Текст книги "Junk Miles"

Автор книги: Лиз Реинхардт

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

He didn’t see me. I could see his face. He was smiling, his gray eyes crinkled, his eyetooth crooked and perfect. My heart swelled, until he caught sight of me.

It was like an eclipse. All of the warmth and laughter and general happiness was gone. He yelled that he was taking a break and stalked over to me so aggressively, I felt a little nervous. I knew nothing at all about angry Jake. He had never shown me anything but love and goodness. I didn’t know what to expect from him, but whatever it was, I deserved it. I had brought it on myself.

He came so close we would have been in each other’s arms if he had put his around me. He didn’t

He stopped just short of smashing into me, but I could tell it took all of his effort to stop. He licked his lips nervously and looked at me for a few seconds, his eyes filled with a combination of fury and longing.

“Why are you here?” he demanded.

“I’ll leave.” My chicken heart showed its true self. I turned to go and his hand grabbed mine.

It was just like I remembered, big and rough and cold around my softer, smaller, smoother hand.

“Don’t go,” he said in a ragged voice, yanking me back to him. “I asked why you were here. You didn’t call me. I didn’t even know you were back.”

“Well, I’m back. Last night. I thought you made it clear you didn’t want me to call,” I added, my voice little more than a squeak.

He raised one eyebrow. “So you came in person instead?”

“I needed some apple tarts,” I lied. “For Thorsten.”

“And you decided to ogle the help on the way to the store?” His voice was cold and a little distant, but still a tiny bit flirty. Things hadn’t snapped back to the way they were. What had I expected anyway?

“I can’t help you’re good-looking.” I tried hard to play along.

His mouth tightened. “Yeah. I guess I have somegood traits.” I knew what he was saying; he was voicing my exact thought when I had first seen him a few minutes before. He was implying that all I ever liked about him was the physical.

“Look, I’m…” And I stopped before I said ‘sorry’ because it was a lame thing to say, and it was mostly untrue. “I’m glad to see you. I know things are weird. I missed you.”

He still had my hand. Without answering me, he dragged me to a greenhouse. It might have been the same one he dragged me into months ago, where he kissed me so happily. Looking at him now, it didn’t seem possible that moment ever existed. His eyes were steely and cold.

“What are you doing?” His voice was angry and accusing. “You broke up with me, remember? You wanted Saxon. And I stepped back. Why are you torturing me now?” His voice was raw.

“I’m not,” I stuttered, shocked by his dark look. “I do miss you. I’ve been confused.”

He pushed me against the door, his body blocking me in. “You’re a smart girl. Maybe the smartest I’ve ever known. It’s hard for me to believe you’re so easily confused.”

“I am,” I repeated. “I love you.”

“Don’t say that.” His voice was tight and furious. “You’re a liar.”

“I’m not.” I breathed hard. “I love you. But I cared about Saxon. I care about him, and I didn’t know how much or why. I didn’t want to be with you and think about him.” It felt good to say it.

“Well, thanks.” He spat the words out sarcastically. “I hope you two had fun. Just one big genius bullshit party, right?” He pushed off the wall, but I grabbed his arm.

“It wasn’t!” I cried. “It wasn’t, Jake. We…fought a lot. We didn’t get along. Not like me and you.”

“You didn’t see that coming?” Jake sneered. “He’s a user. I’ve told you that a million times. But you didn’t want to see that about him. Hey, I can’t blame you for getting pulled in. He had me good once too. But I never hurt someone else for him.” He started to walk away, but I grabbed him by his jacket and pulled him back.

“That I’m sorry for!” I said. He looked at me, his face contorted with what could have just as easily been anger or sadness. “I never wanted to hurt you! I swear, I never wanted to make you upset, Jake.”

He pulled me to him then, crushed me hard to his chest and breathed in my hair. He tightened his arms around me, and I felt the air swoop out of my lungs. In that moment, my shriveled little heart filled and expanded until I was sure it was going to break through the bones that held it back. Then his mouth was on mine, hungry and persistent. His big, hard hands were all over, and I was felt like my skin could ignite where he touched me. I pressed into him and kissed back, hard and fierce and sorry. I felt a regret I never imagined was possible and a fragile bubble of hope.

