We’re ten minutes from Collins when she finally speaks to me. “What did Jeff mean by another one of your dares?”
My jaw tightens. She heard more than I would have liked. I don’t answer. Instead, I pull my cell out of my pocket and call Deke’s older sister. She answers on the third ring. “Hey. I need a favor,” I say, refusing to look over at Austin.
“Well, hello to you too, Cole,” she says with sarcasm.
“Can you help me or not, Shelby?” I snap.
She sighs heavily. “Is it illegal?”
I don’t answer, and a silence falls between us. I sit with my cell to my ear, waiting for a response. She knows she’s not going to get any info. After a minute, she finally answers. “Sure.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“I don’t want any trouble, Cole,” she says softly. “You know I can’t …”
“I know. It’s not like that,” I say and then hang up before she can say any more.
I chance a glance over at Austin, and she’s already staring at me. “We’re going to go see Shelby.”
“Is she your girlfriend?” she asks softly.
I almost laugh. Deke would kill me if I tried anything with his sister. Plus, she’s not my type. She wants commitment. Stability. Love. I have none of those things to give. Not to mention, I’m a senior in high school, and she is six years older than the guys and me. But I don’t respond to Austin either. Because a part of me likes that she is curious. Why would she care if I’m already taken?
I don’t have time to process that thought, though, because a phone rings, breaking the silence of the car.
Austin looks down at her cell in her hand, lets out a long sigh, and then places it to her ear. “Hey, Mom.” There’s a pause. “No, I haven’t seen him.” She bows her head and rubs her temple with her free hand. “I don’t know …” she growls. “What do you want me to do?” she snaps. “You’re the one who shipped me off like a Christmas present that you wanted to return.” Her voice grows inside my car. “If you want to speak to him, then you call him.” I glance over at her, and she stares straight ahead, but I can see her eyes start to glisten from unshed tears. “I’m not sending you money, Mom.” Her hand fists in her lap. “Is that why you sent me here?” she demands. “To send you his money?” She gives a dark laugh. “You call him and ask him to send you money for you and your piece of shit boyfriend,” she snaps. “I’m not gonna do it.” She pulls the phone from her ear, shuts it off, and tosses it into my back seat.
The silence fills the car once again. I shift uncomfortably. “Do you wanna …?”
“No!” she interrupts me.
I’m not sure how long she has been in town, and I never stopped to question why she was here in the first place. I didn’t even know that Bruce Lowes had a daughter. And today, standing outside the church, Celeste said she is a senior this year. I stayed up trying to decide what to do with her. How to corner her so she can’t run from me. Then I remembered that Celeste never misses church on Sunday mornings. So I sat in my car in the parking lot until I saw them leaving after the service was over. Then I made my move.
“Where did you move here from?” I ask.
She reaches up and quickly wipes away a tear from her cheek. “What does it matter?”
“It doesn’t. Just making small talk.”
“I prefer when I thought you were trying to kill me over small talk,” she snaps.
I smile. Yeah, there’s something about Austin Lowes that I like. A lot.
AUSTIN
My hands fist in my lap. My throat is tight and heart pounding. I’m so angry with my mother.
I haven’t always been the best daughter. I caused trouble. I got expelled from school for stupid shit. She had to talk the cops into not taking me to jail for smoking pot. She was just saving her own ass since she was the one who supplied me with it. But she made a big scene. “That was the final straw,” she said.
We walk in the house and she slams the front door behind me. “What the fuck were you thinking?” she demands.
I ignore her and keep walking toward my room. Wanting to get away from her.
“Hey!” Phillip, her boyfriend, steps out of their room and into the hallway in front of me. “Your mother asked you a question.” His dark brown eyes stare down at me.
I ignore him and go to step around him. He reaches up, grabbing my backpack, and yanks me backward. I trip over my feet and fall on my ass. Before I can recover, he pulls me up and throws me into the wall, causing my books to dig into my back. Then his hand comes up, and he slaps me across the face.
I slap him back. It’s not the first time he’s put his hands on me. But I prefer this kind over the soft and gentle kind he attempts when my mother isn’t around.
“You ungrateful bitch!” he yells in my face. “Without us, you would have nothing.”
“You would have nothing if not for me!” I scream. “I don’t see you working for anything. My father gave my mother and me all this. What the fuck do you give us?”
He hits me again. So hard that it knocks me to my knees. I taste blood and get up, running to my room. I slam my door and lock it.
I lean up against it as angry tears sting my eyes. I can still hear them in the hallway. “Send that bitch to her dad’s,” he snarls.
“He never wanted her before. Why the hell would he want her now? She is nothing but trouble,” she growls.
“We have to do something. I can’t take her in this place with us any longer,” he tells her.
There’s a long pause. Then she says, “I’ll call Celeste. That stupid bitch will want her.”
The first tear falls down my cheek. I run over to my window, yank it up, and jump through it, wanting to get the fuck out of here.
Three weeks later, I was on a plane to Oregon.
My life wasn’t a good one. And honestly, I wasn’t all that surprised when my mother dropped me like a bad habit for her boyfriend. But I still thought she would fight for me. Want me. But she didn’t; all she needed was him. She stood by and let him hit me. Touch me.
But now it’s clear they have a hidden agenda. She wants me to get access to his money and send it to her. Fuck no! If she wants his money, she can call and ask for it. She’s never been shy about asking before.
Cole slows the car down, and I realize we are pulling into a driveway. And I’m instantly on alert once I realize it’s not my father’s. “Where are we?” I ask as panic bubbles up my throat.
“Shelby’s,” he answers and shuts the car off, getting out.
I follow him up to the front door. He enters without even knocking.
“Shelby?” he calls out.
“In here,” a woman’s soft voice says.
I follow much slower as I’m taking in my surroundings. The house is nothing like my father’s. It’s much smaller, homier. Smells of coconut.
We round a corner and walk into a kitchen. A beautiful blond sits at the table. She looks up at him, smiling warmly, her crystal blue eyes soft. She stands and walks right to him. He hugs her, and it makes me think they have something going on.