Within a few minutes, everything they needed for a midnight snack sat on the island. They stood side by side and layered the ham and cheese, both ignoring the mayonnaise in favor of spicy mustard. The only noise in the room was the fridge’s hum, the clank of the knife against the mustard jar, and his mind revving as he tried to think of a way—any way—to keep her close to him a little longer. Close enough for him to touch…
She sliced her sandwich in half, added a pickle spear on the side, picked up her plate, and turned toward the door.
“The judge has a strict no food upstairs rule.” If his name had been Pinocchio, his nose would be about ten feet long. He’d eaten most of his meals those first few weeks in the corner room upstairs.
Drea changed direction without losing a step and crossed over to the island. Guilt over the lie didn’t even make a blip on his moral radar. He set up opposite her, not even pretending to do anything else but observe her.
It was like seeing a totally different person. Instead of her normal bright eye shadow, her make-up free dark skin brought a different warmness to her brown eyes. In place of her usual attention-drawing lip color, her cocoa-colored lips looked even softer. Her ebony hair that normally fell in a straight line past her shoulders was twisted into three sections and pinned in place. Seeing her like this was like getting a glimpse of a secret side no one else knew existed.
“Stop staring,” Drea said between bites.
“Can’t help it. You’re gorgeous.” How many times had he used that line? A bazillion? And sure, he had a pretty good success rate thanks to it, but this time? This time it meant something more, because he actually knew more about the woman than her first name and bra size.
She snorted and rolled her eyes hard enough he was surprised they didn’t fall out. “So how did you end up staying up with the judge?”
Now that took him right out of smooth operator mode. He bit into his sandwich, buying time and hoping she’d ask about something else. She didn’t.
“Long story.” He took another bite.
Drea got a gleam in her eyes that should have served as a warning. “We’ve got plenty of time. Unless you’ve got a hot date tonight?”
Since the only hot date he wanted right now was her and she was running for her life, he doubted dinner and a movie was in the cards. He demolished half of his sandwich in a few bites, his mind filling up with the different versions of his life history he’d told in the past. The ones that glossed over the ugly.
Alex had been right at the BBQ the other day. He did half ass it a lot of the time. That was the last thing he wanted to do with Drea. She deserved more than pretty half-truths.
He push
ed his plate away and mentally prepared for the worst. “I came here after my fifth juvenile arrest.”
She let out a soft whistle. “Damn.”
Out with the rest. “I was sixteen and big, so I looked older, and I thought I had it all figured out.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Not even close.” He’d been a total idiot with a chip on his shoulder the size of New York and figured life was just one big hustle. Girls. Money. Clothes. Food. He was canny enough to get what he wanted without having to work for any of it. “My mom was barely in the picture by then. I had two choices. One, sit in juvie until I turned eighteen, and after that, more than likely, have a short lifespan. Two, agree to participate in an alternative group home. I figured it would be a helluva lot easier to break out of a group home than juvie, so I ended up here.”
“I thought Harris was a judge? How could he run a group home at the same time?”
“He’d already retired by that time. He came from money and had a save-the-world complex, so he wasn’t worried about paying the bills. He stepped down from the bench to start this place—kept the title though.”
She popped the last of her sandwich in her mouth and gave him a considering look as she chewed. With any luck, the inquisition was over, and he could turn the conversation away from his navel.
“What did you do?” she asked.
He should have known better. Well, in for a hamburger, in for the whole cow. “Stole cars for joyrides. Shoplifted. Vandalism. Sold things that had just happened to accidentally on purpose fall off a truck. Pretty basic shit for a kid who thought school was optional. But nothing violent, which is why I could even qualify for this program.”
“What was it like?” She leaned forward and propped her chin up with her hand.
The move gave him a glimpse of her deep cleavage, and it took a second for her question to register in his seriously-lacking-in-blood brain.
“What was it like being here?” He tried to find the words to explain what a surreal experience it had been going from a sixth floor walkup with a mattress in the living room corner as his only piece of real estate to this McMansion with his own room and a fridge that held more than castoffs from the food bank. “Weird. Scary. Hard. My mom was the opposite of a helicopter parent. She cared about her heroin and her men before she even remembered she had me. Being here was the first time I wasn’t on my own.”
She reached across the granite island and squeezed his hand. The look in her eyes wasn’t pity though, it was understanding. “What were the first sixteen years like?”
He pictured his mom, rail thin, hair falling out and droopy-eyed as she slouched down low on the couch and watched some TV judge rail against a cheating spouse or bad roommate. Then he pushed the image back into the hole where he’d buried it years ago.
“It was shitty.”