"Creepy Old Guy."
Not by a long shot. She chewed the lip gloss off her suddenly aching lips. "Thanks for the ride and for showing up so soon, but where's Chris?"
"I was at your mother's when you called so I offered to come instead rather than waste time trying to track down your brother."
"Oh." That threw her for a second. Her stomach was in serious peril. "Uh, why? Anything wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong."
So why had he been there? She waited. And waited. "Thanks for coming out."
"Good thing, too. Probably didn't hurt for those students to see a man in your life."
"This is not your problem."
"I'm a male. I can't ignore it."
"I'm careful. I'm never alone with a student. Teachers are given training on just this subject for our protection and the students'. That's a part of why I always tutor on school property."
"All right. But I'm still picking you up until we find out what went on with Owens."
How silly to argue. She'd had the same concerns today. Her mother was confined to the house. Her brother was in and out of town visiting his girlfriend during college winter break.
And she couldn't hide from the truth. She wanted to be around Carson if for no other reason than to figure out a way to forget him as completely as she'd forgotten that night last week. "Since I don't have tires, I gratefully accept. For now."
"Thank you. And you'll be careful around that kid you're tutoring?"
Of course she would, but wondered at Carson's continued insistence. "You don't trust anyone, do you?"
"This isn't about me."
"I think it just became about you." She hitched a knee up to turn and face him even as he kept his eyes forward on the road. "You say you want to apologize, and sure you're helping. But I'm still confused. Can we only relate if things are about me? When does it become about you, too? Otherwise this is a one-sided, um, friendship—" yeah, friendship was a good word "—that's not fair to either of us."
His hands tightened around the wheel and she thought for a while he would simply keep driving until he whipped into the next turn. At a fast-food parking lot?
He threw the truck in park and turned to face her. "My parents were drug addicts."
Huh? That was a little more than she'd expected. She was thinking more along the lines of... What? She didn't know much of anything about him, and she wouldn't know more if she didn't unglue her tongue from the roof of her mouth and participate in this conversation. "I thought you said you had a privileged upbringing."
"I said my family has money."
"Guess I'm just as guilty of making character assumptions as you were with 'Thug.'" She couldn't stop herself from placing a sympathetic hand on his forearm. "I'm sorry—for the assumption and for how difficult your childhood must have been."
His quick nod offered his only acknowledgment of her empathy. With a brief squeeze of comfort she took her hand back, the heat of him tingling through her veins until she clenched her fist to hold on to the sensation. Already she could piece together parts he'd left unsaid, how no one thought to suspect anything, which left Carson and his sister unprotected.
Carson cut a quick glance over. "You can ease up a little on the sympathy. My sister and I went to great schools, and thank God for the nannies or things would have been a helluva lot worse."
"Somehow I think it was plenty bad enough." She shuffled this new image of Carson around in her mind and couldn't help but soften. "Where are your parents now?"
"Dad almost died of an overdose about two years ago." He recited the information in emotionless monotones. "Some thought that would scare him clean, he even tried. They've both been in and out of rehab clinics a dozen times and it never seemed to stick. Bottom line, I don't think either of them wants to change."
The resigned acceptance in his voice stabbed through her.
He kept his face forward even though their parking spot under the golden arches enabled him to look wherever he wished. "So, no. I don't trust easily."
Yet she couldn't miss how he'd trusted her today with a piece of himself and his past she suspected very few—if any—knew about.
"Enough heavy crap for one day." He reached for the door. "I hope burgers are okay."