Chapter 16 #3
Noah turns to me. “Couldn’t use a roommate, could you?”
I straighten, pulling myself back inside. Huh?
He ponders, his blue eyes dancing with a little alcohol. “Your brother is a steady paycheck, and I’m gone a lot, so it would almost be like free rent money for you.”
Not a bad proposition, especially since I need to get a business vehicle, and I don’t want to take anything more from my parents.
They paid for college and gave me the bakery for a damn good deal on money my mother gifted me when I was seventeen.
The irony doesn’t escape me. Is it really independence if I used money I didn’t make on my own to get it?
The rest is up to me now.
But I don’t think I want to live with anyone. For someone who’s always been lonely, I’m not in a hurry to have another adult presence looming. At least one that’s not romantic.
I tease, “I don’t think I want to be having coffee with your love life every other morning.”
He scoffs, taking my drink. “Like they would still be here in the morning.”
I roll my eyes as he gulps down, swallows, and I take it back, partaking of some.
“It’s got potential,” he says, “the neighborhood.”
I think so too. The little voice in my head is thinking about little things, like fifteen-year-old Tommy outside drinking around older guys, or how to pry into Codi’s life and what she does when she’s not working for me…
Or Farrow and what he’s hiding behind his closed doors and clever quips. All of it a responsibility, at least to some extent. Am I trading one set of obligations for another?
But I love the view out my window.
“I just got out on my own,” I say quietly. “I think I’m gonna try it for a while.”
I look back at him, seeing him nod. He doesn’t need it explained.
“But…” I broach. “There are other houses for sale on the block.”
He chuckles, coming back to the window next to me.
We gaze out at the three-story brownstones, falling apart after so many years of neglect.
Looters destroyed the interiors, and broken windows let decades of snow, rain, and wind inside.
My house is one of the nicer ones as the history of the place made it more of a shrine than a target.
Not many people want to move to a failing neighborhood with low property value, and spend thousands of dollars to renovate.
But Noah might.
“Farrow probably wouldn’t give you permission, though,” I tell him.
Noah’s eyes flicker with amusement as he stares down at the narrow alleyway between mine and Farrow’s houses. “Is that so?”
But he says it like it’s a challenge.
Something tells me that Farrow doesn’t let anything happen on Knock Hill that he doesn’t like, and I’m not sure if he doesn’t like Noah Van der Berg, but he will certainly be in his face here.
The music downstairs cuts off, the vibrations through my floor suddenly ceasing.
A piece of furniture moves, someone shouts.
I stand up straight. “Something’s up.”
Noah follows me out of my bedroom, a growl stopping me in my tracks at the top of the stairs.
“Everyone out!”
I look to Noah.
“Cops?” he says.
I take a step just as Lucas charges from the living room, back into the foyer, and whips open the door.
Turning to Hawke, he tells my brother’s son, “Go. She’s going to be in a hell of a lot of trouble already. Don’t make it worse.”
I’m going to be in trouble? Is he serious?
I expected him to call and berate me. Or maybe slip in unnoticed when he saw the party on his cameras.
But he’s charging in here like it’s his damn house.
“Now!” Lucas shouts when no one moves.
What the hell is he doing?
One of Farrow’s friends steps into view. “Who the fuck are you, man?”
But Lucas doesn’t hesitate. Whipping his T-shirt off over his head, he spins around. “Out!” he yells.
And I see it. The same thing everyone sees. The tattoo down his right shoulder, curving around the shoulder blade, and fading as it descends to the ribs and waist.
“Oh, shit!” someone exclaims.
The room silences, and I grab the banister, craning my neck to study the design, but he moves too fast.
“Move!” Lucas whips his arm, gesturing to the door.
And just like that, everyone floods out of the house.
Not walking.
Running.
“Let’s go!” I hear someone say.
“You heard him,” Mace calls out. “Everyone out now!”
Confusion freezes me. Why are they listening to him?
Bodies collide, pushing each other as they try to fit out the door.
“Oh my God,” one of Aro’s Weston friends bursts out. “Did you see that?”
“That was a real fucking tat,” someone else says.
My eyes zone in on Lucas, burning so hard they hurt.
I jerk my head to Noah, telling him to follow everyone and get out. I don’t want him in Lucas’s path.
He holds back, but I stand aside, silently urging him as I tip my head to the door. As the place empties, Lucas glares up at me and I hold his eyes without blinking.
