“What?”
“As soon as we get home, I’ll make up your bedroom.”
“I’m not going to your home,” I tell her firmly. “I’m going to mine.”
“You shouldn’t be alone after this, Shayne,” Trey says, and I want to punch him. “Especially not your home.”
“I’m a grown woman and I am going home. My home.” My father walks up just as I finish speaking and he stares down at me with a condemning stare.
“You’re moving out of that shit box,” he barks and runs a hand over his graying hair. “You can move in with your mother or you can live in the pool house. We renovated it a few years ago, you know that. It’s self-contained, got its own kitchen and bathroom.”
My mother had acted devastated when I moved back to Seattle after college and refused to live in the renovated pool house. She proclaimed she did it just for me and that it was my father’s idea. I would never live with them again; I don’t know how they didn’t catch on to that fact when I refused any of their money for school and when I didn’t even tell them I was moving back. Trey was the one who let it slip.
“Look, I appreciate that you two are trying to be parental and everything. I understand that being mugged is scary for everyone, not just me.” I was truly being serious here, but with every word I could see the flicker of anger behind my dad’s gray eyes grow brighter. “I’m grateful for the offer, but I am not, under any circumstances, moving back home.”
“Shayne, I’ve had enough with your bullshit,” my father spits out, so frustrated his face is turning red. “You’re holding a grudge at your own expense and it’s just dumb at this point. Grow up.”
He yanks his wallet out of his back pocket and shoves a wad of bills in my hand and leans in close to my face, his expression softening for a moment. “I love you, Shaynie. I don’t know what I would do if something happened to you.”
He kisses my forehead quickly and then stalks across the parking lot, back to his car. My mother, her lip quivering, shakes her head at me and whispers, “You’re punishing me too. Not just him, you know.”
And then she stumbles away after him. I hear Trey sigh next to me and I look up. He watches them until my dad pulls out of the parking lot. “I’ll drive you to that crack den you call an apartment.”
I roll my eyes but follow him to his car. I look down at the cash in my hand. It’s four hundred dollars in fifty-dollar bills. I try to hand it to Trey, but he shakes his head. “Use it to put a down payment on a new car or a deposit on a decent apartment.”
“No.”
“Well, you’ll have to try and give it back to him yourself, because I’m not helping you this time,” he says.
As we’re buckling up, my phone rings and I dig it out. It’s Sebastian. Again. I hesitate. Trey leans over and glances at the screen. I decide to answer the call rather than deal with the fifty invasive questions I’m sure he’s about to pepper me with. “Hey.”
“Shay, baby, I was beginning to think you were blowing me off.” His voice is soothing. It’s like the warm hug I’ve been craving.
“No. I wasn’t,” I promise and when I take a breath it’s shaky. “I had a really bad day.”
Trey snorts beside me at the way I underplayed that, and I raise my middle finger in his general direction. “I’ve been thinking about you nonstop,ma belle,” Seb confesses in a husky voice. “I hope you know as soon as this plane lands in four days I’m coming to see you.”
“Good,” I say, and I know I have to get off the phone. It’s not just that it’s awkward talking to him with my brother right beside me; it’s also that the way his voice is making me feel so warm and comforted is making the reality of what happened to me sink in, and I feel like I might cry. “Trey is driving me home right now. Can I call you back later?”
There’s a pause. “We have a curfew. I’m supposed to be lights out in ten minutes.”
“Oh. Okay.” Fucking hockey.
“Call me back anyway.”
“No. It’s fine. We’ll talk tomorrow. It’s no big deal,” I tell him, and Trey chuffs sarcastically beside me. “Have a good night and a good game tomorrow. Bye.”
As soon as I hit the end button Trey starts in. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“With Sebastian?” I counter, and I decide to be my usual flippant self. “Well, I got an A in sex ed in high school and I got a little hands-on training in college.”
“Oh my God, shut up!” Trey demands and shakes his head in disgust. “I mean with your life in general, Shayne.”
“My life is fine.”
His eyebrow quirks and the look on his face is sheer disbelief. “You don’t have enough money to buy a car, you live in a crap area of town where you get mugged because you won’t take help from our father due to your morals against his profession and life choices, but yet you’re involved with someone who does the exact same thing for a living and probably lives the same lifestyle.”
“Sebastian is nothing like Dad,” I spit out hotly, and the suggestion has me furious. “You’re not cheating on Sasha, are you?”
