Always (Follow Me #6)

Chapter Eleven

When Skye returns to the dining room, Steve and I are walking out.

“Where are you staying?” he asks me.

“The hotel in town,” I say, grabbing my phone. “I’ll call a cab.”

“Don’t be silly.” Her dad smiles. “You can stay here. We have the room.”

“Thank you, but I don’t want to put you out.”

“If you insist,” her dad says, “but you don’t need a cab. Skye can drive you.”

I glance at her.

“Uh…yeah, sure. I’ll drive you.”

If Steve knew what my body was doing at the mention of Skye driving me to a hotel, he’d take back his words.

“Thank you, Skye,” I say. “I’d appreciate that.”

“Keys are on the hook,” her dad says.

“I’ll see if I can take Mom’s car,” she says. “I don’t like driving the truck.”

“Suit yourself. My car’s in the shop for a tune-up.” Steve holds out his hand. “Great to meet you, Braden. I hope we’ll see you again.”

“I hope so, too.” Steve has a strong grip. I turn to Skye. “Whenever you’re ready.”

She heads to the kitchen and returns with keys, as I look around the modest home where she grew up, at the people who raised her. All indicators point to Skye having a nice childhood. But I know better than anyone that a lovely house like this one doesn’t always tell the whole truth.

She sucks in a breath and jingles the keys. “Ready?”

“I am. Thank you again for dinner,” I say to her dad, “and please tell your wife thank you as well.”

“I absolutely will. Good night.”

“Good night, sir.”

We walk out, and I follow Skye to a light blue hatchback.

Damn. Takes me back.

It’s been over a decade since I’ve ridden in a hatchback.

“No luggage?” she says.

“I dropped everything off at the hotel and took a cab here.”

“Not a limo?”

I don’t respond. She’s being a brat, and she knows it.

She unlocks the car and gets into the driver’s side. I slide in beside her, my long legs scrunched up. I fiddle with the knobs on the side of my chair until it slides back into a more comfortable position.

“Since we only have one hotel in the tiny downtown area of Liberty, I assume you’re staying there.”

“You assume correctly.”

She starts the engine and pulls out of the long driveway. It’s a twenty-minute drive into town. “Why didn’t you rent a car?”

“I don’t know. I just wanted to get here. I’ll rent one tomorrow.” I’m not sure why I said that. I won’t be renting a car tomorrow. I’ll be flying to New York.

She nods.

Silence for a few minutes, until I turn to look at her. My whole reason for coming here was to learn more about her, about what makes her tick. Sure, she’s right that I’m looking to learn about myself as well, but I know precious little about her upbringing.

“Tell me something about your childhood,” I say.

“Is this a two-way street?” she asks.

“Sure. You tell me something, and I’ll tell you something. Except I get to choose what I tell you.”

“Is it a two-way street?” she asks again.

“Sure. You choose what to tell me. I know about the cornfield. You know about my trips to the food pantry. That’s all we know about each other’s childhoods.”

“Fair enough.” She clears her throat. “My mom used to make my clothes when I was little. I never wore anything store-bought until I was in high school.”

Not overly surprising, though I didn’t take Maggie for a seamstress. My mother wasn’t. She didn’t even own a sewing machine. “I see.”

“Now, you go.”

“I did get to wear store-bought clothes,” I say, “but they were never new. We got them from thrift stores, and when I grew out of them, Ben wore them. He got the shorter end of the stick. While they were never brand-new, at least they were new to me.”

She doesn’t say anything. Just keeps her eyes on the road.

“Your turn,” I say.

“I… I did well in school.”

Hardly surprising. Skye is a very intelligent person. “I assume that. Dig deeper, Skye.”

“That’s deep. I was one of the brainy kids. The brainy kid in handmade clothes.”

“Skye—”

“Your turn.”

“Fine.” I draw in a breath. I won’t get angry. She’s doing the best she can. “My father drank. A lot.”

She raises her eyebrows. “He did? He seems fine now.”

“He’s a recovering alcoholic. Did you notice he didn’t drink that night at dinner?”

“No, I didn’t.”

I suppose that’s not unusual. Most people don’t go around watching what others drink. When you grow up with an alcoholic, you look at things differently. “Your turn,” I say.

“Wait, wait, wait… You can’t just throw that one out there and then say it’s my turn. You need to elaborate.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal.”

She rolls her eyes. “Fine. My parents aren’t alcoholics. They’ve been pretty happily married since…”

“Since when?”

She doesn’t respond right away. Instead, she stares out the windshield, nibbling at her lower lip. Have I struck a nerve?

“When I was little,” she finally says, “about seven or eight, my father went away for a while right before harvest. My mother spent a lot of time crying, and I spent a lot of time trying to get her attention. He came back around Christmastime. Mom stopped crying then, but things were weird for a while.”

Her parents separated? I didn’t see that coming. Steve and Maggie seem devoted to each other. Of course, I’ve known them for all of a few hours.

“Where did he go?” I ask.

She sighs. “I don’t know. They never talked about it. I have my suspicions, of course. He was probably having an affair.”

“But you don’t know for sure.”

“Why else would a husband leave and a wife cry all the time?”

“Have you asked your mom?”

“Yeah. I asked both of them. All they say is it’s in the past and it’s nothing for me to worry about.”

“When was the last time you asked?”

She wrinkles her forehead. “The year I started high school, I think. They had a big fight about… I can’t even remember what. My dad stormed out, and I relived that day when my dad had left before. I asked my mom about it, and again she just said everything was fine and I didn’t need to worry.”

“And you haven’t asked since then?”

“Nope. Why continue asking when they won’t tell me?”

“That doesn’t sound like the Skye I know.”

She cocks her head. I can almost see the cogs working in her brain. She knows I’m right. It’s not like her, and she’s asking herself why she stopped.

A moment later, “Your turn.”

I chuckle. “I kept you going for longer than I thought I would.”

“Your turn,” she says again.

“All right. My father set our house on fire when he was drunk once. My mother…”

Fuck. That all just came out. I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about this.

“What? What about your mother?”

I can’t stop now. “She was badly burned.”

Skye gasps. “Oh my God. Did she…”

“No, she didn’t die. Not at that time, anyway.”

“Your father… He didn’t…do it on purpose, did he?”

Why would she think that? I have my own issues with my father, but I never believed the fire was anything other than an unfortunate mistake.

I shake my head. “It was an accident. A drunken accident. But insurance wouldn’t pay because they called it arson, and my father couldn’t prove he hadn’t set the fire on purpose, so he lost the house. Then my mother’s medical bills were so outrageous…”

“And that’s how you ended up going to the food pantry.”

I nod. “My mother always wore a scarf over her face to hide the scarring.”

She stops at a red light. “How did you ever forgive your father?”

I turn toward her. “What makes you think I have?”