“Work.”
I heard the chair squeak and turned to see Hut standing up. “On a Saturday?”
“Yep. I’m working a double, so I’ll see you tonight.”
Hut’s light eyes darkened. “Stay home. Call in sick.”
I shook my head and stepped past him. “Can’t. I need the money.”
“Fuck the money,” he spat, reaching for me, but I managed to sidestep him and amble into the living room. “I can give you the money.”
“You know I don’t want your money, Emerson.” I closed my eyes and berated myself. I shouldn’t have called him that, not in front of other people, but I hated his goddamn nickname. He wasn’t Hut to me, he was Emerson—at least, the boy who I’d gone through my teens with was. “I’m sorry.” I spun around and winced. “I really need to go, Hut. I’ll see you tonight?”
His nostrils flared, and fists clenched at his sides. “Fine.”
I nodded and pulled the front door open, heaving a sigh of relief as I closed it behind me. He hadn’t even apologized for what he did last night, but then he never did. He either didn’t remember or chose to ignore it.
I slipped past the car in the front yard and Hut’s blacked-out SUV and made my way down the street. The train station was only a fifteen-minute walk, but the soles of my shoes were already struggling with the dips in the sidewalk and random stones that littered over the cracked path. Maybe I’d have to invest in some new sneakers sooner rather than later.
There was always something that needed to be bought lately, and my savings were getting smaller and smaller. How was I meant to be able to move out and pay rent each month when I could barely afford the textbooks for my classes or keep my feet warm in decent shoes? I understood why a life of drug taking and making it from one fix to another was so appealing. You didn’t have to worry about anything when that was all that mattered.
The thrum of a car engine came closer, the only noise in the neighborhood at this time of morning. “Hey!” I turned my head to face the road and raised a brow at the dark gray car. The passenger window was down, and when I stepped closer, I saw Brody in the driver’s seat. “Need a ride?”
I started to shake my head but stopped. I had to be on my feet for the next twelve hours, so getting a ride to the station would have been nice. But what would Hut say?
I gritted my teeth. Fuck what Hut said. He didn’t get to dictate anything when it came to my life and the way I was living it.
“I don’t bite,” Brody said, his gravelly voice inviting. He held his hands up in the air and grinned. “Promise.”
“Okay.” I rolled my eyes at myself. “But only because my sneakers are already falling apart.” I pulled open the door and pushed inside. The fresh car smell told me that he kept it clean in here, unlike the SUV Hut and his crew had. That car was disgusting. Food wrappers and used baggies were only two of many things that lived inside it.
Brody didn’t comment. Instead, he pushed his head forward to check his side mirror and pulled back out onto the road. “Where you heading?”
“Train station.” I shuffled on the seat and clipped my belt in, wondering if I’d made the right choice by getting into this car. Brody was the newest member of the crew, he didn’t know the unspoken rules, but most of all, I didn’t know who he was. At least with the other guys I knew what to expect, but Brody was an enigma that I wanted to solve.
He took a right turn, heading the same way I would have walked to the station, and I stared at each of his movements. His large hand gripped the top of the steering wheel, his thumb tapping on it to match the beat of the song that played quietly over the sound system. I followed the path up his arm and over the sleeve of his T-shirt, fascinated by each pulse his muscles took with every one of his movements.
“How’s your neck?”
My eyes widened, and my hand fluttered to the scarf covering the bruise. “It’s…fine.”
Brody pulled to a stop outside the station, making me ten minutes early for my train. “No, it’s not.”
“Excuse me?” I raised my brows and spun to face him fully, not liking his tone one bit.
His dark-brown eyes met mine, and he tilted his head to the side, almost as if he was inviting me to repeat what I said. “You don’t have to lie to me, Lola.”
I scoffed. “You don’t know me, Brody, so how about you not ask me questions.”
He frowned. “Ask you questions?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed my purse off the floor and placed my palm on the door handle. “Like, how I am.”
He stared at me, and for some reason, I allowed him. I stayed in place as his mind seemed to be working something over, and when his eyes widened just a tad, his lips flattened into a straight line.
“You don’t get asked that often, do you?”
“What?” I murmured, afraid to talk too loud.