Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Dallas was as angry as ever. It can’t be him.
Trace looked guilty when he saw me on the couch, too.
But he did walk that girl out, so I doubt he came down after me last night and left her in his room. It wasn’t him. Definitely not. I know what he feels like, and that wasn’t it.
Macon’s the only one who acted typical this morning.
And I don’t think it’s his style to sleep with his little sister’s friends, either. He’s way older than me.
“Krisjen.”
It had to be Army or Iron. Right? I mean …
“Krisjen!”
I blink, coming back into focus. Iron still leans under the hood, but he’s staring at me. Oh my God. Was I thinking out loud?
But he just smirks in that way that makes the color in his eyes look like a shamrock. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” he asks.
Talking? What? Oh, the car.
I shrug a little. “Could you write it down? I’ll pass it on to a mechanic.”
It’s not like I’m fixing any of this myself.
He laughs under his breath, standing up and closing the hood. “I’ll give you a ride home. Just leave it here for a few days. I’ll fix it.”
“No, that’s okay,” I say it as gently as possible. “I won’t be back.”
He looks at me, and I don’t mean that to sound insulting. Last night ended much better than it started, but I need to focus now. If I don’t get ahead of my mother, she’s going to have my future figured out for me.
But he just slips my keys into his pocket. “I can drop it off when I’m done, then.”
“Why do you want to fix it?” I study him, definitely having an idea why but deciding not to press it. If he’s not going to talk about last night, then it’s either not him or it wasn’t a big deal, so I play along. “I’ll put in a word with my grandfather, but all you had to do was ask. Not that my input will help you anyway. He barely knows I exist.”
“I don’t want to hear about your grandfather, and I don’t want you to talk to him for me.” He takes a T-shirt hanging off the handlebar of his motorcycle and pulls it on. “He warned me the first time I was busted and the second, and I didn’t listen. Not sure I still would if I could go back and do anything differently.”
He’s not lying. My grandfather gave him chances.
But my grandfather also knows, as do I, that if Iron’s last name was Ames or Collins or Price, his punishment would be no more than being the butt of a joke within his father’s circle as he smokes a cigar on the golf course while they all complain about their kids.
Prison rarely makes a person’s life better. It’s more likely than not that Iron will be perpetually in and out of jail.
He steps up to me, takes my backpack, and slips it into his saddlebag. “I would like you here after I go away, okay?”
I hesitate.
“You don’t have to fuck Trace to be his friend.” Iron looks over at me. “He’s lonely. Dallas is always in a bad mood, Army is a lot older and has a kid, and Macon doesn’t talk to anyone. It would be nice for Trace to know you’re around. I know he acts like a tool, but he’s twenty.”
I always liked Trace. But I don’t want to be walked on. He and I started at the wrong place. We can’t just be friends now.
“His only memories of our mother were after she’d gotten to her worst,” he tells me. “He was never nurtured, not the way the rest of us were or how Liv was, because she was the only girl. Trace missed out on a lot. He needs a woman in the house.”
After she’d gotten to her worst …
Their mother died by suicide more than eight years ago. Two months after their dad died of a heart attack.
She’d been depressed long before that, though. That’s about all I know. Trace doesn’t talk about it, and I never pressed Liv for details. They were so young, I doubt they really knew the full measure of what had happened with their mom. Macon and Army will remember the most.
I just shake my head. “I can’t pay you for the car,” I admit. “And I’ve got my own problems, Iron. Trace will be fine. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“Nothing has ever been okay,” he whispers, looking down for a second. “I’m used to it. Trace is still young.”
I watch him, both of us falling silent.
He’s worried. He knows he probably wouldn’t have avoided this if he could go back and do it over, because Iron lives for people to give him a reason to hit them, but he doesn’t feel good about what he’s done, either. Did it just finally dawn on him that his family needs him, and in a week, they’ll be without him for years?