Immoral Code by Lillian Clark

Author:Lillian Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2019-02-19T05:00:00+00:00

BELLAMY

Slow Fuses Still Burn

Reese was bouncing. Literally, not figuratively. Bobbing up and down on her toes where we stood on the sidewalk in front of our hotel.

“Okay.” San clapped his hands, like a coach bringing his team to attention. I smiled at him. He smiled back. “What’s the plan?”

“Dinner!” cheered Nari.

“And drinks!” Reese added, and pulled five fake IDs from her pocket. “See, see, see?” she said, continuing to bounce as she passed them out to us. “Aren’t they great?”

They were. Mine had a picture of me, my first name with a different last, and my birth date with only the year changed to make me twenty-one. She’d done the same with the others’, only varying birth years a bit. San’s said he was twenty-three; Keagan and Reese, twenty-two; and Nari, twenty-one like me. “Because you two look the youngest,” Reese explained.

“I still don’t look twenty-one.” I don’t wear makeup and my regular attire of jeans and a T-shirt didn’t tend to age me up much.

“That’s okay,” San said. “You don’t have to use it if you don’t want. Or if you do, I’m sure you’ll blend in with the group.”

I nodded and decided not to worry about it. The IDs did look really good. Reese had been thorough, even including our signatures in different handwriting styles and missing only the holograms some licenses had.

The story was that we were college students from Wyoming—because, according to Reese, “Who the hell’s from Wyoming and knows what their driver’s licenses look like?”—in the city for spring break.

“So,” Keagan began, still examining his ID, and I tensed. He’d been quiet all day, and my first thought was that the fake IDs crossed his line. My second was annoyance. But less with whatever objection I assumed he’d voice and more because he was a walking reminder of all the things I’d spent the last days and weeks choosing to ignore. But he only tucked his ID into his wallet and asked, “Where to?”

We wandered toward Union Square, following Nari and Reese as they looked up places to go on Nari’s phone. Keagan walked behind them, with Santiago and me at the back. Navigating the other foot traffic, San moved closer to me. I reached for his hand and interlinked his fingers with mine. He squeezed. Then Reese pointed her finger toward the sky, announced that she’d picked a place, and we let go.

The place was a bar and grill, moderately busy at seven-thirty on a Wednesday night. “Decent reviews, a full bar, and two dollar signs,” Reese said. “Sound good?” We nodded, and Keagan held open the door for the rest of us to file through.

The hostess sat us in a booth in the back corner. The waiter didn’t blink at our IDs as we ordered a round of drinks. “Brava, Reese,” Nari said once he was out of earshot.

Ten minutes later, drinks in hand and orders placed, we sat listening to the general din of the restaurant. Our silence was awkward. Silence had never been awkward between us before.

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