In Your Dreams (In Your Dreams #1)

Chapter 18

Sitting back in the booth, I shake my head at him, my mouth open in amazement. "Kieran Lanier, you are so my hero right now. I was totally about to pee myself and you were, like, Zen Master of the Universe or something."

"Not really. I almost lost it a few times there. And you were pretty smooth yourself."

I lean forward so I can whisper to him. "And our new friend 'Danny' isn't from anywhere near Wrigley Field. If he tried to blend in, he'd get run out of the park for being a Mets or a Yankees fan as soon as he opened his mouth."

"Which means what, exactly?"

"It means you need to start watching more sports." I roll my eyes. "And it means Danny Boy's definitely from New York."

"Knowledge that doesn't get us closer to finding out what he's doing here, does it?" Kieran's face falls, and a horrible thought occurs to me as I glance toward the kitchen. As if I've willed it to happen, Frank backs through the door and walks over to our table with a steaming plate of cheese fries he barely sets down before he rushes behind the counter, apparently not in the mood to be Mr. Friendly anymore.

"What if we tipped him off that we know who he is?" I whisper. "Something in his face...he knows I know he was lying about being from Chicago."

"Doesn't necessarily mean he'll think we know who he is. It just means we can tell he doesn't know anything about Chicago. I don't know much about Chicago, either, obviously, so that wouldn't be too unusual for someone who wasn't from around here."

I'm about to open my mouth and say something that ends up lost to history, because Frank/Danny reemerges from the kitchen, sliding behind Dewayne at the cash register before heading to the far end of the restaurant. And in the instant he scoots behind Dewayne, I think I catch him giving me A Look.

Frank shoots me what on his face would be considered a glare, his eyes narrowing until they're almost shut, his lips curled up into the kind of sneer I've seen guys at school get when they're itching to fight in the parking lot after a football game. The Look passes so quickly my eyes can't be sure they've seen what they've seen, but my heart beating in my throat confirms I probably have. I swallow my heart back down into my chest and don't tell Kieran, partially because I don't want to scare him with something I'm not one-hundred percent sure I've seen and partially because when I turn to him, I find he's pushed the plate of cheese fries over next to my soda and has his head down on his algebra book. He snoozes while I munch on fries and drink soda, staring out the plate glass at a couple window shopping in front of my mom's store. Behind the counter, Dewayne loses his footing slightly and drops a stack of plastic cups, their clatter against the tile near enough to us to wake Kieran up.

"Sorry, guys," Dewayne apologizes when he stands.

"No problem," Kieran says, just as Frank passes the table. "Need some help there, boss?" he offers, stopping next to Kieran, but Dewayne waves him off with a "Nah. I got it," and Frank heads back to the kitchen without once again making eye contact with me.

"Okay-now that we know he's here, we need to figure out what we're going to do," I say, keeping my voice down.

"You think we should tell my not-parents?"

"You have any other ideas?" I ask, ignoring his insistence on no longer claiming Jim and Carlie.

Kieran twists around to look at the kitchen doors, whipping back towards me when Frank steps out to fill a soda cup. Once Frank is at the other end of the restaurant again and out of earshot, Kieran gives his response: "No."

"No, what?" I blurt out, confused. "No, you don't have any other ideas or no, we shouldn't tell your parents?

Kieran sits back in the booth against the cracked orange Formica. "They'll just move us away somewhere. If we tell them, they won't think Titusville's safe anymore and we'll run." He shifts his eyes from me to watch a car passing by on River Avenue. "We left New York to start over after my adoption. We left Asheville because they were afraid Morgan had figured out where we were. If my not-parents find out anything at all, I'm gone."