“Nana!” I said. “He’s sitting right there.”
“Which is exactly why I asked,” she said, directing her attention to Silas. “Are you her boyfriend?”
I looked at Silas, my eyes wide, and he grinned, leaning forward in his chair. “I’d like to be, Letty,” he said. “More than that, even.”
Letty whooped and turned to me while I glared at Silas, my heart pounding in my chest. I couldn’t think of anything except the fact that I’d brought him here, to meet my grandmother, and now he was ambushing me, right here in front of her.
My head was swimming.
Letty’s voice broke through my thoughts. “I hope you heard that, girl,” she said, narrowing her eyes as she looked at me.
“I’m too old for a boyfriend,” I said, looking at him. “We’re not teenagers.”
“No,” Silas said, not breaking eye contact. “We aren’t teenagers. And you’re right about being too old for a boyfriend. We agree on that.”
My heart skipped a beat. That was sudden, his changing his mind. I didn’t know if I was relieved or disappointed.
I was afraid I was more disappointed.
But when I looked at Silas, he seemed nonplussed. He smiled and winked at me. What the hell was he thinking?
“You know,” Letty said. “Life is too short to dick around not knowing what you want. You have to figure that shit out. Otherwise, all you’re going to have is regret.”
“Letty, I don’t need a lecture -” I began, ignoring the fact that I could feel Silas’ eyes on me.
“All of us need this lecture, from time to time,” she said. “Life is too short to not take what you want from it, and that includes having ties to people, people that matter. Drifting around is only fun for so long, or if you’ve got some place - someone- to come back to.”
I didn’t say anything, only half-listening as Letty lectured me. What the hell was I thinking, bringing Silas here? I should have known that Letty would like him way too much.
I tried to ignore the voice in the back of my head, the one that said that’s the exact reason I’d taken Silas to meet her.
“Now.” Her voice broke through my thoughts. “Now that the both of you are here. Let’s talk about this town. I asked Tempest to do some research for me.”
34
Silas
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked.
Tempest looked over at me from where she sat in the passenger seat. “Are you okay with bringing me here?”
“I’m okay if you’re okay,” I said. God, I sounded like such an idiot. Letty’s question about me being Tempest’s boyfriend had thrown me off earlier.
The problem was that I didn’t want to be Tempest’s boyfriend. We were twenty-four, too old for that shit. Twenty-four was young for most people still dating and playing the field. But Tempest and I, we weren’t young twenty-four-year-olds. We’d both been through too much.
And we had too much damn history to ever date.
I couldn’t imagine taking her out to dinner and trying to get to know her.
I didn’t want to take her to dinner and the movies. I wanted to take this girl home. For good.
This girl was mine. She’d always been mine.
“Is it weird for you, coming back here?”
I shrugged. “Sort of,” I said. “Not really. I mean, I came back to my mom’s house when I got back to West Bend, for a little bit. And we came back here after the funeral and shit. I was going to poke around here a few weeks ago too.”
“But you got arrested,” Tempest said.
“Yeah, before I even had a chance to go inside,” I said. “And since then, well…”
“Well.” Tempest tucked her hair behind her ear and licked her lip. That damn lip. My cock stirred watching her, and I had to tell myself to cut that shit out.
“Yeah,” I said. “Since then I’ve been with you.” I opened the car door. “Let’s go.”
Before I put the key in the front door, I warned her. “It’s - not what you’re used to, you know. I mean, we were poor and-”
Tempest put her hand on my arm. “Silas,” she said. “You don’t have to explain anything to me about your childhood. I understand. And I’ve been to your house before.”
“Oh yeah.” I’d forgotten about that.
“Yeah,” she said. Inside the door, she looked around. “So, we’re looking for anything that might link your mom and the mining company.”
“Or Jed,” I said. “Or the Mayor. Elias said someone made a comment about her sleeping with the mayor.”
Tempest drew in a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “You start on one side of the house and I’ll start on the other?”
“Thank you for doing this.” I couldn’t put into words what I felt, why it meant something that Tempest was here with me. I knew it was a big deal, the fact that she’d taken me to meet her grandmother, despite her protests to the contrary.
She looked behind her as she headed down the hall. “I’m glad you brought me here,” she said.