Page 112 of Verses

“Yeah. I haven’t felt that good about the guys in the band…maybe ever. And I get the feeling you don’t want to take credit for it, but itisbecause of you. You’ve brought us together in a way that none of the rest of us was ever able to do. You’ve managed to solidify us. Now we have a common goal; we’re getting along…and I want to thank you for that.”

“Hayley, it’s not just me. I don’t want you to put all this unwarranted faith in me. You guys have had it in you all along.”

“No, you don’t understand. We didn’t even have this back in the beginning. We didn’t have this camaraderie, even when Liam was around—and it’s because of you, whether you want to take credit for it or not.”

To that, he simply shook his head. After several long seconds, he said, “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

Why was he being so stubborn about taking credit for something Iknewhe’d affected?

Before I could push any further, he changed the subject. “So tell me what I need to know about your family.”

Jesus. It would be hard enough having him meet them in the first place, but I supposed he should have some warning. “Well…like I said earlier, I never know who’s gonna be there, because my mom invites tons of people—and sometimes there are people at the table I’ve never met before. As for everybody else…where do I start?”

“It’s okay, little bird. You’re not the first person with a dysfunctional family. You won’t scare me away.”

I laughed—but he wasn’t wrong. “Okay. I’ll just dive in. First, my mom. Uh…I guess it goes without saying thatwhateverI say will be biased.”

“No way around that.”

Nodding, I took a sip of water. “All right. So mom. She’s, um…she’s a little kooky, and I kind of think of her like a butterfly…meaning she flits from thing to thing to thing, never looking back.”

“ADHD?”

“No idea. But, like, when I was still living at home, one year she wanted to grow all our own food, so she planted a garden. She wasn’t a slouch, and she went all out. It was huge. And then she started to build a chicken coop, because she wanted to get chickens—not just for the meat but for eggs. That was her plan, but the chickens never arrived. Anyway, that summer, she wasweeding and watering and constantly talking about that fucking garden.”

“Can’t really blame her.”

I let that sink in for a bit…because it was hard to think of my mother as just a person. There was so much history and it was hard to view her objectively. But I said, “I guess that’s fair. I don’t remember exactly when, but the vegetables started coming in, so many that she didn’t know what to do with them. She finally invited the whole neighborhood to come over and pick because she couldn’t keep up, even having us kids help her. Then she got this idea to start canning—but she never did that.”

“Did she ever garden again?”

“Nope—and when they sold the house, they still had the unused chicken coop on the property. But that’s what she does. She finds projects and loses interest. Maybe that’s normal. I don’t know.” Suddenly, I didn’t feel as comfortable judging my mother. “You probably already gathered that we don’t have the greatest relationship—and it’s probably two sided. I’m sure I have something to do with it too, but it’s been really hard for me to let go of the resentment I feel.”

“You want to talk about that?”

I didn’t know if I did—but I wanted Wolf to be a big part of my life…meaning he’d find out sometime. I might as well tell him now. “Promise not to charge me?”

He chuckled, picking up his cup again. “I won’t send you a bill.”

“Fair enough.” I just watched him as he took another sip of his coffee and finally pushed myself into telling himpartof the story—but there weresomeplaces I just couldn’t go. “I don’t know if you know, but my whole family used to live in Charlotte, and I started hanging out with Kyle and Liam when Kyle and I started dating.”

“When was that?”

“I was a freshman in high school.”

“You guys were together a long time.”

“Yeah.” Definitely long enough. “Anyway, after a while, we got this idea to start a band, you know…to be the next best sound. Every generation seems to have a Black Sabbath or Metallica or Nirvana. Why couldn’t we do that? Kyle and Liam played guitars already, and it didn’t take long for Pedro and Adrian to join us. Some of our first few songs weren’t that good, but we were learning.” I paused, realizing I was avoiding the question. “Sorry. I kind of got sidetracked.”

“That’s okay. Tell me whatever you want.”

Was it any wonder I couldn’t help but fall for this man?

“It wasn’t long before Kyle and I started getting into trouble. You know…we were kids, having sex whenever we could.” If Wolf hadn’t already known that Kyle and I had been together for a while, I might not have revealed that info so bluntly. Still, I didn’t pause on that fact, instead continuing full speed ahead. “But we were also smoking, drinking, using pot, trying this pill and that, skipping school. All that stuff. So I was always coming home late, and my grades were going from bad to worse. My mom had to deal with a truancy officer from the school and…let’s just say I was pretty out of control my sophomore year.”

“A lot of kids go through that.”

“Yeah…but I was probably worse than most. And during my junior year, Phil got a promotion. He’d been working for the Walmart in Silver City—but if he was willing to move to La Junta, he would climb the ladder and get a nice boost in pay.”

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