Page 89 of Wrecked

“Is it legally binding?”

“No. It was a promise.” I rub my eyes with the bottoms of my palms. “I’m such an idiot. How did I not know this was all a ruse?”

“Maybe you were looking for an excuse to be around him?”

“Sounds more like he was looking for an excuse to be around me.”

“Yeah,” she says with a smirk. “It sure does.” Placing her hands in her back pockets, she takes out a set of keys and tosses them on the desk. “Someone paid the balance to get your car fixed, and it wasn’t me.”

There’s a rectangular keychain hanging from the ring. I lift the rectangle in my hands and read the black block letters.

KEEP CALM

AND

ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT ON.

On the other side is a picture of Matthew McConaughey wearing a baby-blue button-down and a gorgeous smile.

I raise a brow at her. “Adam?”

She grins. “I’ll text Luke and tell him you have your own ride home tonight.”

chapter TWENTY-ONE

The Blue Whore is sitting in the parking lot in the same spot I usually park in. She looks brand-new. The front lights have been replaced, and there is a new black guard in front of the bumper. I put my key in the lock and turn. When I open the door, the most ear-splitting sound screams from the car. I fiddle with the keychain and start hitting buttons on the key fob that weren’t there before the accident. I hit each button until, finally, the Whore stops screaming.

I sit in my car and find it’s been freshly cleaned. I also have a new dashboard, and the radio has been replaced. When I turn the car on, the AC blasts, and the small TV that is now where my radio used to be comes to life. I have a Bluetooth receiver and navigation. A manual on the passenger seat is for a set of airbags, most likely new ones that had to be installed after the accident. The safety upgrades are probably worth more than the car itself.

I put the car in reverse, and the screen on the dash changes. Through the lens of a camera, I can see if anything is behind me on the ground. I use the camera and my eyes to back up, and then I switch gears and head out of the parking lot. It’s the same car I’ve always had, but it has been upgraded with about every safety feature one could install. It is a colossal waste of money. Hopefully, Rory only charged Adam for parts.

Sitting idle at a red light, I should turn right to go home. When the light turns green, I head left. Away from the main shopping district of town and onto the residential streets on the north side of town.

The houses here are larger than the one I grew up in. We had three bedrooms, a modest-sized kitchen, and a brick fireplace. These homes are bigger and more spaced out, the cars in the driveways are more expensive, and the sidewalks aren’t cracked. That’s a shame. Those cracks make for some fun bike riding.

I pull the Blue Whore up to a red brick home. The lights are all off, and the house looks vacant, but I know it is still occupied by two people who lost their eighteen-year-old son to heroin seven years ago.

“You must be Leah,” Brad’s mom said with a hurried tone to her voice.

It was the first time I’d ever been to his house, and she had on an apron with marigolds all over it.

“Brad, your friend’s here,” she called up to him.

But he didn’t respond.

She turned to me. “I have cutlets I don’t want to burn. Just go upstairs. It’s the first door on the right. Tell him dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes.”

She left me in the two-story foyer, the wooden staircase before me. I called up to Brad, but there was no answer. I walked up the stairs, taking in the family photos on the wall—all of Brad. His kindergarten, fifth, and eighth grade graduation pictures, fishing with his family, with the family dog, on a speedboat in some island setting—it was all up for proud display. As I got to the top of the stairs, I could hear music. Rap music to be precise. And the closer I got, I found the music was accompanied by a teenage boy’s voice.

I walked to the first door on the right. It was partially closed, about eight inches of the door open for me to look in. And I was so glad it was.

Through the opening, I saw Brad in his room with a baseball cap on backward. He was standing in front of a mirror, rapping into it like he was Eminem or part of Wu-Tang Clan. His hands were open and flat, pointing toward the mirror. His best gangsta face was set, and he was spitting out the words pretty well—until he wasn’t. He got tongue-tied. He bent down and started scrolling through his computer. Reading the lyrics a few times, he reset the song and started again.

I covered my mouth to stifle a giggle.

He was trying to memorize the lyrics. It was quite adorable.

His mouth pursed, he gave himself a sexy mug and started reciting the lyrics again. My head was bobbing in the hallway, as I got into the song as well. My dance troupe had just done a performance using the same song, so I knew it by heart. Honestly, I was pretty sick of it, but watching Brad was making me love it…a lot.