“I’VE GOTTA GET TO THE car shop before they close. You good to close tonight?” I ask Cordell, who’s finishing up on his client. It’s a weekday, so I usually stay until at least twelve. Sometimes as late as two a.m. on weekends to catch the crowds at closing time, but tonight, Cord is closing up shop for me.
“I got it.”
“Thanks, man.”
I pull my hood onto my head and step outside. It’s the end of October, which means two things. One, winter is coming. Two, tourists are coming. Well, it’s always tourist season here—with the lake and the river for the summer and the snow for winter sports—but December and January are notoriously brutal. Good for business. Bad for my whole not liking people thing.
I jog over to my truck, needing to be at the shop before it closes in—I check my phone—six minutes. Fuck. I can make it, as long as I don’t hit any traffic. I fucked up my tire on a pothole, and this place is the only one in town that carries the right tires for my truck. Driving on it is sketchy, but I had to be at Bad Intentions for a twelve o’clock appointment.
I jump in, throwing it in drive, and haul ass toward the shop. The sun is already setting over the lake, and I squint my eyes against the rays peeking through the pine trees that stab at my vision. I pull up with a minute to spare and hope that the old bastard didn’t decide to close early. Businesses here run on River’s Edge time. Which means, you can’t fucking count on anything to be open when they’re supposed to be. If they’re not busy—or if they want to pack it up and call it a day early—they can, and they will. I like money too much to run my shop like that. More than that, I know what it’s like to have none. And I don’t ever plan to go back to that life.
The door chimes when I walk in, but it’s not Doris, the eighty-year-old smart ass that usually works the front desk that I see. It’s someone much younger and, I’ll admit, much better looking. It’s the chick from the shop earlier, and she’s standing with her arms folded across her chest, facing the door behind the desk. I can see her profile, not missing the generous curve of her ass in those tight pants, but she doesn’t notice me.
“Well, that was fast,” I say, pushing back my hood, then tugging the beanie off my head and running a hand through my hat hair. Her head whips around, and her scowl deepens at the sight of me. So she remembers me. I’m flattered. “Found a job already?”
“No,” is all she says. Before she turns back around, I see the tan-ish purple ring around her eye that I didn’t notice earlier. Who gave this chick a black eye?
“Okay, then. Is Henry in?”
“Definitely no,” she says, throwing my words from earlier back at me.
“Touché.”
Henry walks in from the back, wiping his perma-greased hands onto a grimy white rag.
“I see you’ve met my daughter, Logan,” he starts, shooting me a look that says not even he knows what he got himself into.
His daughter? Fuck.
“I didn’t know you had a kid.”
“Neither did he, apparently,” she mutters.
“Don’t listen to her. I have two, but it’s been…a while since I’ve seen them.”
“Ten years. Time just gets away from you, huh, Pops?” Logan deadpans.
My eyebrows shoot up to my hairline, my eyes bouncing between them like I’m watching a tennis match. They go back and forth for a minute before I chime in and ask about the tires. I decided to get a whole new set since I have to replace the one, and they’re getting pretty bald anyway. Henry, thankful for the interruption, lets me know that they did come in.
“But my guy called in sick, and I’ve been all booked up, so we’ll squeeze you in first thing in the morning. What time does your place open?”
Awesome. Note the sarcasm.
“Noon.”
“Since my darling daughter here helped herself to one of my vehicles, she can repay me by giving you a ride home. You can leave your truck here, and I’ll have it done by ten thirty, eleven tomorrow.”
I almost say no. But Logan’s eyes beg me to do just that, and for some reason, I want to do the opposite. Plus, I need to get this done as soon as possible.
My lips slowly stretch into a wide smile.
“Deal.”
Logan takes an angry swipe at the keys on top of the counter and storms outside.
“My chariot awaits,” I say with a shrug.
“Good luck,” Henry mumbles under his breath. “And try to be nice to her, will ya? She hasn’t had the easiest life. If you think she’s crazy, you should meet her mother.”
I give him a nod and hand him my keys before turning to leave.
I jump into the passenger side of the only other vehicle besides Henry’s and mine, but she doesn’t speak, or even look at me. I take her in, really looking at her for the first time. Long, wild, dark hair. Porcelain skin. Tiny frame. Her big, innocent, hazel eyes betray her caustic front. I haven’t spent more than five minutes with this girl, but I can already tell she’s the type of crazy I need to stay far away from. This morning, she was all sunshine and rainbows when she came into the shop, but it didn’t take much for her true colors to come out.
