“Why would you admit that? To anyone? Ever?”
I shrug. I haven’t told anyone that before, for obvious reasons.
“Turn up here,” I say, gesturing to the left with my finger. “Follow this road until you see a cabin on the right.”
“You weren’t kidding when you said you lived alone,” she says, taking in the pine trees that line the narrow winding road. “You’re really secluded out here.”
“I like my privacy.”
“I guess so.”
Logan pulls into my driveway, and she looks over at me as she comes to a stop. She wets her lips with the tip of her tongue, and my eyes can’t help but follow the movement. She swallows, and her throat moves with the action. I have the urge to take her inside and see what those hazel eyes look like when she’s on her knees for me, what those puffy lips look like wrapped around me. But the last thing I need is to hook up with someone who isn’t just passing through, and it’s only a matter of time before she hears about me from someone in town and decides to stay far the fuck away from me. As she should.
Instead, I force myself to open the car door and get out. I prop my forearm on the doorframe, duck my head down, and say, “See you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” she questions, her eyebrows tugging together in confusion.
“Yeah. I’ll need a ride back to the shop. Pick me up at nine.”
“It’ll cost you,” she warns.
“Naturally. How much?”
“Fifty bucks.”
“Fifty bucks,” I repeat. “I could get a fucking Uber for less than that.” She doesn’t need to know that Ubers don’t come all the way out here.
“Take it or leave it.” She shrugs, expecting me to say no.
“See you at nine.”
She raises an eyebrow, surprised by the fact that I’ll actually pay her fifty dollars for a ride, I’m not sure. Maybe both.
“I don’t even know your name.”
“You never asked.”
“Well?” she asks expectantly.
“It’s Dare.”
I pat the top of the rattletrap she calls a car and walk away, hearing her drive off behind me.
Dare. That’s not a name. That’s a warning. And I’ve been with enough bad boys to heed the warning. I think. Then again, the last time I tried going for someone different—a straight-laced suit, someone who appeared to be a good guy with a good career—things got ugly. Sometimes the nicest guys have the darkest sides.
Either way, I can’t deny that he intrigues me. He looks like he’d know his way around a woman’s body. But this is our new start. And I can’t fuck it up by hooking up with the first boy I see, even if he does have the prettiest, bluest eyes known to man and a smirk that I felt right between my thighs. This is a small town. People talk, and the last thing I need is to be labeled the town whore. I just need to keep my head down, get a job, and get Jess through school.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I fish it out, only to see Private Caller flash across the screen. Unease prickles my spine. This is a brand-new number. Eric, my ex-boss and part of the reason I left, bought my old phone. He didn’t like not being able to keep tabs on me, but I threw the phone away just before I left town. I used most of the money I had saved to buy myself a new one and added a line for Jess. They had a deal, and I ended up getting him a phone for ninety-nine cents.
There’s no way Eric would know my number. The only people who do know it are Jess, my mom, and now Henry. But I can’t shake the feeling that it’s him. It’s not like I’m afraid of Eric. He’d never physically harm me—psychological manipulation and intimidation are more his style—but the thought that he somehow got my number is…unnerving. I roll my eyes at my dramatics and shove my phone back into my pocket. There’s no way it was him. Probably a solicitor.
“Lo?” Jess asks with a cautious lilt to his voice. “Everything okay?”
Jess may be my kid brother, but he worries about me like a parent would. That’s what happens when your mom is a deadbeat and your dad is MIA. We are all each other has.
“I’m good!” I say, maybe too cheerily, because he casts me a suspicious look. “How was school?” I ask around a bite of my eggs, if only to change the subject.
Sometimes we have what I call Upside-Down Days, where we have pancakes and eggs for dinner instead of breakfast. I made it up when Jess was a little younger. It was more fun than saying, “Listen, we are too broke for real food, and all we can afford are eggs and pancake batter, if you’re lucky.” Years later, we’re still broke as shit by most people’s standards, especially at this moment, but it sort of became our thing. Even when I was working for Eric, making enough to support us and still have leftover spending money, we still had Upside-Down Days.