Thunder Road: Walk The Edge Part 11

"You ask me that a lot," I whisper and then discover the courage to raise my head.

"Stop getting yourself into trouble and I'll stop asking." Razor's eyes are practically twinkling like the stars in the sky. b.u.t.terflies race around in my stomach and it's not the nervous type. It's the beautiful type of b.u.t.terflies that I love to watch flutter about in the spring.

No one has ever used trouble to describe me, but in the short time I've known Razor, I can't seem to avoid walking a tightrope. I should be ashamed I'm smiling, but I'm so not.

"Breanna!" Addison calls again.

"She's worried," I say.

Razor tucks a stray strand of hair behind my ear, then lets his finger gently trace the curve of my neck down to my bare shoulder. I s.h.i.+ver in the sensual moment. He lowers his head and his breath is hot on my ear. My heart beats faster. Is he going to kiss me? I want him to kiss me. I shouldn't want him to kiss me. I'll explode if he kisses me. My toes curl in silent expectation.

"She should be worried," he breathes into my ear.

"Why?"

"Because you're alone with me."

Yes, I very much am.

"Remember-someday soon, I'll help you with that wild kiss."

Razor steps back and it's only then I realize how much I had been leaning against his st.u.r.dy chest. Dear G.o.d, please let this bizarre gift you've given me still work despite the alcohol. I need to remember Razor saying he'll kiss me. I need him to want to kiss me later.

He keeps my hand so I can steady myself, but it's not going to happen in heels. I remove one shoe, then the other. When my feet contact the blacktop, I learn I'm much shorter than Razor than I had originally believed.

"I can walk you to her," he says, but I detect his hesitancy.

"I'll be fine." I withdraw my hand from his and head in Addison's direction.

A cool breeze blows across the parking lot and it carries Razor's low and seductive voice to my ears. "Hey, Breanna."

I glance over my shoulder. "Yes?"

"Be safe."

Those are two enticing and lovely words. "I will be. I have you protecting me, right?"

Maybe I'm misreading Razor, but his eyes travel my body like he might toss me onto the bed of the truck and kiss me in a way I've never been kissed before. "Don't worry. I completely have your back."

RAZOR.

LAST PERSON I expected at my house was a middle-aged woman in a pair of tight jeans and a thick-strapped black tank cooking over the gas stove. I shut the door loudly with my foot and that wins her attention. By the way her face falls, she wasn't expecting me, either.

"h.e.l.lo." She wipes her hands on her jeans. The scent of fried bacon hangs in the air. Dad could eat bacon every day, three times a day. "Your father didn't expect you home."

Home. My home, not hers. I scan the room and there's no sign of anyone else. My bedroom and Dad's bedroom are black and the door to the bathroom is open. Unless Dad's hiding from this chick in the closet, she and I are completely alone.

"I mean, it's your home," she says as if reading my mind, "so of course you would show, but your dad thought you'd be gone for a couple of days."

Eli said I needed to give Dad a break. I gave him two days. I spent Friday and Sat.u.r.day night in one of the rooms upstairs at the club. Only showing at the clubhouse after I knew Dad would be gone. He texted this morning and asked if I'd be back tonight. I didn't respond, but I now know why he was interested. He's playing house.

"I'm Jillian, but your dad calls me Jill." She brushes her long dirty-blond bangs from her forehead as she stares at me, I guess waiting for me to speak.

Another swipe of her hair. "You're Razor, right?"

"Yeah."

"Would you like some dinner? It's breakfast, but it's dinner, you know." Her voice shakes and she twists, then retwists, her fingers. "It's your dad's favorite. He's on his way home. He'll be thrilled for you to join us."

Us. The word is like a hammer and I'm the nail. Us. As if she belongs here and I don't. Us. The world feels disjointed.

Two days away wasn't enough. h.e.l.l, thirty years may not do the job. For over thirteen years, my father was faithful-loving the same woman day in and day out. Since three weeks after her death, it's been this. An endless parade of women through a revolving door.

The detective's voice loops in my brain: Your mother was unhappy... She was going to leave him. My mother was on her knees in front of me when she told me he was a man worth forgiving.

My gut twists. What if this parade wasn't new? What if Mom was leaving and the stream of women was the reason why? Breaking at the seams, I burst and throw a fist into the wall.

A picture frame crashes to the floor and shatters. The woman jumps and there's an indentation in the drywall that's going to p.i.s.s Dad off. The thought brings a grim sense of satisfaction.

