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He rolled back to his side, the granite effect softening. His hand found mine. “Not even a little bit.”
That almost made me smile.
“My turn. Can I ask you something now too?”
“What?”
He looked so serious. “Did you tell your mom about the article?”
My chest tightened, but I nodded.
“Do you want to talk about the article?” she asked.
“I will never want to talk about the article.”
“Okay, then I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do.” She waited for me to look at her. “I understand how you’re feeling, that you’ve been pushed down by him so hard that it’s pointless to even stand up. That he keeps hurting you and getting away with it. That you’re so far down, it’s easier to close your eyes and turn away.” Her face and tone grew fierce. “I’m not having this, not after all he’s taken away from you. I’m going to call our lawyer. We’re going to get that article taken down, and then we’re going to file a suit against the Prestige family.”
My heart ached and tightened because, if we did that, what else could they take from us? “Mom, no—”
“It’s not up for discussion. It wasn’t just you he hurt. He hurt my daughter. He took my husband. He may not face criminal charges, but he’s going to face some other repercussions. This article was the last straw.” She caught my face in her hands. “You are my world, and to see you hurting, that hurts me. It’s going to stop now, but you do not worry about it. You do not give him one thought. We’re going to keep on and we’re going to find reasons to laugh every day. There’s always good happening. It’s our job to find it. I want you to do that. Can you do that for me? Find a reason to smile, honey?”
I told him what she said.
He didn’t say anything, but his hand was so tight over mine the whole time.
That made me admit something.
“Scout,” I whispered.
“What?”
“I think we’re friends.”
He didn’t reply, but he also didn’t pull his hand away.
Yeah. We were friends.
I didn’t know how I felt about the friendship, but I went to sleep with someone holding my hand. That meant something to me.
64
RAMSAY
“Yo.”
Kira caught me at my locker. I shut it and turned my back to it. “Yo.”
She gave me a slight grin. “You need a date for the Homecoming dance.”
I couldn’t disguise my wince.
Her eyes narrowed. “Come on. I’ve seen you at our meetings. A part of you likes doing this.”
“I do, but a date?”
She flicked her eyes up. “Like you’re not going with Scout.”
“What are you talking about?” I knew what she was talking about, my cousins knew what she was talking about, Scout knew, but Kira should not have known. It was then that I also remembered the comment she’d made when I’d been leaving Mario’s.
I never did find out what that was all about.
Her smile turned knowing and smug. She lifted a shoulder as the bell rang and then turned to turn to leave with the crowd. “Just saying.”
Just saying?
Just saying what?
WTF? But she brought that up to me before study hall, which I shared with Scout, which he wasn’t in the cafeteria with us.
I got in there, saw Kira and her buds at a table, and huffed because I didn’t like the little grin she was giving me.
I pulled my phone out.
Me: Where are you?
Scout: Getting some training in before we go.
Now I was steaming because did Kira know about us and Scout knew she knew, but he didn’t tell me that she knew? Was that the deal? If that was, I wasn’t happy, but here I was, at study hall and I couldn’t get any answers because he wasn’t here. But he was working out, which made sense, and logically, I could chill. I could and should and would wait to bring it up in the vehicle on the way to Portland, but we were going to Portland and, what if this led to a fight? That was a long time to spend with someone you weren’t happy with, but ugh. What was I doing?
I was overthinking.
I was being that girl, though I knew plenty of guys who were overthinkers too, but still. Chill. Relax. Bring it up later.
That was what I was going to do.
I didn’t bring it up, mostly because I got distracted.
And I got distracted because everyone and their cousin—in my case, literally—were hanging out at my locker after school. I didn’t know if Scout and I were telling people where we were going together, so while Clint was peppering me with questions about hanging out, I was lying.
I couldn’t hang out because . . . fill in the blank.
Anything I said, Clint knew was bullshit.
He knew I was lying.
That made me lie even more, and that was making me feel an excessive amount of guilt because I didn’t want to lie to my cousin. He just would not be happy that I was driving to Portland and back with Scout. Call it cousin intuition because Alex and Trenton were also feeling it. They were all standing there, all staring at me, all knowing I was lying, and each of them was giving me this side-eye look, but they couldn’t blast me because, who else was there? The theme was cousins today, so yeah, we had Gem and her cousin, Theresa, also there, who were listening in, holding their books to their chests, their heads downs, and their eyes skirting left to right, following the interrogation happening.
