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I drop my eyes, clenching my teeth.
“Say it again.”
I dart my eyes up at him. “When I graduate, I’m going to do it anyway, with or without you.” I keep my tone in check this time. “You can wish me luck and pray I survive, or you can train me and make sure I’m the best.”
I’m not trying to dare him. I’m just telling him how it is. It’s going to happen.
But to my surprise, he just smiles. “When you graduate?” he repeats. “Hell, you almost scared me. That’s seven-and-a-half months away.” He opens his jacket and makes a show of dropping my bike keys into the inside pocket. “Plenty of time for you to forget how to ride a bike at all.”
I watch him turn, images of the next seven months with no motorcycle flooding my head and making me feel like I can’t breathe.
Dammit.
He starts to leave, but my mother is there, and I can tell by the look she passes between my dad and me, she just heard that.
Stepping up to her, he cups her chin, brushing her jaw with his thumb. “I’ll grab James and take her bike. We’ll meet you two at home.”
She nods, and he leaves, heading back into the stadium. People stream out and cars start up as everyone goes home, but I’m not leaving. He got my keys, so it can’t get much worse for me.
I turn and lean back onto my bike as my mom rests next to me. “Let me tell you something about your dad, honey.” She folds her arms over her chest, and I glance down at her hands that are always soft despite washing them a hundred times a day at the hospital. “Jared Trent is the love of my life,” she says, “but sometimes…he needs to be handled.”
Yeah. She and my dad have been in love since they were ten. She’s also fought with him a lot more than anyone too.
I twist my lips to the side a little. “Can’t you handle him for me?”
“No.” She shakes her head, but I hear her amused tone. “This is a lesson most never learn. Some people aren’t going to believe what you can do until you do it. You’re not reckless. You’re not irresponsible. You’re you. Make him see it.”
I know she agrees with my dad to some extent. She worries about my safety.
But she also knows this is who I am, and it won’t change.
My dad loves me. My mom loves meandlikes me, and some days I think that’s cooler.
“Dylan,” someone calls.
I look over my shoulder, seeing Kade with his friends Dirk and Stoli, and…Jessica. Kade’s most recent girlfriend—a senior like me. They approach his black truck.
He tips his head, gesturing to me. “Let’s go.”
The prisoner exchange.
I start to leave, but I hear my mom’s voice behind me. “Ten o’clock.”
Normally, my curfew is nine on a school night, but the next two weeks will be an exception.
I toss her a wave and head for Kade’s truck, but I continue on, not stopping. “I’ll grab my car,” I tell him. It’s a hike to my house, but once I’m in my Mustang, I’ll probably still beat him to the prisoner exchange with the way I drive. “I’ll follow you.”
“Why?” he asks.
“Because I’m sick of your back seat.”
Drawing in a deep breath, he arches a brow and turns to Jessica, looking at her in the passenger seat through his driver’s side window. He gives her a little shrug. “Babe, please?”
I sigh. “Don’t do me any favors.”
Jesus. That’s not what I meant.Back seatwas really more of a metaphor.
“I want you in the goddamn truck,” he orders me. “Now.”
