The Rumble and the Glory (Sacred Trinity #1)

Chapter 6 - Collin

When I come outside the next morning, I stop short on my porch. The whole place is crawling with people. Hundreds of them. Even from here I can see the front part of the property is filled with cars. Amon and Nash are talking to a group of men in the road that leads down the middle of all the houses, and there has got to be about a million dogs barking.

I forgot about the fuckin’ dogs.

That was Amon’s thing in the Marines—for the short time we were legit with them. Right out of basic they hooked him up as a Marine Corps dog handler. He was not qualified for this, of course. Same way I wasn’t qualified to be a counterintelligence specialist. But nonetheless, this is where we ended up.

How they found us, I never did figure out. Or why. I still don’t know. But the moment Amon and I got off the fuckin’ bus and stepped onto the base in San Diego, they were there. Two MP’s came up to us. Called us privates and everything. “Private Creed, Private Parrish, please come with us.” As if we had a choice.

And that’s how this shit started.

We didn’t do anything but show up. The rest of it was the US fuckin’ government.

Of course, we didn’t stay in the Marines. That’s why we had to agree to the dishonorable discharge as soon as our second year was up.

All that is beside the point. The point is, Amon is dog-crazy. Never had a dog growing up, his daddy’s allergic, so he didn’t even know he was dog-crazy until he got his first partner, Angel, a beautiful black German Shepherd who was probably smarter than most of the people in this town.

The only time I’ve ever seen Amon Parrish cry was when he walked away from that dog. And when he said he wanted our private security business to offer up K-9 protection for sale, I didn’t even blink. I just said yes. We got four breeding pairs, seventeen juveniles, and eleven puppies. They’ll be staying in an outbuilding just past Amon’s house, in the woods.

He sees me coming down the porch steps and waves me over. And he’s grinnin’ like a fuckin’ fool. “My dogs are here.”

I smile too. “I hear ’em. They’re fuckin’ loud.”

Amon claps me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. They’ll be inside soon. The kennel people are already setting up.”

I look over in that direction, then take in the rest of the camp. “We’re… very busy right now.”

“Shit yeah. Ryan’s got bulldozers ripping up trees back there”—Amon points behind us where a bunch of hard-hat guys are yelling things—“and Nash and me are pickin’ out the men we need for reno.”

“There’s like a hundred people here, Amon. We didn’t agree on a hundred people.”

“I know. I maybe put the word out that we were hiring a little bit too good. But don’t worry. I got your place covered. They’re gonna rip it up and put it back together and you don’t have to do a thing.”

“Wait. What about the stuff inside?”

“What stuff?”

“You know, all the shit lying around.”

“I feel like there’s a reason you’re asking me this question, so maybe let’s just skip ahead to that.”

“There is. I told Lowyn she could come pick through it.”

“Did you?” He slips his arm around my shoulders. I didn’t think he could grin any bigger, but he is. “That was so sweet. Saving all that crap for your dumpster-diving girlfriend.”

I push his arm off. “She’s not my girlfriend. And it’s not crap, Amon. It’s treasure.”

“She told you to say that, didn’t she?”

I chuckle. “Nah. But that’s what she calls it. Isn’t it better to repurpose than throw it in the dump?”

“It is. I will put together a box team and all Lowyn’s crap will be packed up and put in the church. How about that?”

“Maybe she’ll come over today and look through it.”

“Well, that would be spectacular, friend. And since you’ve got nothin’ better to do, why don’t you go make that happen.” He turns, whistles loudly, and starts yelling at some guys over near the dogs.

Then he just walks off.

But he’s right. I should go make that happen.

I don’t have her cell number and when I call the house phone, she doesn’t pick up, even though I let it ring twenty-five times. I need to get that woman an answering machine. Do they even sell those anymore?

So I take a ride into town. Having already deduced that she is not at my house, I go looking for her store. Disciple is like four blocks square, so I just take a little drive through town until I find it. Then I park out front.

