Awakening You
Page 31

He shakes his head. “I’ve never even been in a hot tub before.”
“Not even back when . . .” I bite my lips to stop myself from mentioning his past.
“Back when I lived with my birth mother?” he asks, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s okay, you can ask me stuff if you want to. I’ve been working on it in therapy . . . I mean, with that kind of stuff.”
“Like hot tub stuff?”
“Yeah, like with hot tub stuff.” He scoots toward me until our knees are touching.
I stifle a smile because I can tell he did it on purpose, needing to touch me.
“And to answer your question,” he says. “My birth mother wasn’t really the take-her-kids-swimming type, and that includes hot tubs.”
“So, what did you do for fun, then?” I swallow a little bit more beer then balance the bottle between my legs.
“Get into trouble.” He gives a half-shrug. “You remember what I looked like when we met, right? That was basically who I was for the longest time.”
“What do you mean by trouble, exactly? I know you drank, smoked, and got into fights, but any arrests I need to know about?” I dazzle him with a smile so he’ll know I’m messing with him.
“No, no arrests.” He relaxes back and stares up at the sky while sipping his beer. “My mother wasn’t a good mother, and you already know that I didn’t know my dad, so basically, my brother . . . my sister, and me just ran wild from the day we were born. We got into a ton of trouble all the time and did a lot of shitty stuff. Sometimes, I worry it’s all going to catch up with me.”
“My dad doesn’t really know his dad, either. I guess he left his family when he was like six and started a new family. And, from what I understand, my mother’s parents were neglectful, although my grandpa turned his life around.”
When he looks at me in puzzlement, I get to the point. “What I’m trying to say is that, from some of the stories I’ve heard over the years, they got into a ton of trouble, but they turned out just fine. For parents, they’re actually pretty cool.” I clink bottles with him. “So, I’m betting you’ll turn out just fine. In fact, you kind of already have.”
“I still have a long ways to go before I’m fine, but I’ll admit that I’m getting better.”
My jaw drops in mock shock as I place my hand over my mouth. “Did you just say something nice about yourself, Shy Boy?”
His lips quirk. “Maybe.”
I grin like I’ve just won the freaking lottery. “You should do it more often.”
He remains quiet as he gazes at the night sky. Most of the clouds have thinned, and the stars and moon glimmer vibrantly above us.
“So, you want to hear my news?” I ask abruptly. “Because it’s pretty big and epic.”
His head cocks to the side as his attention falls to me. “Let’s hear it.”
Unable to conceal my enthusiasm any longer, an absurdly huge smile takes over my face. “It’s about the band and a tour.”
“Really? What one?”
“I think it’s called the Rocking Summer Blast Tour or something like that. I have a paper in my room about it. My dad actually got us the gig, and it’s not the biggest, most popular line-up, but it could help us get a foot in the door. Plus, imagine how cool it would be. You and me on the road, twenty-four seven, singing and writing lyrics while we see the country. We could have this super awesome duet at the end of our performance.” When he doesn’t say anything right away, I add, “Isn’t it exciting?”
He doesn’t seem that excited, more like disappointed. “I’m not sure if I can go . . . not when my sister’s still out there.”
I have no idea what to say to that. Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything I can say. He’s clearly suffering over his sister, and I’m not about to try to convince him he’s wrong for feeling that way.
“What can I do to help?”
He shrugs. “There’s nothing anyone can do except wait for the police to find her.” He grows quiet for a minute, studying the scars on the back of his hands. “Sometimes, I think about going to look for her myself”—he stares across the yard at his house—“tracking down every place connected to their name and seeing if she’s being held at any of them.”
My expression plummets. “I think you should just let the police do their job.”
“I’m not saying I’m going to. I was just telling you I think about it sometimes.”
“When you think about doing stuff, you usually do it.” My sharp tone surprises me, almost as much as how afraid I am that he’s going to actually go through with what he said.
He jerks back, thrown off by outburst. “No, I don’t . . . I was just telling you because”—hurt masks his expression—“I thought that’s what we did.”
“Yeah, we do.” I swing my legs out of the hot tub, hop down onto the grass, and cross my arms, staring him down. “But you keep doing things like tracking that hacker down and going to that house, so when you say things like you’re going to go track down these places, I get worried you’re actually going to do it.”
“I’m not going to go looking for them. I just need to do”—he balls his hands into fist, staring above us, as if cursing the stars—“something. I’m so sick of waiting around until they finally decide to take me. Like today at the concert. I was fine until I was around a bunch of people. Then all I kept thinking is how someone could be watching me in the audience, waiting to make their next move, just like they did to Sadie. Did you know they kidnapped her right out of her home?”