Then he pulled away suddenly, his eyes wild.

“Go home, Bren,” he ordered.

My eyes went wide, and I felt a shaky nervousness. “Jake, I think we should…”

“Go the hell home!” he snapped. He looked furious. “Go home now, Brenna!”

I ran out of the greenhouse, and it felt a little like my heart was cracking apart. That delicate bubble of hope burst and was replaced with despair. I got on my bike, my legs jelly shaky, and pedaled away. I wasn’t going towards home, and I wasn’t going towards school, the only two places I really knew the way to. I just pedaled blindly, flying past houses I vaguely knew and going down roads I didn’t know at all. Finally the sun was high, I shook with cold, and I had no idea where I was. I bit my lip to stop myself from crying. I would not cry!

I slid my cell phone out of my pocket, already hating the idea of calling my mother. She wasn’t a fan of my riding my bike anyway. This call would be handing her a free pass to complain and nag every time she thought it wouldn’t be safe for me to go out. Which would be every time I wanted to go out. I scrolled through my contacts and stopped at the one that was so obvious but also still unexpected.

“Hey,” Saxon said on the fifth ring. He sounded like he was sleeping.

“I…uh,” I began, and then I was crying.

“Brenna!” He sounded fully awake. I wanted to curl up and fade away. This was getting ludicrous. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m lost,” I gulped out.

He was silent for a minute, then he laughed. “I was a Boy Scout for like three weeks. I’ll come and find you. Anything nearby?”

“I passed that big mansion off of Plains.” I breathed in and out steadily to keep my voice from shaking. “I went past the emu farm, the one with the dead chickens always in the road. Now I can see the back of the mansion and there’s a brick ranch with an old car on concrete blocks.”

“Is it a Mustang?”

“Saxon, how the hell would I know…wait, it has a running horse on it.” I peered at the silver emblem on the front of the car.

He laughed. “How did you get behind the Garbage Castle?”

“Is that it?” I looked at the turreted monstrosity that I had seen so many times. “You know where I am?”

“Yeah. That’s Roger Benson’s house. His dad’s had that Mustang since the 70’s. It’s incredible.” His voice got dreamy.

“It doesn’t even have wheels,” I said, my teeth clattering. “And it looks like one of the doors is rusting off.”

“You have to look at the inner beauty, Blix. The potential.” He was quiet a minute. “Are you shivering?”

“It isJanuary.” I tried not to be too ungrateful. He was, after all, willing to help.

“I’ll be there in eight minutes.” He clicked off.

I didn’t know where Saxon lived, but eight minutes was probably the amount of time it took if he broke every imaginable traffic law known to man on the way over.

I checked my watch, just for fun. It was twelve forty-seven.

At twelve fifty-four, I heard the rumble of his engine. He pulled way too close to me, popped the passenger door open and came to get my bike. I got in the car and put my hands to the heat vents, blowing a full stream of hot air.

He got in next to me and grinned. “So, I guess I’m gonna be your knight in shining armor whether you like it or not.”

“I’m not usually so dumb,” I apologized.

“What brings a lovely, sexually tempting young thing like yourself to a nearly deserted country road at lunch time?” He held the wheel with one hand and leaned back as comfortably as if he were in a recliner. I loved the way he looked when he drove. I felt a lot of warm feelings towards Saxon when I compared his recent behavior to Jake’s.

“I just got lost.” My words rang false in the hot interior of his car.

“Don’t bullshit me, Blix.” He popped his cigarette pack out of his pocket and pulled one out with his lips. He took out his lighter and tried to light it, but the bumps in the road didn’t make it easy. Neither did the fact that he was doing just under sixty-five. I grabbed the lighter and lit the cigarette. “Thanks, friend.” He took a long drag. “Now, what’s up?”

