Credence

by Penelope Douglas

  Unfortunately, I can’t stop myself. “You won’t take de Haas money, but you’ll take a de Haas.”

  And I raise my eyes again, locking gazes with him. If he resents my parents’ money in this house, then surely he resents me in this house, too.

  “You’re ours,” he states plainly. “We pay for what you need.”

  I stare at him another moment, and then Noah reaches into the middle of the table, snatching up the cash.

  “I’ll go with her. I need some shit.”

  We both get up, clearing our plates and loading the dishwasher.

  “Toss the plastic bags into the barrel when you unpack groceries,” Jake tells us, still eating at the table. “I’m burning trash this afternoon.”

  I stop and glare at the back of his head. “Burning trash?” I repeat, searching for an argument he’ll listen to. “Please…don’t. It’s bad for you, breathing it in, and it’s really bad for the planet.” I circle the table to face him. “It’s illegal for a reason.”

  Burning leaves is one thing. But plastic and…

  His fork clangs on the plate, and he picks his cup of coffee up. “Garbage trucks don’t get up here, sweetheart.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” I retort. “You can’t burn plastic or inked paper or—”

  “California girls are environmentally conscious, aren’t they?” Noah laughs from the sink. “No plastic straws. You have to bring your own bags to the supermarket. I hear they only flush the toilet every other time they go, too.”

  I dig in my eyebrows so deep it hurts. “Yeah, sometimes we’ll even shower together to conserve water. It’s awesome.”

  I hear Jake snort, and I drop my eyes again, arching an eyebrow at myself. Not sure where my newfound sarcasm came from, but I harden my jaw, not allowing myself to enjoy it.

  I turn to leave, but I stop and glare at Jake again. “And that de Haas money is hard-earned,” I say. “My parents made contributions to the world. People value what they did whether you liked them or not. Whether I liked them or not.”

  I blink at the words coming out of my mouth, surprising myself. But while I had my problems with my parents, I realize for the first time that I’m a little protective of their legacy.

  “The world will remember them,” I point out.

  “And so will I.” Jake leans back in his chair, regarding me with an amused look. “Especially with you around.”

  I hesitate, his words unnerving me for some reason. The sense of permanence in his tone. Like I’m here to stay.

  “I might not stick around,” I suddenly blurt out.

  But then I immediately regret it. He took me in when he didn’t have to. And I came here willingly. I should be more grateful.

  But…he did threaten to keep me here against my will yesterday, too.

  “You’re kind of a prick sometimes,” I tell him.

  Noah jerks his head in our direction, his eyes wide as his gaze darts from me to his father.

  But Jake makes no move, just sitting there and looking at me with the same amusement on his face.

  “I’m a teddy bear, Tiernan.” He stands up, his fingers threaded through the handle of his coffee cup. “You still haven’t met Kaleb yet.”

  I hear Noah laugh behind him, both of them in on some joke I clearly don’t understand. I twist around, heading up to my room to clean up.

  “Put on a proper shirt before you go out!” Jake yells after me.

  I snarl to myself, stomping a little harder on the stairs than I mean to.

  I make your food. It’s really not smart to provoke me.

  I shower quickly, getting the sticky heat off me, as well as the dirt and smell from the barn. I’m pretty sure I’ll have to shower again later, just so I can wash my hair. I don’t have time right now, though.

  Running a brush through my hair, I slip on the same baseball cap Noah loaned me this morning and rush out of the room with my little crossbody purse and wearing a fresh pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

  Jake is actually pretty stocked on food, especially fresh stuff, but in the rush to come here, I’d forgotten to arrange for a few…other things I’d need.

  When I walk outside, Noah is already waiting for me. He sits on a dirt bike with a helmet on his head and another one in his hand.

  I hesitate for a moment, glancing at the truck behind his bike. Are we driving separately or…?

  “What are you doing?” I ask, stepping down the wide wooden steps.

  “Taking us to town.”

