Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Inside, the air is hot and stale, but familiar.
His setup crowds one half of the room. Towers of humming computers and mismatched monitors. Wires everywhere. Boxes stacked on boxes. He stole most of it. Probably from the store that he just quit.
Power cords snake from the lamp and computer equipment into a hole in the wall and out to wherever he siphons electricity. He steals the Wi-Fi from the smoke shop on the corner. If it goes down, he curses loud enough for the pigeons on the roof to fly away.
On the other side of the room is his bed.
It’s not a real bed. The thin, tattered cushions came from broken lawn chairs he found in a dumpster. He taped the pads together and threw old blankets on top, forming a narrow spot barely wide enough for him. His legs hang off the edge, but he never complains.
The floor is busted tile and rough cement, and the walls are cracked and leaky.
It’s ugly. It’s perfect. I’m happier here than anywhere else.
He shuts the door and slides the interior bolt. Then he turns to me, eyes on fire. “Tell me what happened.”
“I told you. It’s nothing.”
“Nothing doesn’t leave a bruise that big.”
“I got into a fight.” I stare at my beat-up sneakers. I found them in a lost-and-found bin at school, and they don’t fit right.
“Who?”
“I said it’s nothing.”
“You’re not leaving until you tell me who hurt you.”
That makes my heart sink because I know what he’ll do.
The girl who blackened my eye? She didn’t mean to do it. It was stupid. An argument. A thrown brush. I was in the way. The foster mom didn’t care enough to separate us.
He inspects my face, not the bruise, but the way I press my lips together. We hit that wall where I won’t say anything else, and he knows it.
Exhaling through his nose, he jerks his chin toward the attached bathroom.
He follows me into the small, doorless room. The sink doesn’t work. The tub is rust-red at the bottom. Buckets of water line the wall, filled from a hose somewhere outside. The toilet only works when he pours water into the tank. His clothes hang on a rope he strung across the window, and they sway as he walks past them, brushing his shoulder.
“Sit.” He flicks a finger at the closed toilet lid.
I obey as he grabs a cloth from a crate, dips it into the cleanest bucket, and crouches before me. He’s too big to squat like that without his knees practically touching his chin.
He wipes the smeared eyeliner from my face, careful not to hurt me. I know when the black eye fully appears because he goes rigid.
Blond whiskers cover the sharp angles on his jaw and cheeks, making him look older than twenty-one. He looks like a man, not the boy who used to sleep on sidewalks with me curled under his arm. He has this vertical line that shows up between his brows when he’s focused, and it’s there now, deep and angry.
“Tell me what happened.” He grips the edge of the sink.
“It’s over.”
“It’s not over until I know who did it.”
I shake my head.
“Then you’re staying here tonight.”
My heart lifts, stupid and fast. I love staying here, and it’s not like I’ll be missed at the foster house. No one keeps track of my whereabouts.
Except Jag.
“Put this on.” He snatches a shirt off the line, tosses it to me, and leaves the bathroom.
I pull the huge garment over my head. The hem covers my shorts, so I take them off and stay in my underwear.
When I come out, he sits at his desk, bathed in the blue glow of his monitors. His fingers fly across the keyboard, coding or breaking into something or whatever illegal thing he does for money now.
I sink onto the cushions, pulling my knees to my chest.
He glances at me every few minutes, waiting.
I don’t talk.
He doesn’t force it.
We’re good at this. Our silent fights. Our wordless peace. But I feel him waiting for my truth.
I watch him work for a while, the captivating way he focuses, the magnetic way he moves. Then I try to sleep, but when I close my eyes, I think about how his body would feel lying on top of mine, the hard press of his mouth against my lips, and the sounds he would make if he put his hand between my legs. I think about that every night until my skin feels too hot and my own hand rubs between my legs.
I used to tell him everything, but I could never tell him that.
My stomach grumbles, loud enough for him to hear it.
Without looking at me, he reaches under the desk and pulls out some packages from a box. Foil-wrapped crackers, a plastic cup of peanut butter, and a box of raisins land on the cushion beside me.