Trouble (Dogwood Lane 3)

I laugh. “You’ve been ornery from the beginning, then.”

“So it would seem.”

We walk together quietly. A car passes every now and then, and Penn waves at each one. I wonder if he actually knows them all or if it’s some form of southern hospitality I don’t yet understand.

He seems content to just walk and enjoy the quiet. It’s not at all like my old friends and their constant use of their phones. Heck, even the men I dated spent more time on their devices than talking to me. Penn isn’t even talking to me. He’s just being with me.

“Let’s cross here so I can show you the church.” He starts across the middle of the street. There are no cars coming, but there’s no crosswalk either.

“Isn’t this illegal?” I ask, speed-walking to keep up with him.

“Probably.”

“Um . . .”

When we make it safely to the other side, he looks down at me. “Live a little, Avery.”

I instantly miss “Ave.”

We take an alley behind a big brick building before coming upon an old church. The stained glass windows are breathtaking as they reflect the late-afternoon sun.

“See that?” Penn asks. “That spot up there in the steeple? Where it kind of looks broken but it’s not?”

“Yeah.”

“There are musket balls stuck up there from the Civil War.”

My jaw drops. “Really?”

“Yeah. Tennessee is the only state that had a battle fought in every single county during the war. Only Virginia saw more battles than we did.”

He says this like it’s common knowledge and takes off again. This time, I remain a few paces behind him.

My mind is reeling. What else does he know?

“Matt and I were convinced a ghost lived up there,” he says, pointing to the top of a building that looks deserted. “We used to sneak in there with little ghost-hunting kits we made up. I think Dane and his friends would try to scare us sometimes and make us think we’d made contact, now that I think about it. It was a good time.”

I imagine a little Penn with his flashlight and rubber boots and can’t help but smile. “Those must be great memories. I can see why you and Matt are so close now. You’ve been friends forever.”

“Yeah.” His arm brushes mine as we step over a broken piece of sidewalk. The spot where our skin touched is hot. “Did you do stupid stuff like that as a kid?”

“My childhood was nothing like this.” I laugh. “It was basically an instructional on how to grow up and not get in my parents’ way.”

His forehead creases. “What’s your mom do?”

I look at his face and watch him watch me. There’s something pure and untainted about it, and I don’t want to spoil that yet.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say.

He takes his hat off and runs his hand through his hair. “Well, my mom tried to do the right thing. My dad just made it impossible.”

“What is he like?”

“These days, I don’t know.”

He puts his hat back on again. There’s a sourness to his face that makes me regret asking about his father. I remember bits and pieces that he mentioned ten years ago, but I have no idea what happened after that. I’m not sure how much I remember is truth and how much has been skewed by time, anyway.

“He and my mom didn’t really get along. Dad tried to drive a wedge between me and her. When I was a little kid, I didn’t understand that. I just thought his presents were the best thing ever.”

His tone is full of sorrow. It hurts my heart to watch him struggle with thinking about his dad.

“Things were basically okay until I was sixteen. On my sixteenth birthday, he tried to recruit me into a biker gang.”

“A what?” I bark.

I’m sure I misheard him. I had to have. A biker gang? What? But one look at his face tells me all I need to know.

“Yeah. A biker gang.” Penn heaves a deep breath that’s laced with years’ worth of stress. “He got me up in the middle of the night and said he needed my help.” His eyes glass over as his pace slows. “I was all about my dad, you know, so getting to help him was a huge thing. Until I realized what he needed help with, and I balked.”

His eyes stay fixed on something in front of us. It doesn’t hide his pain. The war passing across his face is as plain as the day is long. I had no idea he was carrying around something so . . . tragic. The way he seems to struggle with hearing the words out loud makes me think he doesn’t share this information often.

My spirits sink.

My hand goes to his arm without thought. He looks down at it, and some of the glassiness goes away, but not all. “I don’t know what to say, other than no kid should be put in that position. Hell, no person should, and I’m sorry you were.”