AllFreeNovel
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chapter 1
Jess
I’ve been watching T at school for three weeks. The first thing I noticed? His strong hands. Allie thinks he’s just another boy I’m obsessing over and that liking our quarterback is cliché. But there’s something about him that’s different. And I can’t stop wondering if being wrapped in his huge hands would ground me on the days like this when I feel like floating away.
~ from the diary of Elizabeth Sara Thorne (age16)
Telling the truth. Dodging drama. Staying invisible. Painting butterflies on my toes. Things I used to be good at. I glance at my perfect pedicure. I’m down to one out of four.
Without knocking, Dad opens the door and strides into my bedroom.
I quickly close my laptop before he sees Mom’s profile on my screen and shove her diary under the stack of writing books piled on my desk.
But he doesn’t even turn his head on his way to the bursting suitcase on the end of my four-poster bed. Pushing down the top with his huge hand, he zips it on the first try and grabs the handle.
Feeling reckless, or maybe just desperate, I resume last night’s argument. “I can drive myself downtown.” Or stay home and spare my self-esteem a few thousand skid marks.
“Vi’s already here to pick you up.” He throws the words over his shoulder on his way out the door. The only words he’s said to me all morning. And they’re not words I want to hear. Riding and rooming with my literary agent leaves me no escape when my first writers’ conference spirals south. And itwillspiral south.
Pushing my feet into my flip-flops—one pink, one purple—I shove my laptop and the diary into my backpack and tuck my earbuds into my pocket. Then hurry to run after him. I don’t even make it to the top of the stairs before my chest starts to sink and hollow. Gripping the railing, I try again. “If you let me drive, I’ll text you the second I get there.”
All I get is a short grunt as he tramps down the back staircase looking out of place with my neon purple suitcase. Trained by decades of marine posture, his wide shoulders stay at attention while his wardrobe falls at ease. Retired five years, he’s replaced the starchy uniform with wrinkled tees and faded jeans, clung to his buzz cut, and cried rebel with a single hoop earring—giving him an odd vibe of uptight casual.
I take the steps two at a time to catch up. “The hotel’s twenty minutes away. I’ll keep the car in the parking garage the whole week.”
“Jess.” He barks my name in his standardstand down private. “You’re not driving in Dallas traffic.” He drops my luggage on the kitchen tile and rounds the corner into the great room.
Normally, he wouldn’t notice if Iplayedin traffic. I throw my backpack on the island and hurry after him. “It’s Sunday afternoon. No traffic.”
My flip-flops slap to a sudden stop when I see him standing next to Vi, who’s kicked off her heels and gotten cozy with our wing chair and an oversized mug of coffee. Sunlight streams through the wall of windows overlooking our pool, highlighting her lavender bob and brightening her fuchsia suit. Twenty years past her party-queen prime, she still somehow manages to rock both those colors.
I’d kill to shop where she buys her confidence.
“Vi brought donuts.” Dad gestures to the side table.
The smell of powdered sugar swells into a phantom pastry that sticks in my throat. Swallowing hard, I turn from the white box, my gaze landing on the lipstick on Vi’s mug.
Mom used to leave the same stain. On wine glasses. Shot glasses. Tumblers. Even the tops of bottles—until she started hiding them.
“I have bagels for Jess in the car. The donuts are foryou,” Vi says. “She doesn’t eat them.”
He looks surprised. “Since when?”
She shakes her head, her long silver earrings dancing. “Since I’ve known her?”
“Since two years ago,” I mumble too low for him to hear. The day he kicked Mom out, filed that stupid restraining order, and wrecked our family. I breathe through the familiar ache trying to twist-tie my chest and rub the inch-long scar on my jaw—the only memento I have left of her besides her diary. And I know she didn’t mean to leave either.
“Not that I mind the detour between the airport and the hotel,” Vi tells Dad, “but your almost-adult daughter does have a point about the traffic.”
“She’s seventeen.” He shifts his focus from me to her.
Holding his gaze, she casually flexes her bare feet on the ottoman. “Like I said, almost an adult.”
“Victoria.” Dad crosses his beefy biceps, his tone lodged between disapproval and irritation.
“Trevor.” Vi raises her mug.
Dad powers up his military glare, but when it only triggers her smile, he marches across the great room into his office and shuts the door.