“I went to see Jake.” I couldn’t say any more. The whole thing was so melodramatic and horrifying.

Saxon rolled his window down and blew smoke out of it. “I guess it wasn’t all wine and roses?”

I shook my head miserably. “He was pretty pissed. He told me to go home. He was so mad. I’ve never seen him that mad.”

“Did you expect a parade? You broke up with him after he gave you his fucking ‘protect my heart’ ring. He went on a limb for you.” Leave it to Saxon to put the truest version of my behavior out in the cold light of day.

Saxon’s lack of sympathy, though right, was upsetting. “He didn’t go on any limb,” I said softly. “Giving me that ring was just the next logical step for him.”

“Well, yeah.” Saxon flicked ash out the window. “I told you, he’s had his fun. He’s not worried about screwing anyone else…”

“I’m not thinking about that!” I interrupted, feeling the burn of a lie, even though I really wasn’t thinking about that. Was I?

He chuckled. “You may not admit it, but I can see you salivating when we’re in a room together. Your pheromones are practically choking me.”

“I’m not thinking about sex with anyone,” I repeated. “Like I need any more complications in my life right now.”

“Your life has been one big complication since you came back from your Danish romp,” he scoffed. “And you’ve loved every damn minute, so stop lying to yourself.”

Then the car stopped. We were in front of an enormous, white, modern house. “This is your house?”

“Nope.” He pushed his door open with his shoulder. “We’re breaking in.”

I was about to talk him out of it, calmly, to hide my panic, but then he shook his keys at me with a smirk and waved me to the door. We entered the cavernous house legally, and I hid my sigh of relief.

The front foyer had a fountain. A real fountain like they have in Chinese food restaurants. It was tiled in something dark and incredibly shiny with little lichen-like fossils in it.

The living room had whatever would be beyond a cathedral ceiling. Hanging from the middle was a colossal chandelier made of swirling metal and colored glass. There was a big furry carpet over super shiny dark wood floors and several weird-shaped red sofas and chairs. Outside the enormous windows, there was an in-ground pool, covered for the winter.

“Holy shit.” I gaped and my voice echoed off the walls. “Saxon, your house is…”

“Incredibly ugly.” He looked around with cold eyes. “Yeah, I know. Notice there’s no Christmas tree? Lylee finds them ‘too quaint.’ It’s like living in a really pretentious museum.”

It was weird to see someone look so ill at ease in his own home, especially one as incredible as this one. Saxon led me to a huge white-tiled kitchen with stainless steel counters and cabinets. He opened the fridge, which was the kind that had two full doors.

“Hungry?”

“I am.” I peeked over his shoulder. “Wow.”

“I’ll make us sandwiches.”

The interior of his fridge was so enormous that someone could have easily lived in it. Maybe even an entire small family.

Saxon got out plates and condiments and meats and cheese and bread, like a normal human who was about to make some food to eat. This felt so unlike Saxon, it was a little disconcerting to watch.

“So.” I pulled up a stool. “Where’s Lylee?”

Saxon put mayo on both sandwiches without asking me if I wanted it. I did.

“She is in Greece.” He spun the cap back on the mayo jar.

“What? We just got back!”

“From France. She wanted to go to Greece. I think she has some man-whore on Crete.” He shrugged. “Whatever makes her happy.” His voice was flat and bland.

“I’m sorry.” I took the meat-stuffed sandwich he held out.

“Don’t be.” He bundled up all the food and stuffed it back in the fridge. “Life is a lot easier when she’s not around. Lylee is hard to live with when she’s totally happy, and that’s not often. C’mon, we’ll eat in my room.” He got up and grabbed two sodas, and I followed him down a hallway lined with modern art in thick metal frames.

His room was the one place that looked like what I’d expected. It looked like a dirty teenage boy’s room was supposed to look like, just bigger. And possibly messier. He popped a window open. “Sorry. It smells like gym socks, right?”

