Page 48 of Holding On To Good

Reed tossed the coat into the truck, then climbed in without a word. Telling the cop he hadn’t been thinking anything like that would’ve been wasting his breath. But it was the truth.

Why would he want to see her again? Verity Jennings was as far from his type as a girl could get and still be considered female. She was snotty and stubborn and condescending, and she had an asshole cop for a brother.

He’d just been messing with her with that whole you owe me. He had no real plans to collect. So unless they happened to pass each other on the street, he doubted they’d see each again before she took off to whatever college she’d gotten into and started her life outside of Mount Laurel. He sure as hell wasn’t going to seek her out. For any reason.

Okay, so she smelled good. And filled out her jeans like nobody’s business, but that didn’t do anything to change his initial, lifelong assessment of her or what he and the cop both knew to be fact.

Verity Jennings was not for him. And she never would be.

“She’s been acting rebellious lately,” Miles grumbled, his body more shadow than man as he paced the length of Willow’s back deck. “I don’t like it.”

Urban sipped the beer he’d helped himself to from Willow’s fridge. Miles had come over to Willow’s during his dinner break and had been bitching about Verity for a good ten minutes now. And while Urban didn’t agree with his assessment of the severity of the situation or Verity’s supposed rebelliousness, he knew when Miles got his panties in a twist about something, the best thing to do, the easiest, was let him untwist them himself.

That usually took a shitload of pacing, grumbling, and bitching.

On the plus side, that shitload of pacing, grumbling, and bitching helped take Urban’s mind off Willow and that kiss.

Not his first choice as far as distractions went but he’d take what he could get.

Sliding down in his seat, Urban rested his head against the back of his chair and closed his eyes. After waking up twice to throw up, Willow had been sleeping soundly for the past few hours. Urban didn’t want her to be alone, but he also didn’t want Verity home by herself all night, especially after going off the road, so he’d asked Willow’s friend Hayden to come over after her shift tending bar at The Cock-Eyed Chameleon.

He had one of Willow’s bedroom windows and the back door open in case she woke again, but the only sound was the soft patter of the rain hitting the cloth awning. Maybe it’d instill some peace and solitude inside him. Lull him into a sense of ease so that when he got home, he’d be able to get some sleep.

A deep, dreamless sleep where he wouldn’t think about Willow and how she looked in that dress. How it’d felt to have her mouth pressed against his. Where he wouldn’t think about where he and Willow would be now if he hadn’t fucked things up when he’d been sixteen.

Miles reached the edge of the deck, turned on one heel, and started back toward the other side. “Verity needs to be put on a leash. You need to ground her.”

“She’s seventeen,” Urban reminded him. “Not seven.”

“She has to learn she can’t get away with bad behavior.”

“She didn’t rob a liquor store. She made a mistake.” One she compounded by not answering their calls and texts after Miles found out her car was empty, on the side of the road. “She’ll learn from it.”

He hoped.

Seemed to him that was what parenting was mostly about. Hope. Hoping the kid under your care learned important life lessons. Hoping they were safe and healthy and happy.

Hoping your decisions didn’t totally screw them up.

“She’d learn faster with a harsher punishment.” Miles stopped in front of Urban, his dark uniform and hair blending in with the night behind him. “You should take her car from her for the rest of the summer. Better yet, sell it. She can’t bring it to campus her freshman year anyway.”

“Are you volunteering to drive her around for the next three months?”

“She can walk. Or ride her bike.”

Miles must have forgotten what it’d been like before Verity had her own car. All the running they, along with Toby and Willow, had done. School activities and orthodontist appointments, cross-country practices and meets, slumber parties and trips to the mall.

“She can’t walk or ride her bike home after working the dinner shift at Binge,” Urban pointed out. “And Katarina signed Ian up for three different day camps. I doubt she wants him riding on the handlebars to get there. Verity needs her own car. More than that, I need her to have her own car.”

Miles waved that away. “She’s too reckless lately.”

“She’s more responsible than any of us were at that age. More responsible and level-headed than all five of us put together at that age.”

“Damn it, Urban, this is serious! She could’ve been hurt tonight. She could’ve been—”

Miles snapped his mouth shut and turned away, his breathing ragged.

She could’ve been killed.

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