Page 38 of Avenged

Jersey twirled her ring on her finger. I reached out and took her hands in mine, stopping the motion. “Jersey, let me help.”

She stared at our hands, mine covering hers. “Why do you feel the need to keep doing this?”

She said it still looking down. As if she couldn’t meet my eyes.

“Doing what?”

“Helping us.”

“Why wouldn’t I? I don’t know anybody who wouldn’t offer to help if they could. It’s just the way my friends and I are built.”

“I know plenty of people who wouldn’t,” she whispered.

“Assholes. All of them,” I tried to joke.

“No.” She shook her head. “I understand why they wouldn’t. It’s why Violet and I should have moved ages ago.”

“Is this about your dad?”

“Who told you?” she asked, but she still wouldn’t look at me. I put my hand under her chin and tipped it up so she was forced to meet my gaze.

“Vi did,” I told her.

She was shaking her head. “No, she never talks about it.”

“Maybe she never talks about it with you because she knows you feel guilty for something that wasn’t your fault.”

She pulled herself away from me, eyes closing, and when they opened again, there was anger combined with unshed tears there. “No. Stop. You can’t fix this, Travis.”

She moved toward the stairs. “I’m going to go pack. But we’ll only be staying with you long enough to make Leena and Mandy think it’s where we’re at and I can get some cash.”

“You going to sell some more comics?” I asked.

“What?”

“Vi says you sell comics to get cash.”

She let the anger out. “Violet needs to stop telling you our business. It has nothing to do with you.” Her chin was raised, hands on her hips.

“Except, it is my business now, isn’t it?”

She guffawed. “Just because we signed a bogus marriage license? Not hardly. That was the whole purpose of the contract we signed.”

Violet showed up behind Jersey. For once, she treaded lightly on the stairs. For once, she took after her sister. “Are you saying we aren’t staying with them?”

Jersey jumped and turned to her sister. “It’s too much. You have to know that.”

“This is because you think I can’t be in the same house with Dawson without jumping his bones.”

Jersey grimaced. “That isn’t what I said.”

“God. I’m not a kid, Jersey. I haven’t been a kid for a long, long time. Even I know being sixteen is enough of a red flag for any guy like Dawson. Do I like him? Sure. Am I going to do anything about it? No. Is he going to do anything about it? Hell, no. We can’t afford to stay anywhere else. If you don’t stay, I’ll tell Leena and Mandy.”

“They’ve done enough for us!” Jersey said to her sister, the anger making her voice louder than it had ever been since I met her, and yet it was still barely an echo across the hallway.

“I agree. I don’t want them to feel obligated to help us, either. We can stay with Truck and Dawson. It’s just for a month. What could happen in a month?”

I didn’t want to tell her I’d seen, clear as day, what could happen in just a few days. I’d seen it with Eli and Ava. I’d seen it with Mac and Georgie. I’d been in a house with Jersey and felt my own bones shift in a way I’d never felt before. Having Jersey in the same house with me, a tiny house that would make it impossible to escape her presence, having her in my bed and knowing she was in my bed, it was going to be harder than anything in my life not to touch her. Harder than being flunked out of a course at A&M for nothing I’d done. Harder than losing out on a chance at the Navy. Harder than saying I do.

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