“No, that’s okay,” I smile at my mother.
Chastity catches up to me at the staircase.
“Evangeline Ellis!” she hisses as she snags my arm.
I sigh, whirling. “Look, I’m sorry, but-”
“You’ve got me lying to your parents now!”
“You don’t have to,” I snap.
“Oh, I should tell them we went to a rock and roll show last night and that you drank, and that we almost got into a fight?”
“If you want to.”
Her face goes pale. “Eva! This isn’t you!”
“You’re right, it’s not,” I say evenly, feeling my pulse beat quickly under my skin. “And I’m having fun with it.”
“How did you get home?”
“Rowan drove me.”
Her eyes go wide and she quickly crosses herself.
“Yes, Chastity?”
“Sweet Lord,” she murmurs, staring at me like I’ve just confessed to murder.
“Chastity, it’s a ride. It’s nothing scandalous.”
“Trust me, it is to me.” She leans in. “And it is to God.”
“Nothing happened!” I lie.
She just shakes her head. “Have fun downtown.”
“Do you want to come?”
“No,” she says quietly, still shaking her head at me and fingering the cross around her neck. “No, I’m going to stay here.”
“Um, okay-”
“And I’m going to pray for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rowan
The engine roars to life under the hood of the Mustang. My dad beams.
“Hey! There it goes!”
I unhook the latch on the hood of the red ’69 coupe and slam it shut, listening to the engine purr as he revs it.
“Told you it was the alternator.”
Dad chuckles as he shuts off the engine and pulls his large frame out of the car. “Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t actually know a thing about engines, that’s why I keep you around.”
I laugh, grinning at him. “Yeah, not a secret, Pops.”
I like this.
Dad and I weren’t always this close, that’s for sure. When shit went down with Silas way back in that summer before college, I wasn’t actually sure if we’d talk again for a while there. Hell, I even left town for a good year somewhere in there.
I mean, I’d always flirted with danger, and getting mixed up in it. But it was that night, lying broken in that hospital bed, knowing my scholarship was gone, and knowing I’d never really tried with grades hard enough to get into college any other way, that it came crashing together.
Yeah, that night sucked.
Dad had been ecstatic about me going to Boston College, hockey scholarship or not.
After that, shit got dark.
But, since then? Since then, it’s gotten great. We’ve had ups and downs — what with me still fucking around and not settling down like a good first-born Hammond son should. And we haven’t seen eye to eye on plenty of things, like tattoos, motorcycles, the girls I could never in a million years bring home to meet Mom. And we agree to disagree on most things religion, and that’s okay.
‘Cause in a way, we’re closer these days than we ever were before. And I like that.
“The only reason you keep me around, huh?”
“Well, that and I’m waiting for that bar of yours to get bought by a Starbucks so I can collect on my investment.”
I roar out a laugh, shaking my head. He grins.
“Nice, thanks for the support.”
“Nah, I’m just messing with you.”
“You think?”
“You’ve done good with the place, Row.”
“It’s a dive bar, Pop.”
“Yeah well, it’s less a dive than it was before.”
We both grin.
“Slightly.”
He chuckles. “Hey, baby steps. You want some lunch?”
“Sure.”
I follow him up the back steps and inside to the kitchen.
“I want to thank you for helping out so much at the Center, you know.” Dad sticks some leftover lasagna in the microwave.
“No problem.”
“Well, you’re a help, and I know you’ve got a full time job along with it. It might be a dive, but you’re running your own business. Anyways,” he waves his hand, “thanks.”
“Yeah, of course.”
I get up and go to the fridge to grab a beer.
“You sure are finding time to get over there,” Dad says evenly from behind me.
“Yep, just looking to help.”
“Sure it’s got nothing to do with Eva Ellis?”
I freeze, my hand on the bottle cap. I swallow, twisting the cap off with a hiss. “Nope?”