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)
Checking down the street both ways, I climb out of the car and jog across the lane. I leap up onto the sidewalk and veer right, to the side of the house, avoiding the front door. Picking up the pace, I run hard toward the tree between Dylan’s house and Hawke’s, scaling the trunk in two giant leaps and hopping up onto the first thick branch. I crawl up another ten feet, glancing at Hawke’s dark bedroom window. He’s a first year at Clarke University and lives in the dorms.
But he’s close if Dylan needs him.
I step in the opposite direction, toward the French doors of Dylan’s bedroom, holding the branch above my head for support. We’ve been navigating this tree for almost our entire lives. Limbs have been trimmed, generations of squirrels have lived, it’s survived storms, even a tornado when we were five, and nearly being cut down in a tantrum between Dylan’s parents who grew up with this tree between their bedrooms too.
But every year, the leaves abound and not a branch breaks. I half-think Jared and Jax kept ownership of the houses just to keep the tree.
I open Dylan’s French doors, always unlocked, and jump over the railing, landing inside. I cringe, hearing my heavy footfall echo through the house. I pause, listening.
After a few seconds and not seeing the hall light pop on from under her bedroom door, I lean over and pull open her hope chest.
I smile, still seeing a stack of magazines, but instead of celebrity crushes, they’re motorcycle periodicals now. I lift them up, finding a box of trinkets underneath: Euro coins from when her mom took her to France, a few keys that even she probably doesn’t remember what they go to, and a nearly full bottle of perfume.
There’s a snow globe that I know she used to have sitting on her desk, and I see books and more books, and I lift the stack, seeing a paperback cover with a couple caught in a passionate embrace hiding underneath.
I lift a coffee table book of Route 66 and finally find what I’m looking for. My throat tightens as I pick up the clear package with the pink plastic vibrator inside. The shaft is long with an extra piece protruding at the base about half the length. Everything all at once starts happening to my body, and I know why I came here when I couldn’t sleep after showering with her tonight. I want her to use this, and I want the first time to be in Weston. In that house.
I want her to have a lot of fun this weekend.
I start to close the hope chest, but I see a glint of silver and stop. Reaching down, I pluck out a steel ring with another chained to it. I hold up the handcuffs, recognizing the ones she mentioned at the bonfire Monday night. The ones I put on her and Kade several weeks ago when Farrow and the guys crashed Kade’s party on Grudge Night.
She kept them.
And I still have the key.
I take them and the sex toy and quietly close the chest.
Holding everything in one hand, I climb back out through the French doors and close them behind me. Twisting around, I suddenly spot a light and a girl in Hawke’s window.
“So, you’re Hunter,” the brunette says.
She leans down a little, hands propped on the window above her head as she peers at me from Hawke’s old room. I glance in, seeing soft grays and a furry pillow on the bed now.
“Aro Marquez,” I say, realizing I still have a plastic, pink dick in my hand.
She looks like she’s holding back a laugh.
I forgot that Hawke’s girlfriend now lives with his parents—along with her younger brother and sister—while she finishes high school. Dylan texted me about her weeks ago.
“How’s Mace?” she asks me.
“Scary.”
Her smile widens. “Still?”
I nod once.
“And Codi?”
I start to make my way for the tree trunk to scale back down.
“Not great, but everyone’s got her back,” I tell her.
“Good.”
It’s nice of her to ask after Codi. The kid doesn’t have much security, but everyone shows up for her.
I pause and look over at her. “How’d you know I wasn’t Kade?”
She just holds my eyes, mischief playing in hers. “It’s rechargeable.” She jerks her chin at the vibrator in my hand. “In case you want to get it juiced up ahead of time.”
Noted.
I drop down to the ground and run back to the car, tossing the toy and handcuffs onto the passenger seat. Speeding away, I stop at the end of the lane and turn right, but when High Street comes up, I don’t take the turn back toward Weston.
I pass it by, continuing down the road until it becomes a highway, the old familiar route amping me up with something between excitement and dread.