“How old do you think I am?”
“Sixteen? Seventeen?” she guesses.
“You were right the first time.” I chuckle.
If she thinks sixteen is too young to be smoking, I wonder what she’d think of the fact that I started at twelve. Or that I had my first drink at thirteen. There isn’t a first I haven’t had at this point.
It’s one more way I’m living up to my stepdad’s expectation that I’m a complete disappointment.
“Smoking will kill you.” She narrows her eyes.
Judgmental but beautiful.
“Lots of shit can kill you. Like hiding in back alleyways with strangers.” I wave an arm to the empty alley we’re standing in.
She rolls her eyes, unthreatened. “You’re a year older than me, not some serial killer. Besides, I’m not hiding.”
“Is that right?” I let smoke curl out from between my lips. “Then why are you looking over your shoulder every other minute like someone is going to jump out of the shadows and grab you?”
The dark-haired girl glances over her shoulder again. Voices peak around the corner, and her back stiffens.
So sheisrunning from someone.
“No reason.” She bites her bottom lip, clearly lying.
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll put out this cigarette if you tell me who you’re hiding from?” I hold the cigarette up between us, and her eyes watch my fingers, considering my offer.
I’ve only got one left in the pack, and it will be a pain to get more when Mom has Waylon, who runs the general store, on notice not to sell me any. But I’m too damn curious not to offer. I want to know why this fifteen-year-old girl, who looks like there’s not one bad bone in her body, is hiding like her life depends on it.
“No judgment?” She bites her lower lip.
“Nope.” I take a deep inhale and let my answer curl out with the smoke, reminding her I’ve got no room to judge.
“Cops.”
I choke out my next exhale, pounding my chest when the smoke catches in my lungs. “The cops?”
She nods, and I burst out laughing.
“It’s not funny.” She frowns.
“Okay,” I agree for her sake. “How in the hell did you get in trouble with the cops?”
“It was an accident.”
My eyebrow quirks, and she lifts up the video game she’s holding. The security tag is still on it.
I scan her over.
She’s nicely dressed. Her hair blows in the breeze, looking soft as hell. The quality of her cowboy boots alone tells me her family isn’t struggling. Yet she’s holding a stolen video game.
“Youwere shoplifting?”
“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t even actually do it.” She huffs, rolling her eyes. “I stepped out of the store at the same time as this other kid, and when the alarm went off, he shoved this at me.”
“So you took it and ran? Why didn’t you just tell them what happened?”
She avoids my gaze. “You don’t know my father.”
