After my win, I forwent the traditional bonfire after the race and dragged Tate out of there, never before in such a hurry to get back home.
Not many people were going to be clueless as to what we were going to go do, either. Immediately after crossing the finish line, I’d taken all of two fucking seconds to snatch off Tate’s and my seatbelts and drag her into my lap for a kiss.
The race had kicked up my blood pressure. Feeling the energy of excitement as she sat next to me got my muscles and nerves pumping with adrenaline.
Racing had always been enjoyable, but with my father bleeding me for every bit of cash I had, the thrill of it had long since worn off. Now I raced as a way to make money, and Tate had changed that tonight.
As I raced, I had a hard time keep my eyes on the track. Her delicious little gasps as we rounded turns were addicting.
My blood finally ran hot for this again, and I never wanted to go back to the Loop without Tate.
“Jared?” she piped up from the passenger seat as we made our way back to my house. “Where do you go on the weekends?”
The weekends.
I narrowed my eyes. A jumble of thoughts swirled in my head, but I couldn’t grab onto just one. My stomach hollowed out, and with every breath I wanted to bolt from the car.
My father in prison. I couldn’t tell her about that.
Jax in a foster home, and his mother some barely legal teenager that our father had preyed upon. My mother, too, for that matter. What would she think?
The beatings. The basement. My betrayal, leaving Jax behind.
The bile crept up my throat, and I could barely swallow it down much less tell her the whole disgusting story.
“Just out of town.” I kept my reply short and simple.
“But where?”
“What does it matter?” My bite wasn’t a cover. She needed to shut up.
The past was embarrassing and dirty, and no one except Jax knew what had gone down that summer. If I could erase it from his memory, I would.
Yanking the steering wheel to the right, I bottomed out as I hit the dip turning into the driveway. Tate grabbed hold of the handle on the roof to steady herself as I sped up my driveway.
“Why can Piper know, and I can’t?” she pressed, her tone more urgent and defensive.
She knew about Piper?
“Fuck, Tate,” I gritted out and hopped out of the car, briefly registering that my mom’s car was in the open garage. “I don’t want to talk about it.” And that was the truth. Not today, not ever. I wouldn’t even know where to start. If she really wanted to move on with me, then she’d let it go.
“You don’t want to talk about anything!” She followed me out and yelled over the hood. “What do you think’s going to happen?”
Happen? She might see me for who I really was. That’s what could happen.
“What I do with my free time is my business. Trust me or not.”
“Trust?” She scrunched up her eyes and looked at me with disdain. “You lost mine a long time ago. But if you try trusting me, then maybe we can be friends again.”
Friends? We would never be just friends again.
Push her down or push her away, I told myself.
“I think we’ve moved beyond friends, Tate,” I sneered with a sour smile, “but if you want to play that game, then fine. We can have a sleepover, but there will be fucking involved.”
She inhaled a sharp breath, and her shoulders straightened. Her eyes stared at me with hurt and shock, and I’d fucking done it again.
Why did I keep doing this shit? I could’ve just let her down easily and walked away.
But no. In the moment, I power on with anger and fight.
But either way, I still saw the same look in her sad, tear-filled blue eyes, and I wanted to grab her and kiss her eyes, her nose, and her lips like it would erase every horrible thing I’ve ever said and done.
“Tate…” I started rounding the car, but she stomped up to me and shoved something into my stomach.
I latched onto it and watched helplessly as she ran across our yards and into her house.
No.
Staring after her—at the now darkened porch and closed front door—it was a minute or two before I felt the paper in my hand.
As I looked down, my mouth went dry, and my heart started pounding painfully in my chest.
It was a picture.
Of me.
When I was fourteen.
I was bruised and bloodied from the visit with my father, and Tate had found it at the bottom of a box underneath my bed.
She hadn’t come to wish me “Happy Birthday” tonight.
I’d caught her snooping.
And I’d just pushed her away for not telling her what she already knew.