surreal, looking into those big brown eyes of the little girl in the picture. If it weren’t for the fact that she’s in several pictures with her mother, I’d be convinced she really was Hope.

But she can’t be Hope, because Hope’s mother passed away when she was just a little girl. Unless Karen isn’t Sky’s mom.

I hate that my mind is still going there. “Your mom seems really young,” I say, noticing the noticeable small age difference between them.

“She is young.”

“You don’t look like her. Do you look like your dad?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t remember what he looks like.”

She looks sad when she says it, but I’m curious why she doesn’t remember what he looks like.

“Is your dad dead?”

She sighs. I can tell she’s uncomfortable talking about it. “I don’t know. Haven’t seen him since I was three.” It’s clear she doesn’t feel like elaborating. I walk back to the kitchen and reclaim my seat.

“That’s all I get? No story?”

“Oh, there’s a story. I just don’t want to tell it.”

I can see I’m not getting any more information out of her right now, so I change the subject. “Your cookies were good. You shouldn’t downplay your baking abilities.”

She smiles, but her smile fades as soon as the phone on the counter between us sounds off, indicating a text. I look down at it just as she jumps up and rushes to the oven. She swings it open to eye the cake and I realize she thinks the sound came from the oven, rather than the phone.

I pick up the phone just as she shuts the oven and turns to face me. “You got a text.” I laugh. “Your cake is fine.”

She rolls her eyes and throws the oven mitt on the counter, then walks back to her seat. I’m curious about the cell phone, especially since she told me earlier this week that she didn’t have one.

“I thought you weren’t allowed to have a phone,” I say, glancing at all the texts as I scroll my finger down the screen. “Or was that a really pathetic excuse to avoid giving me your number?”

“I’m not allowed,” she says. “My best friend gave it to me the other day. It can’t do anything but text.”

I turn the phone around to face her. “What the hell kind of texts are these?” I read one out loud.

“Sky, you are beautiful. You are possibly the most exquisite creature in the universe and if anyone tells you otherwise, I’ll cut the bitch.” I glance at her, the texts making me even more curious about her than I was before. “Oh, God,” I say. “They’re all like this. Please tell me you don’t text these to yourself for daily motivation.”

She laughs and snatches the phone out of my hand. “Stop. You’re ruining the fun of it.”

“Oh, my God, you do? Those are all from you?”

“No!” she says defensively. “They’re from Six. She’s my best friend and she’s halfway around the world and she misses me. She wants me to not be sad, so she sends me nice texts every day. I think it’s sweet.”

“Oh, you do not,” I say. “You think it’s annoying and you probably don’t even read them.”

“She means well,” she says, folding her arms defensively across her chest.

“They’ll ruin you,” I tease. “Those texts will inflate your ego so much, you’ll explode.” I scroll through the settings on her phone and punch the number into my phone. There’s no way I’m leaving here without her number, and this is the perfect excuse to get it. “We need to rectify this situation before you start suffering from delusions of grandeur.” I give her back her phone and text her.

Your cookies suck ass. And you’re really not that pretty.

“Better?” I ask after she reads it. “Did the ego deflate enough?”

She laughs and places the phone facedown on the counter. “You know just the right things to say to a girl.” She walks into the living room and spins around to face me. “Want a tour of the house?”

I don’t hesitate. Of course I want a tour of her house. I follow her through the house and listen as she speaks. I pretend to be interested in everything she’s pointing out, but in reality I can only concentrate on the sound of her voice. She could talk to me all night and I’d never get tired of listening to her.

“My room,” she says, swinging open the door to her bedroom. “Feel free to look around, but being as though there aren’t any people eighteen or older here, stay off the bed. I’m not allowed to get pregnant this weekend.”

I pause as I’m passing through her door and eye her. “Only this weekend?” I ask, matching her wit. “You plan on getting knocked up next weekend, instead?”

She smiles and I continue making my way into her room. “Nah,” she says. “I’ll probably wait a few more weeks.”

I shouldn’t be here. Every minute I spend with her makes me like her more and more. Now I’m in her room and there’s no one in the house other than her and me, not to mention the fact that there’s this bed between us that she told me to stay off of.

I shouldn’t be here.

I came here to show her I’m the good guy, not the bad guy. So why am I looking at her bed and not having good thoughts right now?

“I’m eighteen,” I say, unable to stop imagining what she looks like when she lies in this bed.

“Yay for you?” she says, confused.

I smile at her, then nod toward her bed as explanation. “You said to stay off your bed because I’m not eighteen. I’m just pointing out that I am.”