“You gonna tell me where to go or…?”
Right. She doesn’t know where I live.
“Go left, then left at the light.”
She does.
We drive in silence for a long while. No music, because we can’t even get a radio station to come in clearly up here. I notice that she’s shivering with only a thin flannel to keep her warm. If she’s already this cold, she’s in for a rude awakening in another month or so.
I lean forward to turn the heat on, but her fingers land on mine for a brief second, intercepting me before turning it back off.
“Heat doesn’t work. And it smells.”
“Might want to have your dad fix that or you’re going to need a thicker coat in a couple weeks.”
She scoffs, like that’s out of the question, but doesn’t respond.
“How far am I taking you? I didn’t realize this was going to be a road trip.”
“I live outside of town. A few more miles.”
“You live alone?”
“Yep.”
“Not a fan of people?”
“Nope.”
She gives me a sidelong glance, and she’s silent for a beat. Assessing. Then she speaks.
“It must be nice to live on your own.”
It’s small talk, which doesn’t seem like something this girl does often. Her words are intentional. So, I play along.
“You don’t?”
She shakes her head. “Never have. Staying with Henry for the time being.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-one,” she says defensively.
“I didn’t mean anything by it.” I’m surprised by her age, though I shouldn’t be. She looks young, but something about her feels much older.
“My mom was never home. By the time I was old enough to move out, my brother was just starting high school, and I knew if I left, there’d be no chance of him graduating.” Logan looks over at me with wide eyes, probably hating that she just divulged so much about herself. I know that look because I have the same aversion to sharing.
“I pissed the bed until I was twelve,” I blurt out in an attempt to even the score. Tell her something embarrassing about me to get the focus off her. And it works, because her expression goes from horrified to surprised, and then her cheeks puff out as she tries to hold back from laughing. She loses the battle and something between a laugh and a snort slips out, and even I can’t help but chuckle.
“Why would you admit that? To anyone? Ever?”
I shrug. I haven’t told anyone that before, for obvious reasons.
“Turn up here,” I say, gesturing to the left with my finger. “Follow this road until you see a cabin on the right.”
“You weren’t kidding when you said you lived alone,” she says, taking in the pine trees that line the narrow winding road. “You’re really secluded out here.”
“I like my privacy.”
“I guess so.”
Logan pulls into my driveway, and she looks over at me as she comes to a stop. She wets her lips with the tip of her tongue, and my eyes can’t help but follow the movement. She swallows, and her throat moves with the action. I have the urge to take her inside and see what those hazel eyes look like when she’s on her knees for me, what those puffy lips look like wrapped around me. But the last thing I need is to hook up with someone who isn’t just passing through, and it’s only a matter of time before she hears about me from someone in town and decides to stay far the fuck away from me. As she should.
Instead, I force myself to open the car door and get out. I prop my forearm on the doorframe, duck my head down, and say, “See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” she questions, her eyebrows tugging together in confusion.
“Yeah. I’ll need a ride back to the shop. Pick me up at nine.”
“It’ll cost you,” she warns.
“Naturally. How much?”
“Fifty bucks.”
“Fifty bucks,” I repeat. “I could get a fucking Uber for less than that.” She doesn’t need to know that Ubers don’t come all the way out here.
“Take it or leave it.” She shrugs, expecting me to say no.
“See you at nine.”
She raises an eyebrow, surprised by the fact that I’ll actually pay her fifty dollars for a ride, I’m not sure. Maybe both.
“I don’t even know your name.”
“You never asked.”
“Well?” she asks expectantly.
“It’s Dare.”
I pat the top of the rattletrap she calls a car and walk away, hearing her drive off behind me.
Dare. That’s not a name. That’s a warning. And I’ve been with enough bad boys to heed the warning. I think. Then again, the last time I tried going for someone different—a straight-laced suit, someone who appeared to be a good guy with a good career—things got ugly. Sometimes the nicest guys have the darkest sides.
