The first thing Hunter noticed when he got home was his father’s car, a vintage Jaguar that he’d never once let Hunter drive, pulled up by the front door. His father was never home this early, and he rarely left his car sitting out of the garage. Neither one seemed like a good sign.

He slipped in the front door quietly, past the Edward Hopper oil that hung in the entryway, and was halfway up the stairs before his father’s voice rang out: “Hunter! Kitchen!”

He glanced into the den, where Jack and Grace were building a tower out of magnetic tiles and listening to a kids’ classical playlist. He waved at them and gave them a rueful grin, and they waved back, but they didn’t get up to follow him into the kitchen, which meant that they knew he was about it to catch it for something.

His father and Lindsay were sitting at the counter, waiting for him.

He walked past them to the fridge and stood in front of the open door, not really looking for anything.

“Sit down,” his father said.

He closed the fridge and pulled up a seat at the counter, keeping his mouth shut. There were a number of things that his dad could be pissed about, and Hunter wasn’t about to give him any clues.

“Hunter. You’re blowing it.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? This is okay with you? I got another call from the headmaster today. You’re on academic probation. You told me this week that it was just history.”

So it had happened. The dean of students had warned him a few weeks earlier that his average was getting dangerously low. His school had a strict requirement that students maintain a 2.0 or above grade point average, or they risked suspension or expulsion.

“It’s the last semester,” Hunter said, lamely.

“Exactly. This is the last semester, and if you don’t complete it, you don’t graduate. What about this don’t you understand?”

“They’re not going to do that.”

“Why, Hunter? Why wouldn’t they do that? Because I paid for the new faculty club building? I have news for you. That stuff only gets you so far. I can only pay your way if you aren’t actively working against me at every turn. I’m pretty sure we used up all of our good will in the fall, when the school agreed not to make a report on your college applications about your disciplinary violation for selling Adderall.”

“I wasn’t selling them,” muttered Hunter.

“Well then, what the hell were you doing with them in your locker? It took every ounce of influence I have at that school to make that go away. You have no idea how lucky you are. You’ve had everything handed to you, and you can’t even pull a C average with what I think, frankly, is a pretty light course load.”