I want to swear and kick something. Instead I force down my feelings. Force myself to look at the bandage stained red. At the sheen of sweat on my brother’s face. He’s hurting. If I were still in that basement, I would have told him to touch the hot rivet, to let the pain out that way, because I was dumb and desperate.
Now I nod to Nate from across the sofa, and he injects something into the bag. Morphine, probably. It will take a few minutes to kick in. I grasp Knox’s hand so he doesn’t feel alone between now and then. “You ever seen a Shelby Cobra with an automatic?”
He lets out a strangled sound. “Blasphemy.”
This is what we talked about that month I kept him locked up. Felt bad about it, like it was some grown-up version of the basement, but I didn’t have any other choice. Couldn’t let him drink his life away. Or endanger the rest of the crew. This was our grown-up rivet, talking about cars. I read all these books on pointless car facts just so I could keep him interested.
“There were only twenty ever made. Three-speed.”
“You’re shitting me.”
I shrug. “Probably easier to drive when you get shot.”
His laugh turns into a groan, and I keep up the steady stream of useless car talk for fifteen minutes. By then his muscles have turned soft, his lids lowered. His hand is burning hot in mine, but he doesn’t let go. “You gonna stay?” he whispers.
He must know he’s going under. He’ll be asleep; what does he care if I’m here? But I can’t tell him no. “I’m not going anywhere,” I say, thinking that maybe I’m the rivet now. Taking all the hurt inside myself. Maybe I always was.
Chapter 19
Brooke
“Here.”
I stare at the small foil packet in between the eyeliner and lipstick. Even though I’ve never seen one in person, I know what it is. A condom. It says For Her Comfort on the label, which is almost sweet of my mother. Except that she’s not giving me a choice.
“I don’t need that,” I say, knowing that’s the wrong answer.
She doesn’t look surprised by my refusal. She doesn’t look accepting, either. “It’s normal to be nervous about this. That’s why I want you to be prepared.”
“Mom, I barely know Liam. And I don’t want to have sex with him.”
Disapproval flashes across her face, which is so like mine. The Botox has kept the wrinkles away. “He’s spending a lot of money on tonight. The limo, the dinner at Bel Canto.”
“So what? Does that mean he’s paying me for sex?”
She looks horrified. And angry. “Of course not. This is a completely normal thing that happens on prom night. There are girls who would love to go out with Liam McConnell.”
The words slip out before I can stop them. “Because his family’s rich?”
My bedroom turns ten degrees colder, and I shiver in my pale pink slip. My dress hangs on the back of the door, the perfect combination of sophisticated and sexy. I might even like it if I had chosen it myself. Instead it was planned for me, like everything else in my life. This is the first time Mom’s let me wear black.
When she speaks, her voice is unexpectedly soft. “I’m not saying you have to do it, Brooke. Only that you should be open to the possibility.”
I force a smile. “I understand.”
“And if you have any questions about what to expect…”
God, she makes it sound like I’m getting married. It’s prom night, and I feel like I’m being sold to the highest bidder. Liam isn’t a bad guy. A little cocky, but what heir to a shipping fortune wouldn’t be? We aren’t close, though.
Honestly I was surprised when he asked me to prom, but it seemed like a good idea. Now that the little silver packet stares up at me, I’m rethinking that decision.
“I do have one question.”
She doesn’t quite manage to hide her wince. This conversation is as uncomfortable for her as it is for me. “Of course.”
“That story about Dad? The one you tell at Christmas, about him being like the Innkeeper from the Bible. Did that happen before or after you were married?”
She blinks, looking surprised by the question. “We were engaged at the time. That was when he only had a couple of motels to his name.”
It’s my mother’s family that had money. My father had pure ambition and hard work. The business thrived until just a few years ago. I know that Liam might be the answer to turning things around. Such a mercenary way to look at my prom night.
The foil crinkles, and I realize I’m holding it in my fist.
My mother’s blue eyes are pleading with me. “Brooke, I never would have suggested this if I hadn’t met Liam myself. If I didn’t know he comes from a good family.”
“What if I don’t want him?”
“You wanted him enough to say yes,” she reminds me gently. “If you decide you don’t want to do anything with him, then don’t. This isn’t a requirement. But if you’re on the fence, remember all the things I’ve done for this family. That your father has done. We both make sacrifices.”
Sacrifices. She could be talking about Daddy’s long hours at work. But what if he’s sacrificed more than that? What if he’s sacrificed his morals as well? What if he sacrificed defenseless children?
But he’s my father. I won’t give him up to Stone.
Which is why it’s a good thing I haven’t seen Stone again. Over and over I tell myself that.
My mother scowls at my feet, clad in black heels. “Is that a scuff?” She mumbles something about her kit and sweeps out of the room with an air of annoyance, as if I’ve been careless already.
I flop back on the bed.
It’s been a year and a half since my seventeenth birthday. A year and a half since that last ride. A year and a half since he made me feel free, hurtling down the highway in the sunshine.
When I turned eighteen, I half expected him to show up, the way he did on my sixteenth and seventeenth birthdays. In truth, I more than expected to see him. I wanted to see him. I yearned to hear him call me little bird in that way of his, gravelly and surly, yet so strangely full of tenderness. I would’ve given up every brightly wrapped birthday gift to feel his hand on my thigh just once, a little bit too heavy, too possessive.
Stone was the only birthday present I wanted and the only one I should have never wanted.
I told myself it didn’t matter what I did—Stone would either show up, or he wouldn’t. That’s his way.
Still, I parked in a shady spot near a shadowed doorway. After school I actually sat there, alone in the driver’s seat, for fifteen minutes, checking Instagram.
I wasn’t looking at the scroll of smiling faces and meals and blue-water beaches—not really. With every fiber of my being, I was waiting for him, trembling for him, butterflies in my belly, thighs smashed tight together, thinking of him.
An ache between my legs.
I felt sheepish about that when I realized it. What if he touched me there? What if he knew? But Stone wouldn’t joke about something like that, and he would never say I was a slut.
He would like it, because my desire for him is something real and true. Stone likes real and true things about me. He’s the only one who wants to know my dreams. He’s the only one who doesn’t want me in my mask.