Page 15 of Off Limits

Something must have happened because his usually pale skin was chalk white, and he had dark circles under his eyes. His hair was more disheveled than usual, and his shoulders were stooped, like he had the weight of the world on them. He looked…defeated.

“That’s supposed to be better?” He arched one eyebrow and closed the door behind him.

“What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

“No, not sick.” He raked his hand through his hair, messing it up even more. “I’m just fucked.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you promise not to be a dick if I tell you something?” he asked wearily.

I nodded.

“And do you promise not to tell our parents?”

“Yeah, sure. What the hell is going on?”

I didn’t like seeing him like this. It wasn’t just weird, it was concerning, and I didn’t know what to do with the worry I felt for him.

“I’m kind of in a bind,” he mumbled, his gaze fixed on my shoulder.

“What kind of bind?”

“The kind where I got evicted, and I’m going to have to live in my car starting tomorrow.”

Of all the things he could have said, that would have been at the bottom of my list of possible subjects.

“What?” I asked, still reeling from that bombshell. “When? How?”

The corner of his mouth curled up in a small smirk as he slid his gaze to mine. “Two more and you’ve got all theWs and theHof questions covered.”

“Drop the sarcasm and tell me what the fuck happened.”

His smirk fell. “I got renovicted.”

I nodded slowly. He wouldn’t be the first person I’d known who’d gotten kicked out of their place for fake renovations that were just an excuse to jack up the rent. “When?”

“I got the letter three weeks ago. My deadline to get out is tomorrow.”

“Three weeks? How is that legal?”

“It’s not, but they dated the letter a week before they taped it to my door, so they technically gave me thirty days. They just neglected to tell me about it for the first seven of them.”

“Jesus. Have you talked to a lawyer?”

“Right, because I have hundreds of bucks laying around to spend on legal advice.” He snort-laughed. “That’s why I lived in that craphole, not because I’m broke as fuck and it was all I could find in my price range.”

I stopped myself from reminding him my dad was a lawyer. It wasn’t like that was news to him. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked instead. He usually did everything in his power to keep me out of his business. Why had he purposely sought me out to tell me this?

“Because I have no one else to go to.” He looked away, his eyes suspiciously shiny. “I asked my dad if I could stay with him, and he said no. I can’t ask Mom and your dad?—”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t.” His eyes flashed with anger as he met my gaze again. “You know how they are. Do you think they’d ever let me live this down? Do you honestly believe that my mom wouldn’t use this against me for the rest of my life? Or that your dad wouldn’t charge me rent and present me with an itemized bill to repay them for their generosity when I left?”

“No, they definitely would do that,” I conceded. “What about your friends? Can’t you couch surf or crash in someone’s spare room?”

He snorted, only this one wasn’t an attempt at a laugh and sounded derisive. “What friends? I’d have to have those in order to ask them.”

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