Either way, I can’t deny that he intrigues me. He looks like he’d know his way around a woman’s body. But this is our new start. And I can’t fuck it up by hooking up with the first boy I see, even if he does have the prettiest, bluest eyes known to man and a smirk that I felt right between my thighs. This is a small town. People talk, and the last thing I need is to be labeled the town whore. I just need to keep my head down, get a job, and get Jess through school.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I fish it out, only to see Private Caller flash across the screen. Unease prickles my spine. This is a brand-new number. Eric, my ex-boss and part of the reason I left, bought my old phone. He didn’t like not being able to keep tabs on me, but I threw the phone away just before I left town. I used most of the money I had saved to buy myself a new one and added a line for Jess. They had a deal, and I ended up getting him a phone for ninety-nine cents.
There’s no way Eric would know my number. The only people who do know it are Jess, my mom, and now Henry. But I can’t shake the feeling that it’s him. It’s not like I’m afraid of Eric. He’d never physically harm me—psychological manipulation and intimidation are more his style—but the thought that he somehow got my number is…unnerving. I roll my eyes at my dramatics and shove my phone back into my pocket. There’s no way it was him. Probably a solicitor.
“Lo?” Jess asks with a cautious lilt to his voice. “Everything okay?”
Jess may be my kid brother, but he worries about me like a parent would. That’s what happens when your mom is a deadbeat and your dad is MIA. We are all each other has.
“I’m good!” I say, maybe too cheerily, because he casts me a suspicious look. “How was school?” I ask around a bite of my eggs, if only to change the subject.
Sometimes we have what I call Upside-Down Days, where we have pancakes and eggs for dinner instead of breakfast. I made it up when Jess was a little younger. It was more fun than saying, “Listen, we are too broke for real food, and all we can afford are eggs and pancake batter, if you’re lucky.” Years later, we’re still broke as shit by most people’s standards, especially at this moment, but it sort of became our thing. Even when I was working for Eric, making enough to support us and still have leftover spending money, we still had Upside-Down Days.
Jess walks over to the sink to fill his cup with tap water before taking a drink and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Got head in the girls’ bathroom at lunch, so I guess you could say it was a successful first day.”
I scrunch my nose. “What did I tell you? Play it straight, and for God’s sake, keep your pants zipped. Just for eight more months.”
“Relax, we didn’t get caught.”
“Yet,” I warn. “I guess I should just be glad it wasn’t the school secretary.”
“I never said it wasn’t Lacey,” he says mischievously.
“Jesse, I swear to God…”
“I’m just fucking with you. It was some girl from my math class. Who called your phone a minute ago?” In true Shepherd fashion, he flips the topic back to me to take the heat off him.
“What?” I ask, clearing my throat.
“Was it him? Eric? Is he fucking with you again? I swear to God, if you go back to him…”
I get his concern. Every single time he warned me about Eric, I brushed it off. At first, it was the money. He had it, and we needed it. He gave me whatever I needed. But then, it became more complicated. Lines were crossed, and morals were blurred. It wasn’t pretty, and I’m not proud, but I am done. I never want to be the person I was when I was with Eric again.
“Nah, I think it was one of the places I applied to earlier.”
“Weird, because you got that same panicked look in your eyes that you get whenever that piece of shit is involved.”
“It wasn’t him,” I say firmly. I stand abruptly, causing my chair to scape across the cheap wood flooring. “Why is it so goddamn cold in here?” I change the subject once again, pulling my shirt closed. “I gotta take a hot shower. My tits are going to freeze off.”
Jess shakes his head, and he doesn’t believe me for a second, but he doesn’t say a word as I make my way up the steps.
Once I peel off my clothes and stand under the scalding hot water, my mind drifts back to the hot guy with tattoos. And I allow my fantasy from earlier to run wild, in the privacy of this bathroom, because it can’t happen in real life.
The buzzing under my pillow cuts through my dreams, forcing me into reality. I open one eye, waiting for the sleep to clear to be able to focus on the words on the screen.
You’re late.
Late? It’s from a local number. It takes a minute for my brain to catch up and remember that I’m supposed to pick Dare up. How the hell did he get my number? Tired eyes drag up to the time displayed in too-small numbers on the top of my screen. It’s nine twelve. Shit. Jess is late for school. I scramble out of bed and dig through my bag, only to realize I don’t have any clean jeans. Or leggings. Or underwear. Or anything, really. I really need to ask Henry if he has a washer and dryer. I haven’t seen one, and this place isn’t exactly a palace, so it doesn’t look promising.
