Page 36 of Broken Pieces
“Unlikely.”
She walks up to me and puts her hand on my shoulder. “You know I wouldn’t ask you this if there was another option.”
I box up the last of the things I was baking for the diner. “You owe me.”
“Absolutely. You need something you just say the word.”
“New living arrangements,” I mumble.
“Besides that.”
I huff and walk outside carrying the bags of treats.
I sit on the edge of the deck waiting for Brooks. Out of all the things I had planned to do with my day, sitting in a car with Brooks for a few hours was nowhere on the list.
After a few minutes, he pulls his truck up as near to me as he can.
He grabs the bags from beside me. I know he sees my glare as I swing my legs on the edge of the raised patio.
“Trust me, I don’t want to be doing this either.”
I don’t say anything to him as I get into his truck slamming the door behind me.
We are in the car for fifteen minutes, completely silent, before he looks over at me and smirks. “Did you use my body wash?”
I shoot daggers at him over my sunglasses. “Well it’s not like I could have used mine since you threw it all away.”
“Smells good on you.”
I roll my eyes and turn my gaze to the window. It’s not very long until I hear a paper bag crunching. I turn back to him and see his hand behind the seat grabbing food that is meant for the diner.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m hungry,” he says as he grabs a chocolate croissant and shoves half of it in his mouth.
“You know those are for the diner.”
“Think of it as payment for the inconvenience of driving you to the diner.”
I snatch the other half of the croissant out of his hand. “I was told you need to run an errand. It hardly seems like an inconvenience to drop me off on the way.”
He rips the croissant out of my hand. “An errand I heard nothing about until thirty minutes ago. I know it was all an excuse to get you into town. You should just stand up to your brother and tell him to take you off house arrest and give you a damn car.”
“I’m not on house arrest.”
“You keep tellin’ yourself that Blue. Because when you aren’t allowed to leave the property without anyone accompanying you, I would call that house arrest.”
I clench my fist, he is pissing me off again. I shouldn’t be surprised.
Before I can say anything, he says, “It’s not like you can’t find drugs in this town. I can understand why he wants someone to keep their eye on you. Doesn’t want you to end up as another statistic.”
“Fuck you,” I growl. “You want to talk about statistics? What about you? Just another high school loser who ends up on probation.”
The truck swerves off the road as he slams on his brakes. “How the fuck do you even know about that?”
“Small town.”
I can tell he is pissed, but I don’t really care. I am surprised he doesn’t kick me out of the truck. Instead, he pulls back on the road and speeds into town in silence. When we get to the diner, I barely get my bags out of the truck before he speeds off down the road.