He looked so handsome and boyish, and that was at odds with the way I typically thought of him. Saxon always struck me as something wild, like some feral creature that slept in a tree at night. When we had talked about him as a pet in Paris, the image of him as a huge, coiling snake or ravenous wolf made sense.

“It does. You could clean it,” I suggested.

He looked around without much interest. “No point. It would look like this again in no time. I have to try to be here when Carmella comes over, or she cleans it even though I say not to. She doesn’t make nearly enough to deal with this crap.”

“You have a maid?” I asked.

“You think Lylee does housework?” he returned.

“I guess she doesn’t seem that domestic.” His room was so unlike Jake’s it was crazy. We were sitting on small couches, set up on one side like a little sitting room with a chipped but expensive-looking coffee table between them. There were thick rugs over the hardwood, littered with Dorito crumbs and spilled who-knows-what. The bed was at least a queen, maybe bigger. It had gray sheets, and you could just tell from the way they bunched and piled so beautifully that they were something expensive. Maybe silk? The walls had framed art, mostly post-modern stuff, nothing I really knew. And there were band posters, the kind they use to advertise shows. I didn’t know many of them either. There was a desk with enough computer equipment to fill a NASA control room. Clothes were everywhere, and there were old plates, empty soda cans and, on the floor, what looked like a condom wrapper. What was it with the boys I cared about and suggestively placed condom wrappers? “Maybe you should just give Carmella a bonus and let her in here.”

“It’s freaking you out, isn’t it?” He looked around, and I imagined he was trying to see it through my eyes.

“It is.” I squirmed a little, equally fascinated and horrified. “Your dirtiest private dirt is crawling over everything in here. I can smell you. I can see evidence of you. It’s like looking at you under a microscope.”

“So this room is like my nasty little personal Petri dish?” He seemed unaccountably happy with the idea.

“Yes. You are one huge, gross science experiment.”

“You crack me up.” He laughed and his eyes got a glint I didn’t completely trust. “I don’t have many people in my life who make me laugh. I guess I don’t have that many friends in general. I’ve fucked it up with a lot of my guy friends, and no girl wants me for anything but what I can give her in bed.”

I rolled my eyes, but it was mostly to stay my panic. “If I have to hear about how good you are in bed one more time, I’m going to scream,” I joked. Though the delivery would have been smoother if my voice hadn’t wobbled. My attempts at levity were lost on Saxon. His black eyes were honed on me, and I knew for a fact I was trapped.

He moved across the space between us with all the feline grace of a jungle cat and then he was next to me. His body was warm and his skin emitted that amazing smell that was only Saxon’s and made me crazy. I tried breathing through my mouth, but I was no good at denying myself things. It just went against my nature.

“You think I’m exaggerating about how good I am?” His voice dripped with sex. “I’m not. I want to show you. I’ve thought about what I would do to you if I got you in my bed from the first minute I saw you.”

It felt like there was something crushing my lungs. I knew what he was saying wasn’t even just cheesy romance talk. I could see sometimes, when he looked over at me, that he was thinking things no normal human would entertain in public, even in his head.

“I kissed Jake when I saw him,” I confessed, desperate to derail this before it started, whatever it was. “Or I kissed him back. He kissed me first.”

“I don’t like it.” Saxon shrugged. “But you aren’t mine. Oh, wait. You’re nobody’s girl, right, Blix?” His eyes were bright with mockery. “You’re your own girl.”

“I am,” I insisted.

“Then stop pussyfooting around. Come to bed with me,” he lured.

“No.” I shook my head. Jake hadn’t wanted sex. Every time we were together, I knew he was going to talk me out of it. And that was a good thing. I wasn’t good at talking other people out of things. Especially things I could potentially like.

“Did he want you? Did he tell you to wait for him?” Saxon’s voice was so melodic it just couldn’t be sinister. Could it? My brain was fogging.

“No.”

“You want him back?” Saxon asked.

“Yes.” I did. Badly.

“But you like me?”

“Yes.” I struggled to break through his hypnosis. “And you and I tried in Paris. We didn‘t work. Remember?”

