Ex-Mas Read online

  "It's like the purpose of his entire existence," Lila deadpanned. But she felt a little prickle of unease move through her, a sudden urge to defend Cooper to Yoon. She slapped it away like some annoying insect. Cooper deserved whatever he got.

  "Huh." Yoon blew out a breath. "You know, maybe this doesn't have to be a total disaster."

  "What, do you have a time machine?" Lila laughed at the

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  idea. Would she go beam back to right before Cooper decided to tattle? Or to right before she told him to leave her alone, provoking him to retaliate? Or maybe she would go back to this afternoon, when she'd still thought Erik would be in town by now and she'd known that her party was going to kick ass. It felt like a million years ago already.

  Or maybe she could go all the way back to before Cooper was born. When her parents didn't lavish all of their love and attention on him, leaving Lila with only lectures and threats.

  "Well, not exactly a time machine," Yoon said, the faintest note of calculation in her voice. "But how about a change of venue?"

  "What do you mean?" Lila asked, an uneasy feeling spreading through her. She had a feeling she knew the answer to that question.

  "I mean, would you mind if I threw a party tonight, instead?" Yoon asked sweetly. So sweetly that Lila immediately wondered if that was why Yoon hadn't answered when Lila first called. She'd probably cooked this up with her usual partner in crime, Rebecca, before calling Lila back.

  "Well--" Lila began.

  "Rebecca and I were so bummed that the biggest party of the year was just canceled, you know?" Yoon continued hurriedly, confirming her suspicions. "And then it occurred to us that my parents are out of town like always, and why should all your

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  awesome planning go to waste just because your little brother can't keep his mouth shut? It can still totally be your party, Lila, but just at my house instead of yours." She paused. "I mean, if you're okay with it. I'll understand if you want to bail on the whole thing at this point."

  Lila sighed. It wasn't like she could force Yoon not to have a party--especially when she was confined to house arrest until her parents returned on Sunday.

  "Go ahead," she said into the phone, glad her friend couldn't see the face she was making right now. She looked at her reflection in the window, wrinkling up her forehead and sticking out her tongue like a gargoyle. "Someone should profit from my awesome party-planning skills." She let out a little laugh.

  Yoon's return trill of laughter was equally fake. "Awesome!" she squealed. "And don't worry if you can't come--I'll post all the pictures on Facebook!"

  Lila hung up the phone and lay there for a moment, stretched out on the daybed, feeling sorry for herself. She glanced at the watch that wasn't bringing Erik closer after all, and heaved a sigh. It was almost three thirty--time to pick Cooper up. Her reprieve was over.

  But she couldn't bring herself to move just yet. Right now she was supposed to be slipping into her cute little Betsey Johnson dress, royal blue, tight in all the right places. She was supposed to be meeting Erik at the door, where he'd cover her with kisses.

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  She was supposed to be greeting her friends and classmates, being toasted and complimented, being lauded as the pretty, perfect, popular girl she'd worked so hard to be.

  Instead, Yoon was throwing the party of the year, while Lila was forced to spend the weekend with her baby brother, fielding angry phone calls from her parents every five minutes.

  Merry Christmas to me. Cooper, naturally, did not come running outside when Lila honked the horn, as she had specifically ordered him to do when she'd dropped him off.

  Of course not. Why should he do anything to make Lila's life easier?

  Lila muttered angrily to herself as she parked her mother's car in the street and climbed out into the chilly afternoon air. The sun was already starting to head for the horizon, even though it was barely three thirty, and it was cold. Well, California cold. Lila's father had grown up in Michigan, and he liked to talk about real cold whenever someone complained about the mild L.A. winters.

  Lila was a native Californian, meaning anything below seventy degrees was shiver-worthy. She tightened her bright pink scarf around her neck as she walked up Beau's driveway. Even the hot anger at Cooper pulsing through her veins didn't warm her up.

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  She reached the Hodgeses' front door and took a deep breath before knocking. No one answered. She knocked again, with more force.

