Then he went right back to glaring at his blank paper.

“It’s only ten questions,” she said, still feeling a bit breathless. “We’ll just work through these, and then . . .” She let the words trail off, but that open ending was just way too . . . open.

“Then we’ll talk.”

He nodded. But he didn’t write anything down.

“Look,” she said, “I can’t help you if you won’t even ”

“Jesus.” His eyes flared with anger. “I know. ”

Layne almost flinched then reminded herself that his anger had nothing to do with her. “Truth,” she said softly. “What’s wrong?”

His expression was locked down, and she had a strong feeling he wasn’t going to answer. Every time he did this, it made her feel vulnerable. More so now that her secrets were all out on the table and his weren’t.

“I need to pass.” His voice was low, rough.

“You will,” she said. “You’ll pass the test, get back on the team ”

“I don’t give a crap about the team.” He hesitated. “I mean, I do, but . . .”

She waited.

He kept his eyes on the book. “Nick told me last night that he wants to go to college. If I can’t pass math, I can’t even graduate from high school.”

She studied him. “Do you want to go to college with your brother?”

“No yes I don’t ” His pencil snapped. “God damn it.”

He dropped the pieces in the spine of the book.

Again, Layne waited.

Gabriel looked up, meeting her eyes. “I never even thought about college. The only reason I bother getting halfway decent grades is so I can play sports. I mean, I just figured we’d keep helping Mike with the business.”

“What do you want to do?”

He snorted. “I doubt there’s money for Nick to go to college, so for me to go with him . . . I mean, he’ll probably get scholar-ships, but ”

“No. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.” He was looking back at the math book again. “I never really thought I had a choice.”

Layne bit at her lip. She didn’t know the twins’ relationship well enough to judge them, and talking to Gabriel always felt like walking a tightrope. “Obviously Nick thinks he has one.”

That brought his eyes back up to hers. “He deserves a choice.”

“Why, because he’s a good student?”

Gabriel scowled. “He’s good, period.”

It made her think of her mother, volunteering for every charity under the sun as long as she got to plan a party for it. Most people probably thought she was good, too, despite the fact that Layne’s father had worked himself to the bone to afford the lifestyle her mother demanded.

And then she’d left, like it wasn’t good enough.

No, because Layne and Simon weren’t good enough.

There were different levels of good, Layne thought. Had to be.

She tapped the math book with her pencil. “You deserve a choice, too.”

Gabriel took a deep breath and blew it out. He picked up the broken half of his pencil, the one with a writing end. “Can I choose to not do this?”

She wanted to hit him on the forehead again. “Don’t be such a baby. I can’t believe you’ll kick the crap out of Ryan Stacey but you’re afraid of a few equations.”

His eyes flicked up at her. “That’s because I don’t care what Ryan Stacey thinks of me.”

Oh. Her breath caught again. She tried to stop her heart from thundering in her chest and shoved the book toward him. “Maybe your brother should help you. You can’t sweet-talk him.”

Layne helped Gabriel struggle through the second problem of the assignment.

And he was definitely struggling.

The first question had taken thirty minutes to work through.

He was missing fundamentals they’d covered in Algebra I. It was like trying to teach abstract equations to someone who’d never learned basic multiplication. And as he got more frustrated, he started transposing numbers. It reminded her of that day she’d fixed his test, when half the solutions were written backward. Or that day at the blackboard, when he’d copied someone’s equation but he’d copied it incorrectly. She had to keep reminding him to slow down.

That night she’d driven him home, she’d made a comment about special classes, and he’d brushed her off. But now she was starting to wonder if he genuinely had a learning disability.

Not like she’d say that out loud. Yet.

The second problem took only twenty-five minutes. Progress.

By the end of two hours, he’d worked through eight problems. He wrote the number 9 on his paper just as a peal of thunder rolled overhead. Layne reached out and closed the textbook.

He looked up. “We’re not done.”

“I should check on Simon.” She stretched her shoulders.

“And you should quit while you’re ahead. Do the other two tomorrow.” They hadn’t heard a sound from the living room the entire time they’d been in here. Not like Simon was a noisy kid, but she was surprised he hadn’t come looking for a soda. A snack. A bathroom, for goodness’ sake.

But when they looked in the living room, the PlayStation was turned off, the television silent and dark. She turned around, but the powder room door was wide open, the lights off.

No one was in the front yard, either, when they leaned out the front door. Overcast sky, prestorm humidity thick in the air.