AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh. Thanks.”
Violet followed Dean as he walked down the hallway and pulled a black hand towel from the linen cupboard.
“Here you go. Just hang it over the towel rack when you’re done,” he said.
“Okay.” As she stepped into the bathroom, she closed and locked the door behind her. Leaning back against the cold wood, she closed her eyes.
Why is this so awkward?
Then again, it didn’t seem like it was awkward for him at all. In fact, he appeared completely at ease, while she was sweating buckets.
Going to the mirrored medicine cabinet above the sink, she stared in horror at her wild hair and the black smudges under her eyes.
“Oh, God, I look like shit.” She opened the cabinet to block out the reality of her appearance and curiously eyed the contents. Some aspirin, razors, a few prescriptions, and dental floss right next to a small bottle of mouthwash.
And a black box of condoms.
Violet’s cheeks flamed, and she closed the mirror. Presented once again with her hideous appearance, she washed her hands and gently used the hand towel to clean up under her eyes. Running her hands through her windblown hair, she gave in and stole his brush off the counter. As she worked through the knots, she wondered why a man with such short hair even needed one but was grateful just the same.
Finally, presentable, Violet walked out of the bathroom but paused to look over a collage frame in the hallway.
A younger version of Dean stood in front of a tank with five other men in desert camo. He was smiling with his arms around their shoulders. Some of them made faces and flashed rock symbols while another sat on top of the tank flipping the camera off. A few of the faces seemed familiar, and she was pretty sure that they were the same men from the photo in Dean’s truck.
Next to the group shot was an older photo of a man in a military uniform with a pretty dark-haired woman in a wedding dress and veil, her arms around his waist.
Violet heard Dean’s approaching footsteps but ignored him as she studied the next picture, even as his arm brushed her shoulder.
“The one in the corner,” he said, pointing up to a photo of him and another dark-haired young man buried up to their necks in the sand, “is me and my younger brother, Freddy. We’d all taken a family trip to Maine about five years ago, and everyone thought it would be hilarious to bury the two eldest in the sand.”
“And who is this?” She pointed to the top picture of three pretty women in rose pink dresses holding bouquets. Two of the women were glaring at each other around the one in the middle.
“Those are my three sisters at our cousin’s wedding. The youngest, Natalie.” He pointed to the sister on the left. “In the middle is Audrey, and Dotty is the one who looks like she’s about to punch Nat’s lights out.”
“And did she?” Violet asked.
“No, I stepped in just in time to pull Dotty onto the dance floor, where she burst into hysterical tears and soaked the front of my uniform.”
“Why was she crying?”
“Because she was pregnant, and she was scared to tell my parents,” he said.
Violet glanced back at the picture, studying Dotty. “How old was she?”
“Twenty.”
Violet could understand the terror his sister must have felt. She experienced it nearly every day, worrying if she was doing right by her siblings. Wondering if they would have been better off in foster care.
“So, why does she look like she wants to kill your other sister?”
“Natalie had found the test and was blackmailing Dotty. Typical bratty little sister warfare.” He grinned down at her like she’d understand, but she couldn’t imagine breaking her sister’s confidence for any reason.
“That’s messed up.” She didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but tormenting someone you were supposed to love with sensitive information seemed cruel to Violet. She would never take personal information about her sister and use it against her.
Then again, it had just been Casey, Daisy, and her for so long, maybe they were abnormal. But if they were, they had a hundred excuses for being different. Their lives had never been easy, but after their mom died, their dad’s drug habit had become uncontrollable. He couldn’t hold down a job because he was always getting high, and whatever money he did bring in went straight up his nose. Sometimes he disappeared for days, and then suddenly, he was just there. And as horrible as it was, every time he left the house, part of Violet hoped he wouldn’t come home.
As a teenager, she’d taken any job she could around the neighborhood and babysat for a few families who let her bring Daisy and Casey with her. She’d hidden the money she earned around their bedrooms until she could open her own checking account, but after her dad found one of her stashes—almost six hundred dollars—she’d installed dead bolts on all of their doors. Then it just became a race between her dad and her to see who could sell off family heirlooms the fastest.
When she’d first started college, she’d taken a self-defense course, and just before her twenty-first birthday, had completed her firearm safety course. On her birthday, she’d walked into the store and bought a gun and a safe to hold it. She’d spent hours at the range shooting, getting better and better all the time. Between the locks on their doors and the gun, Violet had finally started to feel safe.