  He holds the spare helmet out to me, and I look down at it and then back up to him, seeing wisps of his blond hair hanging over his forehead under the helmet.

  I raise my eyebrows. We’re taking the bike to town? “Where are the groceries supposed to go?” I ask him.

  But he just laughs under his breath, turns on the bike, and twists the handle, revving the engine. “Climb on. I don’t bite,” he tells me. And then he shoots me a mischievous look. “My little cousins, anyway.”

  I almost roll my eyes. Taking the helmet, I fix it over my baseball cap, but the front knocks the bill of the hat, making the fit uncomfortable. I fumble for a moment, finally pulling off the helmet again and then the hat.

  But Noah takes my arms, stopping me. “Like this,” he says. And he takes the hat, fits it backward onto my head, and then plops the helmet down over it, the bill now resting at the back of my skull.

  Oh.

  I’d rather have the cap in town, since my hair is in shambles right now, so this works.

  He fastens the strap under my chin, and I try to avert my eyes, but he has this lazy half-smile on his lips that kind of makes my body hum. And blue eyes behind black lashes with the sides of his gray T-shirt cut out to show off golden, muscular arms, and he wears persistently scruffy jeans, because he never has to try too hard to impress anyone.

  I’m jealous. He doesn’t have a plan in the world.

  It might’ve been a little nice to have cousins growing up. Maybe it would’ve been fun if I’d spent my summers here, growing up in the sun and the banter and the dirt with him.

  He makes me less nervous than Jake, too.

  His eyes meet mine, and I look away, taking over and forcing his hands away as I finish tightening the strap.

  “You ever been on a motorcycle?” he asks.

  “No.” I climb on behind him, situating my purse to my side as it hangs across my body.

  “I’m gentle,” he assures me. “Ask any girl.”

  “I’m not any girl,” I say, sliding my arms around him and locking my hands in front. “You hurt me, and you still have to go home with me and deal with me.”

  “Good point.”

  He snaps the visor on his own helmet down and takes off, making my breath catch in my throat.

  Jesus. I instinctively tighten my hold and clench my thighs around him as my stomach drops into my feet. The bike wobbles more than a truck, and I dart my eyes side to side, trying to keep my balance, but he’s not slowing down, and all I can really do is hold on. He might know what he’s doing, but this is new to me. I blink long and hard and then simply look down, keeping my eyes off the road.

  These hills were a little steep coming up in the truck with Jake. I don’t think I need to see us going down on a dirt bike. Is this even street legal?

  I hold him close, just staring at his T-shirt, so I won’t look at anything else, but after a moment, I try to loosen my grip on him a little. I’m plastered to his back. I’m probably making him uncomfortable.

  But he takes one hand off a handle and pulls my arms tighter around him again, forcing my chest into his back.

  He turns his head, raising his visor. “Hold on!” he shouts.

  Fine. I refasten my hands around him.

  We ride all the way down the gravel drive and come to the paved road, turning left and heading back the same way I came up two days ago, gravity forcing my body into Noah’s the entire time.

  Once we’re on blacktop, and the terrain is a little
more even, I raise my eyes and take in the trees on both sides, as well as the dense wooded areas surrounding us. Slopes, cliffs, and rockfalls, I’m seeing the land around us a lot more clearly than when I came up in the dark the day before yesterday.

  Jake isn’t lying. Even with all the trees that will shed their leaves in the winter, there are lots of conifers which will block visibility in the heavy snows. The land changes, gullies suddenly rising into steep cliffs, and the sides of the road are decorated with sporadic piles of rocks that spilled from uncertain land. It’s dangerous enough to be up here in good weather. The city won’t pay for a truck to shovel snow and salt the roads for one family.

  Which—I’m guessing—is exactly how my uncle wants it. Does Noah like it that way? His words from yesterday play back in my head. I would leave. I would leave in a heartbeat. You’re here, and you don’t have to be. I have to be here, but I don’t want to be.

  So why does he stay? Jake can’t make him. He’s a legal adult.