I get out and look at the front window for a moment, taking it all in. McBooms, it’s called. Like McBride married a boom box, I figure. It’s clever, and I always did like clever. Plus, the lettering is stand-out good. Varsity font. Like the letters on that jacket I used to so proudly wear. And her colors are bright. Yellow and orange. Well, let’s call them… pineapple and tangerine.

Yep. This is so her. I pull the door open and go inside. A little bell jingles above my head and someone calls, “Be right there!” in a sing-songy voice.

Which gives me time to take in the interior of her shop. From the outside, McBooms looks like any other building built at the turn of the twentieth century. Red brick, three stories tall, huge picture window running down the front side, and lots of many-paned windows trimmed in white on the second and third floors.

But from the inside, it’s somethin’ else altogether.

Same three stories tall, but most of the upstairs has been removed and turned into an open ceiling bedecked with large wooden beams and curved trusses that might remind a person of a railroad bridge or the inside of a church, depending on which way one leans.

There is shit everywhere. But it’s not disorderly. In the center of the massive, almost warehouse-sized room sits a living room, something right out of the Sixties with a modular, tapered-leg couch the color of dark champagne taking up a significant portion of the space. Opposite the couch sit two wood, tapered-leg chairs with cushions the color of a Caribbean sea. And in between is a minimalist coffee table in the shape of a circle and the color of walnut. There is a credenza in the kitty-corner, top open to reveal a record player inside. And across that diagonal is an old-time black and white TV on a wheeled stand showin’ off its rabbit-ear antennas.

Pulling the look together is a massive orange rug, but underneath, and running throughout the store, the floor is made up of wide-plank boards of wood so old, they look like they have stories to tell.

There is a jukebox over in the corner and another seating arrangement—this time a dinette set with a Formica top, chrome legs and accents, and in Fifties diner checkered red.

And when I spin in place, I spy several more ‘get the look’ rooms, including a rope hammock hanging from a beam, a wave lounge chair in black velvet that can fit two people, and a whole wall of posters with the faces of dead rock-and-roll gods lookin’ back at me.

On the far side of the room is a set of wooden stairs that lead up to the second- and third-floor lofts where I presume the details are kept. Throw pillows, and bedding, and accent pieces.

Stepping in here really does feel like stepping into the past and I love it. Everything about it says ‘Lowyn.’

A woman appears, dusting her hands off, directing my attention back to the task at hand. This is not Lowyn. I’m not exactly sure who she is—people change over time, after all. But she sure as hell knows me.

“Collin Creed. As I live and breathe.” I must not have my best poker face on because she points to herself. “Rosie Harlow! Come on now! Amon picked me out of a crowd yesterday morning at the coffee shop.”

I raise an eyebrow. “A crowd?”

“There were half a dozen people in there at the time!” I grin at her and she makes a little swoony motion with her body, pretending to faint. “That dimple, my God. I had forgotten how fuckin’ handsome you are, Collin Creed.”

“Nothing gets past you, Rosie.”

She snickers. “Lemme guess. You’re here for… a mix tape.”

“A mix tape?”

“We make those, ya know. You can order them online.”

“Really?”

“Really. You can pick out songs and everything.”

“How is that legal?”

“We don’t charge for them. It’s free when you buy a hundred bucks’ worth of shit. And we record them the old-fashioned way.” She points to the jukebox, which, I notice now that it has been pointed out, is positioned next to a table with a stereo system and a wooden crate filled with cassette tapes. “We play ’em and press record, just like the good old days. It was my idea.”

I point at her. “I had forgotten how brilliant and funny you are, Rosie Harlow. Thank you for reminding me.”

She blushes, then fans herself. “My God.” Then blows out a breath. “You’re lookin’ for Lowyn, right?”

“Is she around?”

“She’s not, actually. She’s gone for the whole week.”

