Forgotten Rules (Rules 4)

“Well, I’m taking you right into it.”

Kassidy

Will briefs me on our plans for the day halfway to our secret destination. Turns out when he told me we were feeding the homeless, he meant…

Having lunch with his mom.

I scold him for his crude comparison, swatting him in the arm and kindling the following reply: “Trust me, if I didn’t laugh about it, I wouldn’t last a day.”

I understand him better now. The jokes, the snarky replies. He uses humor as a defense mechanism. I replay his words, picking them apart one by one.

“If your mom is homeless, where are we meeting her?”

He shifts in the driver’s seat, taking a right. “Well, technically, she isn’t homeless. Just doesn’t have a permanent address. She’s crashing at a friend’s trailer until the beginning of the summer.”

“Then where will she go?”

“I’m sure she’ll find something. Bounce around between places for a while, probably.” He shrugs as though this is old news.

And it is.

To him, at least.

That’s his life. Has been since he was a kid.

“I take it you don’t live together?”

He scoffs. “Fuck no. I’d lose my mind. She stayed in my motel room last weekend, and I nearly went off my rocker just from that.”

The truth sinks into my stomach like an anchor. This explains why he had to leave early. He was checking on her.

“So, you live in motels?”

All this time, whenever he left, I imagined him going back to a picture-perfect house. Thought he had a nice, comfy place to lay his head. A home. And all this time, he didn’t.

“Mostly, yeah. Depends how tight the money is. I spent the past month at some abandoned gym where the guys and I train.”

His unbothered attitude is unsettling—disturbing. He says it like it’s normal, while I want to cry just imagining him freezing in an abandoned building.

“Don’t,” he says in a husky voice.

My head snaps up.

“Don’t look at me like that. Please.”

Shit.

Be more transparent, why don’t you, Kass?

His jaw twitches. “If you pity me, then I’ll start pitying myself, and I… I can’t go there.”

“I’m sorry.” I blink back tears.

I can’t help my trembling lip.

He winces at my bloodshot eyes. “Baby, stop. I’m fine, I promise.” His right hand leaves the wheel, enclosing mine. “I never go hungry, I have clothes, a phone, a car. The fights pay well, and as soon as my mom gets her shit together, I’ll be able to afford a place. Don’t worry about me, okay?”

I recall what he said to his mother at the motel: “You drained everything! Four fucking grand. Gone in a matter of days!”