by Riley, Gia
I’m on the ladder and about to lower myself onto the next rung when Jasper sticks his head out of the window and says, “Why does this feel like good-bye?”
I haven’t decided if I’ll go back to work at The Whip or not. Despite how much I need the money, life for Jasper would be easier if I didn’t go back. I can start babysitting again and try to make as much money as I can that way. There are enough desperate parents in the trailer park to keep me busy every night of the week if I try hard enough.
“Jasper, summer will be over before we know it, and then I’ll see you at school.”
He never talked to me at school, so I don’t know if that will change come fall, but I wouldn’t blame him if he forgot about me and moved on like I told him to. It’s for the best.
At the bottom of the ladder, I double-check nobody saw me climb out of the house. When the coast is clear, I hop off the bottom rung of the ladder and run as fast as I can toward the hole in the fence. Climbing through is a lot easier in the daylight, and I don’t have to worry about getting sliced open by the jagged edges of the wooden boards.
Once I’m on my side of the fence, surrounded by trailers instead of manicured lawns and decorative bushes, I take a deep breath, and I swear, the puddle I’m standing next to is urine and not leftover rainwater.
“Home sweet home,” I whisper and then start the walk back home.
I’m not sure what I’m so afraid of, but I walk extra slow. What’s the use in hurrying when I have nobody to go home to? At least there’s no money for Jax to steal this time. If he tore my room apart again, he won’t even find any food. Unless he needs some socks and underwear, I have nothing left to hide from him.
The closer I get, the more excited the butterflies become. They have nothing to do with Tess or Jax though. Little wings are fluttering and going crazy inside of me because of Trey. From where I’m standing, I can’t see if his bike’s in the driveway or not. I can either walk behind his trailer and check for the open window or I can go home and forget that we kissed last night.
Forgetting sounds like the safer choice, but if I wanted to play it safe, I wouldn’t have kissed him in the first place. All the feelings I had when I felt his lips come flooding back, and my feet suddenly have a mind of their own. I’m walking in between the trailers and then standing beneath his bedroom window.
The dreamer in me expects it to be hanging wide open still. It’s not. I don’t know whether to take that as a sign of rejection or to see it for what it is—that he didn’t want to let a million bugs inside the trailer.
I’m too short to see inside, so I walk around the side, toward the driveway. The front door must be open because I hear his voice. He’s arguing with someone, and it’s not like Trey. He doesn’t handle business anyplace someone could overhear him. When he gets a call and I’m with him, he lets it go to voice mail or walks away, so I can’t hear what he’s saying. He said it had to be that way, that the less I knew, the better.
A few minutes later, the conversation ends, and I don’t hear him anymore. I take a step forward, and the screen door flies open. It bangs off the side of the trailer, and Trey storms down the stairs, dressed in leather—his disguise.
He throws his leg over his bike and kicks the stand out from underneath the bike. I hate that he’s riding again. Dad would have hated that he was riding again, too. He raises his head, and even though there’s a darkened shield over his face, I know he’s looking right at me.
The kickstand hits the ground, and Trey’s off the bike in seconds. He rips the helmet off his head in broad daylight, and my mouth opens in shock. He’s angry—I knew he would be—but he’s risking being seen by Tess or Jax, and he doesn’t even care.
He barges past me and says, “Get in the trailer, Winn.”
My heart nearly stops when I catch a whiff of his cologne, and suddenly, I’m comparing it to Jasper’s body wash. Now’s not the time. I need to move before Trey gets angrier.
I knew better than to disappear all night, but I did it anyway. It was easier to bury my pain by being with someone else than sticking around and having a conversation with Trey about feelings and kissing and whatever else might have happened.
I run up the stairs and open the door. He’s unzipping his jacket, and then he throws it on the couch. His helmet’s on the table, and I’m standing in front of the door, yanking my shorts up so that they don’t fall down.
Trey turns around and opens his mouth to say something. He stops and looks me up and down. “What are you wearing?”
