He frowns but nods, not saying anything else. We remain quiet for the rest of the walk to his car. When we reach it, he opens the passenger door for me and gestures for me to climb in.
“Still pretending we’re a gentleman?” I joke as I move to get in.
“Still pretending like you don’t like it?” he quips with a grin, but I detect the slightest bit of sadness in his eyes, a reminder of all the crap he’s dealing with beneath the jokes and smiles.
I’m about to ask him if he’s okay, but he shuts the door. Then he rounds the front of his car and climbs into the driver’s seat.
“So, what happened this morning with your parents?” I ask after he shuts the door.
“That’s what I want to talk to you about.” He reaches into the back seat, picks up a folder, and sets it down on my lap.
I cock my head to the side. “What is this?”
“Some papers my parents tried to get me to sign,” he explains with a trace of irritation in his voice. “They wouldn’t tell me what they were for, so I took them and ran.”
My eyes widen. “You ran?”
He lifts a shoulder, his jaw set tight as he gazes out the window. “If I didn’t, my dad … well, he would’ve made me sign them.”
West has said a few things here and there that made me wonder if his father was abusive. I haven’t flat-out asked him yet, mostly because I’m not sure how to approach the subject without upsetting him.
“What do you mean by make you?” I ask, measuring his reaction.
He just shrugs and shakes his head. “It doesn’t really matter.”
“No, it does.” Sucking in a quiet breath, I reach over and place my hand on his cheek.
When he jolts from the touch, I start to pull back. “Sorry.”
But he quickly places a hand over mine and keeps my hand against his cheek again. “You don’t ever have to be sorry for touching me.”
My heart is thudding so loudly that the noise fills my head. “I just … I want to make sure you’re okay. Some of the things you say … they make me wonder if … they make me wonder just how bad things are for you at home.”
His throat muscles work as he swallows hard. “It doesn’t really matter anymore. That home is no longer my home. I pretty much sealed that deal when I took off with these papers.”
Thinking about what he told me the other day, about how his parents could destroy his life, worry stirs through me. Plus, he’s living in that sketchy house, which is not a replacement home, in my opinion.
“What’re you going to do then?” I ask. “I mean, where are you going to live?”
He gives a half-shrug. “I’m not sure yet, but if those papers are what I think they are, I may not have to worry about money anymore, which eliminates at least one of my problems.”
My gaze drops to the folder that he tossed into my lap. “What are they?”
“Well, from what I can tell, someone died and left me a bunch of money. And if I signed those papers, all that money would be transferred over to my parents.”
My gaze darts up to him. “That’s what they wanted to talk to you about this morning?”
“Yep,” he says tightly. “And like I said, my dad was going to try to force me to sign them, but I ran.”
I swallow hard. “Why would they do that? I mean, aren’t your parents, like, loaded?”
“That’s what I thought, and we’ve always lived that way, but my parents are also the kind of people that would fake their wealth. But I know my dad makes a lot of money.” He wavers, chewing on his bottom lip. “My mom also likes to spend a lot of money, though.”
“Maybe they got into financial trouble then,” I suggest. “Although, that doesn’t give them the right to try to steal your money.”
“I know,” he assures me. “I just wish I knew who left me the money.”
“Do the papers give a name?”
“Yeah, they do.” He reaches in front of me, causing my hand to fall from his cheek. Then he opens the folder. Inside is a stack of papers, which he sifts through until he finds the one he’s looking for. “I think that’s who it is right there.” He taps a name printed on one of the pages.
“Charlotte Everlyson,” I read the name aloud then glance at him. “Do you know who that is?”
He shakes his head, wisps of his blond hair falling across his forehead. “No.” He pauses, hesitancy written all over his face. “But I’m wondering if maybe it’s my real mom.”
My heart breaks for him in ways I didn’t think were possible. “Did your mom …? Did Loraine confirm that you were adopted?”
“No,” he utters quietly, looking away from me. “I didn’t really have a chance to ask her about it. I was there for, like, two minutes before my dad started threatening me and getting in my face.”
My heart breaks even more for him.
When my parents died, it nearly broke me because, in that moment, I lost love. West, though, he’s never had that kind of love.
“West,” I start carefully. “Has your dad …? Has he …?”
His gaze glides to mine. “Has he what?”
I swallow down the thickness building in my throat. “Has he ever hit you?”
When he doesn’t answer right away, almost looking a bit ashamed, my heart literally splits open and bleeds out. Unsure what to do or say, I reach out and place my hand against his cheek again, because he seems to kind of like that.
“You need to tell someone. He can’t just get away with stuff like that.”
He shakes his head. “No one would believe me; trust me. My parents have this entire town wrapped around their fingers.”
I skim my finger along his cheekbone. “You have to do something. You can’t just keep dealing with it silently.”
“I’m not,” he murmurs. “I moved out.”
“Yeah, but …” I press my lips together, pausing to collect myself. “That place you’re staying at probably shouldn’t be a long-term solution.”
He arches a brow. “You worried about me, Alexis Baker?”
I pretend to be really conflicted about it, but the straight-up truth is that I am.
“Maybe a little bit.”
The corners of his lips twitch, like he’s about to smile, but he never quite gets there. “Well, hopefully, these papers are what I think they are. Or, well, at least that someone left me a sum of money. Then I can afford to move out of that house and get my own place.”
“How do you find out for sure?”
“Well, I’d say talk to a lawyer, but considering my dad knows every lawyer in town, I’ll probably have to go to one in a different town.”
“It might take a few days to make an appointment,” I tell him. “So maybe you can make one and, until then, Loki could look at these papers and tell us what they are. He’s an adult and deals with business-y stuff all the time. Plus, I think he took a couple of law classes in college.”
“You’d ask him to do that?” he asks, surprised.
I shrug. “Sure. Why not?”
“I don’t know …” He nibbles on his bottom lip, searching my eyes for something. What? I haven’t got a clue. When he speaks again, he throws me for a total loop. “I want to kiss you.”