“Too much pressure,” Saxon argued.

God, he was handsome. I loved the angles of his face, his hard jaw and black eyes. Who had black eyes, anyway? When his lips moved towards mine, I tried to pull up an image of Jake, but all I could see clearly was him screaming at me to leave.

Fine.

He wanted me to leave? I was gone.

Saxon brushed his lips against mine, and I kissed him back. He put his hands on my back and dragged me closer to him. I opened my mouth and licked at his, hating the taste of cigarette smoke, but loving the real taste of him underneath it. My mind was working around Jake yelling and Saxon kissing, and I felt defeated and glad for Saxon’s understanding.

We kissed until he was pressing into me, and I felt that he was hard. I was trying to kiss him and keep a cool head. I knew I didn’t want to have sex, but I wanted…something. Something more than we’d done in France. Something better.

He got up and dragged me over to the bed with its rumpled, silky soft sheets. They also smelled like smoke and cologne and unwashed Saxon, which was, amazingly, not gross at all and actually pretty delicious. His hand moved to my hip and slid up my shirt, unhooking my bra and running over the soft skin of my breast, slightly flattened from lying on my back. I arched a little into his palm and he grunted appreciatively, pressing and squeezing and finally pulling my shirt completely over my head with one quick movement.

In all the times the same exact thing had happened with Jake, I had always been so ready for the next thing, I hadn’t given much thought to how I looked or what he might be thinking. It was different with Saxon. I wondered if he thought I looked good and what he would do next and how quickly I should stop him if things went too far.

As usual with Saxon, it was just too much thinking. He was looking at my chest, breathing hard.

“You’re beautiful.” His voice was hoarse.

“Thank you.” It felt formal.

He kissed my lips gently, then dipped his head down and licked one nipple. Without thinking, I grabbed him by his ears and yanked his head back.

“Ow!” he cried.

And I giggled.

He looked a little pissed, then his mouth curved up and he laughed a little too.

“This is great for my boner, Blix.” He sighed and lay down next to me. “I know you’re a virgin, but you’ve done all this before, right?”

“Yes, Saxon. Just not with you.” I looked at him closely, then reached a hand out and brushed his hair back.

“Is it bad. With me?” His black eyes flicked down. I realized this was probably going to demolish his self-esteem. I felt bad, even if I had always thought he needed to be taken down a peg or two when it came to his sexual abilities.

“No!” I said. “My head’s just in a weird place right now.”

“I can help with that.” He ran his hand down my shoulder and to my elbow. I felt a rush of goosebumps. “You think too much.”

“Only with you!” I insisted. “It’s like I’m on hyperdrive when you’re around. I can’t turn it off.”

“But you can turn it off with Jake?” He didn’t say it with any rancor in his voice, but he seemed annoyed.

“It’s because I know how he feels about me. And I know how I feel about him. And he’s always protecting me. Even from myself. Which is annoying. But also makes me feel like I can push things with him.” I shivered again, this time from the cool air in the room. Saxon handed me my sweater. “I guess I’m playing Jake’s role with you,” I explained. “I’m stopping you before things go too far.”

“That is so damn unfair,” Saxon muttered, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling while I pulled my sweater down over my head. “So, why are you stopping me again? Because, I don’t want to upset you, Bren, but I have a confession; I’m not a virgin.” The sarcasm dripped off of his last words.

“Exactly.” I adjusted my sweater. “So having sex with me probably wouldn’t be any kind of big deal for you.”

He rolled to his side and propped his head with one hand. “Didn’t say that.”

“But it wouldn’t,” I pressed. “And I don’t know when a good stopping point would be.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “I would never force you, Brenna. I know I’ve been a dirtbag, but come on. I care about you. If you just want to kiss, that’s fine. I mean, I kind of want to show off for you a little, but I’ll take whatever. Gladly.”

“That sounds good.” I moved closer to him. He was so handsome. I pushed him back on the bed, off his side and on his back. I straddled his hips gingerly.

