“We have nothing to talk about.” She crosses her arms and steps away from me. I take it as an invitation.

“I want to talk about last night. We didn’t have a chance earlier. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

Her eyes fall to my feet, her arms locked tighter than ever. I hear her inhale. “I was okay with it, until...”

“Until?”

“Until I realized what a lying piece of garbage you are.”

Goddamn it.

She’s the prudish, eighteen-year-old, modern-AUB version of Josiah-fucking-Mackey. I refuse to stand there and let her judge me when she doesn’t know half of what my life’s been like.

My fists clench at my sides. The nerve she’s just struck is raw and stings like hell, but I grit my teeth and breathe through it.

“What did I lie about?” My jaw is set so tight it’ll take a pair of pliers to pry it apart.

She steps back until she falls on her bed. “You convinced me to… touch myself… but you did it for yourself. For your pleasure. I know what you did, Jensen. And it’s disgusting.”

“What did I do, Waverly?” I prepare myself for a whole host of things. I’m not a saint. I never pretended to be one.

“You slept with your stepmother,” she hisses. Her words cut me, but only because she doesn’t know the half of it. She’s judging me, looking at me with cold, piercing eyes I’d once found alluring.

“Don’t fucking look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Judging me, like you know fuck about what I’ve been through.”

“You’re a sexual deviant, Jensen. You get off on… incest.”

“We’re not fucking related, Waverly.”

“I can’t be around you anymore.” She folds her arms. “I’m going to ask Dad to move you into Summer’s house tomorrow.”

Have fun explaining that…

“Whatever helps you sleep.”

I toss my hands up. I don’t appreciate being treated like a shit stain, and I fucking hate assumptions. My nostrils flare, and my blood threatens to burn clear through my veins if I don’t do something quick. I could stand here and explain myself to her, give a crash course in my life that would leave her disturbed, tell her things she’ll never be able to un-hear.

Or…

I can just leave. Walk away.

For the longest time, I didn’t have that option with Josiah.

I have it now.

I can just walk out of here and mourn the words I’ll never have a chance to say because no one tries to fucking understand.

Besides, I don’t need to explain myself to her. My life is none of her damn business. I’m not sure what I ever saw in her anyway aside from the fact that she was a sexy as fuck, impossibly uptight virgin I was dying to unwind. I thought I maybe there was something good in her, something worth salvaging. A hunger for something real behind those pale blue eyes.

I was dead wrong.

Fucking waste of time, is what she is.

That’s fine.

We’ll live like two passing ships in the night for the next few months. As soon as August comes, I’ll slip out of here and buy a bus ticket to L.A. She can marry some secret polygamist who receives her father’s stamp of approval, and she can pop out a bunch of babies and judge people to her little heart’s content.

I must have blacked out between that moment and now, because suddenly I’m sitting behind the driver’s seat of my truck, my left foot on the clutch and the right one on the brake as I start her up.

She’s loud as hell, and I might wake up the whole neighborhood, but I don’t care. I fly across town, getting the fuck away from the Miller Circus, and speed into a parking spot outside the shop. The light is on at Liberty’s place.

I’ve only worked with her a couple days, but she seems like a pretty cool chick. She’s the only friend I have in this stupid ass town, and right now I need to get as far away from everything as possible.

“Hey,” she says as she pulls the door open. She lives in a little apartment above her father’s shop. “What are you doing here? Need into the shop?”

There’s music coming from behind her, which I assume is her guitar-wielding boyfriend, Kian. I met him at work yesterday when he came in to drop dinner off for her.

She examines my face and chews on her lip. “Shit go down at Uncle Mark’s?”

I shrug.

“Oh, God. What’d he do?” Liberty pulls the door wide and welcomes me in. I lock eyes with Kian, who’s cradling a cherry red Fender guitar and gives me a tightlipped smile.

Kian’s wearing a white tank top that shows off his sleeves. Every inch of his arms is covered in multicolored tats.

My people.

“Mark didn’t do anything,” I say, taking a seat on a stained, velour sofa. I’m not sure what color it’s supposed to be, but it ain’t pretty. Judging by the general appearance of her apartment, it’s been ridden hard and put away wet one too many times. Empty beer cans line the kitchen sink, and there’s a perpetual beer-burp scent in the air. These are the people my father warned me about, and they’re the nicest, most laidback people I’ve ever met in my life.

“Oh.” Liberty scratches the side of her head and slides in next to Kian, resting her head on his shoulder as he picks the strings of his guitar like he’s in his own little world. “Waverly?”

I shrug, as if to neither confirm nor deny. She sees right through it.

“Not Waverly.” Liberty laughs. “She’s so sweet and innocent.”

Kian puts his guitar down and pulls a cigarette from a pack in his pocket. He lights up and passes it to Liberty, who takes a long drag and gives it back. Watching them together is like watching the inner workings of a clock: intricate, intentional, and in sync.

“What’d she do?” she asks, exhaling a lungful of smoke.

“Not in the mood to talk about it.” I recline in my seat and rest my hands behind my head. Her walls are covered in posters of various rock and metal bands. How she and the Miller girls could possibly be from the same genetic pool is beyond me.

“Anybody want a beer?” Kian sits his guitar aside and rises up.

“I’ll take one,” Liberty says. I found out earlier that day that she was twenty-one. She appears a lot younger, minus the tattoos. “Jensen, you want one?”

“Got anything stronger?” I ask.

Kian laughs. “You’ve got a lot of balls, man. I like you. You sure you’re still in high school?”

“Told you,” Liberty says. “He acts older than the two of us combined.”

I feel old as fuck sometimes. It tends to happen like that when you spend the majority of your youth raising yourself, questioning authority, and growing up long before everyone else.

Kian comes back with two Pabst Blue Ribbon tallboys and a fifth of off-brand vodka that’s half gone. “Take this. You can have it. Hide it. You didn’t get it from me.”

I accept his offering. “Thanks, man.”

Kian winks. “I know what it’s like.”

He leaves it at that, and I’m not in a mood to pry. It’s none of my business, and Kian seems like the kind of guy who doesn’t appreciate another man prying into his personal affairs, much like myself.

Kian’s phone dings.

“Who the hell’s texting you this late at night?” Liberty’s entire demeanor shifts. Her blue eyes burn dark and she sits up. Kian yanks the phone away from her like he’s hiding something.

“Okay, well, I should probably head out before anyone notices I’m gone…” I rise, shoving the half-empty fifth of vodka into my interior coat pocket and heading toward the door. They continue bickering like cats and dogs, and I’m not even sure they saw me leave.

Liberty will probably apologize tomorrow at work. Then again, she might not. She doesn’t seem like the kind of girl who’s sorry for a whole lot. I like that about her. She’s a take-me-or-leave-me kind of girl.

She’s earned my respect, that’s for damn sure.

***

I park in front of the main house, fully expecting Mark to be standing in the living room window again, hands on his hips, ready to give me a talking-to, but the house is dark.