“You’re not saying mean things to those girls, are you?”

“Naw. I mean, no.”

“You better not be.”

“Dang, Mom! Why are you coming at me like that? What I do?”

Her jaw clenched, and she patted my knee. “You didn’t do anything. How’s Purity Pledge going?”

Though her voice softened, the subject change didn’t inspire more comfort. “It’s, you know, pure.”

“Sister Vanessa says you’ve been studying hard. You’ve been a good example for the other kids. Particularly the Burton twins.”

“Have I?” I fought to keep my annoyance in check. I had a theory about that great evaluation from Ralph and Bobby Burton.

We turned onto our street. Mom pressed the button in the ceiling that opened our garage door. We pulled into the driveway while the door clanked up. When it was fully open, she didn’t drive in. Instead, she started talking fast, like we were on a timer. “I want to apologize to you, son. Admittedly, I was shocked when you joined Purity Pledge. I questioned your motives. That was wrong. I’m proud of you for the decision you made, and I’m glad that you’re taking such steps to being a good man.”

Then she drove us inside. The door ratcheted down behind us, and she was quickstepping into the house before I could undo my seat belt, or say thanks, or clarify what she meant by “good man.”

All righty then.

I was waist-deep in the cabinet beneath the FISHto’s drive-thru Coke machine, swapping empty syrup and carbonation tanks for new ones. The sickly-sweet scent of congealed sugar water accumulated in the corners from old spills was gag-worthy, but I didn’t dare complain for fear of Tyrell sending me home again. The checks I was pulling from my shortened shifts could barely buy air fresheners for my car, let alone keep covering gas, or my part of the auto insurance bill.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Already knew who it was and ignored it. This had been the pattern for the last two weeks since Jameer started “helping” me.

My new Purity Pledge coach hadn’t kept all of our secrets. Somehow the other Pledgers got it in their heads that my Healthy Living connection meant all of their weird-ass questions could get answered with no real paper trail for their parents to flip over. Jameer played middleman. With a strong implication that I’d provide the requested information if I wanted his help to continue. Asshole.

“Del,” Mya said from somewhere above me in her fresh-air perch at the drive-thru window. “How much longer? It’s slowing down my fulfillment time when I gotta run to front line for drinks.”

“Do you want to do this?” I unsnapped the Barq’s root beer hose and tossed the empty syrup box at her legs.

“Watch it, mister.” She kicked me in the thigh, passed me a replacement.

Spending time together in Purity Pledge led to more casual conversations here at FISHto’s. I knew the restaurant was her way of saving for college; specifically, for her own apartment, because her grades were good enough for scholarships. I knew she wanted to be a software engineer after college. I knew she wasn’t one of the Purity Pledgers feeding me anonymous sex questions through Jameer because she told me so, and Mya Hanson did not lie.