fingers of the other on the edge of the tub. I couldn’t tell if he was impatient or frustrated, but it was obvious he was having a hard time sitting still while I cowered and quaked a few feet away.
“I got off work early because of the storm. The bar lost power as well.” One of his dark eyebrows lifted. “I wondered if you were going to have a hard time. I’m not surprised you’re still this shaken up when it storms.”
After the night of the accident, the weather had stayed really crappy for weeks. It fit the mood that descended upon the people in my life since I was hospitalized for several days, and so was Huck. I would never forget the first night I was alone in the hospital, and it started to thunder and lightning. If I hadn’t had IVs poked into the back of my hands, I would’ve climbed out of the bed and found a place to hide. Luckily, Huck was in a room close enough to hear me screaming and had come to find me. He sat with me the whole night, much like he was doing now. Only, when the next big squall rolled around, Huck was gone, and I had learned I had bigger and scarier things to fear than the weather.
I anxiously cleared my throat. “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to sit in here.” I tugged the blanket down so I could frown at him. “I know the door was locked. How did you even get in?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders and gave me a bored look. “I have the master key to all the rooms in the house. When we were younger, it wasn’t an unheard-of occurrence that one of us would get wasted and accidentally lock ourselves out of our room or the bathroom. The old man got tired of having to come let us back in, so he gave me the keys to all the different locks.”
I held out a shaky hand and told him, “You can give me mine. You don’t need a key to this room while I’m living here.”
Both his eyebrows lifted, and his mouth quirked upward. “Not gonna happen. Not unless the old man tells me to hand it over.”
I made a mental note to call Mr. Peters in the morning. I wasn’t up to having a fight with Huck over anything at the moment. I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead where I could feel the beginning of a headache starting to pound.
“Really. I’m fine. I appreciate you checking on me since you’ve made it abundantly clear you don’t want me here. If you don’t mind leaving the light, I’ll power through in here until the power comes back on.”
Huck snorted and lifted a hand to run through his artfully styled hair. When he lifted his hand away from his head, the dark strands were sort of sticking up everywhere. It was kind of cute, or it would be if he didn’t have such a hard, unyielding look on his face.
“Ollie, you’re huddled in the bathtub. You are far from fine.” His frown turned fierce as he quietly asked, “Why are you still holding onto that night? So much time has passed. What’s done is done.” He let out an ugly laugh. “It’s not like we can go back and redo everything.”
I sat up like I’d been electrocuted. I turned and grabbed the side of the tub. I was startled that he sounded so pragmatic and almost conciliatory. Neither of which fit with the way things had gone down back then.
“But I was the one driving, and I’m the one who lost control of the car.” I huffed out a breath and gave him an aggravated look. “No matter what anyone believes, I know the truth, and so do you. I’m so sorry I lied and told everyone you were driving that night. I’m so sorry I told them you were drunk and lost control of the car. I didn’t want to blame you. I had no choice. I’ve wanted to apologize for so long.”
While I’d been unconscious with a serious concussion in the days after the accident, my mom nearly died from the stress of nearly losing her only child. While I was weak and vulnerable, Sawyer took it upon himself to tell anyone who would listen that Huck had been driving. Since we’d all been injured severely and thrown from the car, all the authorities had to go on