Celeste called me saying she’s been trying to get a hold of you. But it goes straight to voicemail.”
“It died last night while at the beach, and I forgot my charger.”
“I’ll plug it in,” he says, opening his center console to grab his charger. I see his gun and knife in there before he shuts it.
I remove it from my back pocket and hand it to him. “What did she want?” I ask after he plugs it in.
“She wanted to know if you were going to be home tonight.”
I nod my head. “Of course—”
“I told her no,” he interrupts me.
“What?” I demand.
“You’ll be with me.”
I laugh like he’s lost his mind. “And where will we be?”
He doesn’t answer, just like always, and I fall back into my seat, crossing my arms over my chest.
I hate that he brings out every emotion in me. I hate how I told him secrets about me to get him to open up, but it didn’t work. He didn’t tell me anything that I hadn’t already figured out about his friends dying. I stood there and told him things that no one else knows. And although he looked pissed, like he cared about what Phillip had done, he didn’t give me what I really wanted. His story. His hate. His secrets. It’s not fair.
Life isn’t fair, my mother always says. But it’s seemed pretty fucking fair to her if you ask me.
She fucked a man once and got knocked up. I was here nine months later. The only reason she had me was because she met a wealthy, good-looking man who only wanted a one-night stand. She saw me as her meal ticket. Even now that I’m living with him, my father still sends her monthly checks. But those will stop soon. I’ll be eighteen and graduated. I don’t know the law exactly, but I had a friend whose father stopped paying for her after she graduated high school last year.
Then what will my mother do? Will she beg me for money? Have me ask him? It won’t happen. I won’t get her a dime.
“Take it out on Me” by Thousand Foot Krutch starts to play through the speakers. I reach over and turn it up to try to drown out my own thoughts.
It doesn’t.
I look over at him, and his left hand is on the steering wheel while his right is on the shifter. He wears his normal mask that hides his true thoughts and feelings from the world, but I see it. I thought it was anger, but after our talk earlier, I realize it’s pain. He’s hurting. He just refuses to let anyone see it. To see the real him.
He reaches out and turns off the radio. We sit in silence, and I wonder what he’s thinking. If his mind is screaming as loud as mine is.
I look down at my hands knotted in my lap. “You know I would never tell anyone about what happened.” He has to know by now that, no matter what, he can trust me. He’s blackmailed me to keep my mouth shut, but I would never tell a soul that he wasn’t the one driving. He took that blame on his own for a reason, and I would never out him. No matter how much I disagree with it.
“Why did you take Jerrold’s laptop?” he asks, ignoring my statement.
My brows rise, surprised by that question. “You know why,” I say, not going back down that road. He doesn’t want to share, then I won’t either.
“I know why you are on our side when it comes to him. But I want to know why that dare? Why not something else?”
“It was the only dare I could think of,” I answer honestly. “I tried to think of things that you had told me about, and I wanted to help Eli’s sister. I thought maybe there was some info on there that you could use. You could get him arrested …”
His soft laugh interrupts me. “His ass isn’t going to jail, sweetheart.”
“Then what …?” My words trail off as I understand. “You’re gonna kill him too?” I ask wide-eyed.
“Of course.” He snorts.
Death too must be earned. He had said that to me that day in his car as we watched Jerrold in his office. “You’re gonna get caught,” I say, fisting my hands.
“No, we won’t.”
“You didn’t even do a good job with Jeff.” I roll my eyes at his confidence.
He looks over at me for a quick second. “What