“Shut up. She told you to say that, didn’t she?”

Rosie laughs. “No. She really is out of town. It’s a pickin’ week.”

“What the fuck is a pickin’ week?”

“That’s when Lowyn goes out of town to pick through people’s junk so she can buy it up and bring it back.” Rosie waves her hand at the store.

“Oh.” Well, now what do I do? Lowyn was my whole plan for the day.

“She’s not far, though.”

“No?”

“Not yet. She had an appointment down near… Oh, I don’t remember. Somewhere in Tennessee. You could show up and surprise her.”

“I don’t think she’d like that.”

“Are you kidding me? She would love that.” Then Rosie winks at me. “Hold on. I’ll go get her itinerary.” Then she whirls around and goes back the way she came.

Rosie comes back out with a piece of notebook paper. Like, the actual shit we used back in school. She notices me noticin’ it. “Isn’t Lowyn so damn cute? She uses notebook paper for everything. And look!” She holds the note up so I can see it. “Cursive!” Then she bursts out laughing.

I take the paper and stare at Lowyn’s handwriting, memories flooding back like crazy. God, I would know that handwriting anywhere. It’s not long and slanted, like a John Hancock, but upright and loopy, like a teenage girl’s. The fact that it is written in baby blue ink with pink accents makes me happy in a way I haven’t been in a very long time. I can see her clicking that two-color pen right now, her tongue gliding over her lip as she carefully writes her note.

I look up at Rosie and she looks unsure. “What?”

“You OK, Collin?”

“I’m fine. Thanks.”

“Good.” She’s more serious now, not smiling anymore. “Ya know, we’re all glad you’re back. It sucks the way it turned out, but they’re gone now, so…”

“What?” I’m confused.

“Nothin’.” She points to the letter. “Show up. Her number’s on the top, so you can call if you want. But by the time you get down there, she’ll probably be heading to that motel. She drives a black truck. Got a trailer hitched to the back. You should surprise her. She needs a good surprise. And you are the best surprise she could ever dream of, Collin Creed.”

I don’t know if that’s true, but I would like to think that it is. “Thank you. And… nice to see you again, Rosie. It’s been a pleasure.”

“Oh, stop now. You’re gonna make me faint.” And then she does faint. Dramatically. All the way down to the floor with the back of her hand pressed to her forehead.

I leave shaking my head, but smiling too.

It’s… maybe… good to be back.

Four hours later I pull in to the parking lot of Motel Pool and there she is. Lowyn McBride, her ass sticking out of the back seat of her truck as she gathers shit up. I don’t park next to her, I park down the lot a little so I can watch her for a moment. And just as I think that, my phone rings.

Unknown number. And just as I see that, she backs out of the backseat with a phone to her ear.

No.

I accept the call. “How did you get this number?”

“What?” She sounds scared. “Sorry, I?—”

“I’m kiddin’, Lowyn. I know it’s you.”

“How’d you know? Did Amon call and warn you or something?”

“No, should he have?”

“No. But that’s who I got your number from.”

It’s kinda fun to simultaneously watch her kick her hip to the side and toss her hair as she says these words to me. She’s flirting. Over the phone. I’m dead.

“Anyway. Don’t you wanna know why I called?”

“You miss me?”

On the phone, she chuckles. But in real life, across the parking lot, she puts her hand over her mouth and bends over—my effing God, Lowyn. She’s showing that ass off right and left. But the reason she bent over was to hide her expression, which I catch just a bit of when she almost turns around. She puts the phone against her chest, gulps a breath, then brings it back up to her mouth. “This is business.”

“Yeah? What kind of business?” It takes every bit of willpower I have not to laugh at her.

“OK. But you’re gonna—” She turns as she’s saying this, pauses mid-sentence, and squints her eyes at me. “Is that your Jeep?”

I laugh. “That is my Jeep.”

“You’re here?”

“Surprise.”

