not a good thing either. Trust me.” Again, my words came out more severely than I’d intended. I figured it was at least partly due to all that energy still surging through me from the night we’d had.
“Your father’s a pastor?”
“Another thing I’m not interested in talking about.”
I kept the memories at bay, fighting against them as I had for so fucking long. Between my reaction, the cop’s comment, and that assignment I’d done in class, he must have figured there was more to that, but I wasn’t going there.
“So, to answer your question about why I was downtown,” I went on, since it was the only thing I was willing to talk to him about, “I was going to that dumb extra-credit thing you mentioned.” I practically mumbled the words.
“Well, then at least I know I wasn’t lying to a cop back there,” he said, sounding relieved. “What happened? Were you late?”
“I changed my mind. Went…somewhere else.”
“Can you get into a bar?”
“If I answer that, don’t you feel like you might be liable for something?”
“I feel like the way you answered it might make me liable anyway.” He turned from the windshield a moment to wink at me.
God, he was too nerdy to be so sexy too.
“I was surprised that cop went there, though. I never would have assumed some kid was at a bar.”
“I don’t have a problem getting into bars, Mr. Warner.” I said Mr. Warner instead of James intentionally, to remind him we weren’t friends. He was my teacher, and I was his student.
“And here I feel like I still get ID’d at the grocery store for some bottled wine.”
It made me laugh, like one of his silly jokes in class might have.
“Wherever I was, let’s just say, from where I was sitting, I could see that guy hanging out on that street, looking around as if waiting for trouble.”
I’d been able to see James through the café window, and I’d watched him like some fucking stalker. No idea why. Maybe because I wasn’t even sure what had really drawn me out tonight.
In some ways, it was like fate had pulled me to that moment so I could be there for him. Of course, I knew that was total bull, since fate had never been there for me.
The only one who’d ever been there for me was Tex.
“So when you came out of the café and he started following you, I figured you might need backup, so I think we should both be glad it worked out as it did.”
“I can’t say I’m glad it ‘worked out,’ if that’s what you want to call putting your life in danger.”
“He could have hurt you. He could have stabbed you, James. These Wyachet addicts are a fucking virus. A kid like that would have done it simply because he was scared, and he wouldn’t have thought twice about the fact that you’re a human being.”
“He could have done that to you too.”
“Would have liked to see him try.”
I’d considered it, but I hadn’t been afraid. Not just because I knew I could take the guy, but because if he had, would it have been such a terrible thing for the world?
I knew that wasn’t the way to think. Tex sure would’ve been worried if he knew I thought that, but it was true.
Again, James glanced over from the windshield, eyeing me peculiarly, that pretty face and his kind eyes guarded behind his glasses. His eyes returned to the road before he asked, “You ever do volunteer work?”
“The fuck?”
That came out of left field.
“We all have stuff we have to get through, and a few years back when I was going through a rough patch, I signed up for this thing called Housing 4 Hope.”
“I’ve heard of it.” It was a statewide housing project created to help build homes for families in underserved communities.
“I was there today. I go every Saturday,” he went on. “As crappy as my life can get sometimes, it’s distracting. And makes me feel like even if I’m feeling bad about what’s going on in my own life, at least I’m doing something to help someone else’s. Not saying you need to do that, but you might be able to find something—”
“Mr. Warner, why don’t you quit the free therapy session? I’m not this big mess you need to fix.”
He pressed his lips together. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to come across that way.”
“You might not have wanted it to come across that way, but