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“Erm...yeah?”
“So you haven’t been avoiding me?” He leaned his shoulder against the wall and pushed his hands into the front pockets of his dark-blue jeans.
“What?” I could feel the burn of my cheeks. “No, I…I just have a lot of stuff going on.”
“Maybe sometime you’ll tell me this stuff.”
I worried my bottom lip and looked down at my painted toenails. “Maybe.”
The silence stretched between us, and I refused to look back up. I hadn’t showered in days, and I was sure he’d be able to smell me if I got any closer.
“I’ll leave you to shower then,” his deep voice announced.
“Kind of hard to do without water,” I blurted out.
“Huh?”
I looked up as Brody frowned at me. “The water has been switched off again, which means Hut hasn’t paid the bill. That’s why I was looking for him downstairs.”
Brody blinked, his gaze moving off my face and over my shoulder. I turned to see what he was staring at, but all I was greeted with was an off-white wall of nothingness.
“Get your shit, let’s go.” He spun around and ambled down the hallway.
“What?”
“Get the shit you need to take a shower.”
I opened my mouth to ask him what the hell was going on, but he was moving down the stairs and was out of sight before I got the chance. I stood there for several seconds, wondering what the hell had just happened.
“Lola! Let’s go,” he shouted up the stairs, and that got my ass moving.
I pushed into my room, grabbed my backpack, and stuffed some clothes inside, along with my wallet and laptop—just in case.
Making sure my door was shut behind us, I took one last look at the warped wood and moved away from it. Brody was waiting at the bottom of the stairs, his keys in the palm of his hand, and his lips spread into a grim line.
“Ready,” I announced.
He nodded and walked through the crowd in the living room that had become bigger since I was upstairs. I didn’t say a word as I followed him out and into his car that was parked outside.
“Where are we going?” I asked, clicking my belt in place as he switched the engine on.
“Somewhere you’ll be safe for starters,” he growled out.
I chuckled. “Yeah, that hasn’t happened in years.” I hadn’t meant to divulge that, but it had escaped nonetheless. I didn’t thrive on showcasing my life and the way I had been brought up. I was a private person, and never, not once, wanted sympathy.
“Think it’s about time that you have it,” Brody said, his hands gripping the steering wheel. He maneuvered the car effortlessly and halted at the stop sign at the end of our street.
The sun hadn’t quite set yet, but it was low in the sky, leaving behind a natural artwork painted there. The colors mingled together effortlessly and shone across the neighborhood, bringing with it false promises of a beautiful day ahead.
It wouldn’t happen though, at least not for the people living here. Each day was a fight to get through, a war to wage, just to make it to the next night. People didn’t understand the hardship and devastation in a poor area, not unless they’d come from it themselves.
Brody turned to face me, his eyes crinkled at the corners as he watched me silently. He was
trying to gauge something, search for an unspoken sentence, but I wasn’t sure what he wanted.
Things had changed between us, but I hadn’t followed after him or gone searching for him. I’d kept my distance, and not just because I didn’t want to seem like an immature girl, but because I needed to stay on plan. I’d let myself veer off it now and again, but the end goal would always remain the same: get the hell out of that house and away from Hut.
Brody shook his head and focused back on the road ahead of us, taking off when the coast was clear. He didn’t say another word as he drove to the edge of the neighborhood. If I had been with anyone else, I’d have bugged them to know where we were going, but the fact that I hadn’t meant I trusted Brody. But how could I trust someone when I didn’t know more than his name and occupation? Maybe it was instinct, and that had never been wrong before. I always knew when I was in danger. I just didn’t seem to be able to get away from it fast enough.
