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The music thumps loudly, and Grace can feel it thrumming in her chest and shaking the floor. Someone handed her a red plastic cup filled with a noxious-smelling liquid (like nail polish remover mixed with artificial strawberry flavoring) almost as soon as she walked through the door but she hasn’t even risked taking a sip due to the aforementioned odor. Plus, somehow, Danno will know and his disappointment will be worse than the inevitable hangover.
It was Bobby’s idea to come here after the dance; she’d wanted to go midnight bowling with her friends, but he’d rolled his eyes at the suggestion and called her a baby, and since he was a senior and she was a sophomore and it was amazing that he’d even asked her to homecoming in the first place, she’d agreed. Now, though, she wishes she’d let him think she was too young and not cool enough, because her feet hurt and she’s too warm and she doesn’t really know anyone here except Bobby but she lost track of him in the crush of drunk teenagers almost as soon as they arrived. He’s her only way of getting home, except he won’t want to leave now (assuming she can even find him) and they’ve been here long enough he probably isn’t sober anyway.
She abandons her red cup on a hall table and slips outside, fishing her phone out of her purse as she goes. On the one hand, having four parents gives her a lot of choice here. On the other hand, it’s a total minefield of family politics without a huge margin of error.
Danno is out immediately. He’ll come get her, and he won’t give her too much grief about it once he’s certain that she’s not drunk or hurt and she didn’t do anything she’ll regret, but he’ll also call in HPD to bust up the party because he’s a cop and that’s what cops do, and Grace doesn’t want to be the dumb sophomore whose dad killed the after-party.
Stan is usually her go-to parent when she doesn’t want to get in trouble, because he travels so much he can’t really follow through on the whole discipline thing. He’s a strong contender, except that Danno probably will be hurt if he finds out she called Stan first. (Both therapists she’s been sent to talk to in the wake of her parents’ divorce and their subsequent remarriages have told her it’s not her responsibility to mediate Danno and Stan’s relationship, but that’s a whole lot easier said than done, and she doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with being considerate with everyone’s feelings.)
Mom will totally freak out, end of story. She’ll see Grace’s name on her phone this late and she’ll be having a panic attack before she even picks up. Plus she and Charlie both have the flu, so Grace would feel horrible waking her up in the middle of the night.
Which leaves Steve. He’s only officially been her step-dad for ten months, even though it feels like way longer since he’s been pretty much a constant presence in Danno’s life (and hers, by default) for the last eight years. Either way, this would probably be the first dad thing she’s asked him to do. The likelihood of a panic attack is nonexistent, and he may actually still be awake. He doesn’t seem to sleep much.
Just in case, though, she texts him first. Are you awake?
Her phone rings not a minute later and she answers quickly. “Hey, Steve.”
“What’s wrong, kiddo?”
“Do you think maybe you could come pick me up?”
“I thought you were staying over at Kai’s tonight.”
“I know. Me too. But Bobby wanted to go to this party and I know it was stupid and I should’ve stuck to the plan but now I don’t know where he is and I don’t know anyone here and I just want to come home.”
“Hey,” Steve says gently, “It’s okay. I’ll be there soon. Can you text me the address?”
“Yeah.”
“All right. I’m getting in the car now, hang tight.”
Grace sits down on the porch steps; somebody spilled beer on her dress earlier, so it’s going to have to be dry-cleaned anyway. She pulls her shoes off and wiggles her toes, which doesn’t make everything better but it helps a lot more than she expected it to. Her shoes, unlike her dress and her pride, have made it through the night unscathed, which is lucky since she borrowed them from Kai.
She’s been waiting maybe ten minutes when the door swings open and someone steps out onto the porch. She glances over her shoulder. It’s Bobby, of course. He’s missing his jacket and his shirt came untucked and he’s rolled up his sleeves. He’s cute, but not as cute as he was five hours ago before she found out he’s also a jerk.
“What’re you doing out here?”
“Waiting for my ride. I have to be home by two.”
“Aw, you should’ve said, baby. I’ll take you home now.”
“Don’t worry about it. Like I said, my ride is coming.”
He sits down next to her, too close. He smells like beer and skunky smoke and sweat and she shudders when he drapes his arm across her shoulders and leans in to whisper in her ear.
“Come back inside. We can have some fun.” He tries to pull her in, and she leans away. “Hey, don’t be like that,” he says, pushing closer, his breath hot on her neck.
Steve’s blue truck rolls to a stop in front of the house, and Grace springs to her feet, scooping Kai’s shoes up as she goes. “Look, there’s my ride.”
“They can wait,” Bobby grabs her wrist. “We’re having a nice time, stay a couple more minutes.”
She hears Steve’s car door slam, and then he’s striding across the lawn, tall and intimidating and angry. Bobby takes one look at him and lets go of her arm like it’s on fire. He scrambles to his feet and darts back into the house before Steve gets any closer.
“Are you okay?” Steve asks.
“Yes.” Grace says firmly, and then ruins it by bursting into tears. Steve hesitates for all of two seconds (two seconds where he’s probably weighing the pros and cons of chasing after Bobby) before pulling her into a hug that’s sort of awkward but exactly what she needs.
“It’s okay,” he says, and it’s impossible not to believe him, because he’s almost always right. “It will be okay.”
She’s still sniffling a few minutes later when he opens the passenger door of the truck and holds her shoes and her bag while she climbs in. When he slides behind the wheel, he sits silently for a minute, a muscle working in his jaw like maybe he’s trying not to say something.
“Did he hurt you?” he asks, finally, and Grace shakes her head.
“No. He wasn’t very nice to me, but no.”
Steve nods, and starts the truck. It’s a quiet drive home, and when Steve parks next to Danno’s Camaro, the clock on the dashboard reads one fifty-three.
