Troup shrugged. “I was only swinging on the swings. Then I saw your daughter and thought I’d say hi.”
“How about you stay far away from my daughter,” my dad suggested. “And don’t play at the park anymore. You’re apparently intimidating.”
Apparently intimidating.
As if he didn’t have any other positive attributes, according to my dad.
“Dad,” I said. “You don’t have to be so mean. We weren’t doing anything wrong.”
“No,” he agreed. “Not right now.”
As if we would have done something wrong had he not come along.
I narrowed my eyes.
“Come on, I’ll take you back home. Your mother’s been calling me for an hour, saying that you were missing.”
“She has not,” I grumbled as I tossed Troup a look over my shoulder.
Except, when I looked back, he was walking away, through the middle of the playground, as if he seriously didn’t give a single shit that he’d just been told to stay away from there.
He made sure to walk right by the group of mothers that looked concerned for their child’s welfare all over again.
“Dad, that was rude,” I told him. “He didn’t do anything wrong, and neither did I. There’s no age limit on who can swing on the swings.”
“Maybe not,” Dad answered as he walked to the passenger side door and opened it for me. “But you need to stay away from him. He looks… pissed.”
Pissed.
Now that my father had said that, I agreed with him. He did look kind of pissed.
“Well, maybe a little bit of compassion would go a long way,” I suggested as I plopped myself into the front seat.
I didn’t bother with the seatbelt. The ride was literally two minutes tops, and the majority of that was navigating the parking lot.
“How do you know that boy?” he muttered as he maneuvered us out onto the road.
“I don’t,” I admitted. “I saw him walking down the street at the same time that I was. We met at the swings, him having gone the long way, and me taking the shortcut.”
He grunted something that sounded like ‘magnificent’ but I couldn’t be sure.
It was as we were turning into our driveway that I saw a flash of black.
I turned and watched out of the passenger window as Trouper walked across his front lawn to the front door of the house that was right next to mine.
Score!
“Son of a bitch.” My dad had obviously seen the same thing. “What are the fuckin’ odds?”
“What?” I asked innocently.
“Don’t ever, ever, ever go near that boy. Not unless you want to be a single mother at seventeen. That boy is Bad with a capital B.” He made sure to hold my eyes and let me know just how serious he was about that statement.
“Dad, he’s just a kid,” I said. “A teenager. What is this immediate dislike you have going on? That’s not like you.”
That wasn’t like him at all. My dad was normally very open-minded about everything.
That was why I had a tattoo at seventeen, because he’d gone with me to get it.
That was why I was allowed to do what I wanted, when I wanted, and had no curfew. Because he trusted me implicitly.
At least, he used to.
I wasn’t so sure that he would continue to think this way when it came to some random boy.
I mean, it wasn’t like we were dating or anything.
When we got inside, my mother all but rushed me. “You aren’t answering your phone!”
I frowned. “I don’t have my phone. I never have my phone when I go out on a walk.”
She frowned. “You went out on a walk?”
“Yes,” I said. “I told you this before I left.”
“Oh,” she smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”
I shrugged and walked into the kitchen for a bottle of water, coming to a stop when I looked through our kitchen window and saw Troup standing in his.
His eyes lifted and our gazes connected over the length of the separation between us.
Don’t ever, ever, ever go near that boy. Not unless you want to be a single mother at seventeen. That boy is Bad with a capital B.
CHAPTER 2
You sad fuck.
-Conversation between Beckham and Troup
TROUP
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
I looked up and over to see the cute little curly blonde from yesterday.
Today was the official first day of school, and if it wasn’t mandatory for me to go, via a judge, then I wouldn’t be here.
I’d be working, trying to make a living, and helping my little brother.
My little brother that’d been taken away from me by the state because I