Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
Except me.
And Kade.
We know him.
But she’ll be off to college next year, and she’ll meet a lot of guys who have no idea who her dad is.
Climbing out of the car, I walk around to the front, leaving the battery running and my music playing. Leaning back on the hood, I unlock my phone.
I want to call Kade. I tried not to think about it at the time or why I had them handcuffed together on Grudge Night. They were both there, together, and I was in a mask. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.
But I didn’t consider why I did it until she asked me tonight.
How long were they trapped together? Did they share a bed?
I need to stop giving a shit. If I’m ever going to have a life where he doesn’t matter, I have to give her up too. And Hawke and Quinn and…
A.J.
I lower my eyes, the weight on my heart getting heavier at the thought of my little sister. I’m not sure if she’ll ever see her brothers in a room together again.
She will see us together in a stadium, though.
Sarah Powers rolls up on her skates, holding a carrier with two drinks in one hand and a brown bag in another.
“Hey, Hunter,” she says, handing me the bag. “You ready for the game?”
I set the food on the car and take the drinks, handing her the cash. “Getting there,” I tell her. “Keep the change.”
She smiles, spinning around and passing Dylan as she skates away.
I hand Dylan her milkshake. “Do you need to hit a grocery store?” I ask. “They didn’t leave you any food at the house.”
I pull the burgers, fries, and rings out of the bag. We both rest against the car, unwrapping our sandwiches.
“Well, someone did,” she tells me. “I came home from school and the fridge was stocked.”
She turns the burger left to right, cocking her head, before she finds the perfect place to attack. She takes a bite, her lips pursing together as she chews.
I take a bite too.
Someone put food in her fridge? If it were one of the guys, they would’ve said so at the barber shop earlier. It was probably Hawke. Or his girlfriend that Dylan talked about in her texts. She’s from Weston, I heard.
Dylan jerks her chin at the server, Sarah. “Does she have a boyfriend?”
I glance at Sarah as she takes an order from the window and rolls to a car five spots down from us. Her T-shirt is tied above her belly button, and her pink leggings show all of her curves.
“I don’t know,” I tell her, looking down.
“Where did you find this song?”
“I don’t remember.”
She’s trying to start a conversation, and I guess I asked for it, but I don’t want to talk like things haven’t changed.
I stick the straw in my drink, but she takes my Coke before I can and sips it.
She hands it to me, and I drink while she uncaps her milkshake and dips a fry in. “What colleges are you applying to?” she asks.
“I haven’t decided.”
“Are you going to Weston’s homecoming dance?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
She eats. I eat. And we drink the soda while she dips her fries in the ice cream.
She inspects her burger for where her next bite will happen. “Do you want to know what he said to me?” she asks.
I stop mid-chew and clench my teeth for a split-second.
He. Kade.
I hear her swallow, and then she takes another drink of my Coke before continuing, “I loved growing up with you two, you know?”
Yeah, I know. She followed him, I followed her…
“I loved growing up with Hawke and Quinn, too, but mostly you and Kade,” she goes on. “We were the same age. Same teachers, same milestones.”
Dylan was born a couple of months after us, so we started school together. Got our licenses around the same time.
“Everyone idolized him,” she says. “Kade, I mean.”
I flip the top of the wrapper back over the burger, covering it, no longer hungry.
“He was always the first one to choose a direction.” She smiles softly, musing. “The first one to charge ahead, so before anyone even had a chance to decide what they wanted you to do, they were just following him.”
She dips a fry in her milkshake, and I feel his shadow descend like it always hovered at home.
“He’ll always be dominating conversations, the one everyone gravitates toward,” she continues, “because of that confidence. It’s not that he always says the right thing, but you just listen to whoever’s talking.”
I don’t need to be reminded of the power he has over people.
“He never has any problems.” She just keeps dipping her fry, lost in thought. “He doesn’t tolerate problems, and having his approval or attention makes you feel worth more.”
I swallow my last bite, crumpling the rest of my burger into a ball inside the tin foil.