Page 100 of Seven Days in June

“Scared.”

“And now?”

“Still scared. Just don’t care.”

“Have you had a lot of girlfriends?”

“A few, yeah. No one is your mom,” he said. “Turns out, that’s a huge problem for me.”

“Mr. Hall, I’m extending an invitation to you,” Audre announced grandly. She sounded a lot like Cece. “Tomorrow, I’m getting on a plane to Dadifornia.”

He looked at her blankly.

“My dad’s house. In California. Me and Mom always go to brunch at Ladurée before my flight. Wanna come? We make it really fancy. You have to dress up.”

Shane drew back a little in surprise.

“Yeah? But that sounds like a special thing for just you and your mom.”

“It is. But you are, too.”

“You think I’m special?” Shane’s face got hot, a tingling rush of warmth spreading all over him. His hands trembled. What the hell was happening?

This is that family feeling, he thought. Of total acceptance, belonging to people. A connection that eclipsed everything. Shane hadn’t experienced this since his foster parents—for so long that he’d decided he didn’t deserve it.

So he’d expected to never feel it again.

“Yeah, you’re special. You can quote me on that.” Audre gave him a fist bump. “BTW, you’re not antisocial. You talked to me.”

“I said I couldn’t talk to normal people. You’re not normal.”

“Team abnormal,” she giggled.

Shane remembered how he’d said that to Eva once.You’re not normal.Now, like then, it was given and received as a compliment. Mother and daughter mirrored each other in the most striking of ways.

***

One hundred and ninety-five miles away, in Providence, Rhode Island, thirteen-year-old Ty Boyle was scared. He was a big dude, so this feeling wasn’t usually part of his emotional language. But it was right now, and the only person he would’ve admitted this to was ignoring his calls. Maybe he wasn’t ignoring him. Mr. Hall wouldn’t do that. Maybe he was just busy.

Ty was standing outside an old, abandoned clapboard house in Elmwood. Despite Mr. Hall forbidding him to do this, he’d agreed to meet with his sister Princess’s boyfriend, largely known as Other Mike, a.k.a. O-Mike, at his recording-studio rental. This didn’t look like a studio. It looked like the haunted house on Neibolt Street fromIt.

For a usually rowdy neighborhood, especially at the start of summer, the block was eerily quiet. Why wasn’t anyone outside? Ty checked his phone. It was 2:30 p.m., and O-Mike was supposed to meet him at 2:00. Ty had come up with $200 to rent the space, so O-Mike was going to let him record a track. Mr. Hall wouldn’t give him the money, so his new almost girlfriend had lent it to him. She worked the register at Old Navy after school and could make the money back in a week.

Ty had been writing rhymes for two days and had felt confident enough to run some by her. She liked them. She liked him.

He leaned against the filthy porch and shoved his hand deep in his jeans pocket, where his composition notebook was rolled up. He ran his fingers along the cover to calm his nerves.

Mr. Hall had said this wasn’t a good idea. He’d reminded Ty that Princess was both a junkie and a liar—and so O-Mike probably was, too. But Ty wasn’t an idiot. On the off chance O-Mike was trying to hustle him, Ty had brought a Colt .38. That was in his other jeans pocket.

O-Mike didn’t show up until 3:00. But he came out the front door. Followed by a billowing cloud of smoke.

“Where you been?” O-Mike was a very short, very thin dude. He was about ten years older than Ty, but he looked forty. Ahardforty. Black lips, ashy knuckles, bloodshot eyes, and jeans with unintentional holes.

“I been right here,” said Ty. “I was waiting for you.”

“Nigga, I been here the whole time.” O-Mike burst out in a wild cackle. And then he looked over his shoulder, into the house. Ty thought he heard a voice coming from the darkness inside.

That’s probably his producer, Ty thought.

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