Page 45 of Bad Reputation

She glances at me. “When will the tide shift?”

I glance up at the sun, trying to gauge its position in the sky. “I think maybe six hours from now? Give or take.”

She grins triumphantly. “Can we go down there? I mean, I know that we will have to hike a while, but I think it’d be worth it.”

“Yeah, definitely. Let’s just make sure that we grab some water bottles before we go.”

We go back to the house, where I grab the water bottles and she changes into yoga pants. I can’t be mad about that. I have never seen her in workout gear before, but there is something about the way her ass moves in yoga pants that instantly has me hard as a rock. When I insist that she leads the way as we snake our way up a hiking trail that follows the rise of the bluffs, she is too eager to comply.

Soon enough though, she has me figured out.

“Are you even doing anything back there other than checking out my butt?” She looks back over her shoulder, pinning me with her gaze.

I glance up from her ass, unashamed. “Nope.”

Emma sighs and drops back so that she’s walking with me. The path that we’ve traveling narrows a little, and trees start to pop up, the foliage growing thicker pretty quickly.

She’s quiet for a minute, but I can see the gears turns in her head. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Depends. Is it about Asher or Cure?”

She makes a face. “Neither. It’s about your parents.”

“My parents?” I ask, a little thrown off. “What about them?”

“I’ve just never heard you talk about them. What do you remember?”

I take a full minute to consider her question. “Well, they were young when they had me. My mom was probably about fifteen. She wasn’t even twenty years old when Gunnar was born.”

“Yeah?”

I nod. “My dad was a little older than her, but not by much. They were both addicted to heroin before we were born.” I pause. “Gunnar was taken away by the state at birth because he tested positive for opiates when he was born. Don’t tell him that, though.”

“Wait, really?”

“Mmmhm. My grandma stepped in and took him, and then took in all three of us in the next few months.”

“Wow, I had no idea. Do you remember your parents much?”

I screw up my face. “Kinda. I remember them arguing a lot. They got the cops called because they were both pretty violent towards each other. I remember being glad when they got theirmedicine, because they would be calm for a day then.”

Emma takes my hand, lacing her fingers with mine. “I’m sorry.”

I shrug. “It could’ve been worse. At least they didn’t hit me or my brothers or anything.”

“So you were shipped off to your grandmother’s at… what, five?”

“Yep. Grandma Ruth. She was very strict, but she was around when we needed her. I didn’t ever—” I stop, taking a breath. I wasn’t really ready for this conversation to get all heavy. “I never told her while she was alive how much I appreciated that she took us in. She didn’t have to.”

She squeezes me hand. “I’m sure she knew.”

I give Emma a tight smile. The path shifts and starts heading downward, and the trees thinning out. The path veers right and the trees vanish. Suddenly I’m looking at a view of the ocean.

Beneath my feet the ground starts to slope drastically, leading down to a long set of stairs that have been carved into the rock. We clatter down the stairs together, reaching the pebbled shore at the bottom.

I step out from the stone staircase, looking behind me with awe.

“We just climbed down that.” I point at the towering stone bluff. “That seems impossible.”

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