I knew where her need to disregard that I had a sex life originated—my unplanned existence. She’d never once made me feel unwanted, but I knew the story and connected the dots. If it weren’t for me, she and my father would have had time to plan a safer passage from Mexico. He might have lived.

I pulled into the wide driveway at the edge of the cul-de-sac, and Boyce pulled in behind me. “I don’t think this will take long,” I said, walking up to his open window.

“I’ll come in with you.”

“It’s better if I go in alone. I want her to concentrate on what I’m saying, not who’s with me. If you come in…” I shook my head. “I just need her to know it’s my decision.”

His jaw tensed. “Okay. But if you need me, call or text or yell and I’m there.”

I nodded. “I’ll be fine.” My stomach lurched when I glanced toward the house. “If you’re one of those guys who freaks out around tears, though, you might wanna get prepared. I hate disappointing people I love. I might cry.” My eyes filled just verbalizing the possibility, and he looked like I’d just told him he might need a big injection in a highly unpleasant location.

As I turned, he caught my wrist. “Pearl—I can’t imagine anyone ever being disappointed in you.”

When I walked into the kitchen, Mama had finished putting away the fresh food and was organizing pantry items and fussing at Tux, who issued piteous meows while circling her ankles, begging for a snack. I picked up an empty grocery bag and folded it, gathering my courage.

“Did you process the withdrawal?” she asked when she saw me.

“I’m not withdrawing, Mama. I’m not going to Michigan.” She froze and I pressed on. “I understand your requirements for living here, and I just… can’t. I’m sorry to disappoint you and Thomas, but this is my life. I have to do what’s right for me. So I’m moving in with a friend for the rest of the summer—Boyce Wynn? He has an extra room and he’s close to campus.”

I hadn’t ever known my mother to be speechless. Without waiting for her to emerge from her stupor, I left my house and car keys and my credit card on the counter next to a package of brown rice and a small bag of cat treats. I hugged her stiff shoulders and walked back outside as quickly as I could manage while blinded by tears. Boyce didn’t say a word when I curled into the seat, sobbing, but he reached over and took my hand as we pulled onto the road.

Chapter Fifteen

Boyce

Damn. I’d only seen Pearl cry once—right after I took her virginity like some ignorant assclown who didn’t know jackshit about how to make sex satisfying for a girl. I was mad at her for not telling me—until she said she’d thought maybe I wouldn’t have gone through with it if I’d known. She couldn’t have been more off target with that assumption. I’d all but wanted to plant a flag that said FIRST on one side and MINE on the other.

I was a goddamn idiot at eighteen.

“You gonna be okay?” I asked her once we were back home. “I was planning go out to the garage and get some work done. I’ve got a brake job to finish up and a transmission that’s— Well, I reckon you don’t need the particulars…”

“I’m okay.” The words scratched their way out of her throat.

I pulled the extra key off my carabiner and let her into the trailer before putting it into her hand, but didn’t follow. Two hours later, I scrubbed the grease off my hands and arms and went inside, unsure of my strategy if she was still crying. The only weepy girls I was familiar with were depressed drunks, which I took pains to avoid.

Pearl was sitting at the kitchen table, which looked like a backpack full of textbooks had exploded on top of it. No tears, thank Christ. Her legs folded up in the chair, she was tapping away at a small laptop. Her hair, wound and piled on top of her head in a knot, was too stubborn to be contained. Long, wavy chunks of it fell down her back and over her ears. I knew how soft and thick it would feel between my fingertips.

“Hey,” she said, twisting in her seat when I shut the door. Aw, hell. She was wearing glasses. I hadn’t seen her in glasses since she was thirteen, but these weren’t the chunky, thick-lensed sort she had back then. “I saw some cold cuts in the fridge. I thought we could make sandwiches for dinner…” She tipped her head to the side and blinked as I fought to focus on what she was saying once I’d realized she was talking. “Unless you’ve already got plans. I’m sorry, I didn’t even think—”

“No,” I blurted, cutting her off. “No plans. Except you. Tonight.” Fuck. What was wrong with my brain? She was just so damned cute. White shorts and black tank, barefoot, thin blue-framed glasses outlining her dark eyes, hair pinned up but trying its best to escape—and holy shit I wanted to take it down. She was wide-eyed and watching me like I’d lost my ever-lovin’ mind.

“Sandwiches. Good.” I pointed across the living room. “Gotta shower.”

I turned, stalked straight into the bathroom, and shut the door. Hands gripping the edge of the sink, I stared into the mirror and took a breath. Ten weeks and she’d be back in Austin. She’d come to me because she had no one else to turn to. I wasn’t gonna try to turn that into something it wasn’t. We were friends. Like Maxfield and me.

I laughed and turned on the water. Yeah, no. Not at all like Maxfield.

Those glasses though. Fuck me.

I took a hot shower and rubbed one out to take the edge off. If I’d been imagining some other girl on her knees, water plastering her hair to her back and streaming over her face and tits while her small hands grabbed my thighs and her mouth worked me over, it might have succeeded. Instead, I turned off the water, and the itch to walk out there butt-naked, pick her up, and take her straight to my bed was even worse.

“Goddammit. How is that even possible? Hell.” I held the towel over my face, mumbling to myself like I was fucking mental.

I dried off and realized I’d come straight into the bathroom with no clean clothes. Even with the south door to the garage open all day, it was June—hot and sticky all day long. No way I was putting that sweaty shit I’d been wearing pre-shower back on, and this towel was just big enough to cover my ass and my nuts. Barely.

I swiped the dirty clothes off the floor and opened the door, steam billowing out behind me like smoke rolling from the doorway of any bar in town on a Friday night. That was the answer, right there. I needed to go out and do a little flirting, a little drinking—go out and get my ass laid.