Page 97 of Even After Sunset

“Wow. Great habit.”

His eyes turn stormy. “Well, I’m sorry, my aunt didn’t sign me up for debate club or fucking scrapbooking.”

I feel a pang of guilt, but then I push it aside.

“Well, you’re not living with your aunt right now! You’re living with me. And you’ve got a job and you’ve been having a blast on our road-trips, and you’vemade friends. You've been talking to Richard to sort through stuff. And I know it isn’t perfect, but you can’t tell me these past few weeks have been so horrible or so boring or so…whatever—that you’re desperate for some kind of escape. And that getting trashed is your only outlet to do that. ‘Cause I’m not going to buy it.”

He flinches, looking away.

“And just for the record,” I add, “I never did debate club or scrapbooking.”

His eyes snap up to meet mine, and he looks genuinely surprised.

“You’re not on the debate team?”

“No! Why would you think I’m on the debate team?”

He shrugs. “‘Caus you’re smart.”

And there he is: the sweet, and oh-so-smoothe Silas that I love.

“Nice try. And also, what the heck is scrapbooking, anyway?”

He grins. “I have no idea… Writing down your feelings in a journal, I think?”

NowIsmile. “That’s journaling, you idiot.”

“Oh… So do you do journaling, then?”

I duck my head. “Yes,” I admit into my cup of coffee.

And we smile together this time.

It gives me hope that we will work through this. He feels bad, and he does care. And I think he really does want to change. Still, the hard part for me is the fact that, at the end of the day, it ishisissue to fix. I don’t really have any control over it. And I hate not having control.

And I think Silas is scared of taking control. I’m not sure he even knows how.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Silas

Things feel different between us after the fight. Jax says she isn’t mad anymore, but she’s definitely acting differently. I feel like I’m being watched or judged or something anytime I’m with her now. So I end up going out more when we’re not on the road. I met a few guys from one of the bands and have been hanging out with them. And for whatever reason, Jax has been spending more time baking cookies than working on her book covers.

I come back from doing setup one afternoon and find her surrounded by an entire harem of cookies. About three times the number of filled cookie racks than we usually have before a festival night. It looks like she’s made at least the same number of cookies as she used to during the first couple weeks on the festival circuit—before we started adding all the other menu items and cutting back on the cookies.

And she’s in the process of baking another batch.

“What’s going on?” I ask, leaning over her shoulder to dip my finger into the batter. “What’s with the cookie bake-off?”

I lick the batter off my finger. I think she forgot the salt, but I don’t say anything.

“Nothing. I’m just baking cookies for tonight.”

My eyes narrow in confusion. “Like, three times more cookies than you need.”

“I run a cookie food truck. I need to be selling more cookies.”

She sounds pissed. I am getting seriously weird vibes from her.

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