"You're not the first. Cooking bacon isn't going to make you last any longer than the others." It's an a.s.shole thing to say, but it's also the most humane. This woman's trying too hard and those are the ones who show here weeks later in tears trying to understand why it didn't work between them.

"It's not like that," she pleads. "Your dad and I-we aren't like that."

That's what he convinces the women he sweet-talks into sleeping with him. I should tell her, but this is Dad's mess to clean up. Not mine. I walk past her, flick the switch to the light in my bedroom and grab a bag off the floor. They want to play house, I'll let them. She can stay as many nights as she desires or until Dad decides to trade her in for a new model.

The door to the house squeaks and my drawer makes a whoos.h.i.+ng sound as I pull it out. I toss in some boxers and socks. Slam that one shut and I dump as many s.h.i.+rts as I can out of the middle drawer.

Low voices. A feminine sob. My dad's deep tone.

"He didn't mean it," she says. "Please, don't. Not over me."

I don't need her fighting my battles. A hard yank and my bottom drawer drops to the ground. The corner cracks and little splinters of wood pepper the carpet. I jam every pair of jeans I own into the bag. The clothes are overflowing and I punch them down so I can zip it up.

"Razor!" Dad's in my doorway, red-hot as a five-alarm fire. "What the f.u.c.k are you doing making Jill cry?"

A menacing laugh rips from my throat. He's the one who broke the promise. He's the one who won't answer me regarding my mother and he's p.i.s.sed I hurt the sweet-b.u.t.t-of-the-week's feelings? I turn toward him and his eyes flicker to the bag in my hands.

He steps back. "Where are you going?"

Chevy's, Oz's. The clubhouse. Any of those are options. "Did you sleep around on Mom?"

Dad curls his fingers into the door frame. "Eli said he talked to you about trusting the club."

"This isn't about the club. This is about you, me and Mom. Did you sleep around on her?"

"That's where you're wrong. What happened between me and your mother was between me and her. You may be our son, but you have no right to ask that question."

"I remember the fights. I remember how the two of you went at it, but I could never hear what you were fighting over. She was miserable. I know this. You know this and then you get p.i.s.sed when I ask the obvious questions. This is between you and me. Did you sleep around on her? Did she kill herself because you couldn't make her happy?"

"Dammit, Razor! You're playing into that cop's hands. He wants to isolate you. He's been doing this s.h.i.+t to all of us over the past year."

"What difference does it make if I'm being played?" I pound my open hand to my chest. "We're legit. Our club is just that-a group of guys who ride bikes. And the security business, that's legit, too. I ride along semitrucks full of bourbon. Babysitting it until it gets from point A to point B. If I call the cop and meet with him in thirty minutes, it doesn't matter. There is nothing for him to get from me. I'm not playing into his hands, I'm asking questions I deserve the answers to."

A muscle in Dad's jaw ticks and he takes several seconds before he responds. "Is that what you're going to do? Are you going to meet with the cop?"

I haven't ruled it out. If I do, I'm going against the club in a way that won't be forgiven.

"This-" he overemphasizes the word "-this is what the board's been talking about. Why you had the longest prospect period out of anyone. Why you aren't trusted with answers now. None of us know where your loyalties lie. Not even me."

"Mom had nothing to do with the club," I say.

"She was a Terror Gypsy." The women's support group. They are wives or serious girlfriends of members of the club and they work together to support the Terror.

"Not the same. I'm asking as your son that you answer me. I'm tired, Dad. I'm so f.u.c.king tired of not knowing. I'm exhausted thinking she killed herself. That she chose to leave me!"

There's a strange wetness in my eyes and a loss of strength in my hands. The bag plunges to the floor and a rush of air from the impact hits my legs.

"Thomas..." Dad says in defeat.

I rub both of my hands over my face in an attempt to drive the emotions away. My arms drop to my sides, and when I glance up, Dad's entered my room. He stands before me, hands in his pockets, looking at me with the same pity look everyone in town wears when they spot me. "Your mother's death... I can't talk about it."

"You can." I need him to. "I know it's hard. It hurts to remember her, but if we sit and-"

"You misunderstand," he cuts me off. "I've been ordered not to."

My vision tunnels. I must have misunderstood what he said. If he's been ordered not to discuss Mom's death, then... "Mom's death is club business?"

He holds up his hand. "I didn't say that."

Yeah, he did. "Then why else would the board silence you?"

"For the same reason you've been kept in the dark. We can't trust you."

