Page 70 of Give Me Redemption

Bryce ruffles my hair. “Nah, he’ll be okay with y’all. Can I please?”

Pops looks at Emily, and I watch them both. I’ve got high hopes they’ll say no, but then I think Bryce will get mad, so I’m torn.

“I guess you can,” Pops says.

“Awesome,” Bryce says. “I’ll go give them a call.” He runs into the house and I put my mask back on, hiding the hurt I feel when he doesn’t even look back at me.

“Hey,” I hear. I jump and look to my left. Dalton stands with her hands in her back pockets, looking at me curiously, nervously.

I hit my smoke. “Hey,” I reply, giving her a Jace smile. I toss the thing and blow smoke away from her before grabbing a piece of gum from my pocket.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Never better.” I shake the letdown I feel from the memory.

We start to walk, and neither of us really says anything. The awkwardness is noticeable. A kid runs past us, throwing up rocks from his shoes.

“Whoa,” Michelle says, laughing a little. “He’s going to fall.”

“Yeah, probably,” I reply. I pull out my wallet when we near the entrance.

“I can pay for my own,” she says, sliding money from her back pocket.

“Put that shit up,” I say with a smirk.

She shrugs and puts the money back. I hand the lady a few bills, and she hands us some armbands. We walk through, mulch crunching beneath our feet, the crisp air slicing the night.

The sun has disappeared, and darkness covers the sky. The clouds shade the moon, so it’s just the spread-out lanterns and lit pumpkins lighting the area.

Shit, this is uncomfortable. We haven’t seen each other in a while, and the last time we did wasn’t good.

We were talking on the phone every night. We went from everything to nothing. The glow of the lanterns warms her face, making her eyes shine and the freckles stand out. She’s beautiful.

I scratch the back of my neck, trying to come up with a way to talk to her. We walk through the entrance of the corn maze, hearing a kid cry up ahead.

“He fell,” we both say. We laugh, breaking some tension.

I lick my lips, and she looks down. “Jace, I’m sorry about that night. I wasn’t myself.”

“I shouldn’t have pried,” I say. “You were right. It wasn’t my business.”

“But the way I reacted. I could have handled that better.”

“True.” I shrug my shoulder.

She grins. “You aren’t supposed to agree with me.”

I laugh. “If you’re looking for that person, you picked the wrong guy.”

She licks her lips again and nods. “Can we just forget about it all? Move on?”

“That’s cool, for now,” I reply, thinking one day we will have to address what the fuck all that was, but realizing today isn’t that day.

She smiles. “Great. Now, how the hell do you get out of this thing?”

“Easy,” I say.

She laughs. “You can’t know that.”

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