I watched Beckett walk away until he rounded the corner and disappeared from sight. Yet I still stood there. He was such a good man. I’d started to doubt that they existed. But Beckett was proving me wrong each and every day.
Memories slammed into me. The crack of the belt across my skin. The taste of blood in my mouth. The jarring of my spine as I fell to my knees.
“Addie?”
Laiken’s voice broke through the horrors playing out in my mind.
She moved in closer. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just thinking.” My fingernails dug into my palms. The idea that Cora was living through the nightmare I’d escaped was almost too much for me to handle. A nightmare my father and the man this morning were trying to drag me back into.
The expression on Laiken’s face told me that she didn’t believe it was something quite that simple. She didn’t push it, though. Instead, she sent me a devilish grin. “Beckett Easton is your roommate? I had such a crush on him growing up. I used to beg my older brother to invite him over to our house.”
Jealousy lit through me again. Envy that she’d known him for so long. At her interest in him. But it was more than that. I coveted the normal childhood Laiken had likely experienced. One where her biggest problem was having a crush on an older boy.
“It’s not like that. He was forced into having me as a roommate.” The words tasted bitter in my mouth.
Laiken’s lips pressed together as if she were trying to hold in a laugh. “I’m not so sure about that. The way he looks at you…” Laiken let out a low whistle.
“He’s just being kind.”
“I’m not saying Beckett isn’t kind. He is. I’ve heard all about the amazing work he’s done bringing medical care to underserved communities. But kind isn’t the way he looks at you. It was all protective with an edge of I want to kiss the life out of her.”
My cheeks heated. “I think you’re seeing things.” But I didn’t want to admit how much I wished I was wrong.
I bent over the booklet, running my highlighter across the line. Why did I think a highlighter would magically make the information stick in my mind?
The alarm beeped as the front door opened. “It’s me,” Beckett called. “Where are you?”
“In the kitchen.” I brought my focus back to the pages in front of me, but my vision was starting to blur.
“What’s giving you the angry eyes over there?”
I knew my scowl only intensified at Beckett’s words, but I kept staring at the images in front of me. “Why are there so many different road signs that could mean so many different things? And the danged test questions try to trick you.”
Beckett let out a low chuckle. “Driver’s manual?”
“Yes,” I gritted out. The smell of pizza wafted to me, and I finally looked up as my stomach growled.
Beckett’s lips twitched. “Hungry?”
“Maybe. Is that a veggie lovers?”
He set two boxes on the kitchen island. “Veggie lovers and meat lovers. Balance.”
I couldn’t hold in my laugh. “Sounds fair.” I rose from the table and crossed to get plates and cups down from the cabinets.
“You know you don’t get a learner’s permit when you apply for a driver’s license if you’re over eighteen, right?”
I set the plates next to the boxes of pizza. “I still need to learn the rules.” Plus, I hadn’t ventured into how I would actually learn to drive. I didn’t have a car and likely wouldn’t be able to afford one for quite some time. It was more what the license symbolized: freedom.
“True. I’d be happy to practice with you. We can use my truck.”
I pulled open a drawer to grab myself a fork and a knife. “I don’t know. I’ve never driven anything before.” The last thing I wanted was to crash Beckett’s brand-new truck.
“We’ll start in empty parking lots and on back roads. And I have insurance. It’ll be fun.”
I arched a brow in his direction. “I’ve almost thrown that booklet across the room no less than a dozen times. That doesn’t exactly scream fun to me.”