Page 21 of The Kid Sister

“Yep,” I said, checking my rearview mirror as I reversed out of my spot, hoping to stay ahead of Dad. “From my Nana and Granddad.” The red Range Rover Sport was a dream to drive, but Dad hated it. Strike that, I mean he wasjealousof it. He said an eighteen year old kid didn’t need a brand new vehicle, let alone one that cost as much as a house in some states, which admittedly made me uncomfortable. But Nana and Granddad had insisted, and if they couldn’t spoil their number one grandson on his 18th birthday, then what was the point in having all that money, they said. By number one grandson, I mean only grandson.

“It’s nice,” she said.

I waited till I’d driven out of the school grounds before speaking. “Hey, I’m sorry I said that before. I was just joking.” From my peripheral vision, I saw her mouth twitch and her jaw clench, and I feared she was shutting me out. “Sierra?”

“I know,” she said, and she cleared her throat, then drew in a shaky breath. “Cullen.”

There was a tension in her tone that rendered me mute, like I shouldn’t interrupt her, that she was on the verge of telling me something significant. “Sawyer wasn’t meant to give me a ride home.”

For a few seconds I interpreted that as meaning she deliberately planned for me to drive her home, creating a wild moment where I thought I’d been right about her checking me out in the hot tub.

But her next words cut to my core, into my bone marrow, into my very essence.

“I heard you and your Dad in the locker room last night. I had to come back for my phone. I left it in my vest.” Her chest rose, like she needed more oxygen to continue. “I didn’t want it...to happen again.”

Already defensive mode was alerted, a retort in my head, a denial, a misunderstanding. What had she heard? What did she know? Nothing. Nothing had happened. Dad had shouted at me, so what? That happened all the time. He’d made me do push ups—again, nothing new. I’d had to hold a thirty pound weight while doing a wall squat. Yeah, whatever. My legs and arms had shaken, trembled, and I’d crumpled into a heap and I’d barely been able to hold my fork at dinner. No pain, no gain.

With my mind raging and my eyes glued to the road ahead, to the upcoming intersection, I barely registered her touch to my leg.

And then I did.

And it sunk in, replaying in my head:I didn’t want it to happen again.

She was looking out for me. Little Sierra Huntington had made up a story to get a ride home so that I could escape from my own father. She’d sneaked donuts into my room because she knew I was on a restricted diet, and now she’d found a way to free me from Dad’s brutish behavior.

If there was silence, I didn’t hear it.

But several blocks passed, houses, signs, the road to the Huntington house, the steep driveway. I accidentally drove straight past it.

“Oops,” Sierra said, taking her hand off of my knee and forcing me to brake hard. “I can just walk up.”

“No,” I said, pulling up close to the curb and putting the car in park. I switched off the engine, but was too scared to look at her, head down, blinking furiously to clear my eyes. “No, I’ll drive you up.”

But I didn’t attempt to start the car. And she didn’t try to leave.

“You never stop,” she whispered.

“We’ve got a championship to win,” I said feebly.

“I worry about you,” she said, and my heart surged and it wobbled and the whole world spun off its axis in that moment, my breathing faltering.

How many seconds passed, I’m not sure. I only knew that I reached over to still her fidgeting fingers, to hold her hand in mine. “You don’t have to worry about me,” I said, but my voice was hoarse and thick and unconvincing, and I jerked my hand back to the steering wheel and started the car.

Outside her house, I unloaded her bags from the trunk, and she smiled and said, “Thanks Cullen.”

I raised my eyebrows in acknowledgment, too afraid to speak in case my voice let me down again. It had already betrayed me, bared my weakness, showed a side that nobody saw.

But Sierra Huntington had seen it.

And I didn’t know if that was a blessing or a curse.

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