I have no choice but to go in what I’m wearing, which happens to be rumpled gray sleep shorts and a white tank top. I end up throwing on fuzzy striped socks that go up to my knees and Jess’ oversized hoodie that fits me like a dress. I run down the stairs and into the living room, skidding across the floor, expecting to find Jess comatose on the couch.
Instead, I see a piece of paper on top of his pillow that reads Henry took me to school. No, you’re not being punked. He offered, and you looked tired.
Henry took him? Huh. Maybe coming here was the right move.
I walk over to the table and grab my purse and keys. As I’m slinging the tattered brown messenger bag over my shoulder, I notice the paperwork with Henry’s signature that Jess was supposed to take back to school.
“Dammit, Jess,” I mutter under my breath before swiping it off the table. I tuck it inside my bag and add it to my list of shit to do today. I’m starving, but I don’t have time to eat, so I take a bite of a piece of toast that was left out from someone’s breakfast, stuff my feet into my boots, and then I’m gone.
“You didn’t have to get all dressed up for me,” Dare jokes as he takes in my wild hair, baggy sweater, and face free of makeup. He’s amused with my ragamuffin state, but then his eyes land on my bare thighs, and I swear his nostrils flare at the sight. I’m tempted to spread my legs a little farther just to push him. To gauge his reaction. But I don’t do that.
“Only the best for random strangers who force me to be their chauffeur,” I say snidely instead as I pull out of his driveway and head toward Henry’s shop. Dare’s eyes, still locked on my thighs, snap up to meet mine. They’re filled with something I can’t put into words so much as feel. It’s not transparent, overt lust like most men. But something…more. Something intense. And I want to know what it means. But before I can decipher it, he schools his expression and looks away.
“How did you get my number?”
“Your dad gave it to me.”
“How nice of Henry to give my number out to strangers.”
“Stop calling me a stranger. I’ve known Henry longer than you have,” he points out.
“Touché,” I say, nodding, because what else can I say? Other than ouch. He’s not wrong. He may have known him longer, but he does know him better than I do.
“That was a dick move,” he says after a minute. “Sorry.”
He chokes out the word sorry like he’s swallowing a handful of nails. As if the word is foreign to him, and he’s never had to apologize for anything in his whole life. It almost makes me laugh.
“Nah,” I shake my head, aiming for nonchalance, “it’s true. So, why am I picking you up so early?”
“Need to eat. There’s a restaurant next to your dad’s shop.”
Ignoring the weird feeling that comes from someone referring to Henry as my dad again, I ask, “Are you asking me out for breakfast?”
“No, I’m telling you to drop me off next door, so I can get a bite to eat. My fridge is empty.”
Oh.
“But if you need to eat, too,” he continues, scratching at the back of his neck in an uncomfortable gesture, “I won’t stop you.”
“I’ll pass.” I laugh. I might be hungry, but I don’t have the time or the money to waste. Not that my pride would ever let me accept that non-invitation anyway.
“Suit yourself.” He shrugs.
I drive in silence, my freezing legs bouncing, trying to get warm. Dare is quiet, too. His legs are spread wide, sitting like a fucking king in this piece of shit car, one arm propped on the door as he gazes out the window. I like that he doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence with meaningless words.
“Pull in here,” he says when we’re close to the shop. I do as he says, swinging into the narrow parking lot of a place called Sissy’s that sits next to another one named Belle’s. He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t ask me to join him.
Dare reaches toward me, and my breath catches as his cold fingers slip between my thighs. Goosebumps prick my skin, and my nipples tighten almost painfully. Dare’s bottom lip is trapped between his teeth as he tosses me a cocky look.
“Thanks for the ride,” he says in a low voice, and then he’s gone.
I look down at my lap to find what he left tucked between my legs. A fifty-dollar bill. Jesus. I didn’t think he’d actually pay me.
After dropping the forms off at Jesse’s school, I went home to change and found the washer and dryer in the garage, so I tossed a load in. Then, I drove around aimlessly, applying for any place I may have missed, before I got a call from Sutton—the girl from the bar. She told me I got the job, and to come in next Thursday. When I asked if I needed to fill out an application or come in for an interview, she laughed like that was the craziest thing she’d ever heard. I’m just glad she called.
Feeling optimistic for the first time since we got here, I decided to use some of Dare’s money—which I plan to pay back as soon as possible, which will be easy since I’ll be working next door—to pick up some pizza and beer for dinner tonight after grabbing Jess from school.
