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“But ”
“Seriously.” Michael looked away from the road now. “He’ll be fine. That’s the last thing you need to worry about.” He paused. “As long as you can stay out of trouble, I can scrape one more year out of the juvenile system.”
As long as you can stay out of trouble. He was talking about the fires. Gabriel swallowed.
“What about the stuff with the company?”
“Something else you don’t need to worry about.”
Gabriel was on the verge of peeling the weather stripping right out of the window. “Come on.”
“Really. He’s bluffing.”
But Gabriel kept remembering Michael’s comment in the kitchen earlier. We can’t afford for anything to happen to the truck.
“You know,” said Michael, his voice careful, “when you told me we were picking up a girl, she’s not quite what I was expecting.”
Layne. Gabriel wished he could have picked her up and carried her into the house, all the while telling her father to f**k off. “I don’t think it matters anymore.”
“Just saying.”
Gabriel snorted. “I’m surprised you’re not just saying I need to stay away from her.”
“Yeah, well” Michael rolled his eyes “I already tried that with Chris and Becca, and look where it got me.”
Gabriel skipped dinner. Things were all right with Michael for now but he didn’t feel like putting on the same show for Chris and Nick, especially since Quinn and Becca were here. He holed up in his room again, iPod blaring in his ears.
He rolled his lighter across his knuckles, striking flame in time with the beat of the song.
His cell phone was in his other hand. Silent.
Not that he wasn’t checking it every fifteen seconds.
Surrounded by people, and he still felt so alone.
Then his phone chimed. Gabriel was so startled that he dropped the lit lighter in the middle of his chest.
Out, he thought.
The fire went out.
Nice. His control was getting better.
He checked the phone. Hunter.
Four alarm fire at Tanyard Springs. U in?
Gabriel slid his fingers across the keys to respond, then froze.
As long as you can stay out of trouble . . .
But a four-alarm fire would be big. And Tanyard Springs was a townhome community. This could be more than one family.
He paused his iPod and slipped out of bed to crack the door.
His brothers were in the kitchen, cleaning up and goofing off from the sound of it. The rain had long since stopped. He could sneak out and be gone before they noticed.
But things weren’t terrible right now. Spending the day with Michael had actually been nice, in a bizarre way. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d played ball with his older brother.
