Page 61 of The Way We Swing

“If you don’t let us out of here, I’m going to break your arm.”

“Break both of them when you get out. I don’t care. Just talk to him,” Gavin said. His voice was pleading, willing me to listen to him.

I sat down on the floor, my back against the door. I refused to look at Easton now. I wasn’t going to give in to the demands of a fourteen-year-old. If Easton wanted to talk to me, he’d have to be the one to start.

CHAPTER 22

We sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Easton lay sprawled on the bottom bunk, arms tucked behind his head, lips curved in the lazy smile people wear when they don’t realize they’re doing it, his eyes closed. He might have been asleep. Or just pretending to be asleep to avoid talking.

I stood up as quietly as possible and drew my weight back, then rammed my body into the door. I hoped to catch Gavin off guard, but he continued to be a step ahead of me.

“Not going to work,” Gavin said, a hint of a taunt in his voice. One way or the other, I’d be teaching this kid a lesson on who was older when I got out.

Gavin’s room was a mess. Shirts and jeans were sprawled all over the floor, and a pair of briefs hung over the side of his dresser. I kicked a couple of articles of clothing at his wall to clear a path.

I crawled into the top bunk and put my head down on the pillow. If I needed to be in here, at least having a bed between us would make life easier. The coolness of the sheets soothed my legs, and I sighed at their touch.

It had been a while since I had spent the night on Gavin’s bunk bed. I looked around the room, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off his ceiling. At this point, he had close to a dozen jerseys framed. Three of them had his name on them; all of them had the same number four in the center.

I turned my music on and put my phone on my chest. With Adele’s voice softly playing, I fell asleep withinminutes. When I woke up, I didn’t remember exactly what I’d dreamed about, but I was smiling. It had been one of those weird dreams where everything had just felt…good.

Then I remembered Gavin had locked me into a room with Easton. I looked at my phone—I had been asleep for less than fifteen minutes. I jumped off the bed onto the floor and stormed to the door.

“Gavin, let me out, or I’m calling Mom.”

“And tell her what?”

“That you locked me in your room, dumbass.”

“Don’t you think she’ll ask me why I did it?”

“You wouldn’t,” I said.

“I don’t think I’ll have to,” he said.

I sat once again on the floor, sighing. The calm from the nap evaporated like it hadn’t existed. My shoulders tensed, and my teeth pressed together.

“What is it with you Quinns and blackmailing me?” Easton said. I looked over at him, and he was still smiling.

“Someone has to turn you into a good person,” I snapped, turning my back to him.

“Yeah, well, I fucked up. I don’t have a mom to teach me right from wrong,” he said.

I choked out a laugh, shocked that he’d gone there. “No shit, you fucked up,” I said.

He sat up in bed, his feet on the floor, his body hunched. He stared, motionless, at a spot on the wall. “I’ve missed you,” he said.

I stood up and paced around the room. “Why didn’t you say something to me?”

“I didn’t know if you wanted me to,” he said.

I looked at him, staring him down, trying to process how he could be so naïve.

“Yeah, that was dumb,” he acknowledged, his dimples coming out.

“Yeah, it was,” I said.

“I couldn’t face how much I missed you all. It made everything worse,” he said.