And then . . . he covered his mouth and yawned—a loud, long one—followed by giving my shoulders a squeeze. “Sweetheart, it’s bedtime.”
My eyebrows pulled together. This was not the Boone I remembered. Everything else about him might have been very much the same, but walking away when tensions were at peak levels was not his trademark. This wasn’t the time to question it though, or to fight his suggestion.
Giving the most convincing smile I could, I waved at those in the room. “Good night.”
My mom’s face went blank. “He’s not staying here, is he? You’re not staying in the same room surely.”
Boone’s arm stiffened against my shoulders as we were about to head up the stairs.
“Why wouldn’t he be staying here?” I said. “Why wouldn’t we be sharing the same room?”
All four people in the foyer came around the stairs, following us.
My mom led the charge. “Because Boone lives here in town and can stay at his place.”
“Providing he has one that isn’t the bed of his truck,” Ford interjected, sneering in Boone’s direction.
And we’d officially hit peak bullshit levels.
“Let’s see, Ford lives in town. Sterling lives in town. Are they staying at their places this week, Mom?”
She held my stare, but she shifted her weight onto her other foot. “Well, no, they’re not.”
Of course they weren’t, because Sterling and Ford came from wealthy, well-to-do families. And because they dressed a certain way. And drove a certain kind of car. And had gone to fancy schools and had fancy degrees and had fancy-sounding jobs.
Boone had been treated like a second-class citizen as long as I could remember. No more. I was still pissed at him for surprising us all down here tonight and was more than a little conflicted about how he’d gone about everything in the past, but I was done letting my family take a shit on him whenever and however they could.
When I started to climb the stairs, Boone followed, keeping his arm glued to my shoulder and matching my ascent, step for step.
“Good night,” I said again when we were halfway up the stairs.
“Yes, good, we’ll talk in the morning.” From the sound of my mom’s voice, she was a few breaths away from hyperventilating, but no one chased us up the stairs. “Let’s just get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll work this all out tomorrow.”
I didn’t look back. I just kept going. This was where I’d failed before, but I wouldn’t this time. Keep going, don’t let them stop you. Don’t let them even slow you down.
“Can’t wait,” I said under my breath before taking the final step and setting foot on the second floor.
Boone stayed silent the whole time, only dropping his arm when we were out of sight of the onlookers below. I hadn’t looked back to see if they were all still down there, gaping at us with varying degrees of shock and disgust, but I could feel their stares aimed at my back through the wall, they were that intense.
As Boone and I travelled down the hall to one of the last doors, he hugged the wall, seeming to want to keep as much distance between us as possible. This was the first time we’d ever walked down this hall together, side-by-side.
Even when Boone had been nothing more than my childhood friend, my parents had barely allowed him onto the front porch, and when our relationship evolved into more, they certainly didn’t let him get anywhere close to my bedroom. They didn’t know about the dozens of times he’d climbed the tree outside my room, thrown himself onto the roof, and climbed through my window.
When I peeked at him striding down the hallway like he couldn’t get down it quickly enough, Boone almost looked uncomfortable. His forehead folded together and his neck tense, he picked up his pace when he noticed me studying him.
I had the urge to say something to comfort him or say something about letting what had been said and how he’d been treated in the foyer roll off his back, but I couldn’t find the words. The only words rolling around on my tongue were ones about him not listening to me, ones having to do with him betraying me when I’d trusted him . . .
I swallowed and pushed the past back into the recesses where it belonged. This wasn’t then. I wasn’t the same girl I’d been then. Boone probably wasn’t the same guy he’d been either.
Don’t project his mistakes from the past onto him now. Don’t let past choices define present actions. Those were the phrases I repeated in my mind as we took the last few steps before pausing in front of my bedroom door.
Boone waited for me to open the door, and when I did, he waited again for me to go in first. Once I stepped inside, I turned and waited for him to come in and shut the door. I was still half-expecting the cavalry to come charging after us, and until that door was shut and locked, I wouldn’t be able to relax.
But Boone stayed in the hall, his hands buried in his pockets and his eyes staring at the threshold between my hall and bedroom.