Page 77

CHAPTER 76

MY HEAD FEELS fuzzy and I’m a little off-balance as we leave the bar.

“The second beer tasted better than the first,” I say to Waylon, giggling.

“It went down better, too,” he says. He puts his hand lightly in the small of my back and leans in close. “Which is why I’m cutting you off,” he whispers playfully. “We can’t have you dancing on the tables.”

“As if,” I scoff, although for some reason the idea doesn’t sound nearly as shocking to me as it should.

“I’m going to miss that place when I’m gone,” he says as the door swings shut behind us.

I stumble a little on the uneven pavement. “What do you mean, when you’re gone?”

“I got a scholarship to the University of Idaho. Hey, don’t look so shocked!”

Is shocked the word? Or would hurt be better? Waylon never said anything to me about leaving. “But I never saw you doing any work!” I cry.

“I have a slacker reputation to keep up,” he says. “I do all my assignments at home.”

“And you get good grades?” I should probably stop sounding so incredulous, but I can’t help it.

“I’d probably be valedictorian if I didn’t always skip PE.”

“Wow,” I say faintly. My head reels. College—what a nice, normal, human thing to do. What an impossible idea for someone like me. “I guess you have secrets, too,” I say.

“Maybe I do,” he says. “But I’ll tell you any of them, Kai. All you have to do is ask.”

Heat rises to my cheeks as we get into the car. Does he really think it’s that simple? Anything I really want to know, I’d be too shy to ask.

Do you get goosebumps when my fingers graze your skin? Do you lie in your bed at night and think about kissing me?

Waylon starts the engine. Says, “You don’t want to go home yet, do you?”

He forgets that I don’t have a home anymore. “I don’t want to go back to the chief’s,” I correct him.

“Good,” he says. “Because there’s more we have to accomplish.”