Chapter 23
There’s a lightness to my chest that I haven’t felt since I was a kid. I didn’t realize how deep the poison of that secret had seeped into my body until I let it out. It’s still uncoiling from my bones, having wound through my ribs, choked my lungs and eaten away at my arteries for years.
The stress of being me isn’t completely gone, but it’s gotten easier to exist. I know I should deal with the biggest secret stowed away under my seat right now, but that one is trickier. There’s less emotion involved. I don’t have love for my father. I don’t even think the blood matters anymore.
Rather than sorting through how the hell I’m going to handle that, though, my mind keeps going back to what Saylor said.
She loves me. Exactly as I am. The monster and the mama’s boy.
The man and the tortured past. All my rough edges and soft insides.
An Anderson. The son about to betray his father. She loves me.
And she’s going to leave in a few weeks.
Sure, not forever, and she won’t be far.
A daytrip away, really. And I intend to push her to take what the universe is giving her to get her closer to her dreams. To find her own dreams, too.
And just own them like fucking mad. But she’s still going to leave.
And while our six years isn’t the end of the world, it still feels like a lot when she has so much life left to experience.
“I see your wheels turning,” she says, pulling me from my thoughts.
I roll my head to the side and reach my hand over the console for her to take. She lays hers in mine, and I thread our fingers together.
“You can’t see my wheels. You’re in the car,” I joke.
She rolls her eyes, but a faint laugh still slips out.
“Did my dad tell you that joke too? When you spoke the other day?”
I shrug.
“Maybe.” Of course, he didn’t tell me that joke. Instead, he told me he was going to ask for what he’s owed and threaten to sue her mom. I need to break that news to her before dinner and his show tomorrow. I’m sure she’s wondering what prompted me to share everything when I did.
“Stay with me again. Tonight?” I ask.
Her mouth inches up as she nods, her sexy smirk such a fucking distraction from the task at hand. There’s little chance of me getting her inside to talk instead of ripping her clothes off. I’m going to have to get her father’s plan out now, before we reach the garage.
“Hey, I should also tell you . . .” I rub my chin, and she falls back into her seat, her invisible guard moving in place again. I’ve really hit her with a lot today. Too late now. I opened my fucking mouth already.
“The stuff I told you today, about my dad, and your mom. That’s what your dad and I talked about at the garage. That’s why he’s here, Saylor. He feels like he’s owed . . . I don’t know . . . something, I guess.”
Hearing it out loud, even in my own voice, makes it sound so much uglier. I don’t disagree that he’s not due for his damages, but this isn’t like a car crash. It was a wrecked marriage. And it’s been almost a decade. At this point, it feels like—
“Extortion,” Saylor mutters, somehow pulling the word right out of my head.
I grimace, glancing back to the empty road then to her again.
This stretch of desert at dusk is lonely.
It’s beautiful sometimes, too. But right now, it feels extra bleak.
Flat sand, thirsty brush, wilted wildflowers, and a haze from the faraway farm fields that shouldn’t thrive in this desert. It feels thick out here. Quiet.
“I don’t think he thinks of it that way. He’s still holding onto a lot of anger, maybe, and that emotion can make people do stupid things,” I say.
“Like confess to arson.”
I suck in my lips and hold my breath, smart enough to know that my knee-jerk reaction to her words won’t be kind or deserved.
Besides, maybe she’s right. I was angry most of my adolescent life, and I’m still angry now.
It’s why I revel in hurting my brother the way I do.
And all that feeds into my lack of self-worth.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine. And you’re probably right.” My clipped words leave a coldness in the air, and the silence in the vehicle is palpable. The somberness matches the desert outside.
We ride along in quiet for several miles, the rumble of my tires on the beaten-up road the only thing keeping us company and reminding me that this isn’t a dream.
“I’m angry too,” Saylor finally cuts through the quiet. “Just so you know. We’re both allowed to be angry. And we’re allowed to make strange choices. And I guess . . .”
