Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
“Only has his permit, I know.”
That finger of his swept over my eyebrow again. “I’ll follow you home,” he told me in a grave voice.
Home. There was that word again.
I shivered, and he held out my brand-new jacket and let me slide one arm and then the other through the sleeves before he zipped it up for me. I smiled at him when he finished. He leaned in and brushed his lips over mine. Pulling back, he met my eyes again and then did it again, pressing his lips just a little heavier against mine. Then he stepped away, his face about as open and unguarded as I’d ever seen it.
Amos was waiting next to my car when we got over, and I hesitated a second before taking my keys out of my pocket and holding them up. “Do you want to drive?”
“For real?”
“As long as you promise not to run through any stop signs.”
His smile was small, but he took the keys, and we got inside. Neither one of us said much as he pulled out of the driveway and his dad pulled over to let us go around and go first. It wasn’t until we were on the highway that he said, “Dad loves you.”
I unclenched my fingers from around my purse and looked at him. Rhodes had said it so fast, I hadn’t absorbed the fact he had said exactly that. “You think so?” I asked anyway.
“Know so.”
I saw him let go of the wheel with one hand. “Two hands, Am.”
He put it back. “He’s not good with words. You know? His mom used to hit him and do other stuff, say mean stuff, and I’ve never even seen Grandpa Randall hug him. I know he loves me . . . he just . . . doesn’t say it a lot. Like, ever. Not like my dad Billy. But Dad Billy told me a long time ago that, even if he doesn’t say it a lot, he shows it doing other stuff.” Amos glanced at me. “So you know. It’s like he’s learning now. How to say it.”
“I understand,” I told him seriously.
Amos glanced at me again before staring forward, hard. “I want you to know, so you don’t think he doesn’t.”
He was trying to console me, or prepare me, or even tie me to his dad even tighter. Maybe all three. And I couldn’t say I didn’t love it because I did.
“I get it,” I said. “And I won’t forget, I promise. I don’t think I need to hear it all the time anyway. You can show people they matter better by what you do than by what you say, I think at least.”
The teenager nodded but kept his attention forward. Things still felt just a little off, like we were both unsure, like this frustration was still so new, we wanted to get over it but neither one of us knew how to kick it off.
But it was him that brought it up. “I don’t care you can’t write anymore, you know.” He was totally serious. “But . . . you’ll still help me with my songs?”
Pressure built up in my chest. “I kind of have to,” I told him. “We’ve done this much. I might as well stick around and see what you can do with more time.”
His smile was faint, and he glanced at me again. “I was thinking about the talent show again, and I was thinking about doing another song instead.”
I bit the inside of my cheek and smiled. “Okay, tell me more.”
Amos parked my car in front of the house, not by the garage apartment, I noted but kept my mouth shut. All I wanted was to savor this. Whatever this was. Being accepted into their home and lives even more so?
They wanted me back.
They wanted me close.
And for me, that was more than something. It was everything.
We got out, and I caught Rhodes’s face as he waited by the hood of his truck, watching me closely. Part of me still couldn’t believe they’d come to get me so soon. No one had ever done that before. Not my ex when he’d hurt my feelings beyond belief and I’d gone to stay with Yuki, and not after I left the house when he’d officially broken things off. He’d never even texted to check up on me and make sure I was fine and not in a ditch somewhere.
Just as I started to get mad at myself for everything that had led up to my relationship with him and how long I’d let it go on, I remembered that if it hadn’t been for him and what he’d done, I might have never come back here.
Because as much heartache and tears as I’d wasted in my previous life, the happiness I’d found here balanced it. And maybe with time, it would more than make up for it. Maybe one day it would overshadow that period completely.