Page 95 of Lies Like Love

Fel

I’mmetwithscreamingthe moment I step into the house.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

I follow the voices into the living room to find Jude facing off with his father. My mom sitting on the couch with her cheeks buried in her hands.

“What’s going on?”

Mom jumps at the sound of my voice, while Jude and Steve’s gazes snap in my direction.

“Nothing.” Mom stands and brushes her fingers over the front of her dress.

“Nothing? Really?” Jude’s gaze darkens with the laugh rolling like thunder from his chest.

Tension in the air so thick, one more step and I might snap it. A line Jude tests with an unhinged chuckle that is so dark and unlike him, the boy pacing side to side might as well be a stranger.

“Nothing—”

“Don’t,” Steve cuts him off.

This family has been on a collision course, and as Jude pauses in front of his father with his hand in a fist, I sense the jagged edges. Rocks under the surface of what was once a peaceful ocean. A lighthouse too late with its warning.

“You really think I’ll keep this quiet?”

“You’re drunk.” Steve snatches the beer bottle I didn’t realize Jude was holding.

He doesn’t usually drink, even when he’s partying at a friend’s house. But lately, when his dad does something to really piss him off, he’s been drowning his rage with booze.

“What do you care?” The faintest slur of his words, and I’m not sure even I can get him out of this.

“You’re seventeen.”

Jude’s narrowed gaze is bone-chilling. “So age does matter?”

A heartbeat.

A pulse in the room.

Silence, but I’m sure we all hear it. Gazes flicking from one person to the next as they subtly avoid me.

“Go sleep it off.” Steve steps back and sets the beer bottle on a side table.

But Jude doesn’t move. He holds the line with his father and tucks his hands in his pockets. His gaze moves from his dad to my mom. Back and forth before it finally lands on her.

“Do something or I will.” His teeth clench. “Either way, I hope you both burn in hell.”

“Jude!” I reach for his arm as he walks past me, but he shakes me off.

My center of the universe is tilting.

The boy I met is fading.

Secrets eat him from the inside out.

Turning back to my mother, I search her stare for answers when all her gaze offers me is distance. Her eyes lose focus. They might as well grow legs and walk away from this moment—from me.

I’m losing them both, and I can’t seem to make them stay.

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