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was it...me?
    "Everything all right down here?" Dad was in the doorway. His mop of dark, curly hair stuck out at every end, his eyes glazed with exhaustion. "I could hear you two going at it upstairs."
    "Everything's fine," Mom growled, her cheeks flushing. "Your daughter was out partying all hours of the night and came back smelling like a liquor store."
    Dad didn't even look at her as she ascended the stairs, but from the way he flexed his jaw and avoided touching her when she walked past, I wondered if he wanted a liquor store himself. He filled his water with glass instead and downed it in ten seconds. We all watched him, the anchor in our family. I didn't release the breath I was holding until he pecked me on the forehead.
    "It smells like you had a good time, Vick." he chuckled.
    "Don't encourage her, Bill!" Mom snapped. My heart flip-flopped in my chest. I knew that parents argued. Everyone argued, but there was disdain in her voice and Dad stiffened beside me, like he was fighting to hold his tongue.
    I'd only been gone for 9 months. How could things be so different? How could the air in my home go from warm and welcoming to uncomfortable and suffocating?
    We needed a subject change. Something that could turn the attention from the fact that my parents, married for 22 years, could barely stand to be in the same room.
    "I saw Jace Murrow tonight." As soon as it came out, I wanted to take it back. How was I going to make it better by bringing up a guy that my mother hated the moment I had him over?
    *
    J ace gawked at my house like it was a dream. When I nudged him with my elbow, his eyes darkened. Maybe not a good dream. He eyed it skeptically, like he thought either it or he would vanish at any moment.
    “It’s just a house,” I said jokingly. “It won’t bite.”
    His brown eyes turned into shadows. I’d said something stupid. For someone with all A’s, I’d been saying lots of stupid things whenever I was around Jace Murrow.
    “What did I say?” I squeaked, hooking his elbow and forcing him to look at me.
    “Only a rich person would say a house like this is ‘just a house’. Someone that...” He adjusted the backpack slung on his shoulder. “Never mind.”
    He walked up the steps to the door, suddenly in a hurry to get this over with. I wanted to ask him more questions, to apologize again since our ride over was so amazing. We’d bonded over a secret love of “Tik Tok” by Ke$ha and with the music blaring and the windows down, he relaxed. I swore I even saw him mouthing some of the lyrics when he thought I wasn’t watching. Now the walls were back up and the timing couldn’t be worse.
    He was about to meet my mom.
    I’d secretly hoped that my dad had a light schedule at the office, but there was no such luck. He would have greeted us at the door, told a few jokes. Sure, it would have been awkward, but not as awkward as walking in and announcing myself like we were in some royal court.
    “Mom, I—we’re home!”
    Jace perked an eyebrow at me, a smile racing across his lips and disappearing.
    I heard the creak of Mom’s office door opening and closing, her stilettos clicking on the hardwood floor.
    She wasn’t in her full get-up, but her blouse was still perfectly tucked inside her pencil skirt and she moved like a predator in the brush, Jace her prey. The other guys I’d brought home would be gulping, shrinking. Jace straightened his spine and cleared his throat.
    “Hi, Mrs. Johnston. I’m Jace.”
    She studied him for a moment more, then shook his hand. “Jace what?”
    “Jace Murrow.”
    She dropped his hand like he burned her. “Jace Murrow?”
    God, she was so embarrassing! “Yes, Mom. That’s his last name. He’s my partner for my US History assignment.” She was looking at him like he was the devil incarnate, so I steered him away from her laser beams. “We’ll be in the—”
    “Is your uncle Thomas Murrow?”
    Jace pulled away from my grasp, his face registering