The Truth About Us
Stupid sparkly brown eyes.
Abby stuck her keys in the ignition, then paused as the gravity of her situation hit her full force. She, literally, just hit someone with a car and almost killed them. GG was gone and left her with some huge family secret which she was solely responsible for unraveling, and she had to keep it all quiet.
She dropped her forehead to the steering wheel with a thunk, exhaling. Not the best of days, for sure. To top it all off, she might be losing her mind. She certainly felt like it.
“I know I’m the one that just got nailed by a small but lethal car and all, but are you okay?” he asked, his voice soft.
She shook her head, the leather wheel digging into her forehead with the movement. Maybe this was all too much. Maybe the universe was trying to tell her something by steering her car into a person. Maybe she needed to let all this go. Let someone else figure it out. Maybe... Wait a minute.
She sat up and glanced over at him, narrowing her eyes as she recalled his saying he knew where she lived, and here he was. Before last night, she had never seen him outside of school before, and suddenly she’s seen him two days in a row?
“What were you doing on my street?”
“What?” His eyes widened with surprise, thrown by the question.
“I mean, you claim to live several blocks away, but I’ve never seen you before. And what eighteen-year-old boy rides their bike randomly down the road?”
“Uh, a lot of people ride bikes, actually. And believe it or not, even though they are both a form of recreation and exercise, they’re also a form of transportation to get you from point A to point B. Also, since when do you own the road?”
“Whatever.” She flapped her hand. “That explains nothing.”
Kaden smiled. “Okay, not that it’s any of your business, but if you must know, I run errands for Mr. Greene,” he said, nodding toward a large brick colonial to their right. “I left his driveway thirty seconds before you decided to mow me down.”
“I didn’t...” Abigail frowned. Could she really
deny not hitting him? “What kind of errands?”
“Ever heard of confidentiality?”
She raised a brow. “What are you, his shrink?”
“Fine. Medicine. I pick up his prescriptions once a month, and he pays me. I get groceries and run some other quick errands for a few more people in Glenn Woods. My dad doesn’t want me working, so it’s one of the only jobs I can get away with because it’s fairly flexible.”
“Like the trash at the park?”
He nodded. “Yeah. I keep it a secret, so I’d appreciate you not telling anyone. Not that anyone else would care what I do in my free time. I usually try to coordinate my working with my dad’s shifts, so I don’t have to lie.”
When she said nothing, only stared, he asked, “What? Is that okay with you? Or do I need permission to be in your prestigious neighborhood first?”
“No,” she said, ignoring the jab. “But yesterday you mentioned knowing where I lived, and I don’t know where you live. Then today, here you are. It just seemed...odd.” The last word came out as a squeak. Even she recognized the ridiculousness of what she was saying. Maybe she had tried so hard convincing Mr. Klein someone was following her, she was starting to believe it.
“So, you thought I might be stalking you? Seriously?”
“Maybe,” she said, with a shrug.
Was she serious?
He laughed, a long belly roll Abigail didn’t appreciate. She didn’t see what was so amusing.
Clutching his side, he chortled some more, then winced as he tried to catch his breath.
Abby pulled away from the curb, trying her best to ignore him and failing. “I’m glad you’re getting a kick out of this, but you wanna tell me how to get to your house?”
He pointed to the right. “Turn here,” he said, his voice annoyingly perky.
Abby ran through the last ten minutes in her head. She could only imagine what Kaden thought of her. She probably looked like a complete nutcase, which sort of suited her because she felt like one at the moment. She had only known about GG’s secret for twenty-four hours and already she felt as though she might go crazy with her desire to know more.
They rode in silence for the next five minutes as Kaden directed her. When they turned into his neighborhood, a block with small but well-kept homes, Abigail pulled into the driveway of his house—a small white ranch with black shutters in need of a decent power wash. She put the car in park, then closed her eyes.