“Oh, my God.” She hangs up the phone and comes stalking towards me, mouth going a mile a minute, cursing me out, I’m sure. But I can’t hear a single thing she’s saying.

God damn, she is so cute.

How did I ever walk away from her?

When she gets to me, I buzz the window down.

“What are you doing here in my motel parkin’ lot?”

“I have come to invite you over to my new culty compound”—I pause to appreciate her giggle—“so you can pick your treasure out of my fuckin’ junk.”

“Oh… that was dirty, Collin Creed.”

“Dirty how?” I can’t stop the laugh.

“‘Pick your treasure out of my fuckin’ junk?’ How is that not sexual innuendo?”

I guffaw. “Woman, what is your business with me?”

“Well.” She blows up some air, which make her bangs poof up. “You’re gonna think I’m crazy.” I want to say a million things back to that, but she doesn’t give me time. “You’re running some kind of security operation, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, does your operation take on any… questionably legal operations?”

“Have you been spying on me?”

She gets the joke, because she laughs, and I love this. “Seriously, Collin. I’m being serious.”

“What kind of questionable operations?”

“How do you feel about canine kidnappings?”

“I… have… zero feelings about those. And they are not on the menu.”

“But if, by chance, some rich, ex-country-singer star—sorta—wants her dog kidnapped from her filthy, no-good ex-husband, would said security operation be able to, perhaps, make that happen?” Lowyn ends this sentence with a lilt in her voice, like she’s asking me for jelly beans.

“Lowyn.”

“Collin.” She smiles and rests her chin on the part of the door where the window glass disappears.

“If you want me to kidnap a fuckin’ dog, then… I will tell Amon to do that.”

She giggles. “Amon, huh?”

“He’s gonna love this job.”

“So I can tell her yes?”

“Tell her maybe. We gotta get details.”

“Should I be wary of the fact that you agreed to this so quickly?”

“Oh, yeah. You should.”

“That’s what I thought.” She’s serious now. The way Rosie got all serious back at the shop at the end there.

I let out a long breath. “I drove a long way. I would like to have dinner with you. Would you like to have dinner with me?”

She smiles again and nods. “Just let me lock up my trailer and I’ll be right back.”

I watch her ass the whole way across the parking lot. The other night I was thinking there was no way we’d get back together. I didn’t even let myself daydream about it. Because a dozen years are a long time and Lowyn McBride is a fuckin’ treasure. I thought for sure she’d be married. Have kids. A nice house. She does have a nice house, but I mean a bigger house. With all the things she deserves.

But she’s not married, she’s a business owner, and as far as I can tell, she’s not gonna hold my exit from her life against me now.

More importantly, she knows I’m a murderer, and now she knows I’m a kidnapper too.

Well, an accomplice, at the very least.

As she makes her way back across the parking lot to me, I have to take a moment. Because a week ago Lowyn McBride was a… well, I won’t say a distant memory. I have always regretted how things ended between us. But I had given up on the delusion that one day we might reconnect. I mean, really. How is it possible that she’s not married? And I know she doesn’t have a boyfriend because she let me come home with her the other night and the Lowyn I know would not have done that if she had a boyfriend.

I feel like I just fell into an opportunity.

She gets in the truck, smiling, jostling a little as she pulls her seatbelt across her chest. “OK. I’m hungry. I didn’t eat all day. Were you driving all day, Collin? Did you eat anything?”

Just like that. Just like… just like we are still the same people we were. Like no time passed at all. “I didn’t eat, no.”

“Good, then I won’t embarrass myself when I scarf my food down.”

I smile as I slide the Jeep into first, then pull out of the motel parking lot.

“Where we going? Is it barbecue? I’m maybe a little bit hungry for barbecue.”

“Lowyn, I can’t remember a time when you would ever pass up barbecue.”

“Some things never change.” She kinda sighs these words out. But she’s not looking at me. She’s looking out the window.

