“My mom painted the walls before she got sick, but I picked out everything else.”

I let her walk me through and point out all the details. Marco appears in the doorway and watches us, his strong arms folded across his chest. “Are you two ready to eat? The chicken is done.”

“We’re coming,” Sofia says.

Marco walks ahead of us to the kitchen. I pause at the door across from Sofia’s. “Is that your brother’s room?”

“No.” Sofia lowers her voice. “It was my parents’ room, and then after my mom died, just my dad’s. Marco hates our dad, so he won’t take it, and he wouldn’t let me switch with him. He still sleeps on the sofa, like he always has.”

I nod, but I hate the thought of Marco not having a bedroom because of his father. How much can one person take from you? On my way back through the living room, I look closer. Car magazines are piled on the floor. An alarm clock and a picture of a little boy in overalls holding a woman’s hand sit on the end table next to the sofa. Marco and his mom.

Dinner is amazing. Marco made arroz con pollo, a garlicky chicken with rice. I never would have pictured him cooking. We eat and laugh, and afterward we play board games with Sofia. She’s a real-estate tycoon when it comes to Monopoly, and she beats us in half the time it normally takes to finish the game. Once she’s settled on the sofa with a movie, Marco walks me out to a small balcony at the far end of the living room.

He drops down into a big plastic chair and pats the seat between his legs. “Come here.”

I sit in the empty space, and he pulls me back against his chest.

“Thanks for coming. I haven’t seen Sofia that happy in a long time.” His breath tickles my bare neck, and I have to fight to stay focused. “She really likes you.”

I snuggle against him. “I like her, too.”

A question lingers in my mind, but I’m not sure how to ask him without making a fool of myself.

Stop overthinking it.

I take a deep breath. “You said you’ve never brought a girl home before … so why me?”

In a fluid movement, Marco hooks his arms under my leg and flips me around so I’m facing him and my legs are hanging over the sides. The position is intimate—the way our bodies are pressed together and I feel parts of him against me that make my whole body buzz, the way his hand rests on my hip and our faces are so close that I have to lean back a little to keep from seeing double.

Marco’s other hand moves to my neck, and his fingers drift across my skin, teasing. “When I saw you in the parking lot on your first day at Monroe, I couldn’t stop staring because you were so damn gorgeous. I figured you were just another rich girl from the Heights. When you jumped into the fight on the quad, I knew you were different. Then you showed up at the races to help your friend. Most girls wouldn’t do that, Frankie. Most guys wouldn’t.”

It feels like he’s talking about someone else.

He frowns. “When I saw Sung with his hands on you, and I thought about what could have happened if Deacon and I weren’t there … that’s when I knew I felt something. And I couldn’t make it go away.”

“Did you want to make it go away?”

His lips brush mine. “Yes and no. I wanted you, but it seemed like I always said the wrong thing. And I didn’t want to fall for anyone.”

My breath hitches. “Is that what’s happening?”

He tugs on the knot in my hair, and it spills over my shoulders. “It already happened.”

“We’re not as different as you think, Marco.” He tightens his hold on me when I say his name. “We both have things in our pasts that we would rather forget, and we’ve both made mistakes. We look at the same stars and see the same sky.”

“I wish that was true. But the stars don’t look the same in the Downs. It’s tough to see past the projects to notice the sky.”

I take his face in my hands. “You just have to look harder.”

CHAPTER 25

CRIMINAL INTENT

I’ve been in my bedroom since I got back from Marco’s, replaying every detail of the night—especially the part that involved his hands and lips touching me. The apartment door slams. Cujo raises his head, mildly interested.

Dad walks into my room without knocking, his jaw clenched and nostrils flaring.

Something is wrong.

He tosses a stack of papers on the bed next to me. Not papers. Photographs.

Glossy black-and-white images of Marco and Deacon—in the parking lot at the rec center, on the steps of an apartment building in the Downs, behind the wheels of their cars on V Street. I fan out the photos.… There must be at least twenty.

One catches my eye. A picture of me folded in Marco’s arms behind the rec center from the day I had the flashback.

“Are you spying on me?” I stand, holding the photo between us.

“Cops aren’t allowed to use department resources to spy on their daughters.”

“Then how do you explain these?” I gesture at the pile.

“They’re surveillance photos from an ongoing investigation. Tyson pulled out the ones you’re in before anyone else saw them.”

An investigation that involves the boy I’m falling for.

A boy Dad won’t want me to see, now that he knows Marco races. I know it’s illegal, but there are worse things.

“When did RATTF start investigating street racers?” Does he know I was racing?

He gives me a strange look. “When they started stealing cars.”

“What?” The world around me stops.

Dad snatches the picture out of my hand. “He’s a car thief. Do you want to explain what the hell you’re doing with him?”

It’s a mistake.

“Marco doesn’t steal cars.”

“A month ago high-end cars started disappearing—the kind you can’t resell on the street. Somebody was brokering stolen cars and selling them overseas. So Tyson and I started watching all the major crews to figure out who was actually stealing the cars. We weren’t looking for a high school kid and a dropout. Not until a witness remembered seeing a kid with scars on his neck hanging around before one of the cars disappeared.”

“That doesn’t mean Marco had anything to do with it.”

He holds up the photo in his hand. “Are you involved with this boy, Frankie?” Dad eyes flicker to the image of Marco holding me, and his jaw twitches. “Is he your boyfriend? I hope you don’t hang all over your friends like this.”