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)
“It’ll fit.” She plants her hands on her waist. “No pressure to wear it. I just thought I’d take a chance.”
“Thank you.”
I give her a hug and fold it, sticking it in my backpack.
“We should get out of here,” I tell her.
I start to move, but she pulls me back and forces me to sit down at my desk. I look at her through the mirror in front of us as she stands behind me.
“He won’t say shit to you with me here,” she tells me, pulling out my ponytail.
She must see the look on my face, because everyone who’s met my father knows that my mother is the only person he watches his mouth around, and barely even then.
“Okay, he’ll say less with me here,” she jokes.
Yeah, yeah.
“Let’s get this hair sorted.”
And she picks up the hairbrush on my desk and starts working.
“So where are we going?” I ask.
“You’ll see.”
Coral stuffs her hands in her pockets, leading the way down the steps of 01 Knock Hill. Quinn follows her, and I close my door.
A car door slams shut, and I look up, seeing Aro heading toward us.
“You came?” I chirp, bouncing down the steps.
“How could I not?” she tells me.
“I’m guessing Hawke doesn’t know, otherwise you’d be tied up right now.”
“I’ll tell him.” She whips out her phone, moves in beside me, and holds up her camera for a selfie of us. “Smile.” And she snaps the pic.
I laugh, knowing Hawke won’t want to find out she’s here in an Instagram post.
She starts typing. “Location: Roller Dome,” she says.
“Roller Dome?” I retort, looking at Coral.
She shrugs. After the trip into the Falls today, Farrow said they were throwing me a party. I was skeptical until Mace chimed in that I could bring friends. Roller skating wasn’t what I had in mind, though. I thought that place shut down, actually.
I stick my phone in the back pocket of my jean shorts, tempted to button up my flannel against the chill, but we won’t be outside long.
“Hawke’s going to be mad at you,” I tell Aro.
“I love him that way.”
I snort.
Aro finally notices the woman next to me. “Who are you?”
She pinches her eyebrows together, her tone accusing, and I have to stifle my amusement because she’ll scare Quinn. She scares almost everyone when they first meet her.
“Uh, hi,” Quinn stammers. “I’m Quinn.” She offers her hand to Aro. “Caruthers.”
Aro takes her hand. “Aro. Nice to meet you.”
We start for the cars. “Heard a lot about you,” Quinn tells her.
“Yeah. Love your shop, by the way.”
Quinn cocks her head, confused, but Aro just keeps walking. I shake my head. Since the bakery is only open during the summers when Quinn isn’t at school, she’s probably wondering when she missed seeing Aro in as a customer. I think it’s time to tell her that Hawke and Aro—and a few more of us—use her bakery when we get hungry while hanging out in the secret clubhouse buried in her walls.
A motorbike pulls up, and Farrow lifts his visor, tipping his chin in greeting. “Aro.”
“Piss off,” she replies and heads to her car.
His deep laugh rumbles to my right. “Take the blonde,” he calls out to whoever is listening. “I’ve got Dylan.”
Quinn meets my eyes, and I gesture for her to go with Aro. “Meet you there.”
She nods, jogging around the Mustang to the passenger’s side, and within a few seconds, Aro peels away.
I climb on behind Farrow.
“So you wanted girls, right?” he asks over his shoulder.
“What do you mean?”
I thought I paid for the girls’ prank earlier with the fireworks and stealing the locker.
But he just tells me, “You’ll see.” And he flips his visor back down.
We speed the short distance to the edge of town, down to the mill district, through the warehouses and decaying office buildings, and under the streetlights bobbing overhead in the wind. I hold him tightly, shivering a little in the cold.
We pull off the highway, cruise down a short, broken road lined with trees and overrun by weeds. They fill the air with the same scent I smell when we go to the pumpkin patch in the Falls. Hay and cornstalks, but with a little something sweet that’s dulled by the chill in the air.
The trees end, dozens of cars surround us, and I look ahead at an old cinderblock building painted in blue and purple. The colors are weathered, parts dusty and blocks chipped, revealing the gray concrete underneath. But the neon sign shines bright, the only letters not lit are the double LLs in Roller, so it reads Ro er Dome, which reads as Roar Dome in my head, which has its own poetry.
Music thunders against the walls from inside.
Grabbing my hand, Farrow walks me in, bypassing the ticket counter and opening one of the heavy steel doors. He pulls me through, and all at once, a thousand moving parts flash in front of my eyes.