“We are going to barbecue. I know a place.”

She turns to look at me and giggles. “You know a place in Johnson City, Tennessee, do ya?”

“Just you wait.”

She giggles again. An easy laugh. One that takes me all the way back to junior high when I used to watch her before school when she was hanging with her friends. Rosie was around back then too, and Clover. “Hey, whatever happened to Clover?”

“Oh, she’s a fancy-fancy events coordinator up in that super-fancy-fancy hotel in Virginia. The Dixie Yonder. You ever heard of that place?”

You know what I like about people in these hills? The way they keep a conversation goin’ with a question at the end. I’ve been all over the world and in most places, people just want you to shut up. And maybe it’s just because we’re reconnecting, that could be it. But I think it’s just something we do in these parts. Keep the conversation going, I mean.

“I have not. But if you say it’s super-super-fancy, then it must be impressive.”

“Super-fancy-fancy.”

“I stand corrected.”

She laughs and so do I. Why the hell did I ever walk out on this one?

She turns her head and looks at me. I can just barely see this from the corner of my eye. “Collin.”

“What?” I glance over at her, then look back to the road because this little section of highway is kinda curvy.

“Where have you been?”

My breath comes out unexpectedly. “Shit, Lowyn. Where haven’t I been? All over.”

“Start from the beginning. I want to hear about all of it.”

“You really don’t.”

“No, I really do. I have been picturing you in my head all these years.”

I look over at her again. “What?”

“Sure. Of course. I mean… the way you left, and?—”

“I’m sorry about that.”

“No. I mean, OK. That’s fine, apology accepted. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Not in a pining way. Just a casual, every-once-in-a-while way. Where is he right now? Thoughts like that on a Christmas Eve. And maybe a year later I’d say, what is he doing? And then, months after that, for no good reason whatsoever, I’d think, what does he look like? Almost the same, by the way. But older. And…” She pauses and when I look over again, she’s nodding her head. She smiles at me. “Nice.”

“I look nice, huh?”

“You do. So maybe it did drive me a little nuts after you left because I had lost something, ya know? Initially, I was a teeny bit desperate for news, so I would try to corner your daddy every once in a while, in those early years, to ask him about you. But he was less than forthcoming, if I’m being honest. You don’t have to tell me everything, of course, just paint me a tiny picture.”

I tap my fingers on the steering wheel, thinking about this. “A tiny picture… well, I went to basic. That was San Diego.”

“Oh, that sounds nice.”

I shrug that comment off. “Then…” I sigh. How much can I tell her?

“Then you got discharged.”

“Right.” I can tell her this part, because none of that’s classified anymore. There was a fucking congressional commission about the whole thing, so it doesn’t even matter. “Well, about that. First thing is, I did get dishonorably discharged—and so did Amon. But it was planned.”

“What’s that mean?”

“They kinda… picked us, I guess. Me and Amon. Reasons unknown. And put us in this special program. Not the SEALs or Rangers, but something kinda like it.”

“Ohhhhhh. Wait.” When I look over at her, that beautiful face of hers is all crinkled up. “I think I heard something about this.”

“I think everyone heard something about this. It was a big fuckin’ deal in Congress the last two years.”

“Yes. They had a commission about it.”

“They certainly did. All the people running it—all my superiors—well, most of them went to prison over the whole thing. And not the super-fancy-fancy kind, either.” She giggles. “They all got ten years in the fuckin’ brig.”

“Yeah, I do remember that. Did you get in trouble?”

“Well, not officially. It was a military operation, but we weren’t military. That’s the part Congress took offense to. See, these generals, they made a… a private army, if you will. According to Congress, we were mercenaries. But according to our contracts, we were security.”

“Well, this sounds sticky, Collin.”

“Oh, you have no idea how fuckin’ sticky that whole thing got.”

“But you’re out now? I mean, you are, right? You’re here, startin’ a business. It’s not some front for the US government, is it?”

