“You asked.”
“I didn’t ask you to stop, nor did I ask you to stalk me like some creep.” He pushes past me and starts walking again but stops when he hears me following behind him. He points toward my car. “You’re just going to leave that fancy, shiny car back there, running?”
I shrug my shoulders, unbothered because honestly, who cares. “Unless you get in. Yeah.”
“Why?” He walks closer to me, anger spewing from him. “Why do you care? You don’t know me.”
“But I want to.” The admission slips from my lips, but I don’t reel it back in. He already thinks I’m a crazy-ass stalker, and he seems to have picked up on me watching him a lot. Something I should worry about others picking up on if he has—but I don’t. Because again—who cares. I’m past caring, and everyone around me is so oblivious, I know deep down they have no clue.
He stares at me like I’m insane and then huffs, walking toward my car and surprising me when he yanks the passenger-side door open and flops down on my leather seats. I smile to myself and climb behind the wheel, feeling oddly triumphant.
“Hope your daddy doesn’t mind the muddy feet and the wet seats,” he scoffs as I pull back onto the road.
“I don’t care if he does.”
“Ah. Feeling rebellious, huh? Is that what this is? Getting back at daddy?”
He wants to rile me up, but that’s not the way to do it. I’m indifferent when it comes to my parents. I don’t hate them, but I don’t care enough to try to piss them off either. “No. He won’t see the damage, if there is any.”
He leans his wet head against my window and stares outside. “Oh, so you’re not getting enough attention at home?”
I snort. “I’d be fine with less attention than I already get. My stopping to pick your soggy ass up has nothing to do with my parents.” I can barely see through the rain, despite the windshield wiper on high, so I drive slowly down the street in front of our school. “Where are we going, by the way?”
“I was walking to my place to grab my car, but I’m already late . . .”
“Late for what?”
I notice he’s chewing on his bottom lip, clearly conflicted about telling me where he’s headed. “The mission downtown.” My brows must furrow in confusion because I can feel his eyes on me now. “I volunteer there, and I’m fucking late. So, if you can take me there, awesome. If not, take me to my place, so I can get my car.”
I turn toward the street that will take us to the interstate to get downtown more quickly. “I don’t mind. Just surprised. That’s all.”
“Why?” His voice is gravelly and deep, a rumble that goes straight to my dick, and I have to adjust in my seat, hoping he won’t see. I’m not entirely convinced he won’t hit me if he found out the kind of thoughts I’ve had about him over the past three years of high school.
“Volunteering after school. It seems like a lot.”
“It’s not,” he grunts and doesn’t offer any further explanation, just like I expected from him.
When we arrive at the city mission, the rain still hasn’t let up, but he quickly ditches my car and me in the parking spot and darts up to the brick building. It’s cute he thinks I’ll let this go.
I shut off my car, climb out, and lock it before I follow him inside, much to his disapproval. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he growls, his lithe body nearly pressed against mine as he cages me against the wall with his finger in my face.
“Volunteering.” I give him a lazy grin.
Anger vibrates through him as he stares at me like he can’t quite figure me out. He’s not the first. But just as he’s about to say something else, two kids—I’d say they’re around eleven or twelve—walk up to us excitedly. “Rhett! You’re here!”
He pushes away from me, his focus on the boys with ripped jeans and muddy tennis shoes. They’re wearing t-shirts a size too big for their little bodies, but they’re both grinning at Rhett like he’s their god.
“Hey, guys.” Rhett clears his throat as if he’s trying to chase away his bad attitude, if only for these kids with the bright, hope-filled eyes. “You didn’t think I’d miss this, did you?”
They grin, big and bright, and I swear it’s the first time I’ve witnessed Rhett smiling too. It’s almost too much to process.
He jerks his head toward the double doors. “Let’s go inside.”
They happily run through the doors after pulling them open, but Rhett turns back to me, his smile gone, and a deadly cold stare replacing it. “I don’t know what your game is here, and I don’t really care. If you do anything to hurt these kids, I will end you.”
I believe him. I swear I take the threat seriously, but my body thrums with something else. Something forbidden. Something I’m not sure he won’t hurt me for. But I don’t care.
There’s no denying my insane attraction to this painfully elusive, beautiful boy.
And no part of me wants to fight it.
EIGHT
Why the hell won’t he leave? I’ve noticed Grayson over the years. The guy is hard to miss. The larger-than-life, golden boy. Always surrounded by a big group of rowdy friends. Always has a girl on his arm or his lap, dying for his attention. The teachers love him. He’s a star football, baseball, every-fucking-ball player at our school.
Everyone knows Grayson.
But I didn’t realize what a pain in the ass he was. He wouldn’t let up, and if I wasn’t already so late because of the damn rain—I wouldn’t have given in and gotten into his fancy car.
But I couldn’t miss this.
These days spent here at the mission. They keep me sane.
Oddly enough, they tie me back to the life I should loathe and want no part of. But when kids like Max and Ian look at me with something resembling hope in their eyes, I feel as close to whole as I ever have.
I started volunteering here last year. The kids are all foster kids, and this is an after-school program, basically just making sure they get food and some sort of safe space to go before they go back to their broken foster homes. Because everyone knows the system is broken and totally flawed, but somehow, this is as close as we can get to a solution.
After shedding our soaking wet jackets and leaving them on a hook by the door, Grayson—the annoying prick—doesn’t waste any time and sits down next to Laney, a shy girl, and immediately gets her to engage.
This. Motherfucker.
I can barely get two words out of that girl, and I think he’s already gotten a smile from her. I shake my head and try to ignore him while I take a seat next to Max, grabbing some shitty colored pencils provided by donations.
When I get my first real paycheck from the tattoo parlor, I’m going to buy these kids some real art supplies. Max doesn’t care though. He grabs several colors and starts outlining something I’m not quite sure of yet. The kid is only a few years younger than me. At thirteen, he reminds me so damn much of myself when I was in his shoes. And he has some serious talent.
“How are things?” I ask quietly, cautiously probing into his life like I always do but keeping in the back of my mind how much I hated when anyone would do that to me. When I was trapped in foster care. Bouncing from house to house, from one foster parent to another who didn’t want me. Who only wanted the small check from the government to take me under their shitty, dripping roofs but used the money for god knows what while my stomach grumbled and my clothes fell apart.
His small—too small for his age—shoulders shrug as he sketches absently, not risking a look in my direction. “It’s fine.”
Fine. The universal code for so fucking not okay.
I look over at the table against the wall. It’s stocked with juices and different snacks. “You get something to eat?”
He nods. “Yeah.”
I stare at him, trying to decide whether I believe him, but the kid’s not dumb. He knows this may be the only time he eats tonight. It’s not an exaggeration. I know some people would think it is. That, of course, foster parents want to take kids in out of the kindness of their heart. Otherwise, why else would they do it? And I’m sure some do, but I know the system from the inside. And I know, without a doubt, at least half, if not all, these kids—who are crammed into this old, deteriorating room that luckily has heat—have gone without dinner more times than is ever okay for kids to go without food.
“Good. Maybe take some to go, yeah?”
Another absent nod because he doesn’t want to talk about it. How this program is only once a week, and he knows he has to take advantage of it for him and his younger sister, Carly. They were lucky to get placed in the same home this time, but who knows how long that will last.