Go Your Own Way by Zane Riley Page A

talking to him anymore? Or trying to kiss him or flirt with him? It was weird, and Will didn’t like it. Lennox had constantly been after him and now… now he was indifferent. It was as if he’d gotten what he’d wanted and had no use for Will anymore.
    It shouldn’t bother him. He should be glad that Lennox was finally leaving him alone. That was what he’d been wanting since they’d met. And yet…
    “You look like you’re ready to slap someone,” Karen said when he entered the kitchen through the garage.
    Will flung his backpack onto the table. “I don’t want to talk about him .”
    Karen poured a cup of grape juice and passed it over the counter. “You sure? Sometimes talking helps.”
    Will gulped down half his juice and took a deep breath. He did want to talk about Lennox, but he also wanted to ignore everything about him. The same way Lennox was suddenly ignor­ing him. It shouldn’t annoy him. He should be thrilled.
    “Boys are stupid,” Will said out loud.
    Karen laughed and sat down at the table with a sandwich. Her hair was messier than usual and her scrubs looked wrinkled. She had brown hair and smile lines around her brown eyes. That was one of the first ways he’d described Karen to his friends when his dad and she had started dating. Brown. Very brown. Her car had been brown. Most of her pants and shorts were brown. Her shoes were brown. The apartment she’d lived in had been exceptionally brown, too.
    “Like, really stupid,” Will continued. “With their stupid hair and stupid smiles and stupid, beautiful eyes and lips. Why can’t I just like girls so I don’t have to deal with people with pretty smiles?”
    “Are you saying I don’t have a pretty smile?” Karen said. She laughed again as Will flopped down beside her. “I’m kidding.” She took a bite of her sandwich and looked him over, then moved his scarf to eye his neck. “Ben wasn’t lying about that hickey. Looks like a good time.”
    Will huffed. “And space doesn’t look deadly. Doesn’t mean I’m going to take a trip to the moon.”
    “What’s his name?”
    Will growled in the back of his throat. “Lennox. Lennox I’m-a-jackass McAvoy.”
    “Well, I hope he’s got a smart mouth, too, or he doesn’t stand a chance.”
    “Of course he does. He spent half the day calling me ‘baby.’ Nobody else in that school can be bothered with bantering, but oh, no. Lennox can,” Will muttered as he took another sip of juice. “I’m going to run him over with my truck and make it look like an accident.”
    Karen only smiled and ate another bite of her sandwich. Will watched a thick slice of tomato slip out and retreat to the safety of her plate. “You like him?”
    Will took another sip of juice. “No. Yes. I don’t know. He’s just—and his lips were—I’ve got a bruise on my butt from that chalkboard tray and I hate him.”
    “A bruise on your—I don’t remember chalkboards being involved in kissing,” Karen said. She looked him over again, and Will flushed a little.
    Nobody knew what had happened except Lennox and him. He preferred it that way. The less his classmates heard, the less they would gossip. But Karen was okay. The only people she could tell were her coworkers at the hospital.
    “It’s okay to like how he makes you feel, honey. To like him in that way, even if not in others. You can’t really control that.”
    “I just wish he wasn’t… well, how he is. If that makes sense.” Will shrugged and finished his juice. “He’s only trouble. I’m not kissing him again.”
    Karen nodded as if she didn’t believe him. “Well, just be safe, whatever happens. And you can always call me if you need any­thing, okay?”
    “I know.”
    He appreciated it, too, despite how strange it sometimes was to have her and his dad to go to. Will trusted his dad and Karen with a lot, unlike most of his friends, who trusted their parents with very little.
    Only last year, he’d called Karen at two in the