Page 28 of Wild Hit
“Right. So I asked the school if Marty’s nanny could take her spot, and I was told no. Only women with proven kinship can join, for safety reasons.”
“Whatever does that mean?” Audrey’s face scrunches up.
“The student’s mom or stepmom, an aunt, an older sibling, something like that. And Marty doesn’t have any of those around here.”
“Wow, that—” Audrey stops herself. Swallows. “You’re not thinking?—”
I jump backward, raising my hands up. “I told you it was going to sound creepy! We don’t have to?—”
“Wait.” She blinks fast and I can almost see her doing some complicated math in her brain.
I scoff. “Forget it. The last thing I want to do is add myself to the list of creeps in your life. That’s just not how I roll. I have a daughter too, you know?”
“Can I think about it?”
I clamp my mouth shut and look at her like she’s the one who has lost her mind, even though the wild idea was all mine. “You’re not serious.”
“I’m desperate. If I don’t come up with another solution, this might have to be it.”
“I—” Mierda, I’m about to say something even worse. “Okay?” It comes out more as a question because honestly I don’t know what I’m doing.
CHAPTER 13
AUDREY
“Come inside, Barbie. That hat is not enough to keep you from frying.”
I snort and just turn over my shoulder. Rose takes one peek at the visible lather of sunblock all over my face and starts chuckling. Yes, I look like a little kid whose overprotective mom went a bit too hard on the sun protection.
But this is a trick I learned from a severe sunburn I got when I was about ten, after sitting with my parents and my brother at a balcony seat in Monaco for the Grand Prix. The adults didn’t mind the sun or the heat because they had alcohol to keep them entertained. Meanwhile, I was still in my obedient phase so when I was toldsit here, that’s literally all I did, and my chair was the one lucky spot that was in the sun the whole day. I probably owe half of my freckles to that occasion alone.
Yeah, yeah. I know. Boo freaking hoo.
“The plants won’t water themselves,” I explain in my driest tone.
Rosalina shakes her head, glorious curls framing her face delicately. “You do know that there’s practically a daily monsoon in the Central Florida summers, right?”
“Not this week, according to the weather app.” I shift to hose the next potted plant. “Besides, it relaxes me.”
“What are you stressed about?”
The way she asks makes me feel a little guilty, because there’s absolutely no ulterior motive behind her question. Rose is clever and inquisitive, attributes that anyone would use to gain one cutthroat victory after the next in the way that my dad does business.
In contrast, Rose is one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met. If she asks you something, it’s because she really wants to get to know you deep down. It’s her secret sauce for making one viral video after the next for the team’s social media, because she has the talent to bring out the truest form out of everyone. No wonder someone as closed off as Logan Kim fell for her so hard.
But I’m a vault.
More than once I’ve considered sitting Hope and Rosalina down for too-boozy margaritas, Trader Joe’s snacks, our Costco blankets, and telling them everything.
And I meaneverything—from the sunburn that happened out of parental neglect, to how my brother started sampling Dad’s booze stash since he was a tween because he was also neglected, to how our parents still ignored him even when Adam was showing serious signs of addiction in his teenage years, to how that led to his death behind the wheel, and how that was the catalyst for me to finally leave home and become a family of one.
Also, to how I no longer feel alone since they’ve become my friends.
I bite my lip. Talking about all that would still not resolve the big issue for me—and non issue for literally anyone else—that I can’t find a way to cut my dad off without putting them at risk.
They’d kill me for it, and so I have to solve this on my own.
Or… or I take the lifesaver that Miguel casually threw at me.
