Keira exploded. “What’s all your fault? Enough with the cryptograms. Explain it. Now.”
“I’m going to have to. But not over the phone. I don’t know what will happen when I tell you. If they—you might need me.”
Keira rolled her eyes. “Your confidence in me is breathtaking. Just . . . whatever. If you want to do this in person, then you’ll have to come get me, Captain Secrets. The insurance company totaled my car.”
“I’ll be there in an hour,” he said. His voice brimmed with regret and something that sounded an awful lot like he was saying he would have loved her, if he’d had the chance.
The sound spilled over Keira, breaking everything it touched.
It broke her open.
It broke her heart.
Chapter Twenty-Six
KEIRA STARED OBSESSIVELY AT the driveway, watching for Walker. The shadows lengthened in front of the house. As she turned on the lights, the phone rang.
She hesitated. It was tempting to let the machine pick up, but with all the crap that her parents were going through, she knew she couldn’t do that.
She rushed to grab the phone. “Hello?”
“Keira. You’re there. I hope I didn’t interrupt your practice time.” Her father sounded as wrung-out as an old mop.
“Hi, Dad. No, I was—” She glanced out the window, checking for Walker. She didn’t want to tell her dad where she was going. If he had questions—any questions—she wouldn’t have answers. “I was just hanging around.”
“I know it’s been a difficult day,” her dad said. “I’m going to come by in a while and get some things. If you want to talk, I’d be happy to. If you need a little time, well, I understand that, too.”
She really didn’t want to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with her dad. Not yet, anyway, but it seemed like a flat-out “no” would be unnecessarily rough—like slamming a piano’s key-cover just because practice had been hard.
“Okay. I don’t know exactly what my plans are yet. I’ll . . . if I’m here, maybe we can talk. I don’t know. I’m sorry. It’s not . . . ” She heard her voice thickening as the emotions gathered in her throat.
“It’s okay,” her dad reassured her. “I understand. No pressure. I’ll be there in a bit.”
“Thanks.” Keira sniffed back her tears and hung up. She stared out the window for a minute, shaking off the call. Everything was broken, and she didn’t know how to fix any of it. She wanted desperately to dissolve into sobs, but Walker would be there any minute.
Pull yourself together. Pull. Yourself. Together.
Walker’s car slid into the driveway.
Time’s up.
Composing her best impassive concert-pianist mask, Keira grabbed her coat and went out to face Walker. Surprise fluttered across his face when she opened the car door.
“Hey,” he said. “Um. I thought maybe we could talk here. At your house.”
So he can tell me what’s going on and then run away without having to drive me home first.
“Sorry,” she said, slamming the car door. “But it turns out my dad’s sleeping with someone else and my parents are separating.” She jammed the seat belt into the latch. “He’s coming home to get some of his stuff soon. I’d rather not be here when he does.”
“Oh, Keira.” The guarded expression on his face broke and Keira felt her own mask crumble in response.
She thought about her dad, stacking work pants and polos into his racquetball duffel. Emptying his shelf in the bathroom’s medicine cabinet. Wanting to tell her all about where he was going and why he had gone.
“Is there anything I can do?” Walker asked quietly.
Keira bit her lip. She wanted him to wrap his arms around her. She wanted to bury her face in his jacket and block out the crashing noises of her life being demolished around her.
But she couldn’t. Not when she was trying her hardest to prove that she was strong enough to handle whatever was going on—with or without him.
She looked up at Walker’s gray eyes. “There is something you can do. You can get me out of here. And then you can answer my questions. I don’t give a crap where we go, as long as it’s away from this house.” She hesitated. The desire to be somewhere familiar swept over her like an incoming tide. “Actually, I take that back. There is somewhere I want to go.”
“You name it, I’ll take you, kitten.”
Keira wrinkled her nose. “Okay. Two things. One, don’t call me ‘kitten.’ ”
Walker tried to swallow his smile, but he didn’t quite manage it. It made her want him more, which in turn made her even more angry with herself.
“What’s the second thing, then?”
“Let me drive. It’ll be easier than directing you.” It was a test, and she knew it. She felt the imaginary red pencil in her hand, waiting to grade his response.