AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s what concerns me. It wouldn’t hurt to have a few real friends.” Dad’s big body, and the worry tightening his shoulders, takes up a good chunk of my purple comforter.
“Sleep. School. Write. Repeat.” I spin on my stool and point my brush at him. “Don’t have time for friends. Not on this new deadline.”
“Take tomorrow off. I’ll spread the hours across your schedule. Go shopping. You could call that girl you roomed with at camp this summer. Jenni? She lives close.”
I pick at the hem of my pajama pants, but I’m smiling. “You listened when I told you about camp?”
“Iwasstuck in the car with you for two hours on the drive home.” But he doesn’t make it sound like that was a bad thing. He shifts on the bed, bumping my laptop and waking up the screen. Trying and failing to hide the tension leaking through the hard line of his jaw, he turns the computer—and Gabe’s face—toward me. “I thought you were over him.”
“I didn’t say that... exactly. I might’ve said I stopped thinking about him all day.” Not a lie. Some days, he haunts my thoughts less than once an hour.
“You miss him.” Dad’s tone isn’t in the angry zone, but it’s parked outside of happy.
Yes. “No.” Giving up on my hair, I set down the brush.
“You sleep in the guy’s T-shirt almost every night.” He gestures to the shirt I’m wearing now.
“You noticed that?”
“I notice more than you think.” He closes my computer harder than he probably should’ve have. “I took over doing the laundry, remember?”
“What if I made a mistake?” I’ve already shared the PG bullet-point of the week I spent with Gabe and my part in our breakup.
“What if you didn’t? Gabe is from a different world. He doesn’t exactly fit into your life.”
“The way Vi doesn’t fit into yours?”
“Aw, hell.” His eyes widen like he’s just mumbled the first swear word I’ve ever heard and now there’s no going back. “I mean heck. Heck is what I mean.” He scrapes his hand over his buzzcut. Over and over.
I help him out before he loses any more hair. “You do realize hell isn’t the worst word I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m pretending I didn’t hear that.” Leaving the bed, he paces my rectangular room in perfectly timed steps.
“Maybe I could just text him. You know, to see how he’s doing and stuff.” I force as much casual into my voice as I can.
He quits pacing and stops in front of me. “Do I want to encourage my little girl to go after a boy who broke her heart? No. But Vi keeps reminding me you’re going to college in eight months and you need to make your own choices. I’m willing to make you a deal. You reach out to Jenni and see if she wants to go shopping or whatever girls like to do, and if Gabe somehow comes back into your life, I’ll try not to kill him. That’s the best I can do.”
“I’ll take it.” I smile.
chapter 68
Gabe
“Don’t buy into things that won’t last.”
~ Meredith Morgan
(played by the award-winning Meredith Wade)
Raising Ryder: 287
I wanted to win my girl back right. With mint tea. Garlic bagels. A Sharpie. Miles of Groveling. Tons of charm. But the flight from LA took centuries. You know that saying—if you’ve waited this long, you can wait a little longer? Not doing it for me. Which means the only thing I have to offer when I ring her doorbell is my heart stapled to my sleeve.
But Jess doesn’t open the door, her dad does. And while I’m still a Trevor Gray fanboy, knowing he hates me kills some of the hype.
“You.” He gives one word the punch of twenty. “That was fast.”
“What was fast?” Jess appears around the corner, wavy hair down, wearing ripped yoga pants, two different purple socks, a pair of lips I’ve been dying to kiss, andmyEminem T-shirt.