Her shoulders tense and she inhales a quick breath. “Oh,” she says, slightly flustered. “Well then, I meant nineteen.”

I like her reaction a little too much, so I try to refocus and concentrate on why I’m here.

Why am I here? Because all that’s running through my mind right now is bed, bed, bed.

I’m here to make a point. A much-needed, valid point. I walk as far away from the bed as I can get and end up at the window.

The same window I’ve heard so much about over the course of the past week at school. It’s amazing the things you can learn if you just shut up and listen.

I lean my head out of it and look around, then pull back inside. I don’t like that she keeps it open. It’s not safe.

“So this is the infamous window, huh?”

If that comment doesn’t direct the conversation in the direction I’m hoping, I don’t know what will.

“What do you want, Holder?” she snaps.

I turn to face her and she’s eyeing me fiercely. “Did I say something wrong, Sky? Or untrue? Unfounded, maybe?”

She immediately walks to her door and holds it open. “You know exactly what you said and you got the reaction you wanted. Happy? You can go now.”

I hate that I’m pissing her off, but I ignore her request for me to leave. I look away and walk to the side of her bed and pick up a book. I pretend to flip through it while I contemplate how to start the conversation.

“Holder, I’m asking you as nicely as I’m going to ask you. Please leave.”

I set the book down and take a seat on her bed, despite the fact that she told me not to. She’s already pissed at me. What’s one more thing?

She stomps over to the bed and actually grabs my legs, attempting to physically pull me off the bed. She then reaches up and yanks on my wrists in an attempt to pull me up, but I pull her down to the bed and flip her onto her back, holding her arms to the mattress.

Now that I’ve got her good and riled up, it would be a good time to tell her what I came here to tell her. That I’m not that guy. That I wasn’t in juvi for a year. That I didn’t beat that kid up because he was gay.

But here I am holding her down to the mattress and I have no idea how we even got to this point, but I’ll be damned if I can form a coherent thought. She’s not struggling to get out from under me at all and we’re both staring at each other like we’re daring the other one to be the first to make a move.

My heart is pounding against my chest and if I don’t back away from her right now I’ll do something to those lips of hers that will for sure end up with me getting slapped.

Or kissed back.

The thought is tempting, but I don’t risk it. I let go of her arms and wipe my thumb across the end of her nose. “Flour. It’s been bugging me,” I say. I back away and rest my back against her headboard.

She doesn’t move. She’s breathing heavily and staring up at the ceiling. I’m not sure what she’s thinking, but she’s not trying to kick me out of her room anymore, so that’s good.

“I didn’t know he was gay,” I say.

She turns her head in my direction and she’s still flat on her back. She doesn’t say anything, so I use the opportunity to explain in more detail while I’ve got her full attention.

“I beat him up because he was an asshole. I had no idea he was gay.”

She eyes me, expressionless, then slowly turns her head back toward the ceiling. I give her a moment to ponder what I just said. She’ll either believe me and feel guilty or she won’t believe me and she’ll still be pissed. Either way, I don’t want her to feel guilty or pissed. But we’re not left with any other choices of emotions in this situation.

I remain quiet, wanting her to respond to me with something, at least.

A sound comes from the kitchen and it actually resembles an oven timer rather than her phone. “Cake!” she yells. She’s off the bed and out the bedroom door and I find myself alone in her room on her bed. I close my eyes and lean my head against the headboard.

I want her to believe me. I want her to trust me and I want her to know the truth about my past. There’s something about her that tells me she’s not like all the other people I’ve encountered who disappoint me. I just hope I’m not wrong about her, because I like being around her. She actually makes me feel like I have a purpose. I haven’t felt like I had a purpose in over thirteen months.

I glance up when she walks back into the room and she smiles sheepishly. She has a cookie in her mouth and another in her hand. She holds it out to me and drops down next to me on the bed. Her head lands against her pillow and she sighs.

“I guess the gay-bashing asshole remark was really judgmental on my part then, huh? You aren’t really an ignorant homophobe who spent the last year in juvenile detention?”

Mission accomplished.

And it was so much easier than I thought it would be.

I smile and scoot down until I’m flat on the bed next to her. “Nope,” I say, looking up at the stars plastered across her ceiling. “Not at all. I spent the entire last year living with my father in Austin. I don’t even know where the story about me being sent to juvi came into the picture.”

“Why don’t you defend yourself against the rumors if they aren’t true?”

What an odd question, coming from someone who hasn’t defended herself at all this entire week. I glance in her direction. “Why don’t you?”