That tattoo. I’d forgotten about it. He had it that day at the camp lodge when I was a kid.
The door slams shut behind the last of the guests, and I barrel down the stairs, charging up to him.
“What the hell was that?” I bark.
I jet around him, trying to get a look at the ink on his back, but he turns, keeping us face to face.
His blue eyes spit fire as he gazes down at me. Heat pours off his body, and he breathes like he’s dying to hurt me, and I’m not sure that scares me at all.
“Why…” I swallow, wetting my parched throat. “Why did it seem like they knew you?”
They obeyed him as soon as they saw the ink.
But he ignores my question. “You’re not old enough to live on your own.” He digs in his eyebrows. “Did you think any of this was going to fly?”
“You’re not my father!”
He rakes a hand through his hair, fucking losing his mind.
“A condemned house in a decrepit neighborhood,” he rambles, “living right next door to a career criminal with any one of a dozen little shits coming and going from his house who would love to slip something in your drink!” He gets in my face.
“You failed to mention that! Or was it deliberate?”
My ears sting at his blaring voice, and my heart races, but I don’t shout again. I can’t tell what’s radiating off from him—energy, warmth, passion—but I want him to keep going. This is the first time since he’s been home that it feels like he’s close to being honest.
He goes on, under his breath, “Serving minors, and who knows how many of them had drugs on them.” Then, he turns back to me. “And what the fuck were you doing upstairs with Noah Van der Berg?”
“You noticed all that just walking in the door?” I ask in a calm voice, standing in front of him. “Did you know I was having a party? Is that why you’re here?”
Come on. Admit you’re spying on me with security cameras you also failed to mention.
He just shakes his head and charges to the coffee table, grabbing the notebook. He flips it open to where it was when he was here last night, my writing visible in blue ink as he squeezes the folded book in his fist.
The list of birthday presents I really wanted the past few years. I dart my eyes to his.
“Yeah, I know what’s on your mind.” His barely contained growl scares me more than his shouting a moment ago. “You’re not capable of making a responsible decision.” He throws the notebook onto the entryway table next to us. “Your hormones are all over the place, and you’re coming home.”
Why? Because I’m normal? Because I want to feel things? Because I have physical desires, the same as almost everyone? It doesn’t make sense. Nothing he’s doing or saying is making sense.
But to my surprise, I don’t argue back. The sweat on his neck. The heat on his cheeks. His eyes piercing me like bullets.
I’m driving him crazy.
I extend my hand and slide it around his waist, to his back. “May I see it?”
My voice is barely above a whisper as his eyes hold mine. His body is frozen, but I catch the falter in his gaze. And I seize it, softly circling him and letting my eyes fall down the length of his back and the same tattoo I saw all those years ago.
Pressing my fingers to his skin, I feel him tense as I trace the black branches with my thumb. They wind from above his shoulder blade, down the right side of his back, and over his ribs, disappearing below the waist of his jeans.
I hesitate, something familiar about the lines. Something off about the shoots coming out of the branch.
“It’s…”
It’s not a branch.
“It’s the river,” I murmur. “The river between Shelburne Falls and Weston.”
And I’m the only one in Weston who doesn’t know that this tattoo means something. They were more scared of it than anyone in the Falls is scared when they see the Green Street tattoo.
I step back around, stopping in front of him. “You can’t keep me to yourself forever.” I reach over to the table and start to pull my notebook back. “Someday—”
But he slams his hand down on mine, and I force out my finger, dragging it down the list as he tries to take the notebook away.
“—someone is going to give me all the birthday presents I really want,” I say in a low voice.
I look over, seeing my finger pointing to number five. Panties ripped off.
Looking him dead in the eye, I unfasten my black shorts. My chest aches, because I expect him to stop me, but I’m too quick for him.
Or he’s that paralyzed that he doesn’t know what’s happening.
I drop my shorts to the floor and stand there in my underwear and little, white blouse that only falls just below my belly button.
His hard gaze doesn’t leave mine, and I don’t shrink, even though I know he’s going to shout. Or he’s going to grab me, throw me in my room, and lock me there until I behave.
I barely notice the lights go out or hear the commotion outside as the neighborhood blacks out.
I smirk, shaking my head as I back away. “You can leave.”
He has no place in my life anymore.
Turning, I head through the living room and feel his hands before I make it to the kitchen. He spins me around and backs me into the wall.