“Wait, I thought we were being prudes?” He smiled and his teeth gleamed.

I pushed against his chest to get off. “If you’re not happy with it…” I started, but he caught my hips in his hands and pulled me back.

“Stop putting words in my mouth. You’re dead wrong. One hundred percent of the time. I’m too complicated for you to try to understand.” He moved his hands up to my ribs, then up higher. “You didn’t put your bra back on.”

“No, I didn’t.” I leaned over and kissed him on the mouth experimentally. He stayed perfectly still. I kissed his cheek bones, way too nice for a guy. I kissed the stubble breaking out over his wide jaw and his black eyebrows.

I kissed his mouth softly, then licked a little at it until he opened to me and put his hands on my hips. He moved his hand up under my sweater and he pressed at my breasts. Soon my sweater was off again, and this time, when his mouth dipped down to kiss me, I didn’t back away. He sucked on my nipple, and I felt the familiar warm heat between my legs. He flipped me on my back and kissed down along my stomach, down to the top of my jeans. He flipped the button open and pulled the zipper down, his lips kissing a line down from my bellybutton to the top of my underwear.

“It’s not Tuesday, Blix.” He grinned.

I sat up on my elbows and looked down. I was wearing Tuesday underwear. But they were neon pink and green with stars on them, so they were also super cute.

“They’re ironic underwear.” My body rioted.

“I like them.” Saxon fished his fingers under the scalloped waistband. I put a hand on his wrist.

“What time is is?” I asked.

He craned his neck and glanced at his alarm clock. “Almost three.”

I sat up, pulled my sweater over my head, grabbed my bra, and put it on under. “I have to go. Now. Come on.”

He groaned. “Seriously? Now? C’mon, Bren. Ten more minutes, and you would have been mine forever.”

I laughed, then kissed him again. He smiled. “C’mon. Mom will be home soon, and I don’t want to freak her out.”

“Gotcha.” He grabbed his coat and keys and put his boots on. “If I’m going to have a chance at more action, I need to stay in your parents’ good graces.”

“At least we’re both clear about what this is all about,” I said evenly.

He smiled and took my shoulders, ran his hand down to my elbows and back up, then shook me a little. “Joking. I mean, I want in your pants, but I like you.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I really do. Promise.”

“Let’s go. I hate you when you’re being sentimental.” We walked to the Charger and he took out his cigarettes.

“Smoke out the window, please. I don’t want to smell like cigarettes and sex.”

“Why not?” Saxon asked, but he rolled the window down. “If you’re going to come to the dark side, why not come all the way?”

“This alliance is on my terms. No cigarette smoke.” I opened his glove compartment.

I watched him watch me. It was a kind of ballsy thing to do. If I was just some girl he liked. But if we were tenuously together, that changed things. I rifled around until I found a little container of TicTacs, orange of course, and ate some. He held his hand out and I put some in his palm.

“Thanks.” The car was started, but he sat and looked at me for a long minute.

“What?” I felt a slow burn crawl over my skin.

“Nothing. I don’t want to get too sentimental. I just like you. That’s all.” He pulled out, and I watched him drive without worrying about if he noticed me looking or not. I was making an effort to stop thinking while I was with Saxon. In Paris every minute with Saxon had been a betrayal of Jake’s trust. Back home, Saxon was that incredibly complicated guy again, and I was back to my old habit of thinking and double thinking every move I made when he was around.

But I could break that habit. Or I could give it a decent try.

I fiddled with the radio stations, not finding anything I liked. He pointed his thumb to the back seat. “There’s a CD case there. Lots of good stuff.”

I unbuckled my seat belt for a minute to get it, nervous about his crazy driving. When I turned my head to make sure we were still on a road, I caught him checking my butt out in the review mirror. He smiled at me and shrugged.

“You don’t expect me to look? It’s a good view.”

I would have kicked him, but I didn’t want to make an already precarious driving experience worse. I slid back into my seat, fastened the belt quickly and plopped the case in my lap. It was filled with burned CDs.