“Fuck. No.”

She relaxes a little. “Good.”

“That’s all you got to say about that? Good? I’m not government, so that’s good?”

Her smile is real, but not big. “It’s very good.”

I decide to leave it at that because we’re coming up to the little place I’m taking her for dinner. She leans forward when I pull into the parking lot of a log-cabin restaurant on the Watauga River. There’s an old painted sign over the huge front porch that says ‘Watauga Waffle House.’

Lowyn huffs out a little laugh. “The Waffle House?”

“Not the Waffle House. The Watauga Waffle House. But don’t worry, the online menu says they serve spaghetti and meatballs.”

She slaps my shoulder in a playful manner that makes me so homesick for high school, my stomach aches. “I still do like a good meatball.”

I laugh too. Turn the Jeep off. Then I look over at her and take her all in. She’s got on a white tank top and a white overshirt that makes her look girly and feminine. There are no buttons or anything on this overshirt, it’s a cotton jacket with eyelet lace on the collar and the bell sleeves, with two pieces of white satin tied in a bow at the dip of her waist. She’s wearing jeans too. Tight jeans that really show off her curves. And boots. Lowyn McBride always did like a good pair of vintage cowgirl boots.

“So… listen, Lowyn?—”

“You don’t have to.”

“You don’t even know what I’m gonna say.”

“I kinda do. Whatever happened, happened. That’s how I see it. I understand why things went the way they did. It was a really fucked-up night, ya know?”

She’s talking about the night I killed that man. “Yeah. It certainly was.”

“And… well, we were too young to process it. I’m really glad you’re back though.”

“You sure? Because you were pretty mad at me when you realized it was me you took home that night.”

“That reaction was a combination of things. And I’m not gonna pretend that I wasn’t hurt when you left, but it’s not about that. Not exactly.”

“What’s it about then?”

She unsnaps her seat belt and turns in the seat so we’re more facing each other. Then she starts wringing her hands in her lap. “I lied about something. That was part of it. It was embarrassment, maybe. And… yeah, I was mad at you for leaving me. But that was a long time ago. And then you made that nice offer to let me come pick your place and… and I realized we don’t have to be mad at each other. Ya know? That… I dunno. Maybe we just needed time apart and it wasn’t meant to be back then.”

“And now?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. But before this goes any further”—she points at me, then herself—“I have to tell you something about that room of yours in my house.”

“My room?”

“Yeah. You see, it’s not for sale.”

“But I saw it on the website. It’s all on there.”

“Yeah. It is. Because that same morning that we woke up in your bed, I put a bunch of pictures up on the website to make you think that.”

“So… you’re telling me… you’ve kept my childhood bedroom like a shrine for… for why?” Her face goes sad, which confuses me. “Lowyn, what is going on?”

She lets out a long breath and then reaches for my hand.

This startles me, so I pull back. And I don’t mean to do that, but before my mind can catch up with my reaction, it’s already done. “I didn’t… I don’t… just tell me what’s going on.”

“OK. But I’m sorry ahead of time, OK?”

I shrug. I don’t even know what to do with that statement. “OK.”

“OK. Well, after you left, the preacher, your daddy, well he got weird, Collin. The sermons got dark. People stopped comin’ to the Revival. The towns started losing money. People just… glossed over it the first year. He’s upset, he’s… whatever. They thought it would pass. But the second year, he was worse.”

“Worse how? What was he sayin’?”

“Oh, Collin. It was…” She blows out a breath. “Fire and brimstone, ya know? Like… Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God kinda shit. Really angry. Real dark. Still, people didn’t know how to approach it, ya know? He’s the fuckin’ preacher, right? What can one do?”

“Yeah, OK.”

“But then Bishop and Revenant started to complain about it and… well, things got ugly.”

