Page 26 of Turn

Tristan stretched out on the bed and rolled over, facing away. I didn’t say anything else to him before returning to the bathroom because I couldn’t show up for work wearing a white towel. When I got out of the bathroom Tristan was sound asleep.

“What’s for breakfast?” Brecken asked, stretching. His red t-shirt was wrinkled and there was a spot of what looked like dried hot sauce on his shorts but that was the best we could do today.

“Come on,” I told him. “I’ll buy you a couple of donuts.”

We ate our donuts in the car and then I dropped Brecken off at summer school. He didn’t hop out of the car immediately. Instead he frowned at the dashboard.

“What’s up?” I said.

He heaved an enormous sigh and looked at me. “Is Tristan going to leave?”

I swallowed. “I don’t know, buddy. I hope not. All we’ve got, the three of us, is each other now.” I tousled his hair even if he was too old for that and made sure he had some lunch money before he stepped out of the car.

As I pulled away from the middle school curb the engine belched and faltered. I thought the thing was about to stall but it groaned back to life. I hoped it stayed alive. I sure as shit didn’t have the resources to deal with car trouble right now. The hunk of junk was hanging in there so far though. I’d had a much nicer mode of transportation in Nedry but I sold it when I got to Emblem and my family’s situation careened downhill even faster. The house served as bail collateral but more money was needed for the lawyers. When my mother skipped out on bail that meant an automatic forfeit on the collateral so there went the house. And the lawyers had sucked up everything else with nothing to show for it. In the end I was lucky to get a deal on this clanking piece of shit. Bert Quacken from Quacken’s Used Car Lot had been a friend of my dad’s and handed over the title for next to nothing.

For some reason my stomach performed a tiny somersault when I saw Cassie Gentry’s compact Toyota was already in the parking lot. I didn’t even know Cassie and she had already managed stir a strange mix of things inside me.

I didn’t want to see her.

But I liked looking at her.

I’d fuck her in a heartbeat if I got the chance.

But under no circumstances did I want to actually get that chance.

When I walked through the doors she was sitting at the reception desk and staring at a computer screen. She didn’t look directly at me.

“Good morning, sunshine,” she said with obvious sarcasm.

“Hey, Cassie,” I answered in a voice that I hoped sounded polite.

“No burrito today?”

“No burrito.”

“I noticed you forgot to eat your hot dog.”

“I’ll get to it at some point.”

She looked at me then. A scowl twisted her pretty mouth.

I told myself to walk right on by but I stopped anyway. “What?” I demanded.

She shrugged. Her shoulders were delicate beneath a thin light blue v-neck shirt that complemented her eyes. The shirt wasn’t remotely revealing and yet it drove me a little crazy.

“You look a bit disheveled,” she said. “Wild night or something?”

I leaned against the reception counter, placing my palms on either side. I saw Cassie’s gaze move from my face over my arms, taking in the sight of all the ink and all the muscle up close. She sucked in her lower lip briefly and shifted in her chair. I felt a twinge of triumph.

“Or something,” I said in a low, deep voice.

She shifted in her chair again, tossing her golden hair over one shoulder like she was trying to flick away the sexual energy. It wasn’t so easy.

Oh, man. What I could do to this girl if the situation was different…

But it wasn’t different. Cassie was my boss’s prissy, uptight daughter and I was not tapping that no matter how much my dick demanded to be unleashed.

There was no time to contemplate my fantasies anyway because the doors opened behind me and Cord Gentry walked in.

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