Henry stuck around after he got off work, and for the first time in over a decade, we had dinner with our dad. It was…weird. But a nice weird. He wasn’t like Mom who’d ramble on about being watched through cameras in the buttons of people’s jeans, how everyone was out to get her, and she couldn’t trust anyone. Paranoia at its finest. Dinner with Henry was almost normal. I’ve never had normal, but I’ve seen it on TV.
We’re still sitting at the table, drinking our beer. The pizza has been demolished, and the grease-stained box is full of crust, crumpled-up napkins, and bottle caps.
“So, you guys going to tell me why you’re here yet?” Henry asks after taking a swig of his Budweiser. I gave him the bare minimum when I called him. I told him we needed to get out of town, but I never mentioned Mom or Jess or Eric or any of that. He doesn’t need to know about Eric, and the look that Jess sends me tells me that he doesn’t want him knowing about his trouble, either, but I have to give him something. I decide that telling him about Crystal would be safe, and the most relevant to him.
“Mom was getting really bad,” I start. Henry’s eyebrows pull together in concern as he puts his elbows on the table, listening intently. I don’t know why, but it bothers me. How can he act concerned when he threw us away like yesterday’s trash? “She hadn’t paid the bills in years,” I continue, pushing my irritation aside. “She was almost never there. She disappeared for months, and Jess and I always scrounged together whatever we could from our jobs. But that was fine. We managed. We preferred when she wasn’t home. It was easier that way. Calmer,” I clarify, nodding to myself. “But then she got another shitty junkie boyfriend. This one didn’t have his own place to stay, so Mom suddenly remembered she had a home.”
“He was nasty as fuck, too,” Jess chimes in, absently spinning a quarter on the kitchen table. “That fool never showered. Stole my shit. Ate all of our food—well, whenever they were too broke to get high and actually had appetites.”
“They wouldn’t leave. Brought their lowlife friends around. Then it all came to a head when Mom’s boyfriend beat the shit out of Jess because he wouldn’t give them our last twenty bucks. She sat there and watched him hurt her son, and then me, and didn’t do a single fucking thing about it.”
Jess’ fists clench, and I know he’s thinking about what happened that day. He was half-asleep when our mom’s boyfriend, Darrell, attacked him. He’s lucky, too, or Jess would’ve killed him. He told him to fuck off when he asked for money, and then bam. Darrell went off. And once I tried to pull him off, he turned on me. Jess was swinging blind, blood in his eyes, while Mom screamed. For Darrell. Not her children. She let him beat on her, but I thought, maybe, some sliver of mother’s instinct or love was still inside her. You hear about panicked mothers lifting cars off their trapped children. I’d have settled for one word. Just one word. Stop, is all it would have taken for me to know she was in there, somewhere. That was the day I knew my mother was gone completely, not that she’d ever been the best parent. But she was ours, and she was all we knew.
“Christ,” Henry says, rubbing at his forehead. “I don’t blame you guys for getting the hell out of there.”
“There’s more,” Jess says, and the crease between Henry’s eyebrows deepens.
“I called the cops. When they showed up, asking about a disturbance, Mom stood out of sight, shaking her head, silently begging me to turn them away. I didn’t. They had warrants. Lots of them, for things we didn’t even know about. Long story short, they’re both in jail.” If she gets lucky, she’ll do court-ordered rehab instead of doing time, and then probation. Whether it’s jail or rehab, I know she’ll be fed, sheltered, and sober. I don’t care how it happens.
I still remember the way she looked at me. How I held her stare, resigned, as I slowly swung the door open wide, and did what you never, under any circumstances, do in a neighborhood like mine. You don’t rat out anyone, ever. Especially not your blood.
But as I looked at Jess, swollen, bloody, and humiliated, I knew he needed me to show him that someone would love him like he deserved. Stand up for him. Protect him. That I loved him like a mother and a sister and a best friend, and I would always do what’s best for him, even when she wouldn’t. And I did it for Crystal, too. If she has any chance of living a normal life, or even a sober life, then maybe jail was the best and safest place for her.
So, I’ll be the rat. The snitch. I’ll be whatever the fuck you want to call me, and I won’t regret it. Not even for a second. That doesn’t mean we wanted to stick around to see what happens on the off chance they get off easy, though. Plus, with Jess getting caught hacking into the school’s system, changing grades, his beef with the piece of shit dealers he was stupid enough to get involved in, and me finding out Eric lied about everything, it was the perfect storm. We needed to get out before it swept us away. There was no other choice.
