look happy, and it really took every ounce of control I had not to wilt to the floor under the weight of his irritated gaze.
“Mr. Peters said she’s here to stay. He verified that Olivia Adams, who goes by the name Ollie, was the best candidate of all the applicants who applied to rent Fisher’s old room. He even told me we better be nice to her or there will be hell to pay.” He rubbed his temples as if he suddenly had a splitting headache. “Huck is going to lose his mind when he hears about this.”
I thought I was prepared to hear his name after all this time pretending he didn’t exist.
I wasn’t.
A small gasp escaped before I could stop it. Luckily, Vernon was working himself into a state of panic, and his sounds of exasperation covered my own rising anxiety at the thought of dealing with Huck Snyder.
Huck was the whole reason I was here, after all.
The second son. The unwanted one. The boy I burned and betrayed because I had no other choice.
“Shit. You don’t think he’ll be mad enough to do something like move out, do you?” Vernon’s voice rose, and his eyes widened.
The football player gave me a steady look and shrugged. “Maybe. Who knows what that unpredictable bastard will do?”
Vernon made a squeaky sound and twisted his hands together. “We can’t let him leave. We already lost Fisher.” I knew these boys were close, but I didn’t realize exactly how close. The pretty genius sounded devastated at the thought of being separated.
“If Huck goes, we’ll go with him, and she can keep the whole fucking house.” Harlen said it so matter-of-factly that my heart immediately sank into my shoes. Having them all pack up and leave me alone in this rambling old house wasn’t something I’d planned. It was actually the worst case scenario. I only wanted to be here because this was where Huck lived.
“Where am I going? And whose crap is scattered all over the front porch? What in the hell is going on right now?” Huck’s voice was the same raspy rumble I remembered from childhood.
He always sounded like he smoked no less than a pack a day when he didn’t even smoke at all. His voice never fit with his soft, pudgy face and jittery movements. The voice always sounded like it belonged to a man who’d been through hell and back, while Huck always looked like an excited kid on Christmas morning.
I froze, unsure if I wanted to run or melt into the ground. I knew getting in the door of this place was just the beginning and that the biggest challenge had yet to come. But I thought I’d have a chance to get more settled, with a moment to possibly win over the other boys before I had to face the big boss. I figured if I could unpack, it would be harder for Huck to throw me out, but my stuff was still in boxes at everyone’s feet.
“Uh, it’s her stuff.” Harlen pointed a finger in my direction, much like I’d done at him earlier. I closed my eyes briefly and ordered myself to get my shit together. I knew what it meant to be scared of another human all the way down to your soul, but I’d never felt that way about Huck. I would hate to have to start now. “She says she’s staying, and Mr. Peters agrees with her. V and I were just wondering what you were going to do about it. We know you don’t want a female roommate.”
Harlen was the brawn.
Vernon was the brain.
Fisher had been the quirky, irreverent one.
But there was no question that Huck was, hands down, the leader of their little gang of heathens and outcasts.
He was the one they followed. The one they looked to for guidance. He was the one who made the rules and made sure they were followed. All of that applied outside of this house and their tightly knit group as well. Huck was at the top of the food chain when it came to the hierarchy on campus. He was infamous, and the sole reason I’d run away and transferred here.
I wasn’t a stalker. Not really.
I just happened to know Huck Snyder almost as well as I knew myself. And I’d been dying for any information on him since he left home when he was sixteen. He always did everything first while I ached to follow. Including running away and