"The club patched me in. The board voted-"

"Because if we didn't, by our bylaws, you would have never become a member. You'd reached the maximum time anyone's allowed to be a prospect. None of us were willing to let you go, but you weren't ready. You still aren't ready. That patch on your back-it's borrowed."

I stumble back as his words strike me like a wrecking ball.

"You have to learn to trust us," Dad continues. "This club is your family. Let us in, Thomas. Let me in."

"How?" My arms are stretched wide, begging for him to give me an answer, any answer that will end this torment. "Tell me how, because I thought I was trusting you. I thought I was trusting the club."

"Let your mother's death go."

The world tilts and nausea sets up in my stomach. He's asking for the impossible. He's asking me to bleed out on the street. "I can't."

"Then we can't trust you. Not until you trust us."

f.u.c.k this. I swipe the bag off the floor, but Dad doesn't move. "This is your home."

"It was," I answer. "But then Mom died. This ain't a home. It's walls with a roof."

Pain flashes in Dad's eyes and he stiffens like he's paralyzed. I use the opportunity to stalk past. The new woman of the week hugs herself in the kitchen and opens her mouth like she's going to say something, but thinks better of it when I won't meet her gaze.

I'm out the door, down the steps, and I leave with no intention of coming back.

Breanna KEEPING IN MIND the most frequently used letters in the alphabet, I'm toiling my way through the Caesar encryption method. It's a simple method. One I don't expect to work because that would be too easy, but it's what my English teacher used on Friday.

The library's busy; at least it is toward the front. Because of that, I selected a table in the back. Joshua had practice before school, so I've been here for the past hour jotting down possible solutions and crossing them out just as quickly. It's frustrating and exhilarating, and if this is what being employed with the CIA is like, I want in.

There's a low buzz of conversation. Occasionally some girl laughs too loudly for too long, but a shush from the librarian silences her. There are footsteps on the carpet and a pause behind me. A flutter in my stomach wishes it's Razor, but then the overpowering smell of too much aftershave squashes that hope.

The chair across from me is drawn back and Kyle drops into it. I've been going to school with Kyle since kindergarten. He ate worms. I strung clover together to craft necklaces. We belonged to two different worlds then and nothing since then has changed, yet here he is talking to me again.

"I'm not writing your papers. I will help you, but I'm not writing them."

He scratches behind his ear and the action reminds me of a dog. Strands of his black hair now stick out. He rests his elbows on the table, then rests back in his seat, then forward again. A strange unsettling forms in my bloodstream. Whatever is about to happen will be bad.

Time to bolt. I turn off my phone, put it in my purse and scoot out of my chair as I sweep up my notes.

"You're going to write my papers," he says.

I stand and shove my wrong answers into my backpack. Mimicking my younger siblings, I ignore his existence.

"Did you know I have over six hundred Bragger followers? Thanks to football camp, I'm hitting close to seven hundred and I like to post stuff. Stuff some people may not want seen."

"So?" I empathize with those antelopes on the National Geographic specials that glance up from the watering hole and come face-to-face with a tiger. Like them, I'm terrified into immobilization.

Kyle rubs his eyes with his thumb and forefinger and I s.h.i.+ft my weight from one foot to the other. If I run, maybe whatever it is he's planning will fizzle, but something warns me that no matter how fast I sprint, he'll be able to catch up.

"You're wanting to go to college, right? Knowing you, you're going to some Ivy League school, am I wrong?"

He's not. Not at all. I hunger to go far from here. To go where there will be other people like me. Someplace where I won't be the one who is odd, but the one who belongs.

"Coach had a meeting with us a few months back on how we have to watch what we do online. How guys who have great track records on the field lose chances at scholars.h.i.+ps because of their behavior off the field and online."

The entire left side of my body goes numb, and I randomly wonder if I'm experiencing a stroke. Kyle's right. Universities do research people online. They do care about our personal lives when it pertains to coveted spots or scholars.h.i.+ps-especially with the schools I'm interested in attending.

The wooden chair cracks under his weight and he yanks his cell out of his pocket. "Have you seen this site before?"

Snowflake s.l.u.ts. Every girl I know hates that site. The first few times it sprang up on Bragger, someone told the school's administration and it was taken down, but like a bad pimple, it pops back up. No one reports it anymore, since the next picture in line is of the girl who snitched.

"I know the guys who run it."

My eyes dart to his. Guys? There's more than one sick, twisted pig at this school?

Kyle moves his fingers across the screen, then slides his cell over the table to me.