Page 19 of Road Trip

He rolled his eyes and took the call. “Hey, Mom. What’s—” His eyes got bigger and bigger and his jaw dropped, and then he said, “Okay.” He held the phone out to me. “It’s Mom. She wants to talk to you, and she soundsmad.”

Oh shit.

CHAPTER

SEVEN

JACOB

1809 miles to go

Memphis, TN

Iknew Matt was in deep shit when Mom said, “I need to speak to Matthew,” because she never used his full name like. Ever.

The way he went pale when I held out the phone confirmed it. He took it gingerly, like it was a land mine that was seconds from exploding, and honestly, given the frosty tone my mom had used, he was right to be afraid. Mom had a hell of a long fuse, but when she was done with your shit, you heard about it—and I had a feeling Matt was about to hearallabout it.

I gathered up the wrappers from our lunch and carried them over to the trash can so it didn’t look like I was eavesdropping—not that Matt was getting to say much anyway. He was biting his bottom lip and glancing at me, and he looked about a second away from shitting himself. I went and sat back down just in time to hear, “No, Jacob didn’t know, I swear.” A pause. “Yes, ma’am. I understand. I will.”

I could hear Mom’s voice again, and as she spoke Matt’s expression went from cowed to pissed in the blink of an eye. “I said I’ll call her, not that I’m coming back. I’m sorry, Mrs. Mercer,but if it took her this long to notice I was gone, do you really think she’s going to miss me?”

What?

Matt listened again for a minute and said, “I will,” before handing the phone to me with a grimace. “She wants to talk to you.”

Gut churning, I said, “Mom?”

“Tell me you didn’t know what Matt was planning,” she said, and I swear I could hear the hand on her hip.

“I still don’t know what Matt’s planning,” I said. “I thought we were going to visit his dad.” I glanced over, but Matt’s head was bent over his drawing as he pretended to be absorbed in finishing his sketch of the squirrel.

He’d always been a shitty liar. Although it looked like maybe he’d gotten better at it over the years because the next thing Mom said was, “So you didn’t know he plans on staying in California? Or that he didn’t even tell his mother he was leaving?”

“What? No, he’s been calling her,” I said—right before I realized I only had Matt’s word for that, and it turned out Matt’s word wasn’t worth shit.

My mom sighed. “Jacob, honey, he left a note while she was staying at her boyfriend’s for the weekend saying he’s going to live with his father, and he’s not taking her calls. So she came over to see if we knew anything.”

“I—Mom, I swear I didn’t know.”

The churning in my gut intensified as I tried to process what she was telling me. Matt had left without telling his mom and he was planning on living with his dad, and he’d kept it secret from me. What the fuck was I meant to do with all of that?

Matt was moody and a little weird and his dad leaving had messed him up in a lot of ways, but I’d always thought I could trust him. Finding out I was wrong cut deep. It was almost like all the years we’d had each other’s backs counted for nothing. Confusion, hurt, and rejection welled up in me as I took in the fact that Matt had been planning to ditch me in California after usingme as a cross-country Uber service, and he hadn’t even cared enough about our friendship to tell me. Hell, hurt didn’t begin to cover it.

“Jacob?” my mom said in a tone that let me know it wasn’t the first time she’d spoken.

I knew she probably had a whole laundry list of instructions for how to uncluster this particular fuck—Mom was good at that—but I couldn’t talk to her right now. “Sorry, Mom. I—I gotta go.” My voice cracked.

Her tone went soft. “Call me later, Jakey.”

She hadn’t called me that since I was five. So this was probably the wrong time to remind her that I was eighteen, right? That we werebotheighteen and, like, legally we could do whatever we wanted. Honestly, it wouldn’t have made a difference to my mom. This shit wouldn’t fly if we were thirty-five either.

“Okay.” I ended the call and dropped the phone on the table and looked over at Matt.

His gaze was wary and his mouth was pressed in a thin line. I could almost see the bullshit excuses and arguments vibrating under his skin, waiting to get free, and the furrow in his brow was deeper than the Grand Canyon.

I won’t lie, I kind of wanted to storm off and drive out of there and leave him behind, but two things were stopping me. One, this wasMatt, and I knew that he was probably freaking out right now. And two, that lying little bastard still had my car keys.

“You’re moving to California?” I asked him. “For good?”

---