There’s no use in lying about whose clothing I have on. It’s obvious the shirt and shorts don’t belong to me. “Jasper’s,” I tell him.
Those dark pupils of his are back, and I’d rather stare at a crumb on the floor than figure out what his eyes are trying to say to me.
“You were with him all night?” he asks.
“Yes,” I whisper.
His fingers comb through his hair, and he’s pacing back and forth between the living room and the kitchen. It’s such a small space that he can be in both at once. “Why’d you run, Winn? You’ve run to me but never away from me.”
“Because.”
“You’re going to have to do better than that. I’ve been up all night, combing the streets for you. I called all the guys and had them looking for a girl with your description.”
“You told them?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t have to tell them shit. When I tell them to do something, they do it. And, last night, finding you was at the top of the list.”
“They probably thought I owed you money.”
“You owe me more than money, Winn. Money means shit compared to you.”
Money fuels his livelihood. It’s pretty important to him, given the fact that he spends his nights running figures and collecting what’s owed to him. Sometimes, he has to get pretty creative to get the cash, but he always comes through. Him not finding me probably made him crazy. He’s good at his job, and when he needs to find someone who’s hiding, he gets the job done.
“What do I owe you?”
He stops pacing, and the lack of movement forces me to raise my head and look at him. “The goddamn truth.”
“I ran because I was scared. I wasn’t sure what that guy would do or what you would do to him. If I stayed, I thought you’d yell at me and that maybe you hated me because I did what I did.”
“What did you do?”
He’s going to make me say the words. My stomach’s empty, but it’s full of bile, and it rolls. I think some might come up my throat, so I quickly get it out. “I kissed you.”
One.
Two.
Three steps.
The fourth, he slides a finger underneath my chin and pushes up. His chest heaves, and I swallow, scared that he’s going to tell me I took things too far and then cut me out of his life.
Trey can handle a lot. He puts up with circumstances that are always out of his control, but when someone crosses the line and does him wrong, he cuts them out of his life faster than they can say they’re sorry or feed him an excuse.
I don’t want to make excuses about why I kissed Trey. I did it because my body overtook my thoughts. It was mind over matter, and my mind wanted him. There was no back-and-forth debate. No right or wrong. Consequences didn’t exist when I was kissing Trey.
“Are you going to do it again?” he asks.
This has to be a trick question. We haven’t discussed the first kiss, and he’s already worrying about the next. My head’s spinning, and I’m overloaded with sensations. Little fireworks explode all the way up my spine, and my fingertips tingle with anticipation.
Can I kiss Trey again?
Do I want to do it again?
Yes, I do.
But I don’t move. I can’t figure out if kissing him will make him happy or set him off. “Do you want me to kiss you, Trey?”
“I’m not supposed to want you, Winn. You’re too young for me, and my life is no place for someone like you. But I have
n’t slept, and I’ve had all night to think about what I need to do.”
“What are you going to do?”
He laughs, but it’s not because I said something funny. It’s disbelief wrapped up in reality. Like he’s a fool for kissing me and an idiot for not doing it sooner.
“I should cut you out of my life and tell you I can’t see you anymore. And I’d do it if I had to, Winn. You know I would.”
“You always come back, Trey. Even after you disappear, you find me.”
“Someday, you’ll understand,” he says. “My need to protect you outweighs every promise I’ve made and every ounce of loyalty I’ve dedicated. I intend to keep my word.”
“Whatever promises you made to my dad, you have to let them go. He’s not here to enforce anything, Trey, and you’re all I have left.”
“This is bigger than your dad, Winn. He’d murder me if he were alive. But, alive or dead, he’s the least of my problems. Hal won’t say a word. I made sure of that. But, if the wrong person did see us, my life would be over.”
“I’m almost eighteen.”
“Do you think the court would take that into consideration? She’s almost eighteen, so it’s okay.”
“What about what I want? Doesn’t that matter?”
