I felt Echo’s waves of gratitude from somewhere deep inside, and it mingled with my own feelings of guilt. I’d known Dad had made sacrifices when he took me in, but I’d had no idea just how deep those sacrifices had run. I fixed my gaze in my lap, unable to meet his eyes, and asked in a whisper, “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
He ducked his head until he could see my face, “Because of this,” he said getting me to look at him, “The way you feel right now, that guilty look in your eyes. You should never look or feel like this about the things I did to ensure that you grew up loved and happy. Nothing else in my life, then or now, is more important than that.”
The tapping on my window had us both jumping and craning our necks to see who’d made the sound. Drew stood there, and I rolled the window down. “Hey, Mr. Garrows can Eden and my mother switch—PLEASE!”
My dad hiked an amused brow and chuckled. “If you aren’t even willing to stomach her company, what makes you think I am?”
Drew raked his hand through his hair and let out a loud sigh, “Ugh, please—I’ll do anything, just name it! I need a break from her prying, and I miss Eden.”
“Anything,” Dad asked with a mischievous spark in his eye.
“Oh no, Drew, don’t do it, you’ll regret it,” I warned in a singsong voice.
“ANYTHING,” Drew said, adamantly stretching out every syllable of the word.
Dad’s eyebrows winged up in surprise as he got out of the car, laughing maniacally. We watched him amble over to my car, lean into the driver’s side window, and seconds later, Sara got out. They strolled into the minimart together. Both of them were laughing like hyenas.
I slowly brought my gaze to Drew’s and shook my head in disbelief. “Oh man, you’re so screwed, I don’t know what he has planned for you, but it’s gonna suck, whatever it is. Dad never finds anything that funny unless it’s gonna suck for someone, and I can promise you that someone is never him.”
“Well, seeing how I just signed up for god knows what, I think we’d better get you in your car,” he said opening my door and helping me out. He looked back toward where our respective parents had disappeared through the door, and I followed his gaze. When I looked back, he planted a quick kiss on my lips.
“What was that for,” I asked with a giggle.
“Nothing, I just missed you is all.”
I stepped in, wrapped my arms around him, and laid my head against his chest. I could hear his heart hammering out a steady rhythm as he rested his chin on the top of my head and wrapped me in his arms. He had no way of knowing just how much he was helping me at that moment. I felt completely comfortable in his arms, it felt like home.
“Break it up, break it up,” Dad said as he walked up.
“No kidding, you two need to get a room,” Sara said as she crammed part of a hotdog in her mouth. She looked around at our shocked expressions of disbelief and said, “What? What did I say?”
“What didn’t you say? That’s more the question,” Dad said, opening the passenger side door as he half helped, half pushed Sara into the car. Closing the door, he walked around the car and shook his head in dismay. “She really doesn’t have a filter, does she?”
“No sir, she doesn’t,” Drew said, “I need to put some gas in Eden’s car too. Eden, do you want something to eat or drink from inside?”
I thought about it for a moment as I watched him walking backward toward the minimart and said, “A bag of jelly beans, please.”
He flashed me a smile that made my stomach do the spasm thing as he pivoted and jogged toward the store.
“Eden, you’re drooling, honey bear,” Dad said laughing as he pumped his gas.
I spun around and stalked off to my car, but not before I flung, “No, Dad, I’m not,” over my shoulder with a decent amount of embarrassment because he’d caught me staring. I got in the passenger side, and it occurred to me that I had gotten used to Drew always driving. I thought about hopping into the driver’s seat for a split second but then rejected that idea altogether. I liked watching him drive, so in the passenger seat, I would stay.
“Here ya go,” Drew said as he threw me a couple bags of jelly beans through his window and started pumping gas.
“Thanks, so are you gonna be okay after your mom’s assault of your personal plans,” I asked giggling around the jellybeans in my mouth.
He leaned in the window and hung his head. “She is just too much, sometimes! I love my mom, don’t get me wrong—but damn, she has no concept of boundaries when it comes to me. I can’t tell you how long it took her to figure out just walking into my room without knocking, was a BAD idea.”
He flushed bright red after he said that, and I laughed, “NO, did she walk in on something?” When he didn’t say anything, I felt the pang of jealousy course through me like a freight train. My smile vanished at the possibility of Drew having had another girl in his room at some point. The thought had never occurred to me until just then. Hell, I'd never even been in his bedroom, let alone to his house. I suddenly found my open bag of jellybeans incredibly interesting. My best friend Jennifer was jealous over a guy named Brad, who she’d dated all sophomore year. She
