AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was lying on my back, where I’d landed, and I stared up at the ceiling, thinking of how to summarize Cynthia.
“What happened while I was gone?” he persisted.
I rolled to my side and propped myself up on my elbow. “I hope you don’t mind I let my sister come over. She texted me, wanting to talk.”
“Is this the teenage one?”
I nodded. “Hannah. The oldest of my halves. She was pissed at my parents because they won’t let her go to the big bonfire in Runner after the next football game.”
“Runner’s the town on the other side of the lake, right?”
“Yep. Our rivals in sports.”
“So what’d you tell your sister?”
“Mostly I let her vent.”
“It’s good she can come to you.”
“It’s not easy being sixteen,” I said. “Some of her friends are going, so she thinks she should be able to.”
“Did you do stuff like that when you were her age? What was that, about five years ago?” he teased.
“Twelve, thank you.” I laughed. It wasn’t the first comment he’d made about my age. It didn’t bother me. I’d had plenty of thoughts about how much older than me he was. The more I got to know him though, the less the gap felt like a big deal. We could talk as if we were the same age. “I went to the bonfire in Runner a few times,” I said. “But my parents didn’t know about it.”
“You’ve got some rebel in you.”
I pursed my lips to the side in thought. “Not really. Not normally. When it comes to my stepmom though…” I shook my head. “We don’t get along. We haven’t since day one.”
“Which was when?” He propped his legs up on the ottoman and settled back into the cushions, still just as close to me.
“She married my dad when I was eleven, less than two years after my mom died in a car wreck.”
“It must’ve have been hard to lose your mom so suddenly,” he said quietly.
I closed my eyes as an unexpected wave of sadness engulfed me. The accident happened a long time ago, and I’d grieved so much, but it could still broadside me. “Yeah.” I struggled to get my feelings tucked in so I could talk. “My mom was special. I mean, of course I think that, but everyone did. The whole town knew her. She was a real estate agent and good at her job. If you were selling a house, you called Reba. She was president of the PTA, in charge of all kinds of community events, and good at all of it,” I said with an adult admiration I hadn’t had back then.
“I see what you mean about special. Plus she raised a pretty amazing daughter.”
His words spiked a warm pleasure inside me amid the sadness. “And a son. I have an older brother, Ryan. He lives in Nashville.”
“How old is he?”
I did some quick math. “Thirty-seven. Actually he’s business partners with Sierra’s brother.”
“Sierra North?”
I nodded. “Maiden name Lowell. Her brother is Jackson. Their company is Tech Horse Software.”
“It’s a small, small world,” Knox said. “I met Sierra tonight. Liked her.”
“Tell me more.”
“We’re not done with you yet. So your dad married in less than two years? That must’ve been devastating for you.”
“I was not open to having a stepmom. I resented her from the first time my dad went out with her. My brother was already in college, so my dad and I were alone after my mom died. It was hard, but it became comfortable. And then it wasn’t.”
“It was always just me and my mom,” he said. “I can’t imagine how it would’ve felt if she met someone when I was a teenager.”