The three towns of Disciple, Bishop, and Revenant are all tied together through the Revival. Disciple has the tent and we play the part of God, or whatever, because this whole thing is kind of a living carnival. A sideshow of epic proportions.

And if you have a God, of course you have to have a Devil. That’s Revenant. Revenant plays the part of debauchery. A real Babylon kind of place. Bars, and neon signs, and bikers. Really rowdy kind of stuff. Plus some pagan stores and stuff like that. Nothin’ illegal, of course. It’s all a show.

Bishop is the path of redemption through traditional ways. It’s a Colonial town and it has a historical district in the old downtown where people live like they did back in the day. Horse and buggy, butter churns, spinning wheels, and raising livestock. All that kind of shit.

We got a thing going up here in the hills of West Virginia. Like a theme park, except the people of Disciple, Revenant, and Bishop all live inside of it. We all play a part. And we’re all tied together. The tent revival really brings them in. It’s legend. And without it, Revenant would just be… well, a place you really didn’t want to be. Same with Bishop. People would come and see the buggies going down the road and all that, but really, the three towns need each other to make it all work.

All our lives are tied together through this carnival we produce like a three-legged stool. And if one leg goes wonky, it takes the whole thing down.

“All right.” I nod at Lowyn. “I guess that’s reasonable.”

“Right. So. Well, they fired him. That’s why your family moved.”

“Really.”

“Yep.”

“Huh. All this time I thought they just wanted to get rid of that house.”

“Well…” She’s cringing.

“There’s more?”

“Yep, there’s more.”

“OK, Lowyn, just spit it out. Tell me. What the hell is going on?”

She looks out the window for a moment, then takes a breath and looks back at me. “So… they needed to sell the house, right?”

“As one does when they move.”

“And I offered to buy it because… well, maybe this is stupid, but I spent a lot of time in that house, ya know? It felt like… like it was part mine already.”

“Makes sense.”

“So I make the offer, your daddy accepts, and they’re packin’ up to move.”

“Keep going.”

“So on the day before we close on the house I’m over there helping out. And I say to your mama, ‘Would you like me to pack up Collin’s room?’” Lowyn’s shoulders shrug up and she blushes. “I did like your things, Collin. I did want to explore it all, OK? I admit that. But then your daddy says, ‘Just put it all in the trash, Lowyn. That’s where it belongs.’”

I look away. Get lost lookin’ out the window. Trying to process this. Not sure how to feel. I mean, I haven’t talked to them in eight years. I have no idea what Olive even looks like these days. My mama hasn’t called me on my birthday, or sent me so much as a card at Christmas. And those last few conversations I had with my daddy on the phone—well, he made it perfectly clear that I was trash to him, so I’m not even surprised that he wanted to throw me out altogether.

“I’m sorry, Collin. It hit me that way too. So I told them to leave it and I’d take care of it.”

“And you just left it.” I look over at her and she nods. “The exact way it was when I took off.”

She nods again. “There are memories in that room. Memories they had no right to throw away.” Now she straightens her back and lifts her chin up in a defiant posture. “And to be honest, some of those memories were mine. They didn’t have any right to do that. And then… well, I didn’t know what to do with that room. So I just closed the door and went along with my business. Then time passed. I redecorated everything and remodeled around it. I didn’t need the space. I don’t sleep in your bed, Collin. I’m not staring at your posters on the wall, pining away about something that never happened, OK? I sleep upstairs. I turned the bonus room into a master suite. It’s real nice. You should come see it.”

There is no way to stop my laugh and just like that, all the melancholy that was filling up this Jeep dissipates. “Did you just invite me into your bedroom, Lowyn McBride?”

She blushes as she smiles, then shrugs. “It’s just… a really nice room.”

I chuckle and look out the window again. Only this time, I’m not thinking about those asshole parents of mine. I’m not thinking about the past at all.

I get out, walk around to Lowyn’s door, open it up, and offer her my hand. “Come on. Let’s get some fuckin’ meatballs.”