  We twist and turn, winding down the road as it turns into a highway, and it takes a good twenty minutes before we see the town come into view. A couple of steeples peek out from the tops of the trees, and brick buildings line streets shaded with abundant green maples that I know will be orange and red come October.

  We come to our first stop sign, and he lifts up his visor now that we’re slowing down.

  “Do you have others?” I ask. “Cousins, I mean?”

  I don’t know why I care.

  But he just shakes his head. “No.” And then thinks better of it. “Well, maybe. I don’t know.”

  I’m it on his father’s side, so that just leaves his mom. Where is she? I haven’t known Jake long, but it’s hard picturing him domesticated. Were they married?

  For a moment, it’s easy to think well of him, raising two boys on his own, but it’s also easy to understand how he could drive someone so far up the wall that she ran for the hills.

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask Noah about her, but if he tells me something sad, like she’s dead or abandoned them at birth, I don’t know how to respond to things I can’t do anything about. My sympathy just comes off disingenuous.

  He grips his handlebars, the veins in his forearms bulging out of his skin, and I tighten my hold as he takes off again, entering the main drag of town with all the shops lining the street.

  We pull up to a store and park, Noah backing into a space and turning off the bike.

  “I’ll teach you to ride if you want,” Noah offers as we climb off and remove our helmets. “If you stay.”

  I follow his lead, leaving my helmet on the other handlebar and turn my cap back around, following him onto the sidewalk. “You barely know me, and I’m not friendly,” I mumble. “Why do you want me to stay?”

  “Because nothing changes up on the peak. Not ever.”

  What does that mean?

  I enter the store, not responding, because I’m not sure what he’s talking about.

  “Hey, Sheryl,” he calls out, and the lady at the counter smiles back at him as she hands a customer her bag.

  I look around, seeing the store is really small. For crying out loud, there’s like six aisles. They better have ramen.

  “Grab what you need,” Noah tells me. “I’ll meet you at the register.”

  And he heads off, disappearing down an aisle to the right.

  I take a basket from the stack, thankful he’s headed in the opposite direction, and veer off to the back, toward the pharmacy.

  The store is small, but it’s kind of cute. It has the turn-of-the-century vibe with an old-fashioned register and polished wood everywhere. I pass a bar with an old soda fountain and a menu of sundaes and other treats, a couple of patrons sitting on stools and enjoying homemade milkshakes.

  Stopping at the counter in the back of the store, I quickly look around for Noah before I address the pharmacist.

  “May I help you?” he says with a smile.

  “Yes,” I say quietly. “I’d like to have a prescription transferred to here, if possible. Do I just give you the phone number of my pharmacy back home?”

  “Oh, yes.” He pulls a pen out of his white jacket and slides a pad of paper over. “That’s easy. I’ll just call your pharmacy. We can have it refilled for you today.”

  Cool.

  “The number, please?”

  I dictate the number, watching him write it down. “213-555-3100.”

  “Your name?”

  “Tiernan de Haas. Birthdate eleven—one—of oh one.”

  “And what is the prescription for?” he asks.

  I glance around for Noah again. “Um, it’s the only prescription I have with them.”

  He raises his eyes, laughing a little. “I just need the name, so I know what to confirm with them.”

  I tap my foot. “Tri-Sprintec,” I answer quickly without moving my lips.

  He nods as if he’s never had an overly nosy and playful cousin who would just love to know why I’m on birth control and why-ever would I need it, locked on a mountain all winter without access to men.

  I watch him make the call, enter things on the computer, and finally hang up.

  He looks over at me. “Give me ten minutes,” he says before he turns around to head into the back.

  I’m tempted to ask him to fill several months in advance, but I don’t know yet if I’m staying, so if I need more to get me through the winter, I’ll just come back. With the truck and without Noah next time.

  Honestly, I don’t even need to be on the pill, much less on it all winter, but it’s easier to stay on the routine I’ve been on since I was fourteen than to stop and have to start again.

