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)
I pick at one of my fingernails. “You think Hunter will be there?”
Kade just shrugs. “Either way, we’ll get him.”
I can’t help but smile to myself. Soooo confident. Hunter hasn’t given us an inch in over a year only to be forced home tonight. He’d have to be an idiot to not anticipate Kade’s move.
“What?”
I look over, seeing Kade watching me. I lose the smile and turn away. “Nothing.”
I feel the three behind us, acting like they’re not listening as two scroll through their phones and Stoli tips back his flask that I can’t see. I hear the liquid slosh, though.
“What happened to your face?” Kade asks.
Leaning back in his seat, one hand on the wheel, he takes my jaw with the other and turns my face to look at the scratches. Warmth spreads under my skin.
“It’s fine,” I murmur.
My chin stings, but I don’t check to see if it’s still bleeding. It can’t be too bad. My parents didn’t notice.
“You’re going to get hurt,” he says.
I pull away, turning forward again. “I said it’s fine.”
“And then you’ll be in traction for six months,” he goes on, “learning how to walk again, forget about racing…”
I turn to look at him, but my tone is as calm as when I order breakfast. “Stop.”
With the number of dumb things he does, his argument has no ground with me.
But Stoli chimes in from behind. “He’s right, Dylan. If your dad told you no, then—”
“Hey, shut up,” Kade barks, eyeing his friend in the rearview mirror. “This is family business. Don’t talk to my cousin like that.”
I scratch my eyebrow, but it doesn’t really itch. Stoli closes his mouth, and everything in the truck silences.
I used to love it when Kade got territorial like that. It made me feel like I was important. He doesn’t do it much anymore. Not since his and Hunter’s falling out last year.
I don’t even know what happened that night. In the blink of an eye, everything changed, and it wasn’t even all that dramatic. They’d always been combative. I was used to it.
But no one expected Hunter to finally leave.
Maybe we should’ve seen it coming. I missed it.
“Hey.” Kade ruffles my hair like he would a little cousin. “I’m just worried about you, okay?” He lowers his voice. “Men in those scenes won’t treat you right. I don’t want you around that shit.”
I gaze over at him, my anger softening. He said it quietly, because it was hard for him to say at all. I wish he was like that more.
But then he notices something on his fingers and scrunches up his face, looking at where he touched my head as he wipes his hand on his jeans. “Is that mud?”
I must’ve missed a spot.
I lower my eyes to my lap, instead asking, “Do you ever watch me ride?”
I don’t know where the question came from, but it just occurred to me.
“What?” he asks.
I look at him, his blond hair always styled like a vintage Ralph Lauren ad, and the blush across his cheeks making his skin look more golden than it actually is. He looks like that all the time now, with the weather being crisp and him outside as much as possible.
“When I used to race the Loop in my car,” I explain. “Did you watch?”
His mouth opens and closes as he faces the road, and he finally shrugs. “Yeah.” He nods. “Yeah, of course, I’ve seen you race. Why would you ask that?”
He never watches. He shows up, mingles at the track, sneaks beers behind the merch tents with his friends….
I have to watch his games. He never watches me ride.
He turns up the music, and I look out the window, trees flying past as their leaves rain down around us.
Kade, Hawke, my father… My senior year should be incredible, but my throat feels as narrow as a straw.
Moonlight gleams across the river down below to my right, and I peer out the window, over the cliff, to the sparse lights of Weston. Silos from abandoned mills rise high in the black sky, while the occasional old lamp around a warehouse still glows. A light will pop on up on a hill or in some alley, while others will fizz out, and I smile to myself because Aro explained they’re motion activated. Security lights to keep delinquents from invading private property or deserted businesses. She brought me out here one night to watch the movement of the constant illegal invaders as they leave a trail of motion-activated lights in their wake. It was kind of funny, because not once, no matter how brightly they broadcasted their presence in places they weren’t supposed to be, I never saw one blue or red light of a cop car.
Kade stops the truck in the middle of the three-way intersection. St. Matthew’s heads toward us from the road ahead, and Weston will come over the bridge to our right. There won’t be any other cars this time of night.