“I’m sorry for making you come get me.” Grace says.
“Gracie,” Steve looks serious, and she braces for him to tell her she needs to be more careful, make smarter decisions. “You are the most important thing to me and Danno. There is nothing we wouldn’t do for you. It doesn’t matter if you’re ten minutes down the road or across the country, or what time of day or night it is, you can always call us.”
There’s something about how he says it, so fiercely, that makes her feel like crying again. Steve and Danno have been a we for longer even than they’ve been a couple, but she didn’t really realize until just this moment that the we applies to her, that her spot on Steve’s priority list is the same as on Danno’s. She feels a little silly for not knowing it until now.
“How about ice cream?” Steve suggests.
“Ice cream sounds good.”
Danno is awake, of course. He’s in his pajamas, and his hair is all sleep-rumpled, but he’s clearly been awake since Steve left to get her, because he’s halfway through a cup of coffee. He’s already pulling the ice cream out of the freezer, and Grace suddenly sees the offer for the trap that it is. There will be a scoop of serious conversation alongside her mint chocolate chip.
He hugs her, and kisses the top of her head. “Go change; if you get hot fudge on your dress your mom will kill me.”
Grace decides not to mention that it already has beer on it. She’ll tell Mom about that, instead, since she’ll find out about the party anyway when Danno brings her back Sunday. From her bedroom, she can hear the murmur of their voices, but she can’t hear the actual words over the whir of the microwave. When she comes back, they’re hugging in the middle of the kitchen.
For someone who doesn’t hug often, Steve’s been doing a lot of it tonight.
Danno scoops the ice cream and Steve lays out all the toppings, and once they’re all around the table with heaping bowls and brain freezes, Grace can’t delay the inevitable any longer. “So...how much trouble am I in?”
“What do you think?” Danno asks, and starts counting on his fingers. “There’s the lying to the parents issue, plus the out after curfew issue, and the underage-drinking party issue.”
“Grounded?”
“So grounded. Two weeks, here and at Mom and Stan’s.”
“Two weeks? That’s it?”
“Are you complaining about your lack of punishment? I can go a month, you know, just say the word—”
“No!” Grace fights to keep a grin off her face. “Two weeks is bad enough.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Danno points his spoon at her. “Next time the plans change, you let us know first, huh?”
“I’m sorry, Danno.”
“I know. And no more boys who think they’re too cool for midnight bowling.”
“Believe me,” Grace sighs, “no more boys period.”
“Careful, Gracie,” Steve grins, “we might hold you to that.”
“Boys are stupid. I can wait until college.”
“If you’re waiting for them to be not stupid, you’re going to be waiting a lot longer than college, Monkey.” Danno laughs.
“Danno would know. I had to wait five years for him to wise up.”
“Hey, don’t mislead the kid, okay, babe? I was the one who waited, you were the one dragging your feet.”
“Maybe you were both being stupid,” Grace ventures, feigning innocence, “considering everybody thought you were together, like, two years sooner than you actually were.”
Both of them just look at her for a second, and then Danno snorts. “Told you everybody knew.”
Steve looks a little embarrassed, his cheeks turning pink. Grace didn’t used to get it, why the two of them didn’t see what was so freaking obvious to everybody else (even her, and she’d been eleven ), but she knows better now, knows that just because something is obvious doesn’t mean it’s easy.
“Not everybody,” Grace says, mostly since she feels bad for embarrassing Steve, because, yeah, pretty much everybody. Even Mom, who tended to be pretty oblivious to Danno’s love life (by choice, probably), had said “about bloody time” when Danno told her. “Stan was pretty surprised.”
“That’s because Step-Stan doesn’t—”
“Danno,” Steve warns, cutting off whatever comment Danno was about to make, and from the way Danno’s jaw goes tight Grace suspects there’s slightly more to the story than his general dislike of Stan.
Danno sighs, and eats a few more bites of his ice cream. “Either way, you might be waiting a while to find a boy who isn’t stupid.”
Grace shrugs. “I’ll survive.”
Danno wipes his forehead with exaggerated relief and Steve laughs. Grace rolls her eyes and gets up to put her empty bowl in the sink. Danno collects his and Steve’s and stacks them with hers. He puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into a hug, kissing the side of her head.
“Get some sleep,” he says. “We’ll talk to Mom tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Grace sighs, “I figured. G’night, Danno.”
“Night, Monkey. Sleep tight.”
He squeezes her again and then lets her go, and she crosses to Steve, putting the hot fudge and the whipped cream back in the fridge. He’s easier to hug like this, probably because he’s not expecting it.
“Thank you,” she says.
“Anytime, Gracie. You know that.”
She does now. She’ll never admit that she might’ve doubted it; she thinks it would probably break his heart. He kisses the top of her head. “Love you,” he says.
“Love you too, Dad.”
She’s nearly back in her room when she realizes what she said. It was an accident of sorts, but she doesn’t want to take it back. She can’t resist peeking into the kitchen, curious about the fallout. Danno is at the sink, washing out their bowls and handing them to Steve to dry. Both of them are smiling wide, like it isn’t nearly three in the morning and she didn’t spend the night breaking basically all the rules. She watches them for another minute or so, until Steve puts the bowls back in the cupboard and puts his hands on Danno’s shoulders. Danno leans back against him, yawning widely.
“C’mon, babe,” Steve says. “Bedtime.”
“Yeah,” Danno agrees. “Way past it.”
Steve flicks the light off and Danno goes to check the door is locked, and Grace crawls into her bed to the sound of their footsteps climbing the stairs. Danno says something she can’t hear, but whatever it is makes Steve laugh.