Page 25 of Getting It Twisted

I clench my fists, cursing my stubbornness and the pain that made me this way.

With a new sort of finality to his tone, Daniel says, “Is this what it’s going to be like with you? This . . . this drama? This arrogant fucking facade of yours, getting us both into trouble?”

I cut my gaze back up to him, and my tongue twists my words into an arrogant drawl. “Come on, it was kind of fun, though, wasn’t it?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“But you liked it at least a little bit, didn’t you?”

“Here’s the thing: We had fun as kids, all right, but before you showed up, I was trying to stay out of that shit. I was trying to get my life together!”

“Well, you’re not doing that good of a job,” I mutter. Shit, why did I say that? Why can I never keep my mouth shut?

“You know what?” Daniel snaps. “I did what I set out to do today. I got you back to your car. I’m done.”

Wait . . .I’m done?What the hell does he mean by that?

“Okay, but . . . We’ll see each other later, right?”

He just sends me a tired glance, slides into the seat of his car, and drives away. I look after him as he disappears, wondering why shit always seems to fall apart around me.

If he was serious—if he’s really done with me for good—then there’s no longer any point to anything.

Chapter 6

Daniel

The final piece ofthe puzzle clicks into place:Thisis what it’s like to hang out with Nathan.

His arrogance? His unrivaled knack of pissing me off? That’s just the start of it. His magnetism for trouble follows soon after, and while it used to excite me as a teen, it now rubs me the wrong way.

We used to get into these kinds of situations all the time, with varying degrees of danger and lawlessness. It sort of comes with the price of being Nathan’s friend, for better or for worse. I’ve had years now of trying to walk the straight and narrow. Years of trying to make something honest of my life.

And the worst of it? He’s right; Ididlike it. It’s been a long time since I felt as alive as I did just then.

I clench my hands around the steering wheel and take a sharp turn onto the main road. I see Nathan staring after me in the rearview mirror, and the sight hits me with an odd sense of guilt.

He doesn’t deserve my sympathy. There’s something dark and twisted in him that he hasn’t matured out of. I cannot fucking believe the way he acted. You don’t fuck around with tweakers like Joshua; you just don’t. He could’ve had a knife on him, or a gun, and he sure didn’t look like he’d hesitate to use it. But of course, Nathan has never cared what danger he puts himself in. Or the danger he putsmein.

Why did I take him to dinner to begin with? I shouldn’t care if he lives on canned food, cigarettes, and coffee, or if he fucking starves. And I shouldn’t care if he has to walk by the side of the road for an hour to get into town.

I shouldn’t care about his well-being at all, and he clearly doesn’t care about mine.

Right now, all I want is to get home, fall into bed, and forget this day ever happened. Forget how mine and Nathan’s lives are now entangled in ways I didn’t plan for, and under more dangerous circumstances. I’m an accomplice now, damn it. Joshua knows me. If Nathan leaves town before paying that debt, Joshua will come to me to collect it.

The clock is nearing eleven when I get home. I pass the living room, where George and April are huddled up watching TV.

“Late day at work?” George asks over his shoulder.

“I wasn’t at work; I was with Nathan.” I’ll have to tell them sometime, anyway. Might as well be tonight.

“Withhim?” George stands up, rounds the couch, and leans on the backrest with his arms crossed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“We had . . . dinner.” Since I don’t want him to completely go off on me, I neglect to mention the skirmish with Joshua. This is going to be bad enough as it is.

George blinks, and his face twists in disbelief and anger. “Excuse me? I thought you were supposed to stay away from that guy!”

“Yeah, but you know how he is. He’ll never get his mom’s house in order unless he has someone to kick him in the ass.”

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