I snort. “Yep. That’s Oakley.”
We’re quiet for a minute. I think he’s watching Levis, like I am. I feel like I need to ask him something, but I don’t know what. I’d like some reassurance of what I see between him and Lorissa, or maybe the warmth that’s sometimes between us. Maybe I need to know why he always hangs around me.
“Hey, want to go for a walk?” Voss asks. “We’ll go to the property behind this one, where Dad’s been mapping out the new buildings.”
“Uh…” I watch Levis for a minute. “Sure. Okay.”
Voss gets to his feet and offers me his hand. I freeze just as I sit forward, and stare at it for a beat. What does this mean? I meet his eyes; he’s watching me. Waiting. Still offering me his hand.
I reach up to take it, and Voss pulls me to my feet. Kind of. I don’t actually need help getting to my feet. Maybe he’s in the habit of offering those around him assistance since Lorissa often needs help to get up.
Am I somehow confused in his head with Lorissa?
Voss doesn’t let go of my hand right away, and for a minute, I feel like I’m caught in the tunnel vision he’d just been talking about. The only thing I can focus on is my hand in his. I’ve never held a guy’s hand before. Actually, I’ve not held hands with anyone much at all. That means I’d have to be in a relationship of some kind, and yeah… that’s never happened.
“You okay?” Voss asks. “Am I making you uncomfortable by holding your hand?”
I look down at our linked hands again, trusting that he’s not going to let me run into a table or something. “No,” I answer. “I’m fine.”
He chuckles. “You don’t sound so sure, Brek.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him I’m not sure I’ve ever held hands with someone before. Now that I’m tasked with remembering, I think I’ve briefly held hands with my friends here and there. But not… not like this. There’s something different about this.
Voss releases my hand when we get to the side lot, and he gestures for me to climb into the side-by-side. There aren’t doors on this one, but he still waits for me to sit before walking around to the other side.
The side-by-sides are loud. Auto companies work on making car engines quieter, but with anything that’s not a road vehicle, I think they attempt to make them as loud as possible. I can’t even hear myself over the unnecessary roar of the engine.
Thankfully, it’s quick, and we speed along down the paved path to the right of the house that winds around the lake. We speed through the intersection where a left takes us around the top ofthe lake and toward the office building, and a right disappears into the woods where a dozen or more houses are.
The paved road ends, and we drop onto a packed gravel path. There’s a break in the trees at the back of the property that has been cleared away. Stumps remain, but they’ll be removed when construction truly begins. Once we cross through the tunnel of trees, we stop in a small clearing, and Voss kills the engine.
There are stakes in the ground all over the place, the tips sprayed with different colored paints. Otherwise, it looks like a strange clearing in the trees.
“He’s really building a school, huh?” I say. Not so much a question, but kind of miffed.
Voss sighs. “Yeah.”
“Will it be ready in a few years when Emerson is ready for school?”
He nods as he walks almost aimlessly. I follow, remaining half a step behind him. “Uncle Noaz was the first of us he pulled from public school. I was pretty young, but I remember the fight he got into with his parents when he wanted to take Noaz out. They insisted Noaz stay, and Dad lost his shit. I was probably three or four at the time, and I distinctly remember Grandma saying something about Noaz just needing to be a normal boy sohe’dfit in. Thenhewouldn’t be picked on.”
“Wow. That must have hurt Noaz’s feelings.”
“They weren’t there. Dad wouldn’t have had the conversation with his parents with Noaz present. I’m not even sure he remembered I was there when he started yelling at them about how shitty they are. Sometimes I wonder if Dad fought hisparents to get legal custody of Uncle Noaz because he kind of raised his brother with us after that.”
“That must have been better for Noaz.”
Voss shrugs. “I guess I’m rambling about it because I’m kind of surprised that he didn’t build a school back then for Uncle Noaz. He was there to see the crappy teachers Noaz had firsthand. Then there were the triplets when teachers tried to force them apart. And then Loren…”
“Because he’s a sociopath,” I comment.
He glances at me. Did I not manage to keep my voice neutral? I mean, I remember the murderous look in his eyes as he came after me for kissing Oakley that night.
“Yes.” He takes my hand and pulls me to his side so I’m walking in step with him. “The only time he’s ever a threat to someone is when they hurt his family or overstep his boundaries.”
I’m about to point out that I didn’t overstephisboundaries when he decided he was going to murder me. I don’t. I know these brothers. They’ll defend each other until they’re blue in the face.
Apparently, he knows exactly what I’m thinking about.
