Page 2 of The Way We Are

I’m just a fragment of her past. He’s her future.

Pretending I can’t feel annoyance bubbling in my veins, I stab my car key into the ignition and twist. “Come on, you piece of shit,” I grumble under my breath when three turns fail to fire up my motor.

Chris swings his dark brown eyes to me. “I thought you and your dad were going to work on your motor last weekend?”

I huff. “Yeah, well, you know as good as anyone the shit dads promise when they’re drunk.”

Not a word seeps from Chris’s lips. Not one.

Unfortunately, I'm not the only one sitting in this rust bucket with an alcoholic father. Chris's dad was set for fame. His band made a pretty penny back in the nineties, six months after Chris’s dad left the group to marry his knocked up on-again-off-again fling. That was the start of Trevor's downward spiral.

When you drink an entire bottle of scotch in a night, and you wake up without the slightest hangover the next day, you know you have issues. Both Trevor and my dad have issues. It's just my dad who is in denial.

“Pop open the hood; you probably flooded the engine.” Chris slips out of the passenger seat fast, but not fast enough for me to miss him grumbling, “Probably all that drooling you were doing over Savannah.”

Acting like I didn’t hear his sneered comment, I join him under the hood. “Flooded?”

Throw me a stack of wood and a pile of nails, and I'll create you a masterpiece. Stick anything mechanical in front of me, and you’re just asking for a disaster.

“Nah. It appears to be your battery. The terminals are corroded. If we can get some charge to it, it will get us home, but you’re gonna need a new battery. This one is too old to hold charge.”

Wiping the grease from his hands onto his jeans, his eyes swing to the right. Following the direction of his gaze, my jaw ticks.

“Fuck no. Nope. No chance in hell. Ain’t happening.”

I back away from him with my hands held up in the air like I did when we got arrested for underage drinking last month. I’d rather face the wrath of my drunken father who picked me up from the station at 2 AM than ask douchebag Axel for help.

“I’ll call Brax.”

“Can’t,” Chris replies, glaring into my icy blue gaze. “His child labor job started today.”

I arch a brow, clueless.

“The tattoo shop he tagged last week. Grace negotiated with the owner for him to work there until he pays back his debt.”

I smirk, mentally rubbing salt into Brax’s wounds for not listening to my warning. “I told him not to tag Ryder’s territory. That was just asking for trouble.”

Chris nods, agreeing with me before returning his eyes to Savannah and Axel walking to his convertible. Chris’s suggestion of asking Axel for help still pisses me off, but not as severely as it did earlier. My anger is kept at bay from the sneaky glance Savannah gives me while Axel says goodbye to his friends with a two-finger salute. Although her green eyes are barely visible under her waves of golden locks, they’re not hidden enough for me to miss the direction of their gaze. I want to pretend she is looking at me with adoration, but I know that isn’t the case. She is probably trying to figure out why I’m still here. Usually, nothing but a dust cloud is left in my wake once her cheerleading practice is over.

Okay, now I really sound like a dirty old perv.

When Axel curls his hand around Savannah’s, my eyes drift back to Chris. “If I ask him for help, I’ll never live it down.”

“Don’t ask him. Ask her,” Chris proposes, nudging his head to Savannah, who is once again glancing my way. “She will help you. She’ll do anything for her little Ry-Ry.”

Pretending Savannah’s sneaky glances haven’t made my heart skip a beat, I throw my fist into Chris’s stomach, winding him.

“Shut the fuck up with the Ry-Ry shit,” I growl under my breath.

There is only one person allowed to call me Ry-Ry. It sure as hell isn’t Chris. Furthermore, Savannah hasn’t called me a nickname in years. Actually, come to think of it, she hasn’t called me anything, much less something as personal as a term of endearment. We haven’t spoken since the seventh grade, so I doubt she remembers the nickname she gave me when she was six.

“Everything okay?”

After gathering my heart from the floor from being snuck up on, I shift my eyes to the singsong voice that drifted over me like a refreshing late spring breeze. Savannah’s smile blacks out the low-hanging sun when she grins at my skittish response. Remaining quiet, she drinks in my wide eyes, gaping mouth, and bristle-covered chin before glancing down at my rusty, old engine.

“Looks nasty,” she grimaces, screwing up her button nose.

When she tucks a strand of her long, glossy locks behind her ear, her seductive scent penetrates my nasal cavities. Her smell reminds me of freshly picked roses and baby’s breath. There is no mistaking this. I know the scent very well, as my father buys my mother a dozen roses every time he screws up. That’s a minimum two to three times a week lately in my household.

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