“Why not?”

“Because she’ll call the principal and we’ll have to have a meeting and it’ll just make everything . . .”

“Worse.” I nod my head, totally getting it.

“Yeah.”

I lean forward, bracing my elbows on my knees. “I won’t tell your aunt—but you’re gonna start talking to me. Right now.”

“His name is Jeremy Sheridan. He hates me.”

“Is he an athlete?” I guess. “Gives you a hard time to show his friends how awesome he is?”

“No—he’s in all my advanced placement classes. The National Honor Society too. He doesn’t play sports.”

A nerd bully? That’s new.

Times have changed since I was in school.

“But my GPA is higher than his. I always score better than him on tests—so he hates me,” Raymond explains, his voice melancholy.

“When did this start?”

He thinks back. “January. It was little things at first—him messing with my locker, knocking my books out of my hands, tripping me. But lately things have . . . escalated.”

I nod slowly, anger sizzling like a long fuse. “And how do you react when Jeremy pulls this crap?”

He shrugs, embarrassed. “I just try to stay out of his way. I’m thinking of throwing my grades. I didn’t want to resort to that, but maybe he’ll leave me alone if he can be number one in class.”

It’s then that I notice Rory, still on the lawn, bending down every now and then, a plastic bag in his hand.

I cup my hands around my mouth. “What are you doing?”

“Collecting It’s shit,” he yells back.

“Why?”

“So I can put it in a bag and set it on fire in Jeremy Sheridan’s locker.”

Well . . . that’s one way to deal with it.

“Your heart’s in the right place, but I don’t think that’s a smart idea.” I wave him back. “C’mere.”

I have another strategy in mind.

I look Raymond over appraisingly. “You’re thin . . . weak.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I know.”

“But . . . if you can be fast, if you know the vulnerable spots to hit . . . that won’t matter.”

“You want me to hit Jeremy?”

“The next time he comes at you? I want you to break his fucking nose. I guarantee he won’t come at you again after that.”

Raymond stares at the ground, thinking it over. “My dad used to say violence is never the answer.”

“It isn’t. But defending yourself isn’t violence—there’s a difference. Your dad would want you to defend yourself, Raymond.”

He seems to agree with that rationale. “But . . . I don’t know how to punch.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “I do.”

• • •

After Chelsea gets home, I take the boys to my gym. We spend the next two hours hitting the bag—Rory using only the fist that’s not encased in a cast. I show Raymond how to aim, how to put his weight behind a punch, how to land one without breaking his thumb. As we walk out and climb into my car, he’s looking decidedly more chipper than when he came home from school.

And then my phone rings.

It’s the monitoring company.

“Fucking Milton,” I spit under my breath. “Where is he?” I bark into the phone.

They give me the address and I hang a U-turn. “Hold on, boys, we have to make a quick detour.”

Fifteen minutes later, I pull up in front of a mansion. Not a big house that can be called a mansion—an actual fucking mansion. Groups of twentysomethings and people even younger are gathered in clusters around the lawn, holding red Solo cups and smoking cigarettes. Cars are parked haphazardly along the long driveway, and music pounds out from the lighted windows. Rory and Raymond are behind me as we walk in the front door.

“Stay close to me, guys.”

Their eyes go wide with wonder as we pass rooms with half-naked women—girls—walking around, amid screams of laughter. Their necks arch and turn at the sight of guys in baseball caps and expensive jeans snorting white powder from glass tabletops. In the hallway, a pretty blonde wearing nothing but Daisy Dukes and a bra stares at Rory.

She reaches out her hand. “You’re sooo cute.”

But I grab her wrist before she lays a finger on him.

“Milton Bradley?” I ask in a low voice.

“He’s in the card room—in the back.”

I drop her hand and stalk toward the back room. And I make sure the boys are with me. We enter the card room, and through a fog of smoke I spot the dipshit himself—seated at a round card table, blond hair falling over his forehead, a tall glass of beer and a stack of black chips in front of him.

His eyes meet mine. “Oh, shit.”

He jumps to his feet, ready to bolt out the French doors behind him.

“Don’t even think about it,” I say, warning him. “If you run it’ll just piss me off more—and it’ll be that much worse for you when I catch you. And believe me when I say I will fucking catch you.”

Rory tries to be helpful. “For an old guy, he’s pretty fast, dude.”

Milton’s shoulders droop.

“Party’s over.” I crook my finger at him. “Let’s go.”

Rory and Raymond buckle in in the backseat and Asshole sits in the front beside me. As soon as we hit the road he starts in: “I can explain.”