“Put it to you this way. I recoiled in horror after kissing the lovely man from Manchester, and my second date and I spent more time talking about our respective unrequited situations than getting to know each other.” I rubbed my eyes. “We even wore the same Brooks Brothers jacket. It was...” I pulled a face.
“Not as good as it is with Rowdy?” Emery filled in.
“Not even in the same ballpark. Planet. Solar system.”
“And the third date?”
“Postponed,” I said, a sour taste in my mouth. “Probably indefinitely.”
“So...a bust. That’s okay.” Emery looked me over. “Maybe it was a sign.”
I sighed, annoyed by the niggling unanswered questions. “This conversation has been amess. We’ve gone all over the place and still haven’t solved a damn thing.”
“That’s not true,” Emery protested. “At a minimum, I think we’ve figured out that Rowdy might be approaching the end of his slutty phase.”
“Wouldn’t that be something?” I asked, then took another sip.
Wouldn’t that be something, indeed.
11
ROWDY
I stoodon the trailer’s rickety front steps, wondering if I’d made the right choice stopping by as I gingerly knocked on the dented aluminum front door.
“What are you doing here?” Jaxon asked as he opened the door, blocking my view of the interior.
“I was on my way to pick up a friend and thought I’d stop by beforehand. Check in on you.”
The fact of the matter was, I hadn’t planned on coming by and this was nowhere near Skylar’s place, but something told me I needed to see where Jaxon and his mom lived.
The way the front porch creaked and swayed under my weight reminded me of the grody old trailer I’d grown up in. That, at least, had been on a tiny strip of land by a river where I could hunt and fish and be outside.
This fucking trailer park felt like something out of one of those postapocalyptic novels.
Jaxon shifted on his feet, uncomfortable. “My house isn’t clean.”
I shrugged. “I don’t care. I just wanted to come see how you were doing. Found out from your mom that you also skipped school this week.”
Jaxon scowled, hesitated, then finally let me in. “I don’t know why she’s gotta be telling you all of my business.”
“I don’t know,” I cracked, even as a slight smell of mold hit my nostrils and the depressing interior came into view. “Maybe because we’re both trying to keep you out of jail and off the pole.”
That made him laugh. “I have a body for football, Rowd. Not the pole.”
I stepped into his living room, which was a generous description of the tiny space. Jaxon was checking for my reaction, though, so I neutralized my face.
I’d already known it was going to be bad when I pulled onto the feeder road. This entire area was in transition. A lot of the tiny old homes just on the other side of the highway were selling for half a million dollars and up because the Austin housing market was freaking ridiculous. Meanwhile, on this side of the highway, an apartment complex known for housing a massive meth operation sat two blocks away. All of this was just a few blocks from a school.
As I’d bumped along the heavily pitted “road” to Jaxon’s trailer, I’d gotten the sense that this place was no stranger to similarly illicit substances and activities.
Compared to the rest of the park, Jaxon and Sadie’s ancient single wide with the orange-and-brown swirl shag carpeting didn’t seem so bad. I mean, the space was tiny, cluttered, and in need of significant repairs—or a match—but I suspected it was one of the nicer setups in this hellhole.
Jaxon’s eyes went to the worn gray-green recliner in the corner, where Sadie was passed out, still in her server outfit, complete with her name badge from the twenty-four-hour diner down the way and marshmallow white shoes on her feet.
“So, uh, we should try to keep quiet,” Jaxon said, worry stitching his brows. “She just got off a double shift.”
Considering it was midmorning, Sadie must’ve worked overnight. I knew she had a couple of jobs, but it killed me to think that she worked all those hours only to come home exhausted tothis.