  "Why am I not surprised?" she asked the late-afternoon sun. It wasn't shocking that the doorbell's chime was being neglected. The truth was that the Hodges family had kind of been in disarray ever since Mr. and Mrs. Hodges had divorced a few years back. Lila could remember how withdrawn and moody Beau had become as things got worse between his parents. And how he'd become even colder and weirder after the divorce.

  Lila reached out and tried the door. It fell open. For a moment, she wondered if Cooper and Tyler might be setting her up with some elaborate revenge scenario. Cooper might be a naive little brat who still believed in Santa Claus, but he was also pretty clever. Just last summer he'd rigged up a pulley system outside her bedroom door that had hurled a mesh bag filled with little rubber insects at her face when she'd staggered out one Sunday morning.

  Lila eased inside the house and closed the door behind her. No rubber bugs. No sign of anything or anybody else, either. She cocked her head to the side to listen. She expected to hear the usual sounds of Cooper and Tyler playing--high-pitched whoops and cries as they played Wii in the den or small explosions as they concocted bizarre potions in Tyler's science lab of a bedroom. But all was silent.

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  "Cooper?" She called out, and then waited. "Cooper!" Silence.

  Lila stood for a moment at the base of the stairs, but she couldn't hear anything from the rooms above, and she knew it was highly unlikely that two eight-year-old boys were quietly reading. They were like wild animals, always moving around and getting into things, like, for instance, Lila's closet. The den was empty of everything save for the flashing screen saver on the family computer. It was a picture of Beau and Tyler, happy and carefree on a beach somewhere. She averted her eyes from Beau's shirtless, surprisingly buff form, like it was something she wasn't supposed to see.

  Lila had just wandered into the kitchen when she heard the sounds of muffled music. It seemed to waft up from the floorboards below her feet.

  She crossed the kitchen in a few quick steps and wrenched open the door to the basement. She catapulted down the rickety steps, the sound of electric guitar humming directly into her nerves. Into her last nerve, to be precise. She made it to the bottom of the steps and turned the corner.

  Beau was standing with his back to her in the sparsely furnished basement, headphones clamped to his ears, the electric guitar wailing. Everything about him made her stomach twist with rage and regret. Rage that he dressed like a homeless person, deliberately. Regret that when she'd been with him, she had

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  too, and she hadn't known any better. She hated his black jeans. His torn T-shirt. The smooth muscles of his biceps that he by no means deserved. A hot body was wasted on Beau Hodges, since he chose to dress like someone who ought to be pasty and soft and gross. He cradled that guitar of his like it was a newborn.

  "Turn that down!" she yelled repeatedly. Finally he turned and saw her standing there. His blue eyes looked resigned and mocking. They always did when he looked at her.

  "What do you want, Lila?" he asked as he pulled the headphones off and let them hang around his neck. His voice was gruff, and he made no attempt to hide the fact that her presence was about as welcome as a swarm of hornets. He put his guitar down in its stand and then ran his hands through his shaggy, black hair. Lila's own hands itched with the need to cut his raggedy mane. He looked like a recalcitrant sheep.

  "What do you think I want?" Lila snapped at him. She jabbed a finger up toward the rest of the house. "I can't find my br
other."

  "What do you mean, you can't find him?" Beau sounded half amused and half bored. "Are they playing hide-and-seek? Tyler always hides in the attic."

  "I mean," she said, overenunciating each word, "that he isn't here. And neither is Tyler, for that matter."

  "They were playing video games fifteen minutes ago," Beau said with a not my problem shrug. The classic Beau Hodges response to anything and everything.

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  "Well, they aren't playing video games now," Lila replied. She eyed his surroundings: a makeshift practice room complete with a bass, a keyboard, and a few amps strewn about. A vintage poster of the Dead Kennedys was taped to the basement wall. She focused her attention back on Beau and crossed her arms. "Are you sure it was only fifteen minutes since you saw them? You don't really keep track of time when you're playing guitar, do you?" Her voice oozed with sarcasm, to drive home how little she thought of his playing guitar.

