“You’re nineteen, aren’t you?” Havisham asked. “You can decide.”
Before Salcedo could respond, the bartender was off again. It was busy even for a Saturday.
“Easy for her to say.” Salcedo muttered before chewing on her bottom lip like it was an Olympic sport. Her eyes were glassy.
“Hey,” I said. “My mom was sixteen when she had me, too, but you won’t find her anywhere around.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Nana raised me. It’s a good thing your mom wants you around, but you do get to choose what you want to do.”
“It’s not that simple,” she said. “I’m still living at home. If they leave, then I’ll have to get a full-time job and shift to night classes. But if I transfer to someplace up north, then I’ll get behind because you know not all my credits are going to transfer.”
“If you decide to stay, you could live with me.”
Where had those words come from? I didn’t want to live with someone else. It was one thing to canoodle with Malone, but he was going to leave eventually and had his own place in the meantime. On the day I loaded up the car to move my things from Nana’s house to the apartment, I vowed to myself that I wouldn’t share my next home with just anyone. Heck, Ken had basically kicked me out but then had come poking around asking me where something was.
Eh, that had been an excuse.
Maybe.
When we were together, I had spent a great deal of my time looking for things he couldn’t find, which I found pretty ironic considering he was a privateinvestigator.
“Are you sure?” Salcedo asked. She’d picked up on the swirl of emotions that had come after my offer.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling the confidence even as I said it. “I have an extra bedroom. It’s not padded, though, so you’ll have to keep yourself out of trouble until your twentieth birthday.”
Salcedo grinned. “I’m going to think about it, but thank you for the offer. Look at you being vulnerable after reading the book!”
“What?”
“Oh, come on, Stark. You’re not as tough as you want the world to believe. First, you told me something about your past even though you clearly didn’t want to. Then you opened up your home to me even though you’ve been burned in the past. It’s very kind of you.”
“Well, look at that. I really am growing as a person,” I said. “By the way, I named the cat Brené Brown.”
“Of course you did.”
Chapter 24
“Brené Brown Dammit Quit!”
Upon hearing her first and middle names, she quit scratching the back corner of the love seat. I could see where Jim Davis got the idea for some of hisGarfieldcartoons. Now the picture of innocence, she started licking her paw to wash her face.
“Uh-huh. I saw it. You’re not as slick as you think you are.”
She gave me her cutest look and did the slow blinks that the internet told me meant “I love you” in cat.
“Yes, yes. I love you, too. And I’ll get you a scratching post, but ... we may have a roommate one of these days, so you’re going to have to learn to behave.”
She rounded the love seat, jumped up to the cushion, and curled into a ball. No concern of hers if I wanted to add a roommate.
My phone buzzed.
“Could be her right now,” I said as I checked my phone.
Malone.
“Stark, I’ve got good news and bad news.”
