Page 75 of Paranoid

“Dylan’s been fine; if it bothers him that he’s in trouble at school, he doesn’t show it and won’t talk about it. Harper says you blew things all out of proportion, that she was just kissing Xander and that she’s . . . Let me get this straight.” He thought for a second. “Oh, I remember. Same old line I said way back when. Harper claimed that she was almost eighteen and when she turned eighteen she could do whatever she wanted.”

“Like eighteen changes everything. The magic now-I’m-an-adult card.” She smiled. “She’ll find out. But I can’t push back too hard against this boy because it’ll just drive her further into his arms. Ugh.”

“She wants to go to a concert with him in Portland next weekend. Saturday night.”

Rachel let out a sigh. “No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s two hours away, for starters.”

“She’s gone before.”

“But we’ve known the kids, the parents.”

“Lila vouches for him.”

“Since when do you trust Lila’s judgment?”

“Okay, point taken. But Harper’s seventeen. She’ll be eighteen in October.”

“Which she so often reminds us.”

“Off to college.”

“Not until next year,” Rachel said, then skewered him with a glare. “You’re promoting this? I can’t believe it.”

“He might not be so bad. I figure you’ve probably already checked him out online, looked into his social media accounts.”

She ducked that one. “It’s not about bad or good, Cade, you know that. We’ve been over it before. I just don’t want her to make a mistake she can’t unmake.”

“Like you.”

“It was different! I wanted to marry you. I wanted your baby! It just came in the wrong order.”

“Is that so bad?”

She folded her arms and stared at him. “I want my daughter to have more options and it’s not like she’s in love with Xander Vale; they’re just in lust. Hot for each other.” She crossed her arms under her breasts in anger, unaware that she was lifting them. “I just hope they think before they act.”

“Harper’s not an idiot.”

“Neither was I. Except when it came . . . when it came to you.”

He let out a derisive laugh. “Me too. You know, she’s texting all the time and when I ask her about it, she’s always texting ‘a friend’ or she’ll c

op to communicating with Lucas, but I’m pretty sure it’s Vale.”

“When has she ever texted Lucas?”

“They were pretty tight as kids,” he reminded her. Back in the days when he and Rachel were still married and Lila and Rachel had been close. Since the divorce, things had changed for all of them.

“And now she’s got a renewed relationship with him.”

“Looks like.”

“Because of Xander Vale.”

“Probably. You remember how it was. When we were in ‘lust’ and hot for each other.”