  Beau looked at her like he wanted to kill her. With his hands. His eyes narrowed and his mouth flattened. "Fine," he said, in a remarkably calm tone. "Let's go find them."

  He brushed past her and headed up the rickety basement stairs, taking them two at a time.

  They searched every room in the house, including the attic, calling out each boy's name and looking everywhere--under beds and in closets and even in Beau's bedroom, where Lila hadn't been in years and was sure she didn't want to be now. It looked exactly the same. It even smelled the same--like Dial soap and sweat, which should have been grosser than it really was. Lila could swear she saw a ghost of her old self in the corner, dancing like the freak she'd been to one of Beau's silly tunes. She shook it off. There was nothing of her here. Not anymore.

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  "They're gone," Beau finally muttered, after they searched the pantry and in the crawl space behind the washing machine in the laundry room.

  Lila closed her eyes. It was as if all the events of the day were whirling around in a ball inside of her, tangled and jagged, and now Cooper was missing, and she wanted to hurl the whole messy thing at Beau's head. "This is all your fault!" she cried.

  "My fault?" His blue eyes met hers. "How exactly is this my fault? Please, do tell," he asked quizzically.

  "You left them all alone! They're eight years old and now they're gone!"

  Lila words sounded familiar as they ricocheted around Beau's front hallway. They were exactly what she imagined her mother would say if she was standing there--except her mother would direct the words at Lila, not Beau. So now she was channeling her mother, too. Fantastic.

  "You need to calm down." There was an angry light in his eyes, and she could see that he was fighting to maintain his cool.

  "Oh, sure," she bit out, amped up for a fight. She could use one right about now. "I'll just chill out while my little brother is God knows where when I'm supposed to be taking care of him for the weekend. I'll be sure to explain that you suggested that to my parents--"

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  "Stop" Beau held up a hand. "I'm sure it makes you feel better to yell at me, but it's not helping anything. My mom's out of town too, so I'm in the same boat, here. We need to think clearly, not freak out."

  Lila blinked, taken aback. "Since when did you become Mr. Maturity?" she asked. The Beau she knew was an obnoxious holier-than-thou jerk who could argue until he was blue in the face, just because he couldn't bear to be wrong about anything. That Beau had never once, in all the time she'd known him, backed down from even the slightest, most inconsequential challenge.

  "Since I had no other freaking choice," he muttered, and then turned and headed toward the den. Confused, Lila trailed after him.

  She stood in the doorway as Beau glanced around the room, like he was trying to piece together their brothers' last moments in the house. He crossed the den in a few quick strides and stood over the computer desk. He tapped the space bar, and the hulking desktop computer came to life. On the screen, Google Maps loomed large.

  Lila drifted over, and stared over Beau's shoulder. A Google Maps journey was plotted out, with the blue line stretching all the way from Los Angeles up the edge of the United States, into Canada, and then even higher.

  "What the hell?" Beau sounded baffled.

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  Lila's eyes flicked to the end of the long blue line. Destination: the North Pole.

  She stared. The earth science article she'd handed Cooper flashed before her eyes. Who Will Save Santa?

  Oh, crap.

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  Chapter 5

  *** HODGES HOUSE

  LOS ANGELES

  DECEMBER 22

  3:42 P.M.

  ***

  "Oh my God," Lila said in amazement, shaking her head as if the motion would help the ridiculousness of this situation sink in. "Cooper and Tyler are going to save Santa!"

  "They're what?" Beau asked, shifting away from her. They'd been standing close together to look at the computer, their hips nearly touching. Lining the desk were framed snapshots of Beau and Tyler over the last couple of years. One, from when they were younger, had clearly been cropped to cut their dad out of the picture.

  Lila took a step back from Shaggy Doo, and told him all about Cooper ratting her out and her subtle retaliation.

  When she was finished, Beau just stood there, looking at her.

  "What?" she demanded, bristling.

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  "Really?" He shook his head. "You decided that the appropriate response to an eight-year-old tattling on you was to threaten to kill Santa Claus?"

  "It's not my fault he's a moron. Did you believe in Santa Claus when you were eight?" Lila scoffed.

