Page 122 of Frozen Hearts
“What about with Riley?”
He gives another blasé shrug. “I dunno, Logan. Like any mother with a teenage daughter. I never looked too closely at the dynamic.”
“What’s this all about?” Royce asks, pulling the pans off the stove before turning to face us. “Why are you asking about her mom?”
“She was blowin’ her phone up the other morning, so I gave it to Riley and got her to put it on speaker. The way she talked to her…”
“The way Riley talked to her mom?” Royce questions.
“No. The way her mom spoke toher.Her mom’s heating had gone out and she was demanding Riley to fix it. Threatened her. Made it clear Riley would have to cover the cost.”
“What the fuck? What a bitch!” Royce comments.
I nod in agreement while focusing entirely on Grayson, who gives nothing away. “Shewasbeing a total bitch.”
“Wouldn’t you, if your daughter blew up your perfect little life with lies and false accusations?”
“She’s still her daughter,” Royce retorts.
“Her daughter, who resulted in both of them being left homeless and destitute. My father’s accounts were frozen, and even if they hadn’t been, I doubt he’d have given a penny to either of them—Even if her mom did refute her daughter’s claims.”
“She did?” I ask, not having heard any of this before. Grayson has told us about the accusations Riley levied against his dad and how they were dismissed, but that in the process, his father was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to prison, but he’s never mentioned the logistics around Riley and her mom. Honestly, until now, I never cared to ask.
Gray scoffs. “Yeah. She told the police her daughter was struggling to adjust after she and my dad got married and that she was acting out to get attention. Evidently, her grades had fallen at school and her mom found alcohol in her room. Typical teenage shit but out of character for Riley.”
“Bit of a fucked up way to get attention,” Royce points out, face scrunched.
“Yeah, tell me about it. I guess nothing else had worked, so she pulled out the big guns.”
I chew on the inside of my lip as I mull over everything Gray has said. It makes sense. If Riley was struggling with her mom’s new marriage, and perhaps the loss of her mom’s attention, then it would be logical that she’d act out. Escalate her behavior if she didn’t receive the reward she wanted from earlier attempts.
On paper, it makes sense, but when I think about the quiet, shy, yet fierce girl I got to know the first couple of months of this semester, it just doesn’t match up. She’s not attention-seeking. Not someone who needs to be in the limelight. The opposite, in fact. And perhaps in her teenage years, she was different, but do people really change that much?
Tapping my finger anxiously against the countertop, I blurt, “Do you know about her scars?”
“What scars?” Grayson asks casually, sipping on his coffee.
“She’s got scars on her inner thighs.”
His eyebrows dip, a flash of actual emotion shifting across his face before he brushes it aside.
“I felt them too,” Royce inputs, and I turn to raise a questioning eyebrow at him.When the hell was he close enough to be touching her there?
His expression is as guarded as Gray’s as he stares at me, unblinking.Fucking assholes and their poker faces.
“They’re self-harm scars, right?” I ask him anxiously. “I mean, what else could they be?”
“I dunno, man.” Despite his apathetic tone, there’s a tightness around his eyes that belies his concern.
Tilting my head, I stare at him. A silent standoff ensues until I find that crack I was searching for, and the realization hits me like a hockey stick to the face.
Holy fucking shit. Royce gives a damn about Riley.
I thought he was firmly on Gray’s side in all of this. Didn’t think heknewRiley, never mind gave any sort of shit about her. Sure, he followed her around a bit over the last few weeks, but I hadn’t realized it was enough to form any sort of attachment.
However, that tiny bit of emotion he’s demonstrating says a lot.
It says fucking everything.