“What’s good?” Some of them had song names scrawled on them, but most were just weird titles, like Saxon had made his own mixes and named them. I flipped through the pages. “ Unbelievable Orgasm Mix,” I read. “Is that a good one?”

“Doesn’t the title speak for itself? But considering that’s just wishful thinking at this point, why don’t you spare me the torture?”

“ Driving in a Car with a Boy,” I read.

“That one’s great. A friend of my mom’s, Nessa, recorded some of the tracks with her band. They do this kind of modern Celtic shit. I know, it sounds weird, but it’s wild.”

“Sounds good.” When I popped it in, his bizarre explanation made sense. Her voice was sexy and infectious. And because Saxon was Saxon, I wondered if he had had a crush on this Nessa woman. Or if he had slept with her. “I love it,” I said. And didn’t mention my other musings.

“So, what are you doing Friday night?” he asked casually.

“Um, nothing.” My first Friday night back in the States should have been all about me and Jake. But that…wasn’t going to be.

“Do you want to go on a date with me? I’ll dress nice, pick you up. Take you wherever.”

“That sounds good.” I looked over at him, curious. “What do you want to do?”

“How about dinner and a movie?” he suggested. “I don’t want to get too wild.”

“Alright. I really want to go out for sushi. There’s a new place in Vernon. Thorsten said it’s supposed to be really good.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He smiled around his cigarette. “Since you picked the food, are we going to be all equitable and let me pick the movie?”

“Alright.” I loved movies. Just going was great. And there wasn’t really any genre I hated. Except slasher-type horror movies.

“There’s a new zombie movie playing. I think it’s supposed to be good.”

Why did he have to pick the only type of movie that would freak me out? I made a face.

“Chill, Blix. I’ll be there if you need someone to protect you. Or someone to leave the theater and screw around in the backseat with.”

I laughed outright. “I’ll make it through the movie. Nothing could gross me out more than that backseat. It’s probably got the DNA of half the girls in this county on it.” I glanced back and shuddered.

“Cruel,” he said. “But potentially true. I’ll be sure to spray it down with some Lysol before I invite you to climb back in.”

We were at my house. “Invite me in.” His voice pleaded with me.

“No.” I shook my head. It was getting easier to relax with Saxon, but I needed to have a sanctuary of my own, and that’s what my room functioned as. It was bad enough the ghosts of Jake still loomed large. “Uncle.”

“What?”

“I’m saying ‘uncle.’” I said. He looked at me blankly. “‘Uncle.’ I’ve had enough. Of you.”

He laughed again. “You’re a stone bitch. But I like you like that.”

I popped the passenger door open and he grabbed my hand and pulled me back. “Goodbye, Brenna.” And before I knew it, I was in his lap, my mouth and his tangling hungrily. I finally pulled away and got out, shaky and uncertain.

Chapter Twelve

I didn’t look back at his car when he pulled out of the driveway. I went to my room, and I had two immediate desires. I wanted a shower, and I wanted to call Jake. But I didn’t do either. I headed up to the attic, which was above our garage, low-ceilinged and dimly lit. The boxes were all labeled. Mom and I moved around quite a bit when I was a young kid, and a lot of our things had been lost. What we had, she treasured, and it was all boxed and labeled. It took a lot less time than I’d expected to find what I was looking for. It was in the box labeled ‘Brenna’s Art: Age 5 & 6.’

I found the book, the one I had loved so fiercely that I had colored all over it. The original pictures were muted, sketchy and incredible. My scribbles overtop were vibrant, harsh. And also incredible. Together they made a complicated, beautiful mess. I put the box back and took the book downstairs.

Thorsten and Mom used Christmas as an excuse to spoil me again, and this time it had been in the form of software and a new printer, plus a huge pile of soft cotton t-shirts in my size. I also had a feeling there was a silk screening press in my future. After my successful sale of t-shirts at local Folly concerts, Mom and Thorsten were so impressed with my skills, they upgraded and added to my equipment. That’s just the kind of awesome they are.