Henry sits there quietly, his features twisted into something I can’t decipher. Guilt? Anger? Or maybe it’s discomfort, because he can’t really defend her, knowing he failed us, too.
“Well,” he says, clearing his throat. “You kids are welcome to stay here until they kick me out.” Henry mentioned on the phone that his lease was up soon. The owner is selling the place, but I was too desperate to care. “I’m not here a whole lot, though. I’ll keep the lights on. You two will be responsible for your food. All that I ask is you respect my house, and maybe leave me a plate of dinner every now and then.”
“And the 4Runner?” I ask, hoping I’m not pushing my luck. Henry sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Why not. Bring it by the shop. I’ll give it an oil change and make sure it’s in decent condition.”
That was easy. Too easy. Experience tells me I should be wary, but my gut tells me he’s being genuine.
“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it.
He stands and gives me a nod before he walks away. He pauses after a few steps and hesitates before speaking.
“I, uh, know I left you kids…” He trails off, seemingly uncomfortable. “Truth is, I was as bad as your mother back then. I won’t pretend to be a saint. Not now and sure as hell not then. But I’m sober. Have been for years, save for the occasional beer,” he says, jerking his chin to the empty on the table. “I know the chaos that surrounds your mother better than anyone, and you won’t find that here. That’s one thing you can count on.”
He forgets that I was old enough to know what was going on. Even in my ten-year-old mind, I could see that my mother was poisoning everyone around us, including him. His intentions were good, but the execution was bad. And then he left. He’d left before, but that time, he never came back. Our mom spiraled. The little care we did have was gone. No one made sure we had food to eat or clothes to wear. No one made sure the light bill was paid or that we got to school. So, I did what I could to raise us both while harboring bitterness and resentment toward Henry for leaving.
Jess is quicker to forgive. He puts on a front of holding out, either because he doesn’t want to admit it or maybe he just doesn’t want to disappoint me, but I can see it in his eyes. He’s ready to have a dad, and I don’t want to get in the way of that. He was too little to understand when Henry lived with us. Maybe he wasn’t a doting father, but he was there when our mom wasn’t. He never hit us. Never yelled. And I felt like he liked us well enough. Then, he left. I don’t know what’s worse—remembering that you once had a parent who cared, at least a little, and then losing them, or not having much memory of it at all.
I don’t feel sorry for myself. It’s just the way things are. I’d venture to say a good eighty percent of kids in our hood live the way we did. It wasn’t anything out of the norm, but it doesn’t mean I don’t resent my parents for their choices. For the life Jess and I could’ve had if they had their shit together.
Jess looks to me as if to say can we trust this? And I give him a slight nod of encouragement.
“Thanks,” Jess mutters to Henry, and then he pulls a tattered book out of his backpack, walks to the couch, and plops down, where he will most likely stay all night. Henry walks upstairs, where he will most likely stay for the rest of the night. I sit down next to Jess. Wordlessly throwing an arm over his neck, I lay my head on the side of his shoulder before lifting the cover of his book to see what he’s reading, even though I already know what I’ll find. The Outsiders. I’ve never read it, but he once joked about being a modern-day Ponyboy.
“You okay?” I ask.
“I’m good,” he replies easily.
“Have you heard from anyone back home?” Jess still keeps in touch with some of his friends and one of our neighbors, who is supposed to let us know if Mom shows up again.
“Nope. You?”
“No. I didn’t even tell anyone I was leaving.”
“Savage,” he says, his eyes still on the pages of his book.
“I’m not taking any chances.” I don’t elaborate, but he knows what I mean. I’m not risking Eric finding me and trying to drag me back into his fucked-up world. “And you shouldn’t, either,” I add, jabbing a finger into his cheek. He jerks his face away.
“I’m not an idiot. I only told Mel and Danny.” Danny and Melanie are his two best friends, the latter being his sometimes girlfriend. Danny is trustworthy. The jury is still out on Mel.
“I know you aren’t. I just want you to be careful.”
I want a good life for him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in mine. This is his shot—our shot, and I can’t help but feel like it’s going to be ripped away from us at any moment.
Jess assures me that he will and goes back to his book while I opt for watching Jimmy Fallon, and it’s not long before I feel myself drifting off to sleep.