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“My truck’s way better than a minivan,” Jax assures me with a smile. “I’ll take you tomorrow if you want.”
Again, I nod eagerly, probably looking like a freak, but in this moment, I don’t care. “I want.”
Jax’s smile widens, and Hunter chuckles, the annoyance leaving his expression.
“You’re not a little bit excited about this, are you?” Hunter teases me.
“I’m way excited,” I answer, even though his question wasn’t serious.
“Really? Huh? I couldn’t tell.” Chuckling, he urges me closer with his arm that’s draped around my shoulders.
“I’ve just wanted to learn how to drive since I was five and took my first drive with my dad,” I explain. “I just never thought it’d happen.”
The atmosphere shifts then, a heaviness clouding over.
“Why won’t your aunt or uncle teach you?” Hunter asks cautiously.
I lift a shoulder, fidgeting with the leather bands on my wrists that hide some of my scars; scars I once put there myself. “I don’t know … They just don’t like me that much.” I shrug again. “I am kind of a pain in the ass.” Not that that’s an excuse for anything they do to me, especially my uncle.
That man is a messed-up psycho. Deep down, I know this, and I could tell them, but then I’d have to explain why. And what would I say? He carves my flesh up with words that match the self-hatred I often feel toward myself? Nope, those are never words I can utter aloud, because it’ll poison everything.
Silence stretches by.
“Is that the reason you’re helping us?” Zay steers into a neighborhood lined with nice, two-story homes.
“Partly,” I say. “I do want to find out why we’re off the grid.”
Zay slows down the car then and pulls into a driveway that belongs to a two-story home that has black shutters, a small front porch, and a two-car garage.
“This is where you guys live?” I ask, straightening in the seat.
“Yeah?” Hunter sits up with me, his eyes skimming across my expression. “Not what you were expecting?”
I shake my head as I gape at the house. “No, not at all.”
Hunter removes his arm from around my shoulders and unfastens his seat belt. “What were you expecting?”
“I don’t know …” I shrug. “Honestly, when you said you lived on your own, I just figured you lived in an apartment or something. This is way fancier than what I envisioned.”
“If you think this is fancy, you should see the homes we grew up in,” Hunter tells me, but his voice sounds a little off, almost like he’s being strangled.
“No, she shouldn’t.” Zay shuts off the engine then shoves open the door. “No one should ever have to lay eyes on those goddamn fucking hellholes.” With that, he climbs out and strides up the driveway and onto the front porch.
A beat of silence ticks by, and my mind wanders to what Harlow told me earlier. Well, vaguely told me about the families who run this town. It sounded very mobster-ish, and Jax said something that sounded mobster-like, too. If they do come from families that are kind of like mobs, I wonder what their childhood was like. By the way Zay just acted, probably awful.
Jax gets out of the car next with that wooden box in his hand, and Hunter follows. I scoot over and climb out, too. Jax is waiting for me then shuts the door.
We trail after Hunter and toward the front door that’s now open and Zay is already inside.
“So, what’s in the box?” I ask Jax, because it sounds like something inside it is jingling around.
“I made it in woodshop,” he tells me as we walk up the stairs. “But it has a bunch of stuff inside that Hunter made in metal shop last year.”
Hunter pauses in the doorway and glances at Jax. “Really?”
Jax nods as we walk into the house. “Mr. Johnson told me to take it and give it to you. Said he usually just tosses the stuff his old students make, but it felt wrong to toss stuff that’s so well made.” He hands Hunter the box. “He did make a joke that he should’ve sold some of it since you didn’t seem that interested in keeping it.”
As I enter the small foyer, I peer around, taking in the stairway in front of me, the hardwood floors, the living room to my left, and an office to my right. Black and white photos of scenery and buildings line the white walls that lead upstairs and a chandelier hangs above me.
