Toni ended up picking me up and waited until later that day, when we were back to UCF's campus to ask the question I knew she'd been itching to ask all along.

"So," she started. We'd already been sitting on the grass for a few minutes as we powered our laptops and set out to do some homework. She cleared her throat and leaned back, her hands fanning over the grass blades and looking at me like I was a puzzle. "What were you doing in Sawyer Logan's house?"

I took a sip from my water bottle, thinking how to best approach this.

With the truth, probably.

I sighed. "Mr. Davies and the Principal have assigned me to tutor him this year."

"Wait, what?"

"It's for extra credit." I shrugged. "I figured an altruistic activity such as helping the local screw up graduate would look really good for my college applications."

Toni turned to me slowly, almost as if she were expecting to come face to face with a serial killer.

"You do realize it's not altruistic at all if you do it for your benefit, right?" she said.

I waved my hand. "Look, what matters is that he does need help." I thought about the freshly open wound on his lip and the gory bruise on his side, in the back of my mind figuring that he needed help in other areas outside of my expertise too. "If it happens to be that I get some benefit from it, why would that be wrong?"

"It's not wrong, it's just..." Toni bit her lip and looked down at her laptop. "I can't help but worry."

I stayed silent as I put my password into my laptop and opened a word document to write an essay for World History, which was ironic because Toni was referring precisely to the history between our families.

Yes, papa had given a shot to Jack Logan years ago. And Jack had proceeded to let papa down, time and time again. He'd shown up late for work and got reprieves. Then he'd shown up drunk and still papa would not quit on him. The one that finally did it was when, after working on a car, the customer had come back a day later and complained that his engine had powered down in the middle of I-4, which could have very well cost him his life. Instead of apologizing and fixing the issue, Jack had gotten in a fight with the customer.

A literal fight with fists.

The risk of a lawsuit was what finally opened papa's eyes.

Sawyer had shown up at our home a few days later, begging papa to give Jack his old job back. Mama fed him a couple of arepas and then papa bundled the boy into his car to drive him back home. Problem was that Sawyer had been so distressed, we'd never seen him like that before. I always wondered if it was just an act to really convince papa. So the Martinez women got into the car as well—I did, only because mama forced me. We drove down to Jack Logan to return his kid.

He opened the door, pushed Sawyer inside without sparing him a glance and spat on the floor where papa stood. I was so shocked by that, that my brain stopped functioning. The words they exchanged sounded to me like they were underwater, but I knew by the tense air that they weren't good.

And then Jack Logan did the unthinkable. He punched my papa in the face and screamed, "Fuck you, you sanctimonious spick."

Those words I could never forget. And although papa could, mama would never forgive. For years she'd resented the son as though he'd been the one to set up the scene for the father.

That was the last time I was at the Logans. Until today.

I started typing the title of my essay like it was no big deal. "Sawyer would never hurt me, if that's what you're concerned about."

"No, he's not the dangerous one." Toni glanced at me from the corner of her eye. "At least in the violent sense."

I stopped typing and looked at her. "What do you mean?"

She used the same tactic of the water bottle on me. I narrowed my eyes.

"Well, I just think it'd be really bad if suddenly the two of you were to get closer. You're a teenage girl and he's a teenage boy and, you know, stuff happens."

We both looked down at her belly. I pursed my lips.

"No offense, but there's absolutely no way something like that could happen between us." I scrunched up my nose. "He's... gross. He's practically been with half of the school."

"Because he's hot." She laughed as I gave her a look that surely conveyed the fact that I officially did not recognize her anymore. "What? I'm only a couple of years older, doesn't mean I'm blind."

"Okay, so what if he's hot? We're off limits."

"Exactly," Toni said pointedly. "World War III would break out if you two get, um, closer."

"There's nothing to worry about, I'm not his type and he's definitely not mine." I looked down at my word document and realized that I only had five words in, and none of them were about World History. I deleted them. "My priority is school," I added for good measure. "Are we done with this conversation?"

