Because if I did speak, then I’d have to explain to him that this isn’t going to work, and I’d rather put off the inevitable. Like a coward, I don’t want to let him down when I have to be here for his reaction.
But it isn’t because of Vin.
My focus needs to stay on getting out of this town and forging a future for myself as far from this place as I can get. Anyone that might tie me tighter to Deception needs to be abandoned, or ignored. For all of his kindness, Jake is another tether to this town that I don’t want. When it’s finally time to leave, I don’t want anything holding me back.
Halfway down the cliff-side road, I realize he doesn’t know where to go. Reaching for his phone, I plug my address into a navigation app and hold it up for him to see.
Jake makes a grateful sound, but barely glances at the screen as he drives toward the Gulch.
I can’t decide if I should be flattered or freaked out that he already seems to know where I live.
The Land Rover slides smoothly up to the curb in front of my house, stopping right behind a black pickup truck. A shiny gold Cortland Construction logo is emblazoned on both its sides.
My house looks dark on the inside, so Zion isn’t home yet, assuming he plans to come back tonight at all. The workers must have finished for the night by now, which means they left the truck full of supplies for when they return. I’m surprised Vin hasn’t already called off whatever work he authorized they get done, but he’ll likely get to it in the morning.
After Sophia is done sucking his dick.
I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.
Those words have become a mantra I say to myself over and over again in my head, hoping that at some point I’ll actually believe it.
My thoughts distract me long enough that Jake has already shut his door by the time I realize I should get out. He leaps up onto curb and comes to my side, pulling the passenger door open before my fumbling fingers can find the handle in the dark. Like the true gentleman he is, Jake helps me out of the car and keeps his steadying hand on my elbow as we mount the steep dirt path leading up to the front door.
“Did a hurricane come through here?” Jake laughs awkwardly as he helps me over a pile of rubble from the excavation work.
I had met him at the ball, instead of having him pick me up, precisely so he wouldn’t see any of this.
I can only imagine what he’s noticing about our house. The listing foundation that makes the house look a bit like a boat about to capsize. Scrubby grass out front made entirely of barely tamed weeds. The general air of abandonment and neglect.
It makes me feel pathetic.
I unlock the door, relieved that Vin hadn’t rekeyed it without bothering to tell me. The level of invasion into my life it requires for him to remodel my house without even consulting me first doesn’t surprise me at this point.
That is the saddest thought I’ve had all night.
Jake does surprise me when he steps into the house after me and closes the door behind him. He catches my expression and gives me a lopsided smile.
“I thought we could hang out a little longer. Spending time with you is nice.”
The look I cast him is curious and openly doubtful. You’d think by this point he would be getting tired of putting up with all my baggage.
“It doesn’t bother me that you don’t talk,” he says, anticipating my thoughts. “The silence is sort of nice, actually. I usually can’t get past the awkward conversation stage with a girl, and we get to blow right past that. Although, I don’t know where you get the willpower to never say anything to some of the assholes at our school.”
I smile weakly because his words are meant to be funny, but the smile is more than a little sad.
“If you did talk to me, I wouldn’t tell him.” Jake takes a step closer. “Guy doesn’t deserve to even look at you, much less treat you the way he does. I don’t get why everyone in this town acts like he shits solid gold.”
All it would take is for the Cortland’s to pack up their money and their businesses for half the town to lose their only source of income. Almost everyone in Deception has worked for a Cortland company at some point, or has a family member that does. They own the only strip mall in the Gulch and the holding company that has majority shares in most of the real estate everywhere else in town. First Bank of Deception, another Cortland family holding, backs pretty much every mortgage.
You can’t make a life in this town if you end up on the Cortland’s bad side.
Jake will figure that out eventually, it’s only a matter of time.
And then he will never speak to me again.
That is the only reason I don’t try to make him leave. I want to appreciate the one friend I have at Deception High before this relationship evaporates like everything else good in my life. Even though we spent the last few hours pressed against each other while we danced, standing together in my dark and silent house feels somehow more intimate.
Maybe because there isn’t anyone here to interrupt whatever happens between us.
Instead of attempting to answer without words, I hold my fingers to my lips and point to the living room. Even in the near-darkness, Grandpa’s hospital bed shines a dull white. The machine feeding him oxygen hisses every few seconds in time with each slumbering breath.
A pang of regret shoots through me as I remember that
