Page 58 of Avenged

“Go with you? To a Comic Con?” Dawson said with a smirk and fake sarcasm.

“That isn’t very nice. I think I’ll keep the ticket and just give it away to some random dude who’s standing outside the convention center drooling.”

Dawson’s smirk was wiped away. “Fine, fine, in order to save you from being kidnapped by some completely strange lunatic you would risk your life talking to at a comic book convention, I’ll come with you.”

“Ask nicely,” she said as she put the plates down.

“Vi, don’t be rude. They’ve been letting us stay with them, putting up with our girl stuff all over their bachelor pad, and now are willing to drive us to Hartford. The least we can do is give Dawson the extra ticket,” I said with a smile, realizing I’d called her Vi. Just like Travis and Dawson did.

“There’s only one bachelor in this house; the other male is part of an old married couple,” Dawson teased.

Travis slapped him on the back of the head. “Be good, or I won’t let you come no matter what the ladies say.”

It was the perfect way to end what had started as a pretty crappy day. With people who were smiling. With something good to look forward to the next day. With happiness and friendship and my sister.

Truck

SOME OF IT

“Some of it you learn the hard way,

Some of it you read on a page.

Some of it comes from heartbreak,

Most of it comes with age.”

Performed by Eric Church

Written by Pinson / Daniels / Church / Hyde

It was ass-crack-of-dawn early, but it was worth being up and on the road in the dark. It was worth it because the smile that had spread over Jersey’s face the night before was still there in the wee hours of the morning when we got the pickup on the road. She was bursting with happiness. I wanted to hug Vi for making it happen. For knowing just what her sister had needed to pull her out of the depths of a really ugly day.

It hadn’t all been ugly. There’d been our kiss. The kiss I couldn’t get out of my head. The kiss my body couldn’t stop reacting to every time I had a moment to myself. The way she’d tucked herself up against me and returned the kiss.

But thinking of our kiss also brought back the memories of the assholes who’d hurt her—the people at the taco truck being the least of them. The assholes who’d taken a scared, lonely teen and turned her into some goddamn witch to be burned at the proverbial stake. I wanted to meet every single one of them in person someday. I wanted to show them the extent of their errors, but that wouldn’t help Jersey.

The thing that was helping her was this. The joy of a comic convention, or whatever the hell Violet had called it. They were good for each other, Violet and Jersey. They were good for each other in a way that made me just the teensiest bit jealous, because I wasn’t that good for Dawson. I wanted to be. It was why I’d dragged his ass out of Clover Lake and all the way across the country. I wanted to know what made him happy.

I wasn’t doing a very good job of it. I’d lost sight of what I’d wanted because of the two blondes sitting in the back seat. Really, just the one. The one my body ached to hold. The one who kissed like she needed it to stay sane. The one who normally moved through the world trying to be invisible.

Not this morning.

Jersey and Vi were sitting in the back seat, having refused to let Dawson cramp his long legs into the back, and they were scrolling the convention website, making a plan of attack to ensure they got to see and do the most that was humanly possible in the one day.

Violet huffed. “We should have put together costumes. Anyone wearing a costume gets entered for a chance to have dinner with the entire Image Fist gang.”

I looked into the rearview mirror at Jersey. She wasn’t fazed at all by Violet’s pout. “Who cares about costumes? We still get to meet them and have them sign my comic books. We should have stopped at Leena’s and gotten more.”

“You can barely carry that backpack as it is,” I said with a smile.

She met my eyes in the mirror and stuck out her tongue. It made my heart and body skip about ten beats. This was the Jersey I’d known was there, underneath the layer of bricks she carried around with her. The one who let the joy of the day fill her until her blue eyes sparkled and her lips quirked, making me want to kiss them all the more.

“I can’t believe I let you all bully me out of bed this early,” Dawson griped, but I saw the small smile on his face, too. He was enjoying the ladies’ happiness as much as I was.

When we got to Hartford and parked in the convention center lot, a small furrow had taken over between Jersey’s eyes. When we got out of the pickup, I held her back with a hand to her arm as Violet and Dawson headed toward the elevators. “What’s up?”

“I forgot about the cost of the parking. I’ll pay you back.”

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