Toni nodded solemnly, her brown hair falling forward with the motion and catching the sun until it shone like molten chocolate. My sister was a total knockout, sweet and brilliant. I couldn't fault Manny for having a crush on her. I'd even caught Sawyer giving her appreciative glances. I knew boys would go crazy for her at college and now look, one of them had gone and ruined her perfectly set out future. I wouldn't let that ever happen to me, least of all for a hot mess like Sawyer.

"But you'll let me know if something changes, right?"

"Don't worry, nothing will."

I meant that as the end of it, and she took it. But for a few minutes she kept glancing up at me like she still wanted to say something. I resolved to focus on my work until she got the message.

After a while we took a break to eat some snacks we'd bought on the way, and that was when a shadow fell over us. Toni and I looked up and by the way she tensed, I knew exactly who it was.

The father.

Holy-

I had to stop myself right there. This guy was gorgeous. All dark hair and blue eyes with a glowing smile. With the afternoon sun framing the back of his head, he looked like a freaking angel. Something in the way he looked at Toni told me that he probably saw her in the same light.

Then he turned some of that charm on me. "Hi! You must be Rory, Toni talks about you all the time and you look so alike."

First of all, I could appreciate his attempt to compliment me. Second of all, no. Toni was the hot one. I was the bothered one.

I smiled sweetly at the man who messed with my sister. "Yes, I'm Rory, hi. But I don't believe my sister has mentioned you."

Toni choked next to me.

His eyes twinkled as he plopped to sit on the grass across from us. He extended a hand out. "Nice to meet you, I'm Adam. Toni warned me you might be a bit uh, curt."

I pursed my lips and found her to be struggling with containing laughter.

This whole thing made me deeply uncomfortable. I'd been determined to stay angry at this mysterious dude for the rest of my life, but he seemed really nice and even more into my sister. Which also was messed up, because she was hiding something major from him.

I had enough problems of my own to get tangled in this. And I figured that as soon as this Adam found out he was going to be a father, he was going to high tail it so fast and so far that we'd never see him again. There was no point in getting attached, not even if he was funny and sweet and kept obviously stumbling upon himself to ask Toni out again.

I squirmed and made a big show of looking at the time. "It's getting late. Toni, you should probably take me home soon."

Toni and Adam shared a smile, as though it conveyed a secret message that was only known to them. He excused himself for the interruption and was bold enough to give her a kiss on the cheek before leaving with a hearty wave.

Cute. Dangerous.

I started to see the point Toni had been trying to make earlier. Boys could be deceivingly charming. I had best remember that when Sawyer and I started to spend a lot of alone time together.

We picked up our things and headed back to the car. The plan was for her to drop me off close to the house, and I'd walk the rest of the way so our parents didn't see her. They were still raging mad and there was no point in stirring the pot. And if they asked me where I'd been all day instead of the car shop, I'd already arranged an alibi with Courtney.

We got in her car and I asked, "So, are you planning on ever telling him?"

Toni started the car and leaned back with a sigh, rubbing her forehead. "I don't know. I mean it's going to be obvious soon enough but I just..."

"You're afraid of how he'll react?"

She pinched my cheek in the exact same way she'd been doing for seventeen years that annoyed me to death.

"You're so clever," Toni said.

I smacked her hand away. "If you don't tell him it's his, as soon as your belly starts showing he's going to think you had sex with someone else at the same time."

That made her groan. "I hadn't thought about it that way."

I looked out the window at the sunset sky, swathes of pink mingled with a soft orange and purple hues. With the silhouette of palm trees, it looked like a scene straight from a postcard of Welcome to Florida, the land where crazy things happened. And if that wasn't fitting to this situation, then I didn't know what was.

"You have to tell him," I said. "And you also have to tell mama and papa."

"They're going to kill me." Then she added, "All three of them."

She was probably expecting some supporting words from me, but instead what came from my mouth was, "You made your bed."

But Toni took it like a champ. She laughed and said, "And I lied in it, too."

Moral of the story, I told myself as we drove home in silence after that, do not sleep with boys. They were not worth the price.

is Rory... being a good sister?! 😲