“You live with a girl? Is she pretty? Nice?” Mia leaned forward so her head was between mine and Parker’s.
My jaw flexed as I gritted my teeth. “Yes, yes, and yes.”
“Does that mean—”
“It means nothing, Mia. She’s just a roommate.” Keep telling yourself that.
Parker shot me a sideways look but didn’t poke. “You want to go home and grab your car?”
I nodded, itching to feel the wheel of my 66 ½ Mustang under my fingers. Mia filled the silence with details of her senior prom last weekend, from the dress to the corsage to the bullshit I didn’t care about but pretended to because she was my baby sister.
We pulled into the driveway as the sun started to set behind the house. “Thanks for the ride, Parker.” I grabbed my bag and tossed it into the passenger seat of my car, noting that it hadn’t been locked.
“Have you been driving my car?” I asked as Mia swung around one of the support stilts that raised our house off the sand.
“Headed to see Grace?” she asked, dodging.
“Uh huh. You wreck it, I wreck you. I don’t care how cute you are.” I raised my eyebrows. Yeah, she was definitely not getting near Sam. Those two could rule the world.
“Have fun!” She blew a kiss at me and flounced up the stairs. Something told me I was going to be killing off a few boys at UNC next year. “She’ll be happy to see you!” she called back over her shoulder before I started the ignition. She purred to life.
Gravel crunched under the tires as I pulled out of the driveway. Happy? Of all the things Grace was…happy to see me wasn’t going to be one of them. I let go of that dream years ago. Or at least tried to, but no matter how dead my hopes were, there was one impossible-to-kill kernel of faith that burned brighter than the darkness. It was that faith that kept me coming home to her.
But even that flame was fading, and I hated myself for it.
I fiddled with the radio, switching between the local stations as traffic moved at a snail’s pace until I reached Grace’s. Parking, I took a deep breath and curved the brim of my hat before heading in.
“Grayson!” Her mom greeted me at the door, her blond hair perfectly styled, leaning up to hug me. “We’ve sure missed you. I know your visit is just what she needs.”
“How is she?” I asked, more out of habit than anything.
“She misses you, I can tell. She always perks up when you’re here. Parker’s been by a bunch, but it’s not the same.”
Parker has been here? “Yes, ma’am, well, if you don’t mind, I’d love to see her.”
“Of course! Why don’t you head on up?”
I took the familiar stairs two at a time, a thousand memories of my childhood assaulting me. How could they not? I’d basically grown up in this house with my best friend. Grace, me…and Owen. Asshole.
I knocked on Grace’s bedroom door and pushed it open.
She sat, half reclined in bed, watching something on television, her blonde hair draped around her shoulders, and my chest tightened. She was still pretty, but that beauty that had always shone through had dimmed. I imagined her smile, how she’d turn to me with her eyes lit up, arms outstretched, but that wasn’t going to happen. Her bed depressed under my weight as I sat next to her and brushed my lips across the smooth skin of her forehead, inhaling her lavender shampoo’s scent. Her brown eyes were open, but she didn’t so much as look my way.
“Hey baby, I’m home.”
Chapter Eight
Sam
“It’s not as bad as it sounds, Mom.” I forced a smile for her benefit. Because seriously, what was she going to do from Afghanistan? Hug me?
“Oh really?” Her voice sounded shrill even from six-thousand miles away. She ran her hands over her face and sighed. I saw exhaustion clearly cut into her features, from the weight she’d lost in her face to the circles under her eyes.
There was no way in hell I was going to add to the stress she was under, no matter how many of my buttons she pushed.
“Really. It’s not like Jagger is charging me rent—”
“No. I’ve told you before you’re not going to let some guy take care of you financially. I expect you to stand on your own, Sam.”
“And I will. I am. I actually got a job last week at a gym—”
“You what?” she whispered in her I’m-going-to-kill-you-when-I-get-my-hands-on-you voice.
Air whistled through my teeth as I sucked it in slowly to maintain control. Mom was the perfect officer, steadfast, loyal, smart. But all those qualities that propelled her forward in her uniform sometimes came at a cost, and right now it was compassion in my general direction. “It’s a good job, Mom, mostly admin. It’s not my life’s ambition or anything, but it will hold me over and pay bills while I find my feet.”
“Find them. Now. Because whatever you’re doing is completely unacceptable. You’ve been kicked out of college, can’t seem to find another one to accept you, and now you’re shacked up with three men. I honestly don’t know how this all happened in the last six months. I didn’t bust my ass raising you alone to have you do…whatever it is you’re doing!”
Six months, is that all it had been? Six months since she found out I’d been expelled, anyway. I’d let everything just…slip away. Over what? A pretty smile? Sex?
My control snapped. “You don’t think I know the knee-deep crap I’m in right now? I don’t need you to lay it out like I don’t know. I’m here, and you’re not. You never are.” I was on my own.