  I move through the store, finding a few things on my list here and there. Some snacks I like, more sunscreen, the multi-vitamins I forgot, and some candles. I grab a spare set of ear buds, some pens and paper, and I find the ramen in the last aisle. It’s the cheap forty-seven-cent stuff, but I want it.

  “Hey,” a female voice says behind me.

  I turn, seeing a woman about my age staring at me.

  “Hi,” I say back. But I retreat a step, because she’s close.

  She’s in tight jeans, work boots, and has long, dark hair hanging down in loose curls. Her hands are tucked into a fitted camo sweatshirt, and her full red lips are slightly pursed.

  “Nice hat,” she says.

  Is it? I don’t think I even read what it said before Noah gave it to me, and I put it on. It’s not new, though.

  “Thank you.”

  Her red lips are tight and her eyes narrow on me. Does she know me? I haven’t met anyone yet.

  I continue around her, moving down the aisle.

  “Are you one of the racers’ girlfriends?” she inquires, following me as I walk.

  I glance at her as I pick up a loofah and some body wash. Racers’ girlfriends?

  Oh, right. There’s a Motocross scene up here. Not sure why she would think that has anything to do with me.

  “No. Sorry.”

  I continue down the aisle, but she keeps trailing me.

  “Then where did you get that hat?”

  My hat… I stop and turn my head toward her, opening my mouth to answer, but then I close it again. Have I done something wrong? Who is she?

  “If you’re not with Motocross,” she asks again, “then how’d you get that swag?”

  “Someone gave it to me.” I reply tightly and move up to the register, grabbing a bag of coffee beans on my way. “Is there a problem?”

  “Just askin’,” she replies. “You don’t live here, do you?”

  I almost snort. She sounds so hopeful.

  I keep my mouth shut, though. I’m not sure if this is a small-town thing, but where I’m from we don’t dole out personal information just because someone is an uncontrollable, nosy-parker. She might think I’m rude, but in L.A., we call it “not getting robbed, raped, or killed.”

  “She does live here, actually,” Noah answers her, coming
up to my side. “She lives with us.”

  And then he dumps an armful of crap onto the counter and puts his arm around me, grinning at the woman like he’s rubbing something in.

  What’s going on?

  But something catches my attention, and I drop my gaze to the pile of stuff he’s buying. I narrow my eyes as I count. One, two, three…

  Eight boxes of condoms. Eight.

  I shoot him a look, cocking an eyebrow. “You sure you don’t need the economy size they sell online?”

  “Can I get it by tonight?” he retorts, looking down at me.

  I roll my eyes, but I kind of feel like I want to smile or…laugh, because he’s such an idiot.

  But I hold it back.

  I look away, because I can’t respond with anything witty, and he just laughs, his demeanor cooling when he focuses his attention back on the woman.

  “Step off,” he warns her.

  She looks between him and me, and finally walks out as Sheryl starts to ring up our groceries. I pull a couple reusable grocery bags off the nearby rack and drop them on the counter, too.

  I guess I was right. She was being rude, because Noah seemed out of patience with her on arrival.

  “Cici Diggins,” he tells me, taking out the cash his father put on the table. “Gets real insecure when something prettier comes into town.”

  Meaning me?

  “She won’t be happy about you living with us,” Noah adds.

  “Why?”

  “You’ll find out.” He laughs and takes the grocery bags. “I’m going to have too much fun watching this play out.”

  Watching what play out? I frown. I don’t like drama.

  I let Noah carry the stuff outside as I run back to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription. I toss out the bag and slip the credit card-like pill package into my back pocket as I leave the store.

  As I approach the bike, I see a huge backpack secured in front of the handlebars, and I let out a breath, relieved I wouldn’t have to try to carry this stuff and hold onto him on the ride home.

  I flip my hat backward again and pick up my helmet, seeing Noah staring across the street with his helmet still in his hand. A slight smirk plays on his lips.

  I follow his gaze.