“He will be. He has to be.” My dad had never looked desperate in his life. “And this was all your fault, Lilly. He wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for you.”
“Dad—”
“It’s your first offense. You’ll be given probation. Community service, but if Josh was the driver, his life is ruined. This is not a time to be selfish.”
Selfish. As if he’d ever been anything but that. My throat clogged and I shook my head to clear it.
This was happening. My dad, throwing me to the wolves to protect the only child he actually cared about. Josh should have gotten help years ago but instead, Dad brushed everything under the rug. Sure, he sent him to rehab, but no one paid attention or got him help once he was back home. It was years of a vicious cycle.
Yet through all of it. Josh had always been there for me. He protected me. He took care of me when no one else would, and we’d always promised we’d be there for each other.
This… this was asking too much.
Dad must have taken my silence as refusal because he leaned in once more. “Take the fall, Lilly, or never return home. You will have nothing. I will make sure of it. Your choice.”
Tears ran down my face.
He meant this. He absolutely meant it.
My dad would kick me out if I didn’t do what he said. And then where would I go?
“Okay,” I mumbled, wiping away tears with my good hand. “Okay. But promise me he’s okay.”
He turned and left the room, never giving me his promise.
A few minutes later, cops came in and I told them everything. The party. The fight. The ride. The car. The tree.
I lied to their faces and prayed like hell it’d help save Josh.
Two days later he died.
Three days later I was charged with aggravated vehicular homicide due to the alcohol in my system at the time of the crash.
Josh was laid to rest.
And I was sent to Hell.
23
Hudson
My last serious relationship ended years ago and lasted far longer than it should have. When I ended things with Nina, who I’d dated for a year and a half, she believed it was because of Melissa.
In part it was. When Melissa died, no one could have helped me, especially not Nina, who wasn’t the most compassionate woman to begin with. Mostly it was because Melissa’s death reminded me how short life was. There was very little point in going along with the flow of expectations when they weren’t what you wanted. And Nina had started expecting an engagement ring. The fact I’d had to think about it for six months prior to Melissa’s death was its own warning sign.
Unfortunately for Nina, she spent almost a year afterward trying to win me back, so certain I’d only ended things because of Melissa and my grief. She believed once I was ready to move on, I’d turn straight back to her.
By then, Dad was already looking into Lilly and I was already having thoughts about a woman still in prison. I didn’t regret walking away from Nina.
I regretted not being honest with her. I regretted staying longer than I should have.
And now, I was headed straight for the same ending. I could feel it in my bones, a living, slithering virus I couldn’t stop.
The best thing I could do would be to stay away from Lilly and put distance between us, to be her friend and only her friend. But like Melissa and Dad said, she had a way of getting under your skin. Her broken smiles and sad eyes and hardened exterior only called to those of us who spent a lifetime wanting to help others.
Which was why I didn’t bother slowing my steps as I exited the elevator, headed straight for her apartment Sunday afternoon. Knowing Lilly worked Friday and Saturday nights, I waited as long as I could to stop down. I couldn’t stop thinking about her or the kiss I gave her that still lingered on my lips.
It wasn’t even a kiss, but the way she leaned into me when I pressed my lips to her cheek, barely grazing her soft flesh and the way she reached for me… it’d taken everything I had in me to step away from her on Friday night. More effort not to hop in my truck to follow her to Judith’s. To spend the rest of the night trying to convince her all the reasons why she should give me a chance.
I already dropped a bombshell into her hands when I left. I hadn’t intended to say anything, but she deserved as much honesty from me as I could give her.
I wanted to know about her weekend. Make sure everything went okay with giving her notice. Hell, I wanted to sit next to her on the couch in her apartment while she studied just so I could watch the way her brows tugged in and she chewed on her cheek when she concentrated, or the way she tugged at her ponytail when she was frustrated. All things I’d already picked up on from watching her work at the diner.
Besides, Sunday was Sunday family dinner and while I’d dropped hints about the kind of crazy family I had, I wanted her to see it in action.
I knocked on her door, shoving aside the lingering doubt of whether this was a good thing, or questioning if I was pushing her when I promised I wouldn’t. Was spending time with us outside of work pushing? Probably.
Didn’t change a thing for me. I wanted her to get to know Dad, see the kind of dad he was to us. Mostly, I wanted her to see and learn that even though she didn’t have her family anymore, she could still find one, always, at Dad’s table.
Also, he was getting anxious and antsy to get to have her really know him. When Dad wanted something, I happily broke my back to give it to him.
She opened the door with a sleepy look still in her eyes, hair untamed and down, and promptly stole my breath.
It had probably been years since anyone told Lilly she was beautiful, but she was the most angelic woman I’d ever seen. Wide, surprised blue eyes blinked slowly and she rested against the doorframe.
“Good morning.”
“It’s two in the afternoon,” I said, rocking back on my heels and giving her my arrogant smile. Her gaze always stuck on my mouth longer in a way the rest of me enjoyed.
“I didn’t sleep well. Do you want to come in?”
I did. “Love to. Why didn’t you sleep well?”
She covered a yawn and closed the door behind me. Shuffling toward her small kitchen, she went straight to the one-cup coffee maker while pushing her fingers through her hair and lifting it into a mess at the top of her head.
“No real reason. What brings you by?” She barely glanced at me while she reached for a cup and grabbed a coffee pod.
I missed you.
The force of my thought made me suck in a deep breath. With the way she approached me, one step forward, two steps back, with one hand always held out to keep me away, I doubted that truth would sit well with her.
I was thinking about you. “I was wondering if you gave your notice at Judith’s,” I said instead.
“I did.” She took a sip of her coffee. Pale round lips closed over the rim of the mug and she closed her eyes, savoring that first taste. “My last night was last night.”
“What? Why?”
Lilly’s still sleepy, but large blue eyes rolled to the ceiling before meeting mine again. “Because it’s a diner, not a corporation. People don’t give two weeks’ notice, I guess.”
“That’s not right. How will you get paid?”