Page 106 of Rastor

In the road ahead of us, I spotted an oversized pickup, going a whole lot slower than we were. Reluctantly, I pulled my hand from Chloe's and downshifted to pass it. We flew past the thing like it was standing still.

By the time I shifted again, Chloe's hand was back on the salad. Probably, it was a smart move, all things considered. About everything else, I didn't know what to think.

If Chloe were any other girl, I'd say she was blowing things out of proportion, like her dad talking funny. Shit, in my old neighborhood, that would've been nothing. I gave her another sideways glance and reminded myself that she hadn't grown up in my old neighborhood. She'd grown up someplace nicer, where people were a lot more civilized.

And that wasn't a bad thing. I mean, that was one reason I loved her, wasn't it? Because she'd come from a better place. But then I remembered something else. All along, I'd been assuming that she'd come from money. And she hadn't. For all I knew, she'd grown up in a neighborhood as rough as mine.

But if that were the case, how had she turned out so sweet? I thought of my own sister. By some miracle, and a whole lot of male ass-beating on my part, she'd turned out sweet, too. But who had been looking out for Chloe?

A sick feeling was growing in my gut. Maybe no one had been looking out for her, not even her dad. And that royally pissed me off.

Her voice broke into my thoughts. "I know what you're thinking. You think I'm exaggerating, right?"

"I never said that."

"Uh-huh." She sounded sick with worry. "You'll see. It doesn't take anything to set her off."

"Like what?" I asked. "Gimme an example."

"Well, a couple of Easters ago, it was oyster gravy."

At the thought, that sick feeling grew and twisted. Oysteranythingwas enough to send me running in the opposite direction, and not only because of the taste. It was because of the fact that I was deathly allergic to shellfish, not that I'd admit it in a thousand years. It was fucking embarrassing.

But aside from that, who the hell made gravy out of oysters? I shook my head. "That's just wrong."

When Chloe said nothing, I looked over at her. "So…" I prompted. "The gravy?"

"Oh." She sounded distracted. "Supposedly, it's a delicacy. Or at least, that's what Loretta keeping telling us."

I wanted to look at her, but I kept my eyes on the road as we squealed around the next turn. "I've got this friend from Texas," I said. "Know what he'd say to that?"

"What?"

I said it the way my friend used to say it, in that Western drawl of his. "You can call it Nancy and put a dress on it. But I'm still not gonna eat it."

Finally, I heard the hint of a smile in Chloe's voice. "Say that to Loretta, and you're a dead man." She paused. "As much as I'd totally love to see that."

"So about Easter?" I said. "What happened?"

"Anyway, Loretta made this special batch of oyster gravy, and then flipped out when we didn't want any."

"You and your brother?"

"Yeah. And Lauren Jane too, except she didn't get in trouble for it."

"Who's Lauren Jane?"

"Loretta's daughter."

"Ah."

"And then there was my dad, no help as usual." Chloe deepened her voice in a decent imitation of a pissed-off older guy. "Loretta spent all morning in the kitchen making this for us, and the least you kids can do is have some."

"So did you?" I asked, risking another glance.

She nodded.

I had to ask. "How was it?"