She lets out a heavy breath. I glance her way in time for her to do the same, and our gazes connect for a short, important moment.
“I guess my dad has that right too. The right thing to do would be for me to forgive him. Forgive all of them.” She blinks, her body suddenly seeming tired, as if she’s climbed a mountain to get here.
“Doing the right thing is overrated,” I say, only partly kidding.
The dark joke makes her laugh all the same, and soon, she moves her hand to my leg. The weight on my thigh is a welcome anchor, and suddenly the night seems hopeful again.
I want to tell her to try not to conflate his greed and need for retribution as a slight.
He loves seeing her. She’s his light, even if he’s blinded a little right now.
I could tell when they spoke. I sensed it in the way he clung to her as they hugged, like she could be ripped away from him at a moment’s notice.
Saylor will come to it all on her own, though. Her own way. With or without me.
Without me.
“Does it embarrass you? Being with me, I mean?”
Her swift laugh at my question eases my worries a bit, but I still wonder if there isn’t a piece of her that’s getting ready for college and questioning being held back by some dropout mechanic.
“Rowan, you’re pretty much the hottest guy most women with eyes have ever seen. No, I’m never embarrassed to be seen with you. In fact, I wish we were seen more. In public. Together.”
I can feel my smile not quite reach my eyes, and she calls me on it.
“What are you worried about? Do you need to hear it in Spanish? T’amo. How about French? Je T’aime. I don’t know it any other way, but I’ll say it in English again. I love you, Rowan.”
I roll my neck and laugh off the embarrassing burn taking over my face as I groan.
“It’s not . . . that. I mean, I believe you. And I know that right now, this is very real. But what about this fall, when you’re walking in the quad and you drop your books and some smooth football jock swoops in to carry them for you.”
“Uh, I hate to break this to you, but first . . . there aren’t books anymore.
Everything’s an e-book. And football players aren’t my thing.
I’m more of a basketball player kind of girl.
” She’s working hard to convince me, and it’s so fucking sweet, but I want her to be sure.
I don’t want to be some drag on her life. I won’t hold her back from anything.
“Okay, fine. But what if there’s some baller at your college, and he’s nice? I want that for you, if that’s what you want.” I glance her way, and she silently laughs.
“Rowan, I have a baller. And he’s nice. And he didn’t need college.
He started his own business, and it’s killing it.
And frankly, I don’t like to party. Hell, I don’t even like to swim, but I’m going to keep doing that until school is paid for.
And as for my free time? I’d rather spend it meeting sweet old ladies at the bus stop and helping them carry their groceries.
I want to volunteer for things. I want to give myself to something bigger than me and make a difference.
I don’t need to meet the hot jock in the quad.
I’ll wait for him to drive up north and spend the night with me in the lodge. ”
My stupid grin is pointless to try to remove. I couldn’t tell my mouth to behave if I wanted to. And I can’t say I didn’t give her an out.
“You’re a strange woman, Saylor Kelly. Fucking strange.”
Her eyes linger on me for several quiet seconds, even after I finally give in and let her win.
If she wants to be with me, to try this for real, then that’s what I’m going to do.
And if she wants to go out in public and show off what we are and what we have to the world? Well then fuck it. We’ll go right now.
I shift my eyes her way for a beat.
“How do you feel about driving fast?”
Her mouth curves higher.
“I love it.”
She probably thinks I mean right now, but I have bigger plans.
I haven’t hit the drag strip in months. I’ve been too busy being on parole and trying to keep the garage open.
I veer from the main highway about ten miles before we hit the city limits, and I think Saylor knows where I’m headed within seconds of our turn.
The lights glow from the dust kicked up along the track.
Professionals haven’t raced here in years, but the county kept the track open and started letting amateurs turn out for fun.
On the weekends, this place is basically an enormous flea market.
But on Friday nights? It’s alive with cars that sound just like mine.
And the minute I pull in, and eyes begin to take in the girl sitting next to me, my chest puffs up with the beast.