  "I didn't, no," Beau said quietly. Something about the look in his eyes made a spiral of shame curl through her gut. "But I wanted to. Didn't you?"

  "Spare me the lecture, please," Lila snapped, shoving away the sudden pang of guilt. "I don't expect you to understand. I'm sure you think all parties should be canceled because you hate people. And fun."

  "This isn't about your party," Beau retorted, his voice taking on that familiar critical edge that Lila remembered. "Although I'm sure having the entire lacrosse team puke their guts out in your mother's rosebushes would be like nirvana for you." He rolled his eyes. "This is about the fact that you think it's okay to treat your brother like that. He's just a kid."

  "He's a pain in the ass," Lila said dismissively. She raised her eyebrows at him, in challenge. "And right now he's missing, so--"

  "Yeah, as a direct result of what you did," Beau interrupted with a short laugh. "Nice job, Lila. Maybe next time he does something you don't like you can cut all the crap and just tell him you took Santa out yourself with an AK-47. Or maybe you

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  can just kick a few puppies. Better yet: Tell him what really happens to stray dogs at the pound."

  "How is this my fault when you're the one who lost them?" Lila asked, her voice razor sharp. She reached into the pocket of her faded Lucky jeans for her cell phone. "As delightful as it is debating with you, I think maybe we should just find our brothers, don't you?"

  But her cell phone wasn't in her pocket. She frowned, trying to remember the last time she'd seen it. She hadn't used it earlier--she'd made calls on the house phone. In fact, the last time she remembered seeing her cell, she'd been dropping Cooper off. The phone had buzzed to indicate she'd had a text, and she'd ignored it, because she just wanted to get Cooper out of her face for a while.

  She knew it wasn't in the car. She could visualize the little black plastic bucket between the front seats, and it was empty. A new thought hit her then.

  "I think Cooper took my phone," she said, letting her empty hands drop against her thighs. She groaned. "God! What is the matter with him?"

  "For one thing, he thinks he has to save Santa Claus," Beau said dryly.

  "I have an idea," Lila snapped. "How about you do something useful and call my cell phone to see if he answers?"

  "I'm not the one who traumatized the poor kid, and my


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  brother, too, no doubt, with a scary article on global warming," Beau said, but he pulled out his iPhone. It wasn't until he punched in her name and made the call that it occurred to her to wonder why he still had her number saved.

  On the very rare occasions Lila had to call Beau to schedule some Cooper-related activity, she had to look the number up in her mother's paper address book. She'd removed Beau's name and number from her own cell years ago. Deliberately. Like she needed Mr. Doom and Gloom on speed dial when she had a new life filled with fun, happy people who threw parties and enjoyed themselves.

  "It's ringing," Beau said. He eyed her. "Thank God you don't have one of those phones that plays a song selection instead of a ring. I don't think I could handle Jessica Simpson right now."

  "Ha-ha," Lila deadpanned, suddenly glad that Cooper had her phone, so Beau couldn't hear that her ringtone was the latest Justin Timberlake song. Not that she cared what he thought, but she couldn't handle a lecture about what constituted good music according to Beau right now.

  "No answer," Beau said, punching the off button. He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked an eyebrow at her. "What now?"

  She loved how he did that--threw the ball squarely in her court. Like it was up to her to figure it out because he couldn't watch two kids for a couple of hours. Not that this surprised

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  Lila in the least. She'd always had to initiate everything during their relationship. She'd even instigated their first kiss!

  Not that this was the time to be thinking about that.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?" Beau asked, puzzled.

  "Like what?" It was like when faced with this much exposure to Beau, she reverted to the last time they'd had this much sustained interaction: freshman year. When all she'd wanted to do was scream at him until he changed his depressing downward trajectory.

  "Like you want to yell at me."

  "I don't want to yell at you," Lila lied. She rubbed at her temples, fighting off an impending Cooper and Beau-related headache. "I don't care about you enough to yell at you. I just want to find my brother and go home and read about the party I'm supposed to be having via other people's Tweets okay?"