Wild Reckless (Harper Boys #1)(62)
Owen’s house is immaculate. I don’t know what I expected, but clean and bright wasn’t it. Given that it’s mostly Owen and Andrew at home alone, I thought things would be disorganized, maybe a little messy. I expected dark, and masculine.
“O? Is that you?” I hear a voice call from the direction of the kitchen. Owen’s house is a mirror of mine, only where I have a piano setting he has an actual dining table.
“It’s me, Ma,” he yells back, his eyes moving around his house, searching. He’s edgy.
“Good! I have a few hours before…” His mother rounds the corner and sees me, her step and speech both stuttering. She’s tall, like Owen, and her frame is thin, like a woman who works long hours and never stops to eat. Her dark hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and she’s wearing a security uniform, her feet only in socks.
“Mom, this is Kensi. She’s our neighbor,” Owen says, shrugging at me slightly, I think not wanting to offend me.
“Nice to meet you,” I smile, stepping closer to her and reaching out my hand. She rubs both of her palms along her pants, then smiles faintly as she takes my hand in hers.
“Kensi, yes. I’ve heard about you. So nice to finally meet you. I’m Shannon. Is your family settling in okay?” Her eyes look to Owen for guidance, but he only raises his brows high. There really isn’t an easy answer for this one, so I lie.
“Yes, we like it here,” I say, leaving words like parents, father and affair out of the picture.
“I was going to have Kens stay for dinner. She treated me the other night, but I didn’t know…” he stops there, letting his eyes speak the rest as they move beyond his mom to the living room where the television is blaring.
“No, please. Please stay, Kensi. We’d love to have you. And I was just ordering a pizza. It’s not much, but I don’t have a lot of time to cook, so…yes, please—I insist! What do you like? Pepperoni?” His mom is already dialing on her cellphone, her back to me, so I look to Owen, not sure what I should do.
“I can go. Really, it’s okay,” I whisper to him, and his eyes are telling me it’s all right to leave. But then a new voice interrupts everything.
“Haaaaaa, look at you, baby brother. Is this your new girlfriend?” James says, his body filling the entire frame of the doorway between the formal living room and the family area. His hands stretch up to touch the ceiling, causing his shirt to raise and show how thin his stomach is. His hair and eyes are dark like Owen’s, and his smile is equally tempting—a trait the Harper boys can use for good or evil at will, it seems. Unlike Owen, though, James seems to lack focus, his eyes wild and everywhere all at once.
“James.” Owen’s greeting is curt and callus, and I feel as uncomfortable as I knew I would the moment he told me his brother was here. Again, I want to run.
But I don’t.
His brother holds Owen’s stare, the two of them having a private conversation with their eyes—one I know isn’t friendly. Eventually, James shrugs and turns to walk back to the family room and the television he has playing so loudly that the sound is distorting. Owen’s mom motions for us to join James in the living room while she moves back into the kitchen, and Owen grabs my hand, stopping me before I take a step.
“You can go home. You don’t have to stay here for me. This…this is my life, Kens. And you don’t have to be here for this.” His hold on my fingers is rough, but purposeful, and he’s holding his breath, his nostrils flaring slightly while his pupils dial in on mine, begging me to leave. He thinks he’s saving me.
“I’d like to stay,” I say quietly, my eyes never flinching or leaving his. I want to run, my stomach sinking when I speak, but I can’t leave him. I won’t.
Owen swallows, taking a sharp breath in through his nose, then turns his attention back to the next room, his hand still linked with mine as he leads me into an older-looking room with family photos covering the wall. The frames are wooden and tattered, and the pictures of Andrew, Owen, and James seem to span most of their youth—stopping at what I’d guess to be four or five years ago. The back wall is a dark-wood paneling, and the television is propped on top of a coffee table that’s pushed against the wall next to the bricked fireplace.
As old and dark as everything in this room seems, it’s still clean, and it still feels like a home. James is sitting on a large orange sofa with wooden arms, his legs propped up on another table that’s covered in magazines, keys, a wallet, and a gun.
There’s a gun.
On the center of the table, an inch away from James’s foot, there’s a gun. It’s black, and slick, and it looks like something a cop should be carrying. My body is reacting, a slow sweat building at the base of my neck, dripping deliberately down my sides, under my arms, my heart thumping wildly.
“Dude, put that away. Mom doesn’t need to see that,” Owen says, gesturing to the weapon. James studies him for a few seconds, his finger holding the tip of a toothpick that he’s chewed into a bend, the other side locked in his mouth, mashed between his back teeth. Owen leans forward, his hand reaching for the gun, about to grab it, when James beats him to it, clutching it, his finger at the trigger. In a blink, the gun is pointed at Owen’s neck, his brother standing in front of him, staring him down from inches away, his face threatening.