He takes my face between his hands and closes his eyes. “You don’t mean that, Winn. It’s all the more reason your age does matter. A girl your age doesn’t know what she wants. At your age, I wanted whatever moved or looked in my direction. That didn’t mean I wanted to marry or spend the rest of my life with whomever I was fucking.”
“We both know I’m not your average seventeen-year-old, Trey. I think everyone sees that but you.”
Trey’s age doesn’t matter to me. Mine is irrelevant as far as kissing him is concerned. It doesn’t take being a year older to validate what we shared. Because, let’s face it, in ten months, I’ll be eighteen, and my life will still be the same mess it is now.
This time, I grab his face, and I run my fingers over the stubble on his chin.
“Winn,” he warns.
He thinks I’m going to kiss him again.
“Do it,” I tell him. “I dare you.”
“This isn’t a game.”
Day by day, life doesn’t seem to change much. Each day is like the one before it. Yet, when I look back, it’s completely different. That kiss is embedded into my memory like a footprint in wet cement. There’s no getting rid of the impression Trey left behind unless I destroy the sidewalk and resurface it. I’m not going to let him ruin us, no matter how determined he is to erase what happened.
Drugs killed my dad. They’ve buried more people than cancer and accidents combined. And here I am, practically setting myself up for a repeat. Losing Trey would kill what’s left of my soul.
I want Trey.
Trey wants me.
But I’m not selfish.
“You’re right. Kissing you is dangerous. I’ll wait ten months or however long I have to wait for it to be safe.”
I let go of Trey’s face and take a step back. Then, I turn around and head toward the door. It’s time I go home and forget about how weightless I felt while kissing Trey. Gravity wasn’t pressing on my shoulders, practically sinking my feet into the ground, like it usually does. His lips touched mine, and I floated toward the sky, dancing from cloud to cloud with a smile on my face. I’d have drifted all the way to heaven if Dad wasn’t there. But he’d have grabbed me by the arm and pulled me back down to earth.
“Get your head out of the clouds, Winnie.”
I should take a hard look at myself and realize how stupid I was being. Dad was always right.
There’s only one other time I was close to escaping with that kind of freedom. In Jasper’s arms. In his bed with my head against his chest, I floated around on a pillow, untouchable to the demons whispering my name from underneath the bed.
If I had half a brain, I’d run back to his house and kiss him. I’d show him how thankful I was to have him in my life and try to give back some of the comfort he’d given me. Without him, I’d have spent last night outside, huddled in the tube slide at the playground, because I couldn’t go home. The punch he had taken at The Whip would have nailed me in the face instead of his. And, when I had been weak and fallen over in the kitchen, there wouldn’t have been anyone there to catch me. Without Jasper, I’d be in an even darker place without any sunshine at all.
He’s the right choice. He’s the one I need to focus my energy on, and then I need to let Trey live his life however he needs to. His job should be his priority because, if it’s not, I’ll lose him forever. Once I’m old enough to live on my own and break free of Carillon, he’ll either want me to go with him or he won’t. But I need to give him a fair shot at leaving the business before I ruin his chances.
Jasper’s the safe choice.
Trey’s the one I can’t live without.
But I have to let them both go.
Instead of being selfish, I’ll get back into babysitting and focus all my energy on making money and growing my design portfolio. When school starts, I’ll see Jasper again, and maybe we can be friends. Maybe, by then, he’ll have moved on and found a real girlfriend who can give him the attention and time he deserves. He’s capable of that kind of magic.
I’ll go back to depending on the bells to keep me safe. No more climbing in and out of windows. No more kisses, and no more leading Jasper on even if that was never my intention.
I am me. Alone and by myself.
“Winn, wait.”
Twenty-Five
Trey
If I had half a brain, I’d let Winnie walk out the door. I’d stay as far away from her as humanly possible. But, as soon as her fingers wrap around the doorknob, my chest tightens, and my heart aches. She’s my lifeline, the reason I make the choices I do, like going to work and coming back to this trailer instead of my place in the city.
She’s the reason I kept myself from following in Tess’s footsteps after Mick died. If I didn’t have Winnie to look after, there’s no doubt in my mind I’d have drowned myself in alcohol and whatever else I could have gotten my hands on. Considering I’m in contact with just about everything on the market, it wouldn’t have been pretty.
I don’t sell, don’t even push the shit anymore, but I collect. When I do, there’s enough cash flowing in and out of my pockets to cause serious damage. The only high I need these days though is Winnie. She’s more potent than any drug.
There was a time Tess was, too. I tried like hell to keep Tess out of trouble—if not for her own sake, then for Winnie’s. But, as soon as she got mixed up with Jax, I knew it’d be impossible to keep her away from the business.
Jax was what persuaded me to join. I’d never have done it without a push and once I heard about his plans, I knew I had no choice. I figured I could stick to simple deals and not get drawn into the heavy stuff. My hands would never get too dirty.
That mentality didn’t last long. Jax got sucked in deep. Trouble found him no matter where he went and I knew he’d take everyone down with him. Anyone in his way was at risk. I was at risk. I had to step up my game if I planned to stick around.
If I could go back and do it differently, would I? Hell yeah, I would. I would have gone to college on a basketball scholarship and got an engineering degree. Then I could have afforded my own business instead of screwing around with drugs in a world I hated. I could have made something of my life—for Winnie and for me. Because there’s no way she’ll ever be proud of what I’ve done and who I’ve destroyed.
Jax, on the other hand, he would have quit high school the day he turned sixteen and joined. He was focused on his newfound status and worked his way through every one of the girls at The Whip, using them for all they were worth, which wasn’t much.
After Winnie’s dad passed, Tess took notice, and despite warning from the other girls, she started calling Jax twice a day, begging him to keep her high. As long as she was, she didn’t have to feel
how bad it hurt to exist without her other half. And it fucking killed her to be without him.
I knew Tess couldn’t pay for the stuff Jax was pumping into her system. He knew it, too, and he took advantage of her loss and made it his gain.
It’s no secret she pays him with the money she earns dancing. The rest, she pays off with her body.
It’s an ugly price to pay, but so are the consequences for killing Mick. Sometimes, I think Jax uses that to his advantage, rubbing her loss in her face when she’s already on the verge of losing her shit. Then, he waves a little baggie in front of her face, and like a puppy, she wags her tail. He has her so far gone, there’s not a chance in hell she’ll ever leave him.
If Tess deserved better, I’d make her listen to me. The only way to do that is to get her away from Jax and the drugs. Considering she won’t let me within five feet of her without calling the cops, she’s a risk I can’t afford to take, even with Winnie living inside the trailer.
Jax knows how I feel; if Winnie wasn’t stuck in the middle, Tess would be long gone. He agrees she should pay for taking out our friend, but the asshole went and got his heart involved, and now, he’s just as dangerous as Tess. Because, if I try to get rid of her, he’ll do the same to Winnie. I’m walking such a fine line between right and wrong with no room to screw up.
I promised myself I wouldn’t do anything drastic until Winnie finished high school. She needs her diploma if she wants to get into design school. Even if we disappear and she’s forced to take the classes online, she’ll need proof of her life in Carillon. I’m in the right business to forge the documents, but I’d never give Winnie’s name to the boss. Once you’re connected, there’s no escaping. And I want a better life for her than I’ve had.
Opening my mouth would send Winnie into the foster system. If I knew I’d be able to gain custody, it’d be a done deal, but one background check, and they’d send me to jail for a long-ass time. I wouldn’t be allowed near her, not even a phone call. I’m too close to Winnie’s eighteenth birthday and graduation to mess up now.
But we’ve done that anyway. Winnie went and kissed me. She’s so gorgeous, and she has every bit of goodness inside of her that her father possessed. And all I can think about is kissing her